Re: Packaging Swiss Ephemeris Free Edition for Debian GNU/Linux (original) (raw)

"Jaldhar H. Vyas" jaldhar@debian.org writes:

On Tue, 14 Oct 2003, Alois Treindl wrote:

On Tue, 14 Oct 2003, Jaldhar H. Vyas wrote:

Personally my suggestion would be to adopt the dual QPL/GPL scheme just like Trolltech.

Yes, except for one additional situation:

We find more and more that software is developed not for distribution, but for inhouse use in commercial companies, e.g. to power a web application which makes money via web services.

We would like this usage to be considered commercial, i.e. requiring a paid license.

I am not sure that the GPL serves us here. Someone using Swiss Ephemeris unde the GPL could run it in some webservice, without ever paying anything, or ever ublishing anything back for the open source community.

I have not looked at the QT license in that respect. Are you aware of that situation is covered in a way favourable for QT?

My understanding is that the GPL is currently unclear on the topic of web services and this is going to be addressed in an upcoming GPL v3. I don't know about the QPL. I am taking the liberty of ccing your message to debian-legal as the people there are more knowledgeable on such subjects.

I think it's pretty clear that Mr. Treindl does not want Swiss Ephemeris to be free software: freedom to exploit the software for commercial benefit is a necessary component of Debian's definition of Freedom.

-Brian

-- Brian T. Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/

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