Licence problems with psybnc (original) (raw)

Hi Psychoid,

I am looking into packaging psybnc for debian (of course with proper credit). Unfortunately, there are some problems: You include two files (snprintf.c, bsd-setenv.c) with GPL-incompatible licenses. I asked for advice[1] on debian legal, here is a summary for you.

bsd-setenv.c: Is under the 4-clause BSD licence. But since the copyright holder is the "Regents of the University of California", the advertising clause is superseded by ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.License.Change , so you could just include a note in your tarball to that effect.

snprintf.c: Is under the Apache License, version 1.0, which is incompatible with the GPL, too. I quote: "However, depending on how much SIO differs from stdio, it might be possible to replace this with code from glibc or from some other stdio implementation." Maybe that is a viable solution for you. Unfortunately, just taking the same file from a newer apache distribution does not help, as the Apache Licence v2 isn't GPL-compatible either.

I would love to see psybnc in debian. I use it daily and have so for 2 years soon - it is the best multi-network bouncer I found. I hope that these issues can be resolved quickly.

Thank you,

nomeata

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/06/msg00293.html

Joachim "nomeata" Breitner Debian Developer nomeata@debian.org | ICQ# 74513189 | GPG-Keyid: 4743206C JID: joachimbreitner@amessage.de | http://people.debian.org/~nomeata

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