Re: CVS commit: pkgsrc/licenses

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Brook Milligan <brook%nmsu.edu@localhost> writes:

>> Did you look to see if packages under this license are accepted under
>> Debian?
>
> Here is an example:  https://packages.debian.org/jessie/python-biopython
>
> Does this mean that Debian considers it an open source license?  How
> can you tell?  Should I change the license file?

Debian's way is that there is a group that decides if things can be put
on their distribution site in "main".   The group/members only  allow
this if the package is deemed to meet the Debian Free Software
Guidlines, which are sort of like Open Source, but in practice the same
set of software qualifies as Free/Open/DFSG.

Debian puts things that don't meet DFSG in "nonfree", I think, and
things that do meet DFSG but have non-free dependency in contrib.  I'm
hazy on that.

So if the package is in "main" on Debian, that means the Debian DFSG
tribunal has decided it's ok, and you can put it without a suffix and in
DEFAULT_ACCEPTABLE.

The tricky part is that they don't maintain a list in revision control
you can go look at easily.

I am 99% sure from looking that biopython is in debian main.


>> It's ok with me for you to leave this as biopython-license, as long as
>> you don't want to add it to DEFAULT_ACCEPTABLE.
>
> OK, but if you have comments from the questions above that would
> change this, please let me know.

I meant

  if you conclude debian is ok with it, drop suffix and add

and

  but leaving suffix and adding anyway is more mess than I think we
  should tolerate