Re: Bug#905674: undistributable

[Rogério Brito]

Dear Ole (and others potentially interested in having GNU Parallel in
Debian's and derivatives' repositories),

I don't know if you have been following the emails on the Debian BTS
regarding GNU Parallel having restrictions regardings its distribution etc.

Since this issue has surfaced itself once again, but now in a more intense
manner, I believe that, if you have not yet been informed, you may want to
give your opinion (and I will decide how I should follow my maintainership
within the constraints of your software and the contraints of Debian).

Thanks,

Rogério Brito...

On Aug 08 2018, Adam Borowski wrote:
> Actually, it seems to me it's not even distributable.
> 
> The wording sounds like a requirement rather than something non-mandatory --
> reinforced by providing the alternative of paying €10000.  Yet the license
> is GPL3+, which expressly forbids additional fees.  This is even described
> in FSF's GPL FAQ:
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation
> 
> Thus, the copyright holder can distribute this software, but no one else
> can.
> 
> As the requirement is not a part of the license, we could just remove the
> demand nagware from the code.  But alas, the upstream (Ole Tange) threatened
> legal action if you do so without renaming the package.  And it doesn't seem
> to be just hot wind, as he registered it: US trademark number 87867112,
> filed Apr 07, 2018.
> 
> Multiple people tried persuading the upstream to drop this requirement,
> without success.  Thus, diplomacy doesn't appear to be likely to help,
> although letting rms know may work (this package has been blessed as an
> official GNU one, obviously before the requirement was added).
> 
> Thus, only options I see are:
> * renaming the package and removing offending code, or
> * complete removal
> 
> 
> Meow!
> -- 
> // If you believe in so-called "intellectual property", please immediately
> // cease using counterfeit alphabets.  Instead, contact the nearest temple
> // of Amon, whose priests will provide you with scribal services for all
> // your writing needs, for Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory prices.
> 

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 4096R/BCFCAAAA
http://cynic.cc/blog/ : github.com/rbrito : profiles.google.com/rbrito
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