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[UDUNITS #XSU-810966]: udunits license is considered to be non-free

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  • Subject: [UDUNITS #XSU-810966]: udunits license is considered to be non-free
  • Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 10:31:43 -0700
Justin,

The UDUNITS package is intended to be FOSS. Both GitHub and a license-person at 
the Free Software Foundation agree that it is.

The anti-software-patent clause in the UDUNITS license is similar in intent to 
the following (from which it was adopted and adapted):

    Section 7 of "Common Public License Version 1.0"
    Section 7 of "Common Public License, version 1.0 (CPL-1.0)"
    Section 7 of "IBM Public License Version 1.0 (IPL-1.0)"
    Section 8 of "Lucent Public License Version 1.02 (LPL-1.02)"
    Section 7 of "Lucent Public License, Plan 9, version 1.0 (LPL-1.0)"
    Clause 3 of "Apache License, Version 2.0"
    Clause 3 of "Educational Community License, Version 2.0 (ECL-2.0)"
    Clause 11(c) of "RealNetworks Public Source License Version 1.0 (RPSL-1.0)"
    Clause 10 of "The Non-Profit Open Software License version 3.0 (NPOSL-3.0)"
    Clause 10 of "The Open Software License 2.1 (OSL-2.1)"
    Clause 10 of "The Open Software License 3.0 (OSL-3.0)"
    Clause 10 of "Academic Free License 3.0"
    Clause 13 of "Artistic License 2.0"
    Section 7 of "Eclipse Public License -v 1.0"
    Section 7 of "Eclipse Public License 1.0 (EPL-1.0)"
    Clause 8 of "Computer Associates Trusted Open Source License 1.1 
(CATOSL-1.1)"
    Section 10 of "GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE, Version 3 (AGPL-3.0)"
    Section 10 of "GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPL-3.0)"
    Clause 6(E) of "Adaptive Public License 1.0"

All the above can be found at the Open Source Initiative 
<https://opensource.org/search/node/cross-claim>.

The bug-report you referenced appears to indicate that we were asked about this 
before and refused to answer. I don't recall being asked about this (I'm the 
only developer and support person for the UDUNITS package).

Please feel free to continue this interesting conversation.

> Dear devs,
> 
> Gentoo Linux [1] has classified your extension of the BSD license used
> for udinits-2.2.20 to be non free. Is this your intention? Various
> extra questions have been raised by the licenses team. Could you
> please comment on that?
> 
> Thanks,
> Justin
> 
> 1)
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570076

Regards,
Steve Emmerson

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: XSU-810966
Department: Support UDUNITS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed