Dear Mrs Casey, dear all, I am a Debian developer and recently had a look at the sources of emacspeak, which is listed in the FSF free software directory. I was confused by the license of the software, which seemed contradictory to me, and possibly non-free.
Before bothering the upstream maintainer, I checked whether there have already been any discussions about the problem. The only thing I found is the entry on http://directory.fsf.org/accessibility/emacspeak.html which says that the license has been verified by Janet Casey, and this is why I ask you. The problems I see are the following: In most of the *el and some other files in emacspeak, there is a license statement that this file is under GPL. However, there is a file etc/COPYRIGHT which seems to be the copyright file of the whole package. This file contains, among other statements: ,---- | ;;;Permission to use, copy, and distribute this software and its documentation | ;;;for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above | ;;;copyright notice appears in all copies and that both that copyright notice | ;;;and this permission notice, including the disclaimers below, appear in | ;;;supporting documentation, and that the name of Adobe and Digital not be | ;;;used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software | ;;;without specific, written prior permission. `---- That is, there is no explicit permission to modify the software and distribute the derivative. Have you already looked at this problem, and do you have any statement From the authors? Many thanks in advance, Frank Küster -- Frank Küster Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich Debian Developer
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