Re: ACCEPTABLEness of Standard PIL License (graphics/py-Pillow)

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%bec.de@localhost>]

On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 08:27:41AM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote:
> 
> Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%bec.de@localhost> writes:
> 
> > On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 07:29:36AM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote:
> >> While I really don't like pkgsrc being in the business of approving
> >> licenses, I won't object if you put this in as pil and add it to
> >> DEFAULT_ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES, because I can't make an argument that this
> >> license is not Open Source or not Free.
> >
> > As I wrote on IRC, the problem here is that there is a semantic
> > ambiguity on whether the permission grant is without fee or whether copying
> > has to be without fee. I consider this argument very weak, especially
> > with the sentence structure used, but there are nitpickers that believe
> > different.
> 
> Yes, I can see that point.  The other side of the coin -- which I think
> you are agreeing with -- is that the objection is a tortuous reading and
> that if the license authors intended to grant permission only when no
> copying fee was involved, they would have said something far clearer.
> Is that what you mean?

Correct.

> One other point is to ask the authors whether they believe it is a Free
> Software license.  From the LICENSE file at
>   https://raw.githubusercontent.com/python-pillow/Pillow/master/LICENSE
> I find:
> 
> "Like PIL, Pillow is licensed under the MIT-like open source PIL Software License:"
> 
> which to me is a clear statement that the licensors believe that the PIL
> Software License is similar to the MIT license and meets the Open Source
> definition.

Frankly, I would just side step the issue for now and ask them to please
choose their wording to match one of the canonical copies. I don't see a
point in doing anything more complicated than a commented out LICENSE
entry with a reference to this discussion.

Joerg