Re: Source code of large programs wanted

[Jeff C <jcreem@yahoo.com>]

Martin Dowie wrote:

>>
>> Note I am not suggesting that David or anyone is doing anything wrong 
>> (especially since it is not distributed from adapower just linked 
>> fromit) or that I have any reason to believe that the usenet post that 
>> "said" it was released GMGPL was not valid....but if I were in a 
>> position to accept/reject claw into Debian I would reject it without 
>> clear license/copyright information which currently does not (appear) 
>> to exist.
>>
>>
> 
> http://www.adapower.com/adapower1/claw/ann.txt
> 
> Isn't clear enough?
> 
> Cheers
> 
> -- Martin

It is quite clear..But adapower is not the copyright holder of the 
software and nothing at the site that owns the copyright has been 
updated 3 years after that announcement was made.. I could easily post 
the following at my website.



From: "William Gates" <billyboy@microsoft.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: ANN: Visual Studio.Net Open Sourced
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2005 16:46:29 -0500
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
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Various people have suggested that Microsoft could finally turn a profit 
if we would just release a Free version of visual studio.net .

It will be a while before the download area of our website will be
updated to reflect this change, most likely not until the new version 
with Ada 2005 and A# support is released. Rest assured that we will 
enforce the license as if it is the GMGPL. Go ahead and distribute 
binaries as you see fit. We will post the source really soon now.

The license for other Microsoft products, and for all versions of DOS, 
are unchanged for now. Thank you for your support of Ada and Microsoft.


                     Billy Gates
                     President, Microsoft Software, Inc.



Again..I am not asserting that there is something evil going on here. 
Just saying that if I were making the call as to if this was ok I would 
reject the inclusion of Claw into debian unless I heard directly from 
the copyright holder.