[EMBOSS] Redistribution terms of PHILIPNEW.

Peter Rice pmr at ebi.ac.uk
Wed Aug 5 06:47:45 EDT 2009


Charles Plessy wrote:
> Dear EMBOSS developers,
> 
> I see that the documentation in emboss-doc is a derivative of the Phylip
> documentation. What are the redistribution terms for it ?

The changes are only to conform to EMBOSS documentation style and to use 
EMBOSS examples. The Phylip redistribution terms apply.

> For the rest of the EMBOSS-specific work, there is a hint that the license
> could be the GNU GPL, since this is what the COPYING file contains, but the GNU
> GPL does not allow linking to software that prohibits commercial use. As
> copyright holders, you are not yourself bound by the GPL, so this does not
> prevent you from distributing PHYLIPNEW, but this buggy situation makes it
> un-redistributable for third parties like Debian.

The original licence applies.

The COPYING file has been accidentally left there. We will replace it 
with the phylip copyright statements from the phylip-3.68 doc/main.html 
file (and check the other EMBASSY packages). The AUTHORS file should be 
completed as it is presently empty.

If you check the README file you will see the changes we made. They 
certainly do not change the code significantly, only the interface.

> But maybe the license of the EMBASSY part of PHYLIPNEW is not the GNU GPL… Can
> you clarify?

Definitely not GNU GPL.

regards,

Peter Rice


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