Re: Problems with edict package license

Ciaran Farrell wrote:
> On 21/08/12 19:42, Fuminobu TAKEYAMA wrote:

>> Mile Fabian once got special permission to distribute KANJIDIC that
>> includes "SKIP field"; the copyright of that field is hold by Jack
>> Halpern.
>> The current license of this package come from this special permission.
>> # The email he sent to Jack is found in jack-halpern-copyright-mbox.
>>
>> The author originally requires royalty for commercial product:
>> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/kanjidic_doc.html#IREF14
>>
>> This dictionary is needed by gjiten at least.
>>
>>
>> I guess only a few people uses these packages.
>> I'll ask Japanese community, including other distributions guys, how
>> they think.
>> # Debian and Ubuntu still have kanjidic packages. Fedora does not.
> 
> Yes, thanks. That would be a good way to progress. If there is a
> particular dictionary which is necessary and for which the licenses are
> not entirely clear, I can contact the legal representatives of the
> company distributing the dictionary to try to obtain permission to
> redistribute. It would also be interesting to find out whether the
> debian community was able to secure redistribution permission for such
> dictionaries - and if so, under what terms.

As Fuminobu wrote, KANJIDIC itself is distributed under CC BY-SA 3.0
License. But the license of SKIP codes, which are included in KANJIDIC,
is CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 and 'The SKIP codes may not be used in commercial
applications without explicit written permission to do so by Jack Halpern.'
# http://www.kanji.org/kanji/dictionaries/skip_permission.htm

In 2004, when Mike Fabian got the permission, SUSE Linux basically was a
commercial distribution and I suppose that's why he had to get special
permission in order to include KANJIDIC in SUSE Linux distribution.

But for now, openSUSE itself isn't a commercial distribution. So I think
there's no problem if we include KANJIDIC (SKIP codes) _just in
openSUSE_. Or, is there any guideline which lay it down that software
under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license cannot be included in _openSUSE_ distribution?

Best,

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