[PD] new license for pidip and unauthorized WAS: pd-pidip into Debian

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Sun, 5 Dec 2010, Jose Luis Santorcuato wrote:

> Hi list... a big issue, however ... PiDiP remain in extended pd 
> libraries?

I don't know, ... five years ago, I was being flamed by Degoyon out of 
nowhere (as usual), and so, I got curious about which license he used for 
his software, because I thought he was flaming about a BSD vs GPL 
religious thing, and that's when I pointed out on the mailing-list (pd-dev 
?) that there was a serious license problem with PiDiP, but I think that 
it was generally taken as part of a «feud» between Degoyon and I, and so, 
it wasn't taken very seriously. (but actually, there was no feud, there 
was harassment and there was someone who wanted to get rid of the 
harassment)

Anyhow, PiDiP was removed from pd-extended for a little while, and I don't 
recall why it was put back in pd-extended, but PiDiP was still non-free 
when it was put back, and nothing had changed in the PiDiP license, IIRC. 
It shows that license files in the pd world are not always taken 
seriously, and that non-free code can crawl in simply because a gatekeeper 
may trust his own interpretation of the law and, for example, doesn't even 
bother chatting (IRC) with people who know the fine points of copyright 
law and licenses. But even though I did fetch that information from 
specialists, the problem is that the gatekeeper may act like it's «just my 
opinion» instead.

(Of course, on IRC, you have to verify whether the person you are talking 
to knows his stuff first, but then, if you go to a lawyer office, you'd be 
a fool to not do the same !)

  _______________________________________________________________________
| Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC