Public SourceMage Discussion List

["Mark H. Weaver" <mhw AT netris.org>]

The spell for mpg123 claims that it is covered by the GPL.  In fact,
mpg123 is not even free software!  Check out its license agreement,
in mpg123-0.59r/COPYING from the source distribution:

> Maybe I change the policy to GPL in the future ...
> But at the moment this is the policy:
> 
> Copyright (c) 1995-99 by Michael Hipp, all rights reserved.
> Parts of the software are contributed by other people, please
> refer to the README file for details!
> 
> DISTRIBUTION:
> This software may be distributed freely, provided that it is
> distributed in its entirety, without modifications, and with
> the original copyright notice and license included. You may
> distribute your own seperate patches together with this software
> package or a modified package if you always include a pointer 
> where to get the original unmodified package. In this case
> you must inform the author about the modfied package.
> The software may not be sold for profit or as "hidden" part of 
> another software, but it may be included with collections 
> of other free software, such as CD-ROM images of FTP servers and 
> similar, provided that this software is not a significant part 
> of that collection. 
> Precompiled binaries of this software may be distributed in the
> same way, provided that this copyright notice and license is
> included without modification.
> 
> USAGE:
> This software may be used freely, provided that the original
> author is always credited.  If you intend to use this software
> as a significant part of business (for-profit) activities, you
> have to contact the author first.  Also, any usage that is not
> covered by this license requires the explicit permission of
> the author.
> 
> DISCLAIMER:
> This software is provided as-is.  The author can not be held
> liable for any damage that might arise from the use of this
> software.  Use it at your own risk.

It is non-free for several reasons, including:

 - prohibits selling copies for profit, or as "hidden" part of
   other software
 - must inform "the author" if software used for business activities
 - must inform "the author" about distributed modifications

Any of these reasons are sufficient to make the software non-free, as
defined by the FSF.  It is also a very sloppily worded license.  For
example, in several places it assumes that there is a single author.
Even if you consider the "must inform author" requirements reasonable,
what happens when "the author" is unreachable (e.g. dead)?

Incidentally, Debian agrees that mpg123 is non-free.

       Mark