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Submitted by bitf on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 20:13

simutrans and simutrans-data are under non-free license

Project:Trisquel
Component:License problems
Category:bug report
Priority:critical
Assigned:Unassigned
Status:closed
Description

The contents of packages simutrans and simutrans-data are available under the original Artistic license. Which the FSF considers non-free. The License text here differs only slightly from the original Artistic license and still has the problems fixed by the Clarified Artistic License Note also that the package simutrans-pak64 depends on the other two packages, it's license is unclear.

AndrewT:
Tue, 03/09/2010 - 22:48

Simutrans's licensing is a doubtful mess, as we've already found out from our discussions in the forum.

We should replace it with OpenTTD.

lakersforce:
Wed, 03/10/2010 - 02:25

The problem with OpenTTD is that it depends on non-free software to do anything.

AndrewT:
Thu, 03/11/2010 - 22:38

I'm not sure which nonfree software you're talking about? If you're talking about the graphics and sound, those have already been completely replaced with free software sets, with a music replacement project already underway.

aklis:
Wed, 11/09/2011 - 12:55
Component:Programs» License problems
SirGrant:
Sun, 01/22/2012 - 08:38
Version:»

I am changing the version since version 3.0 is no longer but the problem still persists in all active versions. I recommend this package be removed from the repos since it is clearly artistic license 1.0 which is not considered to be free software by the GNU project.

SirGrant:
Mon, 01/23/2012 - 04:51
Title:Unfree packages in repos» simutrans and simutrans-data are under non-free license

Changing title to specify which packages have the license problem.

SirGrant:
Wed, 09/05/2012 - 18:40
Version:»

I have consulted with RMS and his advice was to first try to get the authors to possibly move from the Artistic 1.0 license to the 2.0 license. He says it would be ideal to make the software free software and that would be better then removing it. Only if we can't liberate it then we should remove it. I have made a post on their forums to try to get them to do that.

Lets see what they say:

License Question (Artistic License 2.0?)

SirGrant:
Thu, 09/06/2012 - 06:14

Ok, so they basically won't change the license to make it free so we have only one option left, which is to remove the software. One of the devs/admins stated: 

The artistic licence forbid selling for money, while GNU allows it. Since we want to disallow that, I do not see any way to make this compatible.
So basically, they choose to restrict their users on purpose because as we know, being able to sell free software is a requirement.

quidam:
Thu, 09/20/2012 - 02:34
Status:active» fixed

Removed:
http://listas.trisquel.info/pipermail/trisquel-devel/2012-September/000694.html

SirGrant:
Fri, 09/21/2012 - 17:18

I can confirm that simutrans has been removed from the repos. However, it still appears in our package database. Is that caused by a delay between the database and the actual repository updating?

quidam:
Fri, 10/05/2012 - 17:20
Status:fixed» closed

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.