Devart

[toki]

My recommendation would be to remove _all_ extensions provided by Devart
from the LibreOffice Extension website, and permanently ban them from
contributing anything to the project.

I don't object to commercially distributed licenses.
I don't object to developers that are selling Open Source Licensed product.

I do, however, think that a company that claims to use OSI licenses, but
whose license contains clauses such as the following is being, at best,
intentionally deceptive:

«
1.1. If you are a legally licensed user, depending on the license type
specified in the registration letter you have received from Devart upon
purchase of the Software:
- the "Desktop License" allows you to install and use the Software on a
single desktop computer, provided it is accessed by no more than one
person at a time
, either directly or remotely, for sole purposes only in accordance with
this Agreement. If more than one person can simultaneously use the
computer where you plan to install the product, you must purchase a
Server License. A Desktop License is valid for one single desktop
installation;
- the "Server License" allows you to install and use the Software on a
single server, provided it is accessed by more than one person at a
time, either directly or remotely. This definition includes, but is not
limited to, Web servers, application servers, batch servers, and desktop
workstations, where more than one concurrent users can access the
Software. A Server License is valid for one single server installation,
provided it is used by 1 (one) legal entity in accordance with this
Agreement.

1.2. If you are a legally licensed user of the Software, you are also
entitled to:
- make one copy of the Software for archival purposes only, or copy the
Software onto the hard disk of your computer and retain the original for
archival pur
poses;
- develop and test Applications with the Software, subject to the
Limitations below.

1.3. You are allowed to use evaluation versions of the Software as
specified in the Evaluation section.

No other rights or privileges are granted in this Agreement.

2.1 You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software.
2.2 You may not reproduce or distribute any Software documentation
without express written permission from Devart.
2.3 You may not distribute and sell any portion of the Software
integrating it into your Applications.
2.4 You may not transfer, assign, or modify the Software, in whole or in
part. In particular, the Software license is non-transferable, and you
may not transfer the installation package.
»


Here is a list of licenses approved the Open Source Initiative,

    Academic Free License 3.0 (AFL-3.0)
    Affero General Public License: See GNU Affero General Public License
3.0 (AGPL-3.0)
    Adaptive Public License (APL-1.0)
    Apache License 2.0 (Apache-2.0)
    Apple Public Source License (APSL-2.0)
    Artistic license 2.0 (Artistic-2.0)
    Attribution Assurance Licenses (AAL)
    BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License (BSD-3-Clause)
    BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" or "FreeBSD" License (BSD-2-Clause)
    Boost Software License (BSL-1.0)
    CeCILL License 2.1 (CECILL-2.1)
    Computer Associates Trusted Open Source License 1.1 (CATOSL-1.1)
    Common Development and Distribution License 1.0 (CDDL-1.0)
    Common Public Attribution License 1.0 (CPAL-1.0)
    CUA Office Public License Version 1.0 (CUA-OPL-1.0)
    EU DataGrid Software License (EUDatagrid)
    Eclipse Public License 1.0 (EPL-1.0)
    eCos License version 2.0
    Educational Community License, Version 2.0 (ECL-2.0)
    Eiffel Forum License V2.0 (EFL-2.0)
    Entessa Public License (Entessa)
    European Union Public License, Version 1.1 (EUPL-1.1) (links to
every language's version on their site)
    Fair License (Fair)
    Frameworx License (Frameworx-1.0)
    Free Public License 1.0.0
    GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPL-3.0)
    GNU General Public License version 2.0 (GPL-2.0)
    GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPL-3.0)
    GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License version 2.1 (LGPL-2.1)
    GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License version 3.0 (LGPL-3.0)
    Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer (HPND)
    IBM Public License 1.0 (IPL-1.0)
    IPA Font License (IPA)
    ISC License (ISC)
    LaTeX Project Public License 1.3c (LPPL-1.3c)
    Licence Libre du Québec – Permissive (LiLiQ-P) version 1.1
    Licence Libre du Québec – Réciprocité (LiLiQ-R) version 1.1
    Licence Libre du Québec – Réciprocité forte (LiLiQ-R+) version 1.1
    Lucent Public License Version 1.02 (LPL-1.02)
    MirOS Licence (MirOS)
    Microsoft Public License (MS-PL)
    Microsoft Reciprocal License (MS-RL)
    MIT license (MIT)
    Motosoto License (Motosoto)
    Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0)
    Multics License (Multics)
    NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3 (NASA-1.3)
    NTP License (NTP)
    Naumen Public License (Naumen)
    Nethack General Public License (NGPL)
    Nokia Open Source License (Nokia)
    Non-Profit Open Software License 3.0 (NPOSL-3.0)
    OCLC Research Public License 2.0 (OCLC-2.0)
    Open Group Test Suite License (OGTSL)
    Open Software License 3.0 (OSL-3.0)
    OSET Public License version 2.1
    PHP License 3.0 (PHP-3.0)
    The PostgreSQL License (PostgreSQL)
    Python License (Python-2.0) (overall Python license)
    CNRI Python license (CNRI-Python) (CNRI portion of Python License)
    Q Public License (QPL-1.0)
    RealNetworks Public Source License V1.0 (RPSL-1.0)
    Reciprocal Public License 1.5 (RPL-1.5)
    Ricoh Source Code Public License (RSCPL)
    SIL Open Font License 1.1 (OFL-1.1)
    Simple Public License 2.0 (SimPL-2.0)
    Sleepycat License (Sleepycat)
    Sun Public License 1.0 (SPL-1.0)
    Sybase Open Watcom Public License 1.0 (Watcom-1.0)
    University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License (NCSA)
    Universal Permissive License (UPL)
    Vovida Software License v. 1.0 (VSL-1.0)
    W3C License (W3C)
    wxWindows Library License (WXwindows)
    X.Net License (Xnet)
    Zero Clause BSD License (0BSD): see Free Public License 1.0.0
    Zope Public License 2.0 (ZPL-2.0)
    zlib/libpng license (Zlib)


As one can see the ODBC Driver License Agreement is _NOT_ on that list.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html contains a list of Free
Software licenses, and their compatibility with the GNU GPL.

The clauses I quote earlier violate the Four Freedoms, so it fails the
FSF criteria. Those quotes clauses are also sufficient for it to not
pass muster with Debian Free Software Guidelines. As such, one can not
claim an open source license, with attribution given to the wrong
accreditation body.

This email is too long for me to go clause by clause through the ODBC
Driver License Agreement, to show which of the Four Freedoms, and which
Debian Free Software Guideline, and which OSI Principle is violated, in
each clause it contains. If such excruciating detail is requested, it
can be provided.

jonathon