[Icecast] nicecast licence

adam adam at xs4all.nl
Sun May 15 20:10:55 UTC 2005


hi,

I wonder if anyone can tell me how the Nicecast licensing works.
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/nicecast/

Nicecast, as it seems to me, uses Icecast as an internal server. They list
Icecast in their sources dir:
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/sources

In their manual they also credit Xiph with the statement:
"Portions of this Rogue Amoeba software may utilize the following
copyrighted material, the use of which is hereby acknowledged. Source code
may be found at http://www.rogueamoeba.com/sources "

"Xiph.org Foundation ( icecast ) Copyright 1999-2003
Xiph.org Foundation.("Xiph") Parts of this product contain
certain software owned by the Xiph and licensed by Rogue Amoeba. You may
obtain a complete machine-readable copy of the source code for the Xiph
software under the terms of GNU General Public License ("GPL"), without
charge at http://www.rogueamoeba.com/sources/ or by contacting
mailto:sources at rogueamoeba.com. The Xiph software is distributed in the
hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See the GPL for more details; a copy of the GPL is included below. "


but then in an earlier licencing page it states:
"Unless explicitly stated in writing, Rogue Amoeba Software does not grant
permission to distribute Nicecast ("The Software") for profit in any form.
Non-profit distribution of The Software is acceptable provided that The
Software is not modified in any way, and the complete works of The
Software are included in the distribution package. If The Software is to
be included in a distribution package, Rogue Amoeba requests (but does not
require) one complimentary copy of said package, sent to the following
address:  Rogue Amoeba Software  Marketing Department  29 Scottsdale Ct.
Cranbury, NJ 08512 "


with a further statement that:
"What that said: Don't sell this software. If you want to distribute it,
awesome! Just make sure it's unmodified from the download from our site.
If you create a distribution package, it'd be cool (but not required) if
you sent a copy to the address above. "


Can someone clarify how Nicecast can sell a licence key and yet have xiph
GPL software (Icecast)  as a main part of their software? Are they walking
a fine line here? Does "Non-profit distribution of The Software is
acceptable" mean that if you have access to licence key then you can share
the software _and_ the key?

Many thanks for any help in understanding how this works.

adam




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