hi, scipy/io/idl.py contains code to read Save/Restore files written by IDL. These files contain following header (e.g. scipy/io/tests/ data/*.sav): NOTICE: IDL Save/Restore files embody unpublished proprietary information about the IDL program. Reverse engineering of this file is therefore forbidden under the terms of the IDL End User License Agreement (IDL EULA). All IDL users are required to read and agree to the terms of the IDL EULA at the time that they install IDL. Software that reads or writes files in the IDL Save/Restore format must have a license from ITT Visual Information Solutions explicitly granting the right to do so. In this case, the license will be included with the software for your inspection. Please report software that does not have such a license to ITT Visual Information Solutions (info@ittvis.com). So without a license from ITT using this code is illegal (within jurisdiction where this notice is valid). Though the idl.py file implementing the io contains following lines: # This code was developed by with permission from ITT Visual Information # Systems. IDL(r) is a registered trademark of ITT Visual Information Systems, # Inc. for their Interactive Data Language software. This is a little vague but I couldn't find any more information in the source and the addition predates github move. Is there more details on this permission available? Does the permission grant all users of scipy the full unencumbered right to read and write Save/Restore files? Does this permission extend to third parties redistributing scipy, e.g. via linux distributions? As is the IDL code does most likely not comply with the Debian free software guidelines and all code related to it will have to be removed from the Debian package. Cheers, Julian Taylor