Linus, So, it's my opinion that there are two core requirements for free software: the license needs to be free and the whole work must be included. What follows is my personal opinion, and I'm not a lawyer, a representative of Debian Legal, or providing any sort of legal advice.
Whole Work ---------- If the software is completely usable without _requiring_ specific non-free parts for its operation, then you've got the whole work. It is the users' right to mix or use the work in any way they wish, including with proprietary content files that may be downloaded. On Fri, Apr 20, 2012, at 02:42 AM, Linus Lüssing wrote: > However as far as I know the electricsheep package currently > heavily relies on non-free content to function properly which > could make it unsuitable for Debian main. Providing the user the ability to cause the software to download and use non-free resources on a website is quite fine, so long as the screen saver's software would completely work as the user might expect without requiring those non-free resources. If the work is effectively crippled without the connection to their proprietary content, then they've not licensed the whole work so as a matter of policy, I'd prefer partial-works not be included in Debian. In this case, it's not uncommon for someone to fork the (incomplete) GPL'd work, remove non-free (CC licensed) parts and contribue a working free software program. The authors should know this is a real possibility by using the GPL license. > > "The videos downloaded and displayed by Electric Sheep are Creative > > Commons licensed (a mixture of CC-BY and CC-BY-NC). Some jobs > > rendered by the network may be for images or animations which are not > > sheep at all, and will not appear in the screen-saver. Some of these > > are used for commercial purposes in order to support the developers > > and servers that make the software." I don't see the point. In my personal opinion, if the web-browser analogy holds (that Electric Sheep is a "browser" for screen saver videos), then this should be unnecessary. In this case, the user would have the ability to configure where it could get additional screen saver materials at their own discretion. Free License ------------- What is meant by "sheep generated by the algorithem" on the http://electricsheep.org/reuse page? Are these content files that are downloaded? If so... is there any value to the software besides connecting to a proprietary website? If not, and the automatically generated sheep are part of the whole work that is being licensed, there is a conflict between what this "clarification" page and standard GPL license they use. If they mean to restrict the output of their program such that it is under the by-nc, then their license should have a non-free term with this restriction, in which case, their software isn't free (or even open source). It definately isn't GPL licensed. Otherwise, if they intend to license their program under the terms of the GPL, then the output of this program is unencumbered and they should remove their "clarification" comment about "sheep generated by the algorithem" since it is incorrect. I hope this helps. This stuff can be complex so I'm sure others may have a different take on it. Best, Clark -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org