Your message dated Mon, 14 Dec 2015 21:07:40 +0100
with message-id <566f218c.3050...@debian.org>
and subject line Re: Bug#807074: fbreader: includes files with unclear
DFSG-freeness and/or copyright status
has caused the Debian Bug report #807074,
regarding fbreader: includes files with unclear DFSG-freeness and/or copyright
status
to be marked as done.
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If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
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807074: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=807074
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--- Begin Message ---
Package: fbreader
Version: 0.10.7dfsg-4
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 2.2.1
Hello Eugene and thanks for maintaining FBReader in Debian!
I noticed something awkward in the debian/copyright file:
[...]
| Html entity files (fbreader/data/formats/docbook/*.ent) with
| these licenses:
|
| <!-- Portions (C) International Organization for Standardization 1986
| Permission to copy in any form is granted for use with
| conforming SGML systems and applications as defined in
| ISO 8879, provided this notice is included in all copies.
| -->
|
| <!-- Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Organization for the Advancement of Structured
| Information Standards (OASIS).
|
| Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this entity set
| and its accompanying documentation for any purpose and without
| fee is hereby granted in perpetuity, provided that the above
| copyright notice and this paragraph appear in all copies. The
| copyright holders make no representation about the suitability of
| the entities for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without
| expressed or implied warranty.
|
| -->
[...]
The problem is: among these two licenses, the first one is non-free,
as it does not grant permission to modify (thus failing DFSG#3) and
only grants a limited permission to copy and use, restricting the
field of endeavor to conforming SGML systems and applications as
defined in ISO 8879 (thus failing DFSG#6).
The second license is instead fine for Debian main.
By only reading the debian/copyright file, it was not clear to me
whether both licenses apply (which would mean that these files
are non-free in fbreader) or, instead, whether the recipient may
choose which of the two licenses will apply (which would mean that
we can choose the second license and everything is fine for fbreader).
This freeness issue has been discussed on the debian-legal mailing list:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2015/11/msg00048.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2015/11/msg00049.html
During that debian-legal thread, I was pointed out that the licensing
of those files in fbreader is a bit different from what is documented
in the fbreader debian/copyright file:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2015/11/msg00050.html
And indeed, the files under consideration include that permission grant,
saying that the DFSG-free license applies, but that the files are
derived, in part, from files (copyrighted by ISO) which grant no
permission to modify.
As I said in
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2015/11/msg00051.html
I cannot fully understand how those files could be derived from
the ISO files in the first place, if the ISO files are not legally
modifiable.
Maybe OASIS obtained a special permission from ISO, but this does
not seem to be documented.
Otherwise, this looks like a copyright violation, which, if confirmed,
would result in undistributable files.
An FTP Assitant confirmed that files under the ISO license under
consideration are not fit for Debian main:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2015/12/msg00000.html
Please investigate and clarify and/or fix this issue.
Possible solutions I can think of:
A) clarify the licensing status of those files and find out
that they are distributable under DFSG-free terms; explain
and document why this is the case
B) get in touch with the copyright holder (ISO) and persuade
them to re-license the ISO files in a DFSG-free manner
C) find DFSG-free replacements for the non-free files
D) drop the non-free files from the package, assuming they are
not strictly needed for the package to provide significant
functionality
Thanks for your time!
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Hi Francesco and all,
Thanks for your interest.
> I cannot fully understand how those files could be derived from
> the ISO files in the first place, if the ISO files are not legally
> modifiable.
> Maybe OASIS obtained a special permission from ISO, but this does
> not seem to be documented.
I am afraid I don't get it.
OASIS say [1] they are the copyright holder and their license is DFSG-free. You
suspect OASIS breaches copyright of ISO,
and the source for this suspect is license headers written by OASIS themselves?
You propose we contact OASIS and ask whether they have right to distribute
those files? If they say 'yes', how one is
supposed to verify that they really do? In what circumstances they could say
'no'?
Or you propose we contact ISO and ask whether OASIS breaches their copyright?
[1] http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xmlcharent/0.1/entities-2001-11-19.html
The files in question (fbreader/fbreader/data/formats/docbook/*) didn't change,
at least, after 2009. Since that time,
fbreader has been gone through NEW queue at least in 2010 [2] and in 2015 [3].
[2] https://tracker.debian.org/news/496859
[3] https://tracker.debian.org/news/708036
Given above, I am going to assume, for now, that those files are fine. Dear
archive masters (To'ed), please re-open this
bug if they are not, and in that case files will be not included.
--- End Message ---
