I thank you for that Tobias, a positive move ! However, I don't believe it will help. I think TK is concerned about conventional licenses allowing someone to remove his name from the package, ship it as its own. Near as I can tell, thats permitted if some changes are made. Happened to me...
It comes down to what you are actually copyrigth-ing, the syntax, the overall structure, solving a problem in a particular way ...... I accept that, believe in the open source world, thats how it should be. TK does not. Thanks for you help. Davo On 24/9/20 7:12 pm, Tobias Frost wrote: > Hi David, > > I just responded to the ticket in github: > > Let me briefly chime in… I was interacting on the debian-legal thread about > this topic: > > @kryslt it would be very helpful if you could confirm that your > interpreation > of you license also expliclitly allows modification and distribution. > > Custom licenses are always problematic, because of the know reasons > (wetted by > layers*, compatiblities with other licenses, license proliferation…), > so may I > suggest that you look into some standard licensing and either change it > towards > or possible just dual-license it? Looking at the license you have > currently, > may I suggest you look into BSD-3-clause? > (https://choosealicense.com/licenses/bsd-3-clause-clear/) (If this is > OK for > you, I'd be very happy to provide an PR to change the license headers.) > > You write in your README that all files without notice are public > domain. > Please note that PublicDomain is not a thing world wide. For example, > here in > Germany, a author _cannot_ legally waive its own copyright, so would > you mind > to change this sentence to "If there is none, the code is licensed > under CC0."? > (https://choosealicense.com/licenses/cc0-1.0/ ) It's the PublicDomain > equivalent, but written to be legally ok worldwide. > > (There is a nice chart at https://choosealicense.com/appendix/ I find > very > helpful) > > * IANAL, but I think your liability clause is too short and "forgets" > some > case… See the BSD-3 > > Thanks for considering! And sorry for possibly annoying you. License > stuff is > unfortunatly boring, but required. We'd like to see your work in Debian > through > tomboy-ng, but the license could be a blocking point. I hope you can > help > untangling it… > > Cheers. tobi (with his Debian Developer hat on) > > Lets see if that helps. > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 09:37:57AM +1000, David Bannon wrote: >> Hi Folks, time we resolved this question about tomboy-ng and its use of >> the KControls build time library. Its now ten days since I wrote to TK, >> the kcontrols author, asking if he would consider a more liberal >> license. I have not had an answer and think we can assume I won't get one. >> >> The known facts - >> >> tomboy-ng needs the kcontrols source files at build time. Such src >> libraries normally target an IDE and are unsuited to standalone debian >> packaging. So a sunset of kcontrols needs to be shipped with the >> tomboy-ng SRC package. >> >> kcontrols has a license that while not preventing changes or >> redistribution, it does not explicitly grant permission to do so. >> >> TK has clearly, on the public record stated that my proposed use of >> kcontrols is acceptable. This was in answer to a question that stated I >> would use a subset of kcontrols and distribute in a debian SRC package. >> https://github.com/kryslt/KControls/issues/27 - "It is acceptable, thank >> you for asking." >> >> TK still maintains kcontrols but has made it clear he does not have the >> time to make changes he finds unnecessary. >> tomboy-ng could use an alternative to kcontrols but this would break its >> cross platform commitment. This would gravely affect existing users. >> >> My question to the debian legal team is "Given TK's clear statement that >> the proposed use is acceptable, but noting the shortcomings in its >> license, would you recommend I abandon this project or not ?" > (You won't get an authoritive answer here, as this is ftp-masters realm) > IMHO the license is border line, and it would be much better if the rights > we care about are explicitly granted. >
