Bug#702070: widelands: Copyright file points to wrong license and doesn't cite source
It would be interesting to see if Debian can make the 'complete corresponding source' happen, in the longer run presumably. I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, actually. That's a term from GPLv2: for binary distribution the license requires availability of all materials the original author(s) used to build the binary (i.e. sources and build scripts), in the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. In Widelands' case that would include the blender files, I presume. But it's a bit late for wheezy. Cheers, Steven. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#702070: widelands: Copyright file points to wrong license and doesn't cite source
On Mon, Mar 04, 2013 at 12:31:37AM +0100, Steven De Herdt wrote: Hello, Pointing to the wrong gpl version doesn't violate debian policy. I had the impression upstream released under GPLv2 only, but the source code files say v2 or later. In as far as Debian distributes under GPLv3, and not the unspecified the GPL (which includes v1), that should be legally fine. But it's not quite the verbatim copyright info/distribution licenses required by policy. The media files seem less clear to me. To the best of my knowledge they're distributed under GPLv2 only, so that Debian cannot legally distribute these files under the license pointed to. Of course, the upstream tarball isn't exceedingly clear on this. Breaking a should clause is also not violating the debian policy. No, but apparently: In addition, the copyright file must say where the upstream sources (if any) were obtained, and should name the original authors. I suppose now's not a convenient time for these problems, but I thought they were serious... The good news is that I'm willing to fix bugs in my packages even when they are not release critical :) I admit that I'm not as responsive as I should recently, but I'll try to come back soon. As for the GPL version, my bad (I guess), this will be fixed soon. As for the source of download, that will be fixed soon too (and I guess that duckduckgo gave you the answer in the meanwhile). As for the licensing of the media, this is not clearly stated upstream either. I guess you know the drill for games: most of the projects distribute the pngs only as the blender files are super heavy to store and process. This is a clear infringement of the dfsg, but that's a bad habit that is hard to fight in the milieu. I didn't check but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the blender files of wesnoth or freeciv are not as easily available as the C/C++ sources... The situation is not completely desperate for widelands (at least compared to other smaller games around), as most of the blender files can be retrieved from: bzr branch lp:widelands-media Not all the models are available, as some of them were lost by the designers, see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands-media/+bug/677337 Yep, that's a still very sorry state, but I feel like we need to help upstream fixing the situation instead of becoming harsh on them. For that, I openned the following bug to ask them to clarify the license. My guess is that they consider this repo as a working directory and juste forgot to write the licensing meta-information down. https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands-media/+bug/1144060 So, in conclusion. Thanks for your report, I'll try to come back on this package as I recently managed to do for several of my other packages. The issues you point are mainly missing pointers that I will add. Be them serious or important. For the more profund issues underlying, I'll see with upstream about how to improve it. Thanks for the report, Mt. -- Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#702070: widelands: Copyright file points to wrong license and doesn't cite source
The good news is that I'm willing to fix bugs in my packages even when they are not release critical :) I admit that I'm not as responsive as I should recently, but I'll try to come back soon. As for the GPL version, my bad (I guess), this will be fixed soon. Very good, that should keep us under the radar of GPL enforcers! I imagine this package and its copyright file were written before v3 existed, so that it was (nearly) correct back then. As for the source of download, that will be fixed soon too (and I guess that duckduckgo gave you the answer in the meanwhile). ...or aptitude, because their homepage is recorded in the control file. As for the licensing of the media, this is not clearly stated upstream either. I guess you know the drill for games: most of the projects distribute the pngs only as the blender files are super heavy to store and process. This is a clear infringement of the dfsg, but that's a bad habit that is hard to fight in the milieu. I didn't check but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the blender files of wesnoth or freeciv are not as easily available as the C/C++ sources... At least in Wesnoth, some artists consider the pngs to be the source, as they work on the raw pixels themselves... The vagueness of the source requirement in GPL doesn't help, but I've seen a proposal (I think) for something like this, only clearer, in the next release of the CC licenses. Education on licenses seems rather important too, I've heard of artists avoid CC-BY-SA because they don't know how SA works. Besides licenses, I see a role for better tools to improve the situation: license fields in media files metadata; some standardisation in automatic building of media, separated from the building source code; maybe better version tracking... I think the issue of Free Culture is just rather young compared to that of Free Software. The situation is not completely desperate for widelands (at least compared to other smaller games around), as most of the blender files can be retrieved from: bzr branch lp:widelands-media Not all the models are available, as some of them were lost by the designers, see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands-media/+bug/677337 Well, in those cases, only the rendered pngs could be considered source. Reminds me of beneath-a-steel-sky... Yep, that's a still very sorry state, but I feel like we need to help upstream fixing the situation instead of becoming harsh on them. For that, I openned the following bug to ask them to clarify the license. My guess is that they consider this repo as a working directory and juste forgot to write the licensing meta-information down. https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands-media/+bug/1144060 Absolutely, no need to alienate them! This looks more like the boring paperwork that got left behind. Maybe if it all were easier... So, in conclusion. Thanks for your report, I'll try to come back on this package as I recently managed to do for several of my other packages. The issues you point are mainly missing pointers that I will add. Be them serious or important. For the more profund issues underlying, I'll see with upstream about how to improve it. It would be interesting to see if Debian can make the 'complete corresponding source' happen, in the longer run presumably. Thanks for the report, Mt. Thanks for the answer, and good luck. Steven -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#702070: widelands: Copyright file points to wrong license and doesn't cite source
For the more profund issues underlying, I'll see with upstream about how to improve it. It would be interesting to see if Debian can make the 'complete corresponding source' happen, in the longer run presumably. I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, actually. Sorry, Mt. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#702070: widelands: Copyright file points to wrong license and doesn't cite source
Hello, Pointing to the wrong gpl version doesn't violate debian policy. I had the impression upstream released under GPLv2 only, but the source code files say v2 or later. In as far as Debian distributes under GPLv3, and not the unspecified the GPL (which includes v1), that should be legally fine. But it's not quite the verbatim copyright info/distribution licenses required by policy. The media files seem less clear to me. To the best of my knowledge they're distributed under GPLv2 only, so that Debian cannot legally distribute these files under the license pointed to. Of course, the upstream tarball isn't exceedingly clear on this. Breaking a should clause is also not violating the debian policy. No, but apparently: In addition, the copyright file must say where the upstream sources (if any) were obtained, and should name the original authors. I suppose now's not a convenient time for these problems, but I thought they were serious... Best regards, Steven. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#702070: widelands: Copyright file points to wrong license and doesn't cite source
Package: widelands Version: 1:17-3 Severity: serious Justification: Policy 12.5 Dear Maintainer, I noticed that Widelands' copyright file points to the wrong GPL: This game is distributed under the GPL licence (to be found under /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL on a Debian box). This leads to GPLv3, while upstream releases under v2. Strictly speaking, releasing under _the_ GPL allows users to choose any GPL ever published. I would propose: This game is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2, to be found under /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2 on a Debian box. Also, the copyright file does not include the required pointer to where upstream source was obtained. Bonus question: so upstream distributes under GPLv2, this is clearly indicated in the source files. But is it clear enough, for the purpose of Debian distribution, that this also counts for media (pics, music, ...)? It does count for the media files, right? Thanks for maintaining, Steven. -- System Information: Debian Release: 7.0 APT prefers testing APT policy: (990, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages widelands depends on: ii fonts-freefont-ttf [ttf-freefont] 20120503-1 ii libboost-signals1.49.0 1.49.0-3.2 ii libc6 2.13-37 ii libgcc11:4.7.2-5 ii libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl1] 8.0.5-3 ii libglew1.7 1.7.0-3 ii liblua5.1-05.1.5-4 ii libpng12-0 1.2.49-1 ii libsdl-gfx1.2-42.0.23-2 ii libsdl-image1.21.2.12-2 ii libsdl-mixer1.21.2.12-3 ii libsdl-net1.2 1.2.8-2 ii libsdl-ttf2.0-02.0.11-2 ii libsdl1.2debian1.2.15-5 ii libstdc++6 4.7.2-5 ii widelands-data 1:17-3 ii zlib1g 1:1.2.7.dfsg-13 widelands recommends no packages. widelands suggests no packages. -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#702070: widelands: Copyright file points to wrong license and doesn't cite source
control: severity -1 important I noticed that Widelands' copyright file points to the wrong GPL: This game is distributed under the GPL licence (to be found under /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL on a Debian box). Pointing to the wrong gpl version doesn't violate debian policy. Also, the copyright file does not include the required pointer to where upstream source was obtained. Breaking a should clause is also not violating the debian policy. Best wishes, Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
