Re: octave-plplot: intention to package

[John W. Eaton]

On 15-Oct-1998, Joao Cardoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

| Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
| 
|  Hurrying before the slink freeze, here is my intention to package:
| 
|   Package: octave-plplot
|   Version: 0.3-1

[...]

|  [This will be a great improvement for Octave, IMHO.]
| 
|  Actually, I already packaged it.  It is lintian-clean and all the demos
|  are working.  I have just a problem with the copyright, as there is no
|  copyright notice in the upstream source.  I obtained it from the
|  octave-sources mailing list, so I am assuming that it is in the public
|  domain.
| 
| I know nothing about copyrights, so I  include none in the sources.
| My intention is that plplot_octave could be available in a future release of
| Octave, if Octave's author wants to. If including it in a Debian release
| disallows my intention, than I would not approve it.
| 
| As I told before, my intention is to enable it to be used as Octave
| is, with a GNU General Public License (which I have never fully read
| :-)) .  If you want to add/include in all modified sources or
| scripts the GNU licence header, I will be happy (if this is still
| possible after I have put the package un-intentionally in the public
| domain).
| 
| Anyway, I already have latter versions, but they are not packaged
| for public usage.
| 
| Thanks,
| Joao
| 
| PS- John Eaton: do you have any comments?

I don't have any objection to this being distributed as a separate
Debian package.  Eventually, it may make it in to the core Octave
distribution in some form, but I can't say yet when that might happen.

Thanks,

jwe

Re: octave-plplot: intention to package

[John W. Eaton]

On 16-Oct-1998, Joao Cardoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

| I agree with the enclosed copyright notice.
| Octave's author also has no objections.
| 
| Please correct, if still possible, my e-mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

|  The files in the source distribution have no copyright notice, but by
|  explicit request from the author, the following terms apply:
| 
|  Copyright (C) 1998 Joao Cardoso.  All rights reserved.
| 
|  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
|  under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
|  Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
|  option) any later version. [In Debian systems, see file
|  /usr/doc/copyright/GPL.]
| 
|  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
|  WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
|  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
|  General Public License for more details.

Oops, I noticed a the following problem before, but then forgot about
it when I actually replied.

I do have an objection to this copyright statement.  I am not a
lawyer, but I think that if you are releasing something under the
terms of the GPL, you should NOT write `All rights reserved' because
you are not claiming to have the exclusive right to distribute (one of
the rights that copyright allows you to reserve for yourself alone).

So please remove the `All rights reserved.' statement.

Also, the text should just read

  Copyright (C) 1998  Joao Cardoso

  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
  (at your option) any later version.

  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  GNU General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
  02111-1307, USA.

exactly as the appendix to the GPL says.  I suppose adding a line
about where to find the text of the GPL on Debian systems would be ok,
but I would add that as a separate paragraph after the information
about how to obtain a copy from the FSF.  I would write:

  Users of Debian systems may also find a copy of the GNU GPL in the
  file /usr/doc/copyright/GPL.

Do other Debian packages that are supposed to be released under the
terms of the GPL include `All rights reserved' in their copyright
notices?  If so, can you tell me which ones?

Thanks,

jwe