Firefox licensing issue
While Firefox itself is licensed under a free license, there's an issue in the way the Mozilla foundation designed it to include their own package system for extensions and themes. Take Firefox 1.5 for example, I've had it for a few hours, downloaded a few extensions.. whoops. Looking at the readme in Foxytunes, for example, I find non-free terms (below). At no point did I see any notification of the license before installing this extension, and only by viewing a text file embedded in firefox's installation directory did I learn of this. Note that this is covered in a bug report, but no action has been taken yet to fix this problem: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=275743 I don't have any recommendation as to how to solve this problem in debian - I'm pointing this out, however, as an issue that the debian community may wish to do something further with. Terms of Use Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Alex Sirota ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) This version of FoxyTunes is free for your personal, non-commercial use at home or at work. You may copy, use and distribute FoxyTunes provided that the following conditions are met: 1. This notice is included in all copies. 2. The FoxyTunes engine is used only by the FoxyTunes extension. 3. You do not re-package FoxyTunes for purposes other than localization. 4. You do not charge any money for FoxyTunes, except for covering reasonable distribution costs. As a contribution to the Mozilla developer community, portions of FoxyTunes are covered by less restrictive licenses. Those licenses, if present, will be noted prominently at the top of the source files. No other rights, including licenses to copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret or any other proprietary rights, are implied or granted. Please contact the author (Alex Sirota) if you have questions about this notice or if you want to use FoxyTunes for purposes not covered by this document. Music Player Daemon Client Library - libmpdclient (c) 2003-2004 by Warren Dukes ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) XMessageBox by Hans Dietrich ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. -- The recognition of individual possibility, to allow each to be what she and he can be, rests inherently upon the availability of knowledge; The perpetuation of ignorance is the beginning of slavery. from "Die Gedanken Sind Frei": Free Software and the Struggle for Free Thought by Eben Moglen, General council of the Free Software Foundation -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Kleansweep, trademark issue and Debian
On Fri, Nov 25, 2005 at 10:57:31PM +0100, Claudio Moratti wrote: > Hi! > some weeks ago I sent a message about kleansweeb trademark issue... > > I recived one aswer > (http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/10/msg00040.html)... thanks :D > > the problem is... I sent a request to upstream author, but he didn't do > anything... > > Now, I've a open ITP (329020) about kleansweep, and I'd like to close it! > > I found these solutions: > 1) ignoring trademark issue and send a RFS (i'm not a dd)... trademark issue > is a 'author' problem, not a Debian problem, right? Yes, the problem exists upstream, but it also exists for Debian, I think, because whoever holds the relevant TM could (try to) hold us accountable. > 2) patching the sources changing the name (kleaner for example...) This is a good possibility; then mention in ./debian/control and README.Debian that the name was changed to avoid the TM. > 3) closing the bug without packaging the software... Unattractive option. > which way do you advise to me? Why don't you keep an unapplied patch in ./debian/ which can be used to change the name? Then, if there is ever a problem, its trivial to fix. AIUI this is the kind of approach that might be taken with firefox.. The patch might be trivial; or, you might initially think that it is trivial, but then keep running into different instances of the TM name. So you might start with such a patch, however small and trivial, but maintain it as you discover hypothetical internal references to the name. I know little of trademarks, and about your specific one, but not packaging the software because of such a problem, when it could be worked around, is still unattrictive. -- Clear skies, Justin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TiffIO license agreement
I need to package tiffio (http://artis.imag.fr/Software/TiffIO/) either together with my "lprof" package or separately to enable lprof libtiff4 access. TiffIO is covered by a non-standard license full text of which is listed below. My analysis of the license has shown that I can easily bundle it with lprof as by the clause 5.3.4. COMPATIBILITY WITH THE GPL LICENSE it will be covered by GPL in that case. However, if I want to package it separately as a standalone library it seems to be non DFSG-free due to the choice of venue clause (Article 13 - GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION) and an unclear 4.2. TERM section, which might fail the "Tentacles of Evil" test if the term is in fact limited to the "possession" of the software by the original "Holders". So, I think I should fold this library into lprof package as opposed to packaging it separately. I would love to be proved wrong as this is a very useful module and it's possible that quite a few Qt-related pieces of software in Debian might use it in future as an interface to libtiff. I don't think that the requirement to present contributor's name (5.2. entitlement to make CONTRIBUTIONS) fails the "Dissident test" by the way. Thanks, Alex. Full license text: FREE SOFTWARE LICENSING AGREEMENT CeCILL Notice -- This Agreement is a free software license that is the result of discussions between its authors in order to ensure compliance with the two main principles guiding its drafting: - firstly, its conformity with French law, both as regards the law of torts and intellectual property law, and the protection that it offers to authors and the holders of economic rights over software. - secondly, compliance with the principles for the distribution of free software: access to source codes, extended user-rights. The following bodies are the authors of this license CeCILL (Ce : CEA, C : CNRS, I : INRIA, LL : Logiciel Libre): Commissariat Ю l'Energie Atomique - CEA, a public scientific, technical and industrial establishment, having its principal place of business at 31-33 rue de la FИdИration, 75752 PARIS cedex 15, France. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - CNRS, a public scientific and technological establishment, having its principal place of business at 3 rue Michel-Ange 75794 Paris cedex 16, France. Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - INRIA, a public scientific and technological establishment, having its principal place of business at Domaine de Voluceau, Rocquencourt, BP 105, 78153 Le Chesnay cedex. PREAMBLE The purpose of this Free Software Licensing Agreement is to grant users the right to modify and redistribute the software governed by this license within the framework of an "open source" distribution model. The exercising of these rights is conditional upon certain obligations for users so as to ensure that this status is retained for subsequent redistribution operations. As a counterpart to the access to the source code and rights to copy, modify and redistribute granted by the license, users are provided only with a limited warranty and the software's author, the holder of the economic rights, and the successive licensors only have limited liability. In this respect, it is brought to the user's attention that the risks associated with loading, using, modifying and/or developing or reproducing the software by the user given its nature of Free Software, that may mean that it is complicated to manipulate, and that also therefore means that it is reserved for developers and experienced professionals having in-depth computer knowledge. Users are therefore encouraged to load and test the Software's suitability as regards their requirements in conditions enabling the security of their systems and/or data to be ensured and, more generally, to use and operate it in the same conditions of security. This Agreement may be freely reproduced and published, provided it is not altered, and that no Articles are either added or removed herefrom. This Agreement may apply to any or all software for which the holder of the economic rights decides to submit the operation thereof to its provisions. Article 1 - DEFINITIONS For the purposes of this Agreement, when the following expressions commence with a capital letter, they shall have the following meaning: Agreement: means this Licensing Agreement, and any or all of its subsequent versions. Software: means the software in its Object Code and/or Source Code form and, where applicable, its documentation, "as is" at the time when the Licensee accepts the Agreement. Initial Software: means the Software in its Source Code and/or Object Code form and, where applicable, its documentation, "as is" at the time when it is distribute
New Adobe ICC profile license evaluation
Hi, I package "icc-profiles" - a collection of color profiles suitable for usage with color management enabled software like The Gimp, Scribus, and CinePaint. Among the people involved in this area several "classic" Adobe ICC profiles have been in high standing for a long time. Adobe just released their first Unix/Linux bundle of those ICC profiles under the license referenced and listed below. There are two legal parts to this - "Bundling Agreement" for distributors and a "Color Profile License Agreement" (Adobe EULA). I personally think after reviewing it that the license is non-free, but to decide if the bundle is even distributable by Debian, so I can include those profiles into my non-free icc-profiles package, I hope that someone more experienced in these matters would like to take a look at the licenses. The first part that is stopping me from calling it distributable in Debian's non-free is section 3 of the Bundling Agreement. First, there is a requirement of defence and idemnification against third parties, which I am not sure that Debian can accept. Second, there is a requirement of obtaining the agreement of the end user under the EULA. That seems to require explicit action of agreement from an end user that I am not sure a regular user who just installs the Debian package and never reads the copyright file provides. There may be more to these licenses that I missed, so I'm including the complete text below. Thank you, Alex Source: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/iccprofiles/icc_eula_unix_dist.html Full text: Trademark information Adobe is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All instances of the name "Adobe RGB" are references to the Adobe RGB (1998) color space and color encodings as defined by Adobe, unless otherwise stated. The name "Adobe RGB (1998)" also is used as a software product trademark for Adobe's implementation of the Adobe RGB (1998) ICC profile. Adobe does not permit the use of the Adobe RGB trademark for software, hardware, or other related products from companies other than Adobe, unless the company has obtained a prior written license from Adobe to do so. ADOBE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED COLOR PROFILE BUNDLING AGREEMENT NOTICE TO USER: PLEASE READ THIS CONTRACT CAREFULLY. BY USING ALL OR ANY PORTION OF THE SOFTWARE YOU ACCEPT ALL THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT. YOU AGREE THAT THIS AGREEMENT IS ENFORCEABLE LIKE ANY WRITTEN NEGOTIATED AGREEMENT SIGNED BY YOU. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, DO NOT USE THE SOFTWARE. 1. DEFINITIONS. In this Agreement, "Adobe" means Adobe Systems Incorporated, a Delaware corporation, located at 345 Park Avenue, San Jose, California 95110. "Software" means the software and related items with which this Agreement is provided, as listed in Exhibit A. 2. LICENSE. Subject to the terms of this Agreement, Adobe hereby grants you the worldwide, nonexclusive, nontransferable, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, and publicly display the Software. Adobe also grants you the rights to distribute the Software: (a) on a standalone basis, (b) as embedded within digital image files. (c) as embedded within hardware products that author digital images, where there is no End User access to the Software, and (d) as bundled with your own application software, provided that you comply with all the distribution requirements in Section 3 below. No other distribution of the Software is allowed. All individual profiles must be referenced by their ICC Profile description string. YOU MAY NOT MODIFY THE SOFTWARE. Adobe is under no obligation to provide any support under this Agreement, including upgrades or future versions of the Software or other items. No title to the intellectual property in the Software is transferred to you under the terms of this Agreement. You do not acquire any rights to the Software except as expressly set forth in this Agreement. Notwithstanding the above, if you are bundling with Linux╝ or UNIX╝ software products, you may (a) add shortcut or menu items within your software that point to the Software, but may not change the name or iconography of the Software, (b) repackage the RPM or Gzip versions of the Software for distribution purposes, and (c) create a graphical user interface as otherwise specifically allowed by instructions found at www.adobe.com or http://partners.adobe.com (e.g.,installation of additional plug-in and help files) but may not add, delete, or modify any components of the Software without the explicit written permission of Adobe. 3. DISTRIBUTION. If you choose to distribute the Software, you do so with the understanding that you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Adobe against any losses, damages, or costs arising from any claims, lawsuits, or other legal actions arising out of such distribution, including, without limitation, product liability and other claims by consumers and your
Re: [Pkg-octave-devel] BSD-licensed upstream tarball but needs form filled
The webforms are compulsory *for downloading the software from their site*. Doesn't affect the package in any way at all though. andrew On 11/30/05, Andrey Romanenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > On Tuesday 29 November 2005 16:52, Rafael Laboissiere wrote: > > We are seeking advice on how to proceed about an upstream tarball > > distribution issue. The Debian Octave Group is planning to package the > > SUNDIALS library (http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/main.html) for > > integration into Octave. This package is released under a BSD License > > (http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/download/license.html). I think it is > > DFSG-compliant. > > > > The problem is that prior to downloading the tarball (at > > http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/download/download.html), the user is > > asked to fill a form in a web page. Our question is: does this > > restriction decrease somehow the freeness of the package? If yes, how > > should we proceed in approaching the upstream authors about this problem? > > I have contacted Radu Serban, one of the co-authors of SUNDIALS and he > was clear to state that this web form is just for the authors to have an idea > on SUNDIALS popularity, and that the BSD license obviously allows > redistribution/repackaging. So, I believe that there is no legal problem that > would preclude a SUNDIALS Debian package. > > Andrey Romanenko > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- This space for rent. Enquire within. Terms and conditions apply. See store for details. Get free domains - http://www.ezyrewards.com/?id=23484
Re: [Pkg-octave-devel] BSD-licensed upstream tarball but needs form filled
Hello, On Tuesday 29 November 2005 16:52, Rafael Laboissiere wrote: > We are seeking advice on how to proceed about an upstream tarball > distribution issue. The Debian Octave Group is planning to package the > SUNDIALS library (http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/main.html) for > integration into Octave. This package is released under a BSD License > (http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/download/license.html). I think it is > DFSG-compliant. > > The problem is that prior to downloading the tarball (at > http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/download/download.html), the user is > asked to fill a form in a web page. Our question is: does this > restriction decrease somehow the freeness of the package? If yes, how > should we proceed in approaching the upstream authors about this problem? I have contacted Radu Serban, one of the co-authors of SUNDIALS and he was clear to state that this web form is just for the authors to have an idea on SUNDIALS popularity, and that the BSD license obviously allows redistribution/repackaging. So, I believe that there is no legal problem that would preclude a SUNDIALS Debian package. Andrey Romanenko -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: BSD-licensed upstream tarball but needs form filled
Rafael Laboissiere wrote: > The problem is that prior to downloading the tarball (at > http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/download/download.html), the user is > asked to fill a form in a web page. Our question is: does this > restriction decrease somehow the freeness of the package? If yes, how > should we proceed in approaching the upstream authors about this problem? Nowhere is it stated that registration is a mandatory part of getting the license. It would seem that, once one person registers and downloads the software, that one person may distribute the software in accordance with the BSD license. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch & European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
BSD-licensed upstream tarball but needs form filled
We are seeking advice on how to proceed about an upstream tarball distribution issue. The Debian Octave Group is planning to package the SUNDIALS library (http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/main.html) for integration into Octave. This package is released under a BSD License (http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/download/license.html). I think it is DFSG-compliant. The problem is that prior to downloading the tarball (at http://www.llnl.gov/CASC/sundials/download/download.html), the user is asked to fill a form in a web page. Our question is: does this restriction decrease somehow the freeness of the package? If yes, how should we proceed in approaching the upstream authors about this problem? -- Rafael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clarification regarding PHP License and DFSG status
Charles Fry > The one big thing that everyone in this thread has missed is that we are > trying to establish the utility of this licence to software explicitely > distributed by the PHP Group at php.net in Pear or Pecl. Distributing it doesn't mean much. They don't hold the copyright to all the packages under this licence. It would be a *big* help to either make the licence generic or clearly invalid for other users. If used for software where the copyright is held by the PHP Group, clause 4 still contradicts itself, but no other problems remain IMO. This licence is used for other software and PHP Group can fix it, instead of people claiming that we're only interested in PHP Group. Why won't PHP Group be good neighbours and stop wasting everyone's time with their vanity licence? I'm glad to see that PEAR will advise against using the licence. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Review needed: Gentium font re-released under the SIL Open ?Font License
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >The current Open Font License appears to have excessive restrictions >upon the names of modified works. The Gentium font licence in particular >reserves these terms: While this may be annoying, I can't see why it should not be DFSG-free. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
