Re: clarification of doc licensing for db3/db4.2
(I believe the DPL has changed since my last request, so I'm resending this request for assistance; I'm also adding debian-release to the CC list as this concerns a potential stable update and a potential pre-etch migration, and the DB maintenance team). hey AJ, We are in need of some assistance on a matter of licensing. In June of 2004, a bug was filed noting that the db4.2 documentation is under a clearly non-free license. This also happens to be true for the db3 package as well. The history of this issue is well documented in #256332, but I'll try to summarize here for your benefit. Sleepycat (the copyright holder at the time) was contacted, and they quickly responded and agreed to change this licensing for future releases. Indeed, this is no longer an issue in the = db4.3 packages. However; since that time we have continued shipping the db3 and db4.2 packages in main, and these packages were included in the sarge release. And, though there is hope that we'll be able to drop these packages before etch, they do still exist in sid/etch today. I resurrected this issue recently by reinitiating contact with Mike Olson. Mike acted as our legal contact at Sleepycat, which has since been acquired by Oracle. I asked if it would be possible to have this older documentation retroactively relicensed so that we may continue shipping it. Mike noted that this would not be an insignificant amount of work, and would like an authoritative statement from Debian that we consider this relicensing necessary. It is worth pointing out that, from what I've read in the archives, Mike has been very supportive and responsive to Debian requests in the past. I think its clear that we need to resolve this before the release of etch. As I see it, possible actions we can take include: * Removal of these packages from sid/etch, requiring a migration of all reverse dependencies to a newer version of db * Obtain relicensed copies of the documentation from Oracle * Remove the documentation from these source packages What's less clear is what we should do about sarge - should we update these packages in the current stable release? We are in the process of doing this for cyrus-sasl2 (#357527), so there is at least on example of precedence. It was also noted that there is a precedence for ignoring documentation licensing issues in sarge. I am looking for some guidance about how I should go about seeking an authoritative Debian position. My suggestion would be to make this a DPL-delegated decision to a subgroup of interested developers, including members of the legal, release, and db packaging teams (assuming you believe such a decision is a valid use of delegation). -- dann frazier -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
bugsx is non-free?
Hi, When preparing my next upload of bugsx to fix an unrelated RC bug, I decided to check whether the current debian/copyright file correctly reflects the license of the software. There's a COPYING file in the main directory with GPLv1 text in it, so at first glance it does. However after closer investigation (since the sheer existence of such file does not count as a license statement) it turns out it does not. Here's a snippet from README: | 2) Distribution Policy | | Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software for | any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that this | copyright notice appear in all copies as well as supporting | documentation. All work developed as a consequence of the use of | this program should duly acknowledge such use. | | See the GNU General Public Licence for more information. | | What does this mean? | This means that you can pretty much do with it what you want as | long as you don't charge substantially more than the distribution | costs for it (of course you have to make the source available). | | This makes software distributions like Walnut Creek or Infomagic | perfectly acceptable. | | It does NOT matter wether you use it at home or in a comercial | environment. | | If you want to include it in a major commercial distribution you | need my permission to do so. To me, this seems like an attempt to combine GPLv1 with an additional condition that distribution is allowed only provided distributor does not charge for the software itself. So it seems to me it's against DFSG#1, and thus non-free. Is this correct? Marcin -- Marcin Owsiany [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://marcin.owsiany.pl/ GnuPG: 1024D/60F41216 FE67 DA2D 0ACA FC5E 3F75 D6F6 3A0D 8AA0 60F4 1216 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: bugsx is non-free?
Marcin Owsiany writes: Hi, When preparing my next upload of bugsx to fix an unrelated RC bug, I decided to check whether the current debian/copyright file correctly reflects the license of the software. There's a COPYING file in the main directory with GPLv1 text in it, so at first glance it does. However after closer investigation (since the sheer existence of such file does not count as a license statement) it turns out it does not. Here's a snippet from README: | 2) Distribution Policy | | Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software for | any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that this | copyright notice appear in all copies as well as supporting | documentation. All work developed as a consequence of the use of | this program should duly acknowledge such use. | | See the GNU General Public Licence for more information. | | What does this mean? | This means that you can pretty much do with it what you want as | long as you don't charge substantially more than the distribution | costs for it (of course you have to make the source available). | | This makes software distributions like Walnut Creek or Infomagic | perfectly acceptable. | | It does NOT matter wether you use it at home or in a comercial | environment. | | If you want to include it in a major commercial distribution you | need my permission to do so. To me, this seems like an attempt to combine GPLv1 with an additional condition that distribution is allowed only provided distributor does not charge for the software itself. So it seems to me it's against DFSG#1, and thus non-free. Is this correct? This is what we usually call a lawyerbomb; a halfway decent lawyer could make a case either way. The first paragraph is MIT-like, the second invokes the GPL, the rest is listed under the What does this mean? heading that makes it sound like a non-binding interpretation by the author -- which is hazardous since the last paragraph you quote is not supported by either of the first two paragraphs. The best way to resolve a lawyerbomb is to contact upstream and ask them to clarify it one way or the other. If upstream is unreachable, the question isn't really resolveable. If upstream declines to clarify (or clarifies by removing mention of the GPL), that is a clear indication that it is non-free. Ideally, of course, upstream would clarify by specifying a known DFSG-free license for the software. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
