Re: Missing licenses in upstream source files
Ben Finney wrote: [note: quotations in random order] (We're now in ‘debian-legal’ territory; please follow up there.) Too often, though, such files are a set of license *terms* only (e.g. the text of the GPL), with no copyright status or explicit *grant* of license. That's not enough for Debian to know the rights of recipients: mere inclusion of license terms is not a grant of license under those terms. I don't agree. Only in journals you will find copyright notice and author on every pages. Don't mean that there are copyright problem on my favorite book, in inner pages. I think it the same for sources. You could write the license (or a reference) on every file, or you could write only a general file (e.g. COPYING), if it is clear that the license cover all the files. This is true particularly for small programs. On large programs or when there are multiple licenses I recommend upstreams to put a copyright notice and license for every important file (i.e. sources and non-trivial header files). IANAL, but other contributors are not listed in the legal header, but still copyright owner, so the same assumptions we do: not all contributor are listed, and same license as top header we could do the same assumptions for file without explicit legal notice (but with a top level license and an AUTHOR-like file). See below: What is needed is an explicit copyright notice and grant of license. An example: Copyright 2009 Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au You have permission to copy, modify, and redistribute under the terms of the WTFPL. For full license terms, see LICENSE.txt. That is, we need the copyright status (who holds it, when did it begin) and explicit grant of license (what the recipient is permitted to do with the work) to be unambiguous for every part of the work. Or in other words, you need enough explicit information, from the copyright holder, to write the ‘debian/copyright’ file. If the referenced file has *all* of that, and every part of the work is unambiguously covered by it, it's enough. There are not such thing as unambiguous ;-) I sent you few patches: patch A: a patch to correct a typo patch B: a patch to enhance the WTFP (code-only patch, without touching the legal header). and I did a NMU: patch C: a not yet defined patch You (as most of upstream) incorporated patches A and B in your sources, without further reference (but maybe on a CREDIT file or changelog). Are you still the only copyright owner? I don't think so. What license on my modification? the same license (or public domain?) If you want to relicense the program to WTFAOPL, did you need my permission? A tangent question: What about patch C: note in debian/copyright I wrote that packing things are licensed with the WTFPL4 [Note that dh-make on GPL2 only program uses GPL3 for packaging license]. My interpretation is that patch C will have the original license and only debian/* have the WTFPL4. ciao cate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Missing licenses in upstream source files
* Giacomo A. Catenazzi c...@debian.org [090320 10:08]: Too often, though, such files are a set of license *terms* only (e.g. the text of the GPL), with no copyright status or explicit *grant* of license. That's not enough for Debian to know the rights of recipients: mere inclusion of license terms is not a grant of license under those terms. I don't agree. Only in journals you will find copyright notice and author on every pages. Don't mean that there are copyright problem on my favorite book, in inner pages. I think it the same for sources. You could write the license (or a reference) on every file, or you could write only a general file (e.g. COPYING), if it is clear that the license cover all the files. While I agree that a single licence grant suffices, two limitations: 1) The grant should be in a form that it is reasonable to believe it fits two the whole content: a) simply a COPYING file in the tarball with the GPL in it does not suffice, and especially not if the package uses autotools. As when those are called the wrong way (i.e. without arguments), they just copy the file in. Also in other cases just copying a license file in is hard to take as an grant of an license, a little sentence above the license or in the documentation or somewhere else like this program is available under is a grant in my non-lawyerish eyes. b) when package contains materials from obviously different origin[1], it is far too likely that something went wrong upstream, so better ask for clarification. 2) When being in upstream role or making suggestions to upstream, please choose the one license grant per non-trivial file approach. It makes lives easier for all people much easier. Especially as code tends to hitch-hike in other programs. When you then have some code that every search engine shows you is copied from somewhere else, but you do not know where it origins from or if it actually has a free license, things get ugly... Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link [1] like sources with different coding style, or code and other things like images and so on. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Missing licenses in upstream source files
Giacomo A. Catenazzi c...@debian.org writes: Ben Finney wrote: Too often, though, such files are a set of license *terms* only (e.g. the text of the GPL), with no copyright status or explicit *grant* of license. That's not enough for Debian to know the rights of recipients: mere inclusion of license terms is not a grant of license under those terms. I don't agree. Only in journals you will find copyright notice and author on every pages. Don't mean that there are copyright problem on my favorite book, in inner pages. I think it the same for sources. You could write the license (or a reference) on every file, or you could write only a general file (e.g. COPYING), if it is clear that the license cover all the files. This is true particularly for small programs. On large programs or when there are multiple licenses I recommend upstreams to put a copyright notice and license for every important file (i.e. sources and non-trivial header files). Since this concurs with what I said, it seems we agree. I don't know who you're disagreeing with, but I'm glad we're of the same opinion. -- \“When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to | `\ ask is if they ever press charges.” —Jack Handey | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Last Call: How To Get Flip Funding For Your Deals. Do Wet Closings.
there's a dirty little secret that the others won't tell you. When the house you want to flip is a Short Sale or Bank Owned REO For'eclosure, you'll need 2 things to get in the game. Proof of Funds in many (not all) cases, Transactional Funding, or what I call 1 Day Dough. Kellie Brown here, inviting you to join me on my fr'ee webinar happening this SATURDAY 3/21/09 at 12:00 Noon East, 9:00 AM West, where I'm going to share the secrets of doing flip deals that generate fast ca'sh in this market - right now. My goal for you is one or more deal per month in your spare time. You with me? To Register go to: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/522323254 If you missed it last Wed. evening you're in luck because I'm going to do the training again live on Saturday. If you're already registered, you're all set. Consider this a reminder to attend. If you're not yet registered, do it now because we filled right up on Wed and will again. Talk to you Saturday. Kellie Brown Kellie Brown Dandrew Media LLC 10161 Park Run Drive, Suite 150 Las Vegas, NV 89145 www.dandrewmedia.com http://app.streamsend.com/private/w4D0/NeX/jLRZnWz/unsubscribe/3320542
Creative Commons CC0
Hello d-legal, with the recent release of CC0 by Creative Commons, I wonder what your opinions on it are about using this for software that might be included in Debian? Regards, Max signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Creative Commons CC0
On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Maximilian Gaß wrote: with the recent release of CC0 by Creative Commons, I wonder what your opinions on it are about using this for software that might be included in Debian? Since it is meant as a more universal public domain dedication, I'd expect it would meet the DFSG. Here is a copy/paste of the the legal code for CC0 1.0 Universal for -legal regulars to dissect: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode CC0 1.0 Universal CREATIVE COMMONS CORPORATION IS NOT A LAW FIRM AND DOES NOT PROVIDE LEGAL SERVICES. DISTRIBUTION OF THIS DOCUMENT DOES NOT CREATE AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP. CREATIVE COMMONS PROVIDES THIS INFORMATION ON AN AS-IS BASIS. CREATIVE COMMONS MAKES NO WARRANTIES REGARDING THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENT OR THE INFORMATION OR WORKS PROVIDED HEREUNDER, AND DISCLAIMS LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENT OR THE INFORMATION OR WORKS PROVIDED HEREUNDER. Statement of Purpose The laws of most jurisdictions throughout the world automatically confer exclusive Copyright and Related Rights (defined below) upon the creator and subsequent owner(s) (each and all, an owner) of an original work of authorship and/or a database (each, a Work). Certain owners wish to permanently relinquish those rights to a Work for the purpose of contributing to a commons of creative, cultural and scientific works (Commons) that the public can reliably and without fear of later claims of infringement build upon, modify, incorporate in other works, reuse and redistribute as freely as possible in any form whatsoever and for any purposes, including without limitation commercial purposes. These owners may contribute to the Commons to promote the ideal of a free culture and the further production of creative, cultural and scientific works, or to gain reputation or greater distribution for their Work in part through the use and efforts of others. For these and/or other purposes and motivations, and without any expectation of additional consideration or compensation, the person associating CC0 with a Work (the Affirmer), to the extent that he or she is an owner of Copyright and Related Rights in the Work, voluntarily elects to apply CC0 to the Work and publicly distribute the Work under its terms, with knowledge of his or her Copyright and Related Rights in the Work and the meaning and intended legal effect of CC0 on those rights. 1. Copyright and Related Rights. A Work made available under CC0 may be protected by copyright and related or neighboring rights (Copyright and Related Rights). Copyright and Related Rights include, but are not limited to, the following: 1. the right to reproduce, adapt, distribute, perform, display, communicate, and translate a Work; 2. moral rights retained by the original author(s) and/or performer(s); 3. publicity and privacy rights pertaining to a person's image or likeness depicted in a Work; 4. rights protecting against unfair competition in regards to a Work, subject to the limitations in paragraph 4(a), below; 5. rights protecting the extraction, dissemination, use and reuse of data in a Work; 6. database rights (such as those arising under Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases, and under any national implementation thereof, including any amended or successor version of such directive); and 7. other similar, equivalent or corresponding rights throughout the world based on applicable law or treaty, and any national implementations thereof. 2. Waiver. To the greatest extent permitted by, but not in contravention of, applicable law, Affirmer hereby overtly, fully, permanently, irrevocably and unconditionally waives, abandons, and surrenders all of Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights and associated claims and causes of action, whether now known or unknown (including existing as well as future claims and causes of action), in the Work (i) in all territories worldwide, (ii) for the maximum duration provided by applicable law or treaty (including future time extensions), (iii) in any current or future medium and for any number of copies, and (iv) for any purpose whatsoever, including without limitation commercial, advertising or promotional purposes (the Waiver). Affirmer makes the Waiver for the benefit of each member of the public at large and to the detriment of Affirmer's heirs and successors, fully intending that such Waiver shall not be subject to revocation, rescission, cancellation, termination, or any other legal or equitable action to disrupt the quiet enjoyment of the Work by the public as contemplated by Affirmer's express Statement of Purpose. 3. Public License Fallback. Should any part of the Waiver for any reason be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law, then the Waiver shall be preserved to the maximum extent permitted taking into account Affirmer's express Statement of
Re: Creative Commons CC0
On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Paul Wise p...@debian.org wrote: Here is a copy/paste of the the legal code for CC0 1.0 Universal for -legal regulars to dissect: I should also point out the human-readable summary: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ CC0 1.0 Universal No Copyright This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works. * The person who associated a work with this document has dedicated this work to the Commons by waiving all of his or her rights to the work under copyright law and all related or neighboring legal rights he or she had in the work, to the extent allowable by law. * Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by CC0: o Patent or trademark rights held by the person who associated this document with a work. o Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights. The word publicity above links here: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#When_are_publicity_rights_relevant.3F -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
