Re: Anki logo copyright question
On Tue, Sep 05, 2017 at 02:27:00PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > > Under the following conditions, Anki's logo may be included in blogs, > > newspaper articles, books, videos and other such material about Anki. > > These actions would seem to already be licensed by the AGPLv3, without > these additonal conditions. They aren't. The AGPL requires the source to be made available too, which can be painful to deal with on blogs etc. That is most likely what the extra provisions are trying to make more "liberal". Mike
Re: Github TOS effecting change to copylefts?
On Wed, Mar 08, 2017 at 07:46:29AM +0100, Ulrich Mueller wrote: > > On Tue, 7 Mar 2017, Gunnar Wolf wrote: > > > The best analysis of this situation I have read so far is the one in > > Noodles' blog: > > > https://www.earth.li/~noodles/blog/2017/03/github-tos-change.html > > IMHO that analysis misses one point. Namely, in section D.4 "License > Grant to Us" the Github ToS have: > > "That means you're giving us the right to do things like reproduce > your content [...]; modify it [...]" > > Which requires that any file uploaded to Github must come with the > permission to modify it. Not a problem for free software, one would > think. However, if your package is GPL licensed then you cannot > include the COPYING file itself, because it would be in conflict with > above terms. > > "Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this > license document, but changing it is not allowed." You're subtly omitting what the "modify it" applies to, though... the text reads: "modify it (so our server can do things like parse it into a search index)". Now, let's go back in time a few weeks, before that ToS existed. What do you think github was doing with all the files there are in github repositories, to have the search function working? Has anything changed about that in the past 2 weeks? No. Now, the question is: 2 weeks ago, was github legally allowed to do it? Whoever wrote that ToS thinks that was a rather gray area that needed clarification. So, if the new ToS doesn't allow you to put something on github, ask yourself this question: were you actually legally allowed to put it on github in the first place? (That said, I don't think parsing a document into a search index falls into "changing it is not allowed", which applies to distributing copies of the file ; although one could be anal about it and say that formatting it in HTML is distributing a modified copy) Mike
Re: Non-free postscript code in EPS image
On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 06:24:25AM +, Bart Martens wrote: On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 05:01:07PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 12:45:27AM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: even when portions are copyright other people/entities. If there is a hint to distrust what people claim about their work, I see no way how a judge could believe a But I was told it is if one did not at least check what hints one got. If someone claims he has a license from Adobe, then well, believe him unless you run into some statement from Adobe that they do not give away any licenses like that. If someone just claims it is under a free license but does not even refer to those parts having a different copyright, then it gets unlikely enough in my eyes that one has to assume the default of the law: no permission at all. This notion of documenting the copyright of every single line of every single file is a new development in Debian - and not a healthy one. Every copyright notice means that there is at least a part copyrighted by the mentioned copyright holder. Every? Like this one, that can be found in /bin/true on some systems? ---8-- # Copyright (c) 1984 ATT # All Rights Reserved # THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF ATT # The copyright notice above does not evidence any # actual or intended publication of such source code. #ident@(#)cmd/true.sh50.1 ---8-- (and the file had *no* other content) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120801064000.ga12...@glandium.org
Re: Non-free postscript code in EPS image
On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 05:20:29PM +, Bart Martens wrote: On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 08:40:00AM +0200, Mike Hommey wrote: On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 06:24:25AM +, Bart Martens wrote: Every copyright notice means that there is at least a part copyrighted by the mentioned copyright holder. Every? Yes. Like this one, that can be found in /bin/true on some systems? ---8-- # Copyright (c) 1984 ATT # All Rights Reserved # THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF ATT # The copyright notice above does not evidence any # actual or intended publication of such source code. #ident@(#)cmd/true.sh50.1 ---8-- (and the file had *no* other content) The copyright notice Copyright (c) 1984 ATT in that file means that ATT is copyright holder of at least part of that file. The presence of a copyright notice doesn't mean it is reflecting any reality, especially in generated files. In the above example, there isn't even anything to copyright besides the copyright notice itself. If you redirect gdb output to a file, it will contain a copyright notice from the FSF. It doesn't mean the file is copyrighted by the FSF. Quite similarly, it's not because you found copyright strings by grepping an EPS that some content in the EPS is actually under that copyright. And even if there is content under that copyright, as someone else said in the thread, it doesn't tell anything about the corresponding license. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120801180343.ga22...@glandium.org
Re: Packaging the MeeGo stack on Debian - Use the name ?
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:16:28PM +0100, Francesco Poli wrote: On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:26:02 -0600 Steve Langasek wrote: On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 04:16:46AM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: [...] Unfortunately, there's no way that Debian can possibly comply with the compliance specification as written. [I only got as far as §2.3 to find an obvious deal-breaker.] This sounds like yet another case where an unbranded name[1] is required for actual use in the community, ala iceweasel. This situation is not analogous to the iceweasel case. For iceweasel, there was a copyright license on the graphics included in firefox that imposed trademark-like restrictions; so under the DFSG the graphics had to go, and the maintainer took the decision to also rename the package at the same time. That's not how I recall the Mozilla trademark issues. Quoting from http://lists.debian.org/debian-news/2006/msg00044.html : [...] | Firefox becomes Iceweasel. Due to trademark [47]issues the Debian | project felt impelled to rename the Firefox web browser to Iceweasel | and the Thunderbird mail client to Icedove. Roberto Sanchez | [48]explained that the new packages don't contain non-free artwork | from the [49]Mozilla Foundation and that security updates will be | properly backported. The trademark [50]policy requires that such | packages are not distributed under the original name, hence the new | names. | | 47. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/12/msg00328.html | 48. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/10/msg00665.html | 49. http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/ | 50. http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html [...] As far as I understand it, the issue was that the Mozilla Foundation wanted the Debian Project to distribute their products under their trademarked names, with their non-free graphical logos and only with selected patches approved by them (solution A). If these terms could not be complied with (and they were too restrictive for the Debian Project, obviously), then the graphical logos had to be removed, and the packages renamed (solution B). It's simpler than that, really. The logo was non-free, which meant we couldn't use it. So we shipped firefox without the logo. Mozilla didn't want something called firefox without the logo. End of story. The patch policy is completely orthogonal. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110112235150.ga14...@glandium.org
Re: Inappropriate use of Debian logo.
On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 05:24:05PM -0600, Michael Cassano wrote: I didn't get the exact parameters needed to obtain Debian's logo, but I did show that they are not default. But you didn't show they aren't trivial to unpurposefully reproduce. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20101202114944.ga8...@glandium.org
Re: Inappropriate use of Debian logo.
On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 10:40:55AM -0600, Michael Cassano wrote: Correct, I swirled it too much, that is my point. What are the odds that the blue logo in question swirled their logo pixel-for-pixel the same as Debian's? I believe the odds are low given the couple minutes of work I put into using the tool (Illustrator). I'd say that pretty much depends on the actual values needed to get the pixel-for-pixel same result (radius, decay, segments). If they're values like 53 or 89, the odds are effectively low. If they're values like 50 or 80, the odds are much higher. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20101201170216.ga30...@glandium.org
Re: Inappropriate use of Debian logo.
On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 02:50:04PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 10:36:44AM +0100, Alessandro Rubini wrote: FYI - A computer shop has taken the Debian logo and used it for his business. http://imgur.com/gFKfs.jpg Thank you for making this jpeg, it's very clear. [...] The comapny Logo was created by photoshop and Logo software, we desgined it from the stretch. if you have somethins to say, give us a call. Unfortunately, they may be right and in good faith. This message confirms the swirl is just one of the defaults: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/06/msg00340.html This is an unsubstantiated claim that has been repeated ad absurdum on the lists for years. Sure, it uses a default brush. But who has demonstrated that the exact swirl pattern can be reproduced trivially by accident? No one. When companies show up with a logo that reproduces your exact *application* of the brush, angle for angle down to the pixel, it stretches credulity to claim that this occurred to them independently. Until someone gives the exact parameters needed to obtain the same result, there is no way to conclusively say whether this is trivial to accidentally reproduce or not. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20101201232155.ga6...@glandium.org
Re: Another extended BSD licence :-/
On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 01:39:33PM +0200, Simon Richter wrote: The first three paragraphs look like a BSD licence to me, paragraph four is a personal rant from the authors. Apart from the obvious (remove everything following no x86-only assembly code...), what else would be needed to make this a valid licence suitable for inclusion into non-free? I can see: - it is not specified to whom you need to provide source - You may not turn this... would be implied in the next sentence - the bit about portability is pretty vague. I'm going to try to convince the authors to use the GPL, but given their aversion to OSS politics I'm not sure that will work. :/ Try to convince them to use BSD, which would only imply removing their crappy addition to it. That rant has nothing to do in a license text. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100817120910.gb4...@glandium.org
Re: BOINC: lib/cal.h license issue agree with the DFSG?
On Sat, Jan 02, 2010 at 03:43:53PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: On Sat, 02 Jan 2010, Nicolas Alvarez wrote: Francesco Poli wrote: Where is this proprietary library distributed? In AMD website. If the user downloads it and installs it, BOINC will use it, and will be able to detect your ATI cards. In order to use the proprietary library, it uses the function declarations in the cal.h header distributed with the package. It seems like AMD should really be distributing these header files with a maximum permissive license like MIT/Expat or similar. Perhaps someone should contact them and try to get it to happen? Or maybe nobody should care, because they don't contain anything copyrightable ? (except maybe comments) Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 02:08:14PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Eion Robb e...@robbmob.com writes: There's no “fair use” in trademark law AFAIK. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=trademark+law+fair+usel=1 (Leads to URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use_(U.S._trademark_law)) Okay, so it seems (according to Wikipedia) that the USA does recognise a “trademark fair use”, which *does* allow referring to the product (using the mark “nominatively”): In the United States, trademark law includes a fair use defense, sometimes called trademark fair use to distinguish it from the better-known fair use doctrine in copyright. […] A nonowner may also use a trademark nominatively—to refer to the actual trademarked product or its source. […] This does, to my mind, permit using the mark to say “this product supports that other product and/or service”, and doesn't need the trademark holder's permission. Whether other jurisdictions have a similar allowance, I don't know. More than the trademark fair use problem, there is one of a license one: Are these logo really free ? (keep in mind that for example, the Firefox logo is not, whatever the trademark status is) Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 05:52:22PM +0800, Paul Wise wrote: On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Mike Hommey m...@glandium.org wrote: More than the trademark fair use problem, there is one of a license one: Are these logo really free ? (keep in mind that for example, the Firefox logo is not, whatever the trademark status is) The initial mail in this thread was about CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 icons, so no, they're non-free. The pidgin-facebookchat icons seem free (GPLv3) though. Well, that's what they claim, but what is the real status ? A wild guess is that most icons that are present in packages have been picked from the web sites (or equivalent) themselves. These icons are most probably *not* under the license of the surrounding software. For example, I have serious doubts about the freeness of the search engine icons in iceweasel (the ones on the top right of the UI). Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:31:30PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Those are (as far as I understand) published by the OpenSearch protocol, and explicitly sent using that protocol by the search provider as “an image that can be used in association with this search content” URL:http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/1.1#The_.22Image.22_element. I think any party publishing the image via that protocol would have a hard time trying to argue that it's not allowed to be shown in the UI for that search provider. It's not because the images are allowed to be shown in the UI that they magically become free under the DFSG. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Search provider icons in web browsers (was: Skype/Facebook trademark logos in Debian packages)
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:57:12PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Mike Hommey m...@glandium.org writes: On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:31:30PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Those are (as far as I understand) published by the OpenSearch protocol, and explicitly sent using that protocol by the search provider as “an image that can be used in association with this search content” URL:http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/1.1#The_.22Image.22_element. I think any party publishing the image via that protocol would have a hard time trying to argue that it's not allowed to be shown in the UI for that search provider. It's not because the images are allowed to be shown in the UI that they magically become free under the DFSG. That's quite true, good point. Is it the case, then, that the icons are shipped by Debian? Or are they downloaded when the web browser first reads the user's list of search providers? They are shipped by debian. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Search provider icons in web browsers
On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 01:23:09AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Mike Hommey m...@glandium.org writes: On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:57:12PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: Mike Hommey m...@glandium.org writes: On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:31:30PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote: [web browser search provider icons made available by provider] URL:http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/1.1#The_.22Image.22_element. [making OpenSearch image available doesn't imply DFSG-free terms] That's quite true, good point. Is it the case, then, that the icons are shipped by Debian? Or are they downloaded when the web browser first reads the user's list of search providers? They are shipped by debian. Okay. Would it be appropriate to report a bug against Iceweasel to avoid shipping those images, and instead have them loaded from OpenSearch URLs when starting the browser? That way they'd clearly be not part of the Debian operating system. Please do file such a bug. Please also file one against iceape. It would help if someone could check whether these icons are available only, preferably on the sites themselves. Do you think upstream (MozCorp) would have a useful opinion on the license terms of those images, or is there such an opinion online already that you can reference? I will check with them. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: distributing precompiled binaries
On Thu, Apr 02, 2009 at 07:38:39PM +0100, Dave Howe wrote: MJ Ray wrote: So where did the above PDF and PS are programming languages argument come from? References, please! PDF and PS *are* programming languages, and quite powerful ones. However, they are entirely interpreted - the output of a pdf compiler would be a static image, not a pdf document, as pdf is the source (if that makes sense) PDF and PS documents are often mechanically generated - they are transformed from some other document format - but that doesn't mean that they are compiled code. The transform is more like a preprocessor pass - the output is still valid source, just not the same source as was originally written. I would direct you to http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/foster/postscript.html for your amusement - the first example is a fairly impressive raytracing program written in postscript. Or http://www.pugo.org/main/project_pshttpd/ Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: bash completion script licensing
On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 09:53:06PM +, Matthew Johnson wrote: On Fri Jan 02 19:50, Mike Hommey wrote: As the GPL and CDDL are incompatible, as GPL code has some strange interactions with other code (library linkage, etc.), and as I'm not sure how sourced bash scripts are supposed to be considered in this context, I wonder if having such a CDDL bash script would be problematic license-wise. There would be no problem with a CDDL bash script per-se, any more than there would be with a CDDL jpeg or a GPL word document. I suppose you could argue that since it is modifying the behaviour of one of bash's built-in functions it counts under the (already dubious) GPL linkage clause, but I think it would be a stretch. I'd add that require or import in perl, python, ruby, etc. fall under the GPL linkage clause. Why would bash's source not ? Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: bash completion script licensing
On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 10:06:53AM +, Matthew Johnson wrote: On Sat Jan 03 09:22, Mike Hommey wrote: On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 09:53:06PM +, Matthew Johnson wrote: On Fri Jan 02 19:50, Mike Hommey wrote: As the GPL and CDDL are incompatible, as GPL code has some strange interactions with other code (library linkage, etc.), and as I'm not sure how sourced bash scripts are supposed to be considered in this context, I wonder if having such a CDDL bash script would be problematic license-wise. There would be no problem with a CDDL bash script per-se, any more than there would be with a CDDL jpeg or a GPL word document. I suppose you could argue that since it is modifying the behaviour of one of bash's built-in functions it counts under the (already dubious) GPL linkage clause, but I think it would be a stretch. I'd add that require or import in perl, python, ruby, etc. fall under the GPL linkage clause. Why would bash's source not ? Yes, but they aren't linking with _perl itself_ but rather with the other perl script they are imported to. Now, you might not be able to use such a bash completion script if your ~/.bashrc is licenced under the GPL (-; Also, rereading the OP, the licence of other bash completion scripts _might_ be an issue, but I don't think the licence of bash itself is an issue. Well, actually the license of bash itself may be an issue because if I'm not mistaken, /etc/bash_completion that sources all other bash completion scripts and has already quite a lot of completions already implemented, comes with bash. Anyways, even if it didn't come with bash, the /etc/bash_completion script is still under the GPL (cf. its header). Now, independently of licenses for any script in /etc/bash_completion.d, there may be a problem with /etc/bash_completion, so my original question comes back: does that make a problem? Mike PS: Note that if we do have valid arguments, we may well be able to have the original script be relicensed under a non conflicting license. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: firmware-nonfree : ipw2200 ?
On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 01:15:10AM +0200, Frank Lin PIAT wrote: Hello, [CC'ing since someone may have the answer] I have just tested Lenny on a laptop[1] with an Intel Pro Wireless 2200 chipset. As you probably known the kernel module ipw2200 requires a non-free firmware. I'm wondering why it hasn't been packaged yet (since that card was fairly common). The license question was brought to debian-legal[1] and it seems there was no barrier. Of course, the boring part is that 1. It's non-free and 2. We must prompt the user to approve the license. - Do you know why the firmware was never shipped in Debian? Because its license, contrary to other intel wireless firmware license forbids redistributing. Which means we can't even distribute it in non-free. - If I provide a patch, do you think if have a chance to be in Lenny? Except if the license changed, no chance. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Apple patent on Dock affecting dock packages ?
On Thu, Oct 09, 2008 at 07:40:15PM +0200, Julien Lavergne wrote: Hi, There is now a patent for Apple of the concept of Dock. Is there a risk for all dock packages in Debian, such as avant-window-navigator ? FWIW, the patent is more about zooming docks like the OSX one than plain docks. I don't know how the different claims are to be understood individually, but some are detailing the zoom factors with algebraic formulas. IANAL, but patents are not supposed to protect ideas, but implementations. It is at least true in the hardware industry. It often happens that companies circumvent competitor patents by implementing the same idea in another way, sometimes even filing a patent for the new implementation. Maybe different implementations of the same idea would be fine. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Desert island test
On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 12:09:33PM -0800, Sean Kellogg wrote: On Friday 29 February 2008 02:21:51 am Miriam Ruiz wrote: 2008/2/28, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED]: An actual cite to the DFSG, but it is from before my time... of course, there is no explanation of how a licenses in which any changes must be sent to some specific place violates: 1. Free redistribution. 1. Free Redistribution: The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software [...] You are restricting people who lack the ability to send the changes back, put in a web page, or just being in a desert island. If you happened to have a plane accident (ref: Lost) and end up in a desert place unconnected to the rest of the world, and happened to have a computer and a Debian DVD there, you wouldn't be allowed -according to the license- to modify it or distribute it among the rest of the people in that place. That also applies to the dissident test, if you're in a country (dictatorship or so) where distributing some software is severely punished for some reason, you wouldn't be able to comply with those license terms (you couldn't set up a web page and put the program online), and thus you couldn't give a copy of it to your neighbor next door. You're restricting some people from selling or giving away the software. Well, I'm not 100% convinced I'm up for a fight about the tests themselves, but I'll parry this particular argument and we'll see where it takes us. The provision that I must post changes does not restrict ones ability to sell or give away the software, it simply imposes a constraint. This constraint is in no way different than the constrain imposed by the GPL that source code must accompany the binary. Allow me to propose my own convenient test, which I refer to as the Bloody Murderer Test: While walking down the street, you are accosted by a a deranged lunatic hell-bent on the destruction of the Free Software Foundation with particular emphasis on undermining the GPL. He tells you that if you distribute any code licensed under the GPL with the corresponding source code, he will hunt you down and kill you in cold blood. If we follow the logic of the Desert Island test (or the even more fun Dissident test), we plainly see that the GPL fails the Bloody Murderer Test. Or, we can say, the license isn't what is dictating the distributability (probably not an actual word...), but rather, it is the individuals situation that is doing the dictating. I, for one, don't believe debian should be in the business of ensuring every license covers every possible scenario a debian user might possibly, some day, find themselves in. You're taking it in the wrong order. The GPL doesn't forbid you to distribute the code because of the bloody murderer. The dissident and the desert island tests are about restrictions *inside* the license, related to some situations. Here, you just expose a situation. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: About Logo License
On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 10:15:00AM +0100, Sam Hocevar wrote: On Mon, Dec 10, 2007, Steve Langasek wrote: To put it another way: whatever one thinks of the Debian logo policy, it seems harsh on OP to make him comply with a stricter interpretation of the DFSG than the Debian project currently applies to its own logo. The whole reason the licensing of the Debian logos is being changed is because the previous licensing made them unsuitable for use within the main archive. This is generally acknowledged as a bug, but shipping the official Debian logo within main is *also* a bug until the licensing is remedied. FWIW, there are no plans to change the official logo licensing as far as I know. Unless someone comes up with a suggestion that complies with trademark law, it will have to remain non-free if we want it to serve the purpose it was created for. Ask Sun, they BSD'd the Java Mascot, which is trademarked. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#451799: new evince cannot display Japanese characters correctly
On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 01:33:07PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 02:43:34PM +, John Halton wrote: On 28/11/2007, Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Based on a quick look, these files establish a correspondence between different character set encodings. Copyright protects creative expression. What is the creative part of this mapping? I can see two possible bases: character selection and ambiguity resolution. Can't speak for the US, but in the UK the standard for copyright protection is somewhat lower than creative expression. Generally, a work merely has to be original (i.e. not copied from elsewhere). However, a file consisting of mappings of this nature probably constitutes a database under UK law (and in other EU jurisdictions). In that case it only attracts protection if, and only if, by reason of the selection or arrangement of the contents of the database the database constitutes the author's own intellectual creation. I really doubt that this file would meet that test, or that it would reach the substantial investment test for the separate database right. That being said, I am not sure enough to risk it in court on my dime. I would hope that Adobe would be willing to provide the data with a DFSG-compatible license and/or a notice that makes it clear whether they think the mappings are protected by copyright. Well, quite. What I said above only goes to show how complex copyright questions can become, and that's only looking at one jurisdiction. I find it hard to believe Adobe could or would assert copyright here, but I'm no more willing than you to be the one who tests that hypothesis! FWIW, I believe a search of debian-legal archives will show that we've come to the same conclusion before about copyrightability of non-creative databases, and are already shipping a number of these in Debian. Even if not, an equivalent table could be be generated from the data in icu, iconv or anything else that deals with character set conversions, provided that the format is known. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: binary only files in orig.tar.gz of mozilla products on debian
On Sat, Nov 10, 2007 at 07:23:51PM +0530, Shriramana Sharma wrote: See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/121734 This does not seem to have been fixed in Debian, judging by the orig.tar.gz shown as got from upstream at: http://packages.debian.org/source/sid/iceweasel which is 42 MB as against Ubuntu's 34 MB seen at: http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/source/firefox which difference I presume is mainly because of Ubuntu's nobinonly modification. No. *This* makes the difference: $ tar -ztvf firefox_2.0.0.8+2nobinonly.orig.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- asac/asac 35077841 2007-10-19 00:53 firefox-2.0.0.8+2nobinonly/firefox-2.0.0.8-stripped-source.tar.bz2 Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: LGPL v3 compatibilty
On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 08:39:10AM +0100, Måns Rullgård [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 21:56:27 -0700 (PDT) Walter Landry wrote: Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 12:31:13 -0400 Anthony Towns wrote: [...] Note that _if_ we do stick to the view we've taken up until now, when we have a LGPLv3 only glibc in the archive, we'll no longer be able to distribute GPLv2-only compiled executables. Unless the GPLv2-only work copyright holder(s) add(s) a special exception, similar to the one needed to link with the OpenSSL library, right? This scenario is worrying me... :-( Is this going to be a problem for the kernel? It is definitely not going to go to GPLv3. Is the Linux kernel linked with any LGPL'd work? AFAIUI, it is not, so no problem for the kernel. Doesn't the kernel get its implementations for pow(), sqrt(), printf(), and the rest of the C standard library from glibc, which is LGPL'd? No. The kernel is completely self-contained. Some code may of course have been borrowed from glibc at some point, but that's irrelevant. Borrowed code *is* relevant, because you can't borrow code *and* change its license without authorization. What makes it irrelevant is that the borrowed code is LGPL'ed. And LGPL code can happily be relicensed to GPL, as stated in the LGPL text. Thus the kernel code that was borrowed from glibc is GPL. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 07:27:36PM +0200, Michelle Konzack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 2007-05-22 13:30:24, schrieb Sam Hocevar: 3. Nexenta: Despite their incompatibility, Debian accepts both the CDDL and GPLv2 as valid free software licences and would welcome any ^^ Can this start a flame now? (I mean cdrtools = Jürg Schilling?) Then the fork cdrkit was a shoot in the oven! The problem with cdrtools was not CDDL but the mix of CDDL and GPL, which are incompatibles. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Ion3 licence
On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 11:00:06AM +0100, Ben Hutchings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ben Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Stephen Gran [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This one time, at band camp, Francesco Poli said: On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:27:57 +0100 Ben Hutchings wrote: [...] While I doubt I would have trouble updating the package within 28 days of an upstream release, I doubt that Debian would like to commit to that, and certainly the package would have to remain unreleased. It would also require the package(s) to be moved to the non-free archive, I think. Then I think you've misread. Patch clauses and name change clauses are explicitly allowed under the DFSG They're explicitly allowed (though discouraged, as you noted) when the requirement is in place for *modified* works. The license in question is requiring a name change for even *unmodified* works, and that's non-free. But if I rename before uploading the package to Debian, then that provision is nullified. So I think the licence would then be free in so far as it applied to the Debian package. Right? Note the wording makes it pretty much apply to everything, including the renamed version debian would redistribute, so, for example, derivative distributions should use yet another name... Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Ion3 licence
On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 12:25:10PM +0100, Ben Hutchings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 2007-04-28 at 12:22 +0200, Mike Hommey wrote: On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 11:00:06AM +0100, Ben Hutchings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip But if I rename before uploading the package to Debian, then that provision is nullified. So I think the licence would then be free in so far as it applied to the Debian package. Right? Note the wording makes it pretty much apply to everything, including the renamed version debian would redistribute, so, for example, derivative distributions should use yet another name... Ah, I see the problem, but I'm sure that's unintentional and could be fixed. However, this is now moot as it seems others have persuaded him to use separate copyright (LGPL, as before) and trademark licences. To have a trademark license, ion3 should be a trademark in the first place. Is it ? Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Ion3 licence
On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 12:49:39PM +0100, Ben Hutchings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 2007-04-28 at 13:33 +0200, Mike Hommey wrote: On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 12:25:10PM +0100, Ben Hutchings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 2007-04-28 at 12:22 +0200, Mike Hommey wrote: On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 11:00:06AM +0100, Ben Hutchings [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip But if I rename before uploading the package to Debian, then that provision is nullified. So I think the licence would then be free in so far as it applied to the Debian package. Right? Note the wording makes it pretty much apply to everything, including the renamed version debian would redistribute, so, for example, derivative distributions should use yet another name... Ah, I see the problem, but I'm sure that's unintentional and could be fixed. However, this is now moot as it seems others have persuaded him to use separate copyright (LGPL, as before) and trademark licences. To have a trademark license, ion3 should be a trademark in the first place. Is it ? It's not a *registered* trademark, but it may yet be a trademark, as the author claims. I don't think we really want to test that claim, do we? IANAL, but I think you can hardly have a trademark license if it's not registered. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Ion3 licence
On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 09:14:32AM -0700, Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 02:09:21PM +0200, Mike Hommey wrote: To have a trademark license, ion3 should be a trademark in the first place. Is it ? It's not a *registered* trademark, but it may yet be a trademark, as the author claims. I don't think we really want to test that claim, do we? IANAL, but I think you can hardly have a trademark license if it's not registered. Why not? Someone may dispute whether the license has any legal *force*, but in law you can provide a license to just about anything you're willing to assert ownership over... including, practically speaking, things you don't have any legal right to (such as bullshit software patents). What does a trademark license serve if you can't enforce it ? Nothing. I don't think that's the intent of ion3's upstream. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Swiftfox license
On Sat, Apr 07, 2007 at 09:48:05AM -0400, Michael Pobega [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Apr 07, 2007 at 01:33:56PM +0200, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le jeudi 05 avril 2007 à 19:33 +0200, Mike Hommey a écrit : Basically, it says the binaries are not distributable, and that the source is under MPL only. MPL is not DFSG free. I don't think the MPL is not DFSG-free. It is just that we are not able to comply with it. I'm not sure if it's the MPL or Mozilla that didn't allow the distribution of their images, or the patching of programs without their knowledge but I think that is not DFSG-free. Although, after reading a few pages about the MPL it sounds like that was specific to Mozilla and not the MPL, but I'm not sure on that. Maybe someone can enlighten me? http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/06/msg00221.html Nothing Mozilla specific. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Swiftfox license
On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 11:03:20AM -0500, Kilz _ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Debian legal I am writing you to ask a question that someone I know doesnt believe. It has to do with the Swiftfox license. Can you please confirm or deny that it passes the DFSG? Thanks. I say it doesnt, but he requires proof. Thanks. Basically, it says the binaries are not distributable, and that the source is under MPL only. MPL is not DFSG free. http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses#head-37e2867c7ec59a6966e5b755a7378b5e0ec87997 Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Swiftfox license
On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 04:57:25PM -0400, Michael Pobega [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 11:03:20AM -0500, Kilz _ wrote: Hi Debian legal I am writing you to ask a question that someone I know doesnt believe. It has to do with the Swiftfox license. Can you please confirm or deny that it passes the DFSG? Thanks. I say it doesnt, but he requires proof. Thanks. Here is the license. SWIFTFOX LICENSE AND RESTRICTIONS - 1. Swiftfox binaries are not distributed under the MPL license and are not freely distributable. Swiftfox is licensed only to the user that downloads the binary from getswiftfox.com and no distribution to other parties is allowable under this license. Download of any binary from getswiftfox.com constitutes acceptance of these terms. That alone does it. Once a package is not freely distributable it automatically fails the DFSG. It breaks rule #1: This tells that *swiftfox*binaries* are not distributable, not the binaries we would obtain building from sources. It doesn't change that the sources are MPL only. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [RFC]: firmware-ipw2200, acceptable for non-free?
On Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 08:13:28PM +1000, Kel Modderman wrote: Hi, I am looking for discussion about a possibly controversially licensed package in development, firmware-ipw2200. License: Intel license http://bughost.org/firmware/LICENSE.ipw2200-fw Last time I looked at this license, when I was the ipw2200 package maintainer, it would not allow inclusing in non-free. 3. The package must install the LICENSE file in the same location on the system that the firmware files are installed. If it is standard practice in your distribution to place all license files in a centralized location (for example /usr/share/license), then you are free to place a copy of the license in that location, in addition to placing it in the directory containing the firmware files. This is sooo stupid. How about the same terms used by another firmware ? That leads to several packages needing to install the same file, since the directory containing the firmware files is the same. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPLed software with no true source. Was: Bug#402650: ITP: mozilla-foxyproxy
On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 04:25:56PM -0500, Evan Prodromou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 2007-29-01 at 14:06 -0500, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote: I've ran into a problem: given firefox extension released under GPL as shipped (.xpi files) has obscured .js files -- all formatting was removed. So, if I read your comments correctly, the .js files aren't intentionally obfuscated. Whitespace has just been removed in order to speed up download. It may be misguided, but it's also pretty common among JavaScript programmers. Except the javascript file is zipped in a .xpi file, making the space removing argument moot. I was able to run the JavaScript code through GNU indent (http://www.gnu.org/software/indent/ ) and get readable and modifiable output. I think there are some special-purpose JavaScript beautifiers out there that could give even better formatting. I don't think that this is a case where the user gets unmodifiable source. However, the GPL requires the prefered form for modification to be provided. And what the author uses to modify is definitely not the whitespace-free version. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is this legal? [RFP: djohn -- Distributed password cracker]
On Thu, Jan 04, 2007 at 06:04:21PM +1100, Andrew Donnellan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: AFAIK, in many jurisdictions, in regards to copyright circumvention it is often determined on the basis of 'is there any commercially viable legal use?' rather than 'is there any legal use?'. Did anyone *actually* use the program for legal purposes? Of course, as you mention the trial is not done yet, and if he's let off that should set a good precedent. But if he's not, that would set a very bad one. And in a country where the acquittal rate is below 1%[1]... Anyways, there a huge load of programs, starting with tools provided in a standard Windows environment, that can be used for copyright infringment or other illegal affairs. Should we just put all computer programmers to prison ? Mike 1. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=259848 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: firefox - iceweasel package is probably not legal
On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 01:04:25AM -0800, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But consider for a moment that fact that iceweasel (at least the one I have installed) includes /usr/bin/firefox... which is a symlink to iceweasel. The file isn't part of the transition package, it's part of the debian product. The confusion then lies not just with the transition package, but with the iceweasel package itself. I agree it's a problem. Please file a bug. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: firefox - iceweasel package is probably not legal
On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 11:37:42AM -0800, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wednesday 06 December 2006 07:42, Andreas Barth wrote: * Arnoud Engelfriet ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [061206 16:26]: What I don't understand is why a package for the Iceweasel software would carry the name firefox. It doesn't do that. All what we do is saying people who had previously installed firefox that we rather recommend them now to use iceweasel. That is a normal thing to do if a package changed name. The same happens with people who used to use kernel-image-* - these packages are renamed to linux-image-* now. There is, of course, a critical difference for this name change. Debian changed the name not for technical reasons (as I believe was the motivation behind kernel - linux) but for trademark reasons. Debian no longer ships Firefox (TM) because it is not authorized to do so... and yet it continues to ship firefox? Actually, what Mozilla asked us was not to use the Firefox name with the logo they provide as a replacement for their trademarked logo. Also note that if you use upstream source tarballs and do normal builds (without enabling official branding), you get something that looks like firefox, smells like firefox, acts like firefox, but that doesn't have the firefox logo, that is named bon echo, and that doesn't have talkback. And guess what ? the binary is still called firefox. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: firefox - iceweasel package is probably not legal
On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 10:46:50PM -0800, Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 07:49:32PM +0100, Mike Hommey wrote: On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 01:04:25AM -0800, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But consider for a moment that fact that iceweasel (at least the one I have installed) includes /usr/bin/firefox... which is a symlink to iceweasel. The file isn't part of the transition package, it's part of the debian product. The confusion then lies not just with the transition package, but with the iceweasel package itself. I agree it's a problem. Why? An executable name and a package name are both functional elements AFAICS, and we shouldn't be worrying about trademarks for either of them until - the trademark holder tells us to stop - we get legal advice to the effect that the trademark holder has a case I was more thinking about /usr/bin/firefox not having its place in the iceweasel package. More in the firefox package. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: firefox - iceweasel package is probably not legal
On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 01:57:48PM -0800, Jeff Carr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I notice that recently you have complied with Mozilla's request to not use their trademarks for your browser packages. However, you can't also use their trademark to switch users to a competing product. (bait-and-switch) The same trademark issues are why there is not a package called openoffice. It must be called openoffice.org. For instance, if Best Buy provided a packaged product called firefox that instead had IE or a nearly indistinguishable competing product (iceweasel) this would also be trademark infringement. It would be infringment if the product was packaged as firefox. In our case, the product is iceweasel, we're just hinting people on it. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: firefox - iceweasel package is probably not legal
On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 11:07:23PM +0100, Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 01:57:48PM -0800, Jeff Carr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I notice that recently you have complied with Mozilla's request to not use their trademarks for your browser packages. However, you can't also use their trademark to switch users to a competing product. (bait-and-switch) The same trademark issues are why there is not a package called openoffice. It must be called openoffice.org. For instance, if Best Buy provided a packaged product called firefox that instead had IE or a nearly indistinguishable competing product (iceweasel) this would also be trademark infringement. It would be infringment if the product was packaged as firefox. In our case, the product is iceweasel, we're just hinting people on it. Plus, iceweasel and firefox are very very close functionally speaking. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: firefox - iceweasel package is probably not legal
On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 05:51:03PM -0800, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In fact, as an end user it is well within my right to use the firefox logo and name with iceweasel. It's debian, who has chosen to place a product into direct competition, who has to watch it's Ps and Qs in this business. Just to dots on Is and bars on Ts, it's not debian who has chosen to place a product into direct competition, but Mozilla who has chosen to not allow debian to distribute something called firefox without its logo, which, being non-free, can't be distributed by debian. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL
On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 12:03:46PM +0100, Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I watched Sun's Simon Phipps' talk at debconf 2006 few weeks ago. It was mentioned that the choice of venue was useless and would be removed from CDDL, thus making CDDL DSFG-compliant. Does anybody know if is it still a work in progress? Does anyone have contacts with Sun people about the issue? Note that even if that happens, that won't change the licensing terms for the software already released under current CDDL. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL
On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 06:47:30PM +0100, Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le vendredi 01 décembre 2006 18:44, Mike Hommey a écrit : On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 12:03:46PM +0100, Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I watched Sun's Simon Phipps' talk at debconf 2006 few weeks ago. It was mentioned that the choice of venue was useless and would be removed from CDDL, thus making CDDL DSFG-compliant. Does anybody know if is it still a work in progress? Does anyone have contacts with Sun people about the issue? Note that even if that happens, that won't change the licensing terms for the software already released under current CDDL. Unless they upgrade the license of such software, I guess? Which would be relicensing and requires agreement from all contributors, as any other relicensing. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#389464: gnome-themes-extras: non-free Firefox icon included
On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 12:56:16PM +0100, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Josselin Mouette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The only issue here is a trademark one, but as the icon is used to reference firefox itself, I'd have guessed it is allowed. I'm CCing debian-legal, as this has been discussed to death and I guess someone will have more clues than myself. I think I agree with that. It's not subject to the firefox copyright, as far as I know, and it's an honest use of the trademark. If the icon is modified to refer to something else, then any bug may be caused by the trademark, rather than the icon's copyright licence terminating, which is the most common trademark/licensing bug. Now the remaining question is: has this logo *really* been done from scratch ? Because there is an almost official svg version of the logo done with adobe illustrator, which is not under a free license, and if the logo in gnome-themes-extra appears to be based on this logo, and saved with sodipodi, there is a problem. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Pkg-awstats-devel] Bug#388571: awstats: Non-free Firefox icon included
On Sat, Sep 23, 2006 at 12:32:07PM +0100, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Charles Fry [EMAIL PROTECTED] Can anyone comment on whether or not it is problematic for us to distribute a tiny icon of Firefox's logo? [...] IIRC we have no current copyright permission for it, even in the browser sources. So, yes, a problem. Can you ask Mozilla.org whether the logo is available under a free software licence yet? No need to ask, we already know it is not available under a DFSG compatible license, and that it will never be released under such a license. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#388571: [Pkg-awstats-devel] Bug#388571: awstats: Non-free Firefox icon included
On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 05:05:24PM +, Sune Vuorela [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2006-09-22, Michael Below [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From a practical point of view: I don't think this is intended by the Mozilla people. Probably they will grant you a license, if you ask. Please read this: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622 Do you still think they will grant a license? License or not, the fact is the logo is not DFSG free. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The bigger issue is badly licensed blobs (was Re: Firmware poll
On Wed, Aug 30, 2006 at 09:00:27AM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote: On Wed, 30 Aug 2006, Mike Hommey wrote: On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 07:17:47PM -0700, Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 08:48:00PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Debian needs to make a decision on how it will deal with this legal minefield. That is higher priority than the entire discussion going on right now, because it determines whether Debian will distribute these 53 BLOBs *at all*, in 'main' or in 'non-free'. Oddly enough nobody has proposed a GR addressing this, Because voting is an absurd means of settling questions of legal liability. It's the domain of the ftp team to determine whether we can legally distribute a package on our mirrors. So, all in all, all this fuss for seven blobs ? waw, what a waste of time. 53 + 7 = 60. Re-read Nathanael's mail. The blobs that are concerned by all the discussion that has happened so far, and wasted a lot of time, are 7. The 53 are those that have licenses that technically don't allow redistribution. Please Mike, you have lately a tendency to inflame discussions for nothing. You've used me to expect better from you. I'm just pissed about all this waste of time discussing in the void while a release is supposed to happen in 3 months. And here I'm not only talking about this particular thread. Mike PS: Don't worry, you won't hear a lot from me since I'll be on vacation from saturday for almost 3 weeks. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Mozilla relicensing complete
On Sat, Apr 01, 2006 at 09:37:34AM +0200, Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Mar 31, 2006 at 08:40:55PM -0800, Josh Triplett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: According to Gervase Markham, the mozilla relicensing process has now completed; all source files now fall under the GPL, LGPL, and MPL: ... which technically doesn't apply to the source code we have in the debian archive. We will get the relicensed work as soon as they release firefox 1.5.0.2, xulrunner 1.8.0.2, and thunderbird 1.5.0.2. Mozilla is dead so it will remain as it is. Actually, we won't get the relicensed work before firefox 2.0, thunderbird 2.0 and xulrunner 1.8.1... Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Mozilla relicensing complete
On Sat, Apr 01, 2006 at 12:39:39PM +0200, Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 1 Apr 2006 09:37:34 +0200 Mike Hommey wrote: On Fri, Mar 31, 2006 at 08:40:55PM -0800, Josh Triplett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: According to Gervase Markham, the mozilla relicensing process has now completed; all source files now fall under the GPL, LGPL, and MPL: ... which technically doesn't apply to the source code we have in the debian archive. We will get the relicensed work as soon as they release firefox 1.5.0.2, xulrunner 1.8.0.2, and thunderbird 1.5.0.2. Mozilla is dead so it will remain as it is. I think that this is good news anyway. Thanks to Gervase Markham for dealing with this (big) issue! I'm not denying the colossal work it represented (he began in 2001 !), I'm just making it clear that until we upload new relicensed versions, it doesn't change anything for Debian. Especially for the mozilla-browser package. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Mozilla relicensing complete
On Fri, Mar 31, 2006 at 08:40:55PM -0800, Josh Triplett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: According to Gervase Markham, the mozilla relicensing process has now completed; all source files now fall under the GPL, LGPL, and MPL: ... which technically doesn't apply to the source code we have in the debian archive. We will get the relicensed work as soon as they release firefox 1.5.0.2, xulrunner 1.8.0.2, and thunderbird 1.5.0.2. Mozilla is dead so it will remain as it is. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MPL license
On Sun, Mar 26, 2006 at 04:21:31PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Whats debian-legals position about the MPL? Looking at google I see a lot of Summary - non-free and Not really non-free mails. It is indeed non-free. So, I have some packages in NEW that are MPL only licensed. Whats the current way to go? Reject, accept? If it's MPL *only*, you'll have to reject if it's targetted for main. If, like firefox and friends, it's multi-licensed, then it's fine (though for firefox, it's a bit more complicated, some parts are MPL only, but upstream intent is quite clear about the fact they *are* relicensing in MPL-GPL-LGPL terms, thus the etch-ignore RC bug on firefox) Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MPL license
On Sun, Mar 26, 2006 at 10:05:52AM -0800, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Mar 26, 2006 at 04:21:31PM +0200, Joerg Jaspert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Whats debian-legals position about the MPL? Looking at google I see a lot of Summary - non-free and Not really non-free mails. It is indeed non-free. It is, in fact, not distributable as an executable by Debian. It requires keeping the source around for every binary for at least six months. The GPL does require something similar. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Problematic distribution of P2P clients in France
On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 12:35:16PM +0100, Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If courts were to go for the first interpretation, my opinion is that french Debian (and other distributions) mirrors could be endangered. This is a problem for French mirror operators, not for Debian. It is also a problem for any Debian Developer that would come to France. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Problematic distribution of P2P clients in France
On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 01:39:12PM +, Måns Rullgård [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 12:35:16PM +0100, Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If courts were to go for the first interpretation, my opinion is that french Debian (and other distributions) mirrors could be endangered. This is a problem for French mirror operators, not for Debian. It is also a problem for any Debian Developer that would come to France. What? Do the French lock you up for things you did outside of France, even if they were legal there? I think you can get charged for exporting illegal stuff to France whenever you touch the french soil, this being legal in your own country or not. That applies to a lot of countries, I believe. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Problematic distribution of P2P clients in France
On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 03:22:56PM +, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Simon Vallet [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1=B0 To willingly edit, distribute to the public, or inform the public about, in any form, a device[2] whose obvious purpose is to permit unauthorized distribution of protected works Can someone tell me what 'obvious purpose' means here? Need it be intended for that (like a cracker tool), just able to do it (like most p2p), or something else? The text is probably fuzzy on purpose. Until it is ruled by a court, it will remain fuzzy. Can people still influence this strange law? It is not yet a law, and still has to go through the second chamber (the senate) before a final conciliation. All we can do is to try to persuade the members of the second chamber of all the harm this law would do. I hope those members of the first chamber that raised their voice against this law will do that. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Problematic distribution of P2P clients in France
On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 03:10:37AM +, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 03:22:56PM +, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Simon Vallet [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1=B0 To willingly edit, distribute to the public, or inform the public about, in any form, a device[2] whose obvious purpose is to permit unauthorized distribution of protected works Can someone tell me what 'obvious purpose' means here? [...] The text is probably fuzzy on purpose. Until it is ruled by a court, it will remain fuzzy. I thought French law was a code and did not rely so much on case rulings by courts. Have I misunderstood? Court ruling is done according to the law, but when the law is fuzzy, the court will rule by interpreting the law the way it thinks it should. For next ruling, the court would base its interpretation on previous interpretations by other courts, ie jurisprudence. Cheers Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Problematic distribution of P2P clients in France
On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 07:51:05AM +0100, Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 03:10:37AM +, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sun, Mar 19, 2006 at 03:22:56PM +, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Simon Vallet [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1=B0 To willingly edit, distribute to the public, or inform the public about, in any form, a device[2] whose obvious purpose is to permit unauthorized distribution of protected works Can someone tell me what 'obvious purpose' means here? [...] The text is probably fuzzy on purpose. Until it is ruled by a court, it will remain fuzzy. I thought French law was a code and did not rely so much on case rulings by courts. Have I misunderstood? Court ruling is done according to the law, but when the law is fuzzy, the court will rule by interpreting the law the way it thinks it should. For next ruling, the court would base its interpretation on previous interpretations by other courts, ie jurisprudence. For correctness, s/would/can/ Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: (OT) Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL
On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 12:24:12AM +0900, JC Helary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [ ] Choice 3: pi = 3 [needs legislature of Indiana approval] Attempts to legislate pi are always questionable, and when you ask a majority of uninformed voters[3] to choose between items, it's natural for the compromise to win, and not unheard of for it to end up 3. Funny thing is that pi=3 was the official value taught in Japanese schools in the last few years when pupils were introduced to the value, since it was considered that decimal numbers were too complex... This has been reverted last year if I remember well. You'll have to come up with much better than words for people to believe in that. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: x264 for Debian
On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 08:39:32PM -0500, Arc Riley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not saying the patent issue should be ignored. It just strikes me as silly to even start comparing Theora with H.264. Certain graphic artists would say the same of GIMP vs Photoshop, or compare their favorite music application with the numerous GNU/Linux offerings, or even 3d Studio Max/Bryce/Poser/etc vs Blender. There are free alternatives. They may or may not be considered acceptable for specific applications, but this doesn't change that proprietary software is proprietary and is, thus, not DFSG-free. For the sake of correctness, please stop linking H264 with prioprietary. The fact is the software is *free* as in speech. It being patent encumbered doesn't make it proprietary. It still is free as in speech in those countries that don't have such patents. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Another issue with GFDL ?
Shame on me, just forget this message. It's all written in http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 07:21:48PM +0100, Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I don't think I've seen that discussed somewhere (but I could be wrong), but I noticed terms in the GFDL that makes most distributed Debian CDs not following the license. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. The words that change everything are indeed or copies in media that commonly have printed covers. As i understand it, CDs which include GFDL documents with Cover Texts would need to add all the cover texts of all the GFDL documents on the CD cover. The text following this paragraph adds some flexibility on the text you can write and not write, but you still have to put at least some of the cover text on the CD cover, and the rest on adjacent pages Or maybe I'm just overreacting. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Another issue with GFDL ?
Hi, I don't think I've seen that discussed somewhere (but I could be wrong), but I noticed terms in the GFDL that makes most distributed Debian CDs not following the license. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. The words that change everything are indeed or copies in media that commonly have printed covers. As i understand it, CDs which include GFDL documents with Cover Texts would need to add all the cover texts of all the GFDL documents on the CD cover. The text following this paragraph adds some flexibility on the text you can write and not write, but you still have to put at least some of the cover text on the CD cover, and the rest on adjacent pages Or maybe I'm just overreacting. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bittorrent licensing, take 2 [MPL and Jabber inside]
On Wed, Mar 30, 2005 at 10:05:01PM +0200, Josselin Mouette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Their line of reasoning is that it such a clause is present in several other licenses: the APSL, RPSL, MPL and Jabber licenses. The APSL and RPSL are non-free, so that's not a problem. IIRC, the MPL was said to be problematic because of the clauses talking about patents, not about that one. However, the Jabber license is considered DFSG-free. Unless I'm missing something, we are not respecting these licenses when distributing Mozilla and Jabber in the unstable tree, where the source files aren't kept for 6 months as they should. I don't recall seeing this discussion before, and it strikes me, as, DFSG-free or not, we are violating these people's copyrights. Is there a way to deal with such an issue? I don't know for jabber, but mozilla is tri-licensed MPL/GPL/LGPL... We don't need to fulfil the MPL. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Firefox/Thunderbird trademarks: a proposal
On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 10:36:33AM +, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Of course. I'm just pointing out that this process is nowhere near done and you should not lead people to believe otherwise. I'm sceptical that it will be done quickly, because one still has to hack to get firefox builds running on multi-user systems and that's been a critical known bug for some time. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=259978 Sound like it is related to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=256373 which is fixed in Debian... Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Firefox/Thunderbird trademarks: a proposal
On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 12:28:30PM +, Gervase Markham [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Alexander Sack wrote: Mike Hommey wrote: Removing trademarks is not the reason why you remove the icons in the orig.tar.gz. The reason is that the icons are not free. Is there really a big difference? Is there a separate copyright license for the icons other than the trademark document that this whole discussion is about? There seems to be some confusion here. The Firefox and Thunderbird official logos (e.g. the fox-on-globe) are covered by a different license which is far too restrictive for Debian. They are not in the downloadable source tarball, so no work would be needed to remove them. They *are* in the downloadable source tarball. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: mozilla thunderbird trademark restrictions / still dfsg free ?
On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 12:49:04PM +, Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 01:30:58AM +0100, Alexander Sack wrote: mozilla _wants_ us to make some changes to the thunderbird package in order to not infringe their trademarks. We knew this was coming. The Mozilla mob wanted their stuff to be treated as if it were non-modifiable even though the license doesn't say so, and we told them to go to hell. Always seemed to me like they don't really *want* to be free software. They actually want to be open source. Note that this name change requirement gets interesting to name Mozilla... Mozilla Thunderbird can be Thunderbird for Debian or Debian Thunderbird Mozilla Firefox can be Firefox for Debian or Debian Firefox What can be Mozilla ? for Debian or Debian ? Mike
Re: mozilla thunderbird trademark restrictions / still dfsg free ?
On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 03:35:00PM +0100, Alexander Sack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike Hommey wrote: Note that this name change requirement gets interesting to name Mozilla... Mozilla Thunderbird can be Thunderbird for Debian or Debian Thunderbird Mozilla Firefox can be Firefox for Debian or Debian Firefox What can be Mozilla ? for Debian or Debian ? I think they want us to negotiate all package names individually. In addition, they will be god for us (e.g. we add a patch, they have to agree). And who agrees with patches ? I have sent some of my patches for Firefox in their bugzilla in august and still got no other reaction than Ben, can you look into this ? And I asked for a review last month... If we have to wait for months to get an answer as to what they think about our patches, we can't do anything. Mike
Re: mozilla thunderbird trademark restrictions / still dfsg free ?
On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 08:52:24PM +0100, Alexander Sack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: lightningbug - Mail client derived from Mozilla Thunderbird iceweasel - Web browser derived from Mozilla Firefox gojira - Web browser and mail suite derived from Mozilla OK, my final name suggestions would be: freebird - ...thunderbird freefox - ... firefox freezilla - ... mozilla I think *zilla names should be avoided. IIRC, mozilla has had a problem with the Godzilla trademark owners a long time ago. Mike
Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
On Tue, Oct 26, 2004 at 12:23:43PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm telling you some drivers *do depend* on a certain firmware. You're still repeating the opposite. Now explain me how in ipw2200 case the driver doesn't *depend* on the firmware, since you seem to know the truth. You are using a different meaning of depend than the one used by policy. I can't see why it should matter if a device driver is designed to use features present in a specific firmware revision. Let's port this sentence into an other context. I can't see why it should matter if a program is designed to use features present in a specific library revision Mike
Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
On Sun, Oct 24, 2004 at 10:45:18PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: Ok, I guess somewhere I lost track of exactly what was being argued in this thread. I agree, if the user (or some group of users to whom the driver is useful) already have the required firmware, either in the device's flash or on a driver CD, it shouldn't be necessary for us to consider this a dependency of the driver, and thus the driver is eligible for main. I was thinking of the possible case where *we* had to distribute a firmware blob. Like for ipw2200 and ipw2100 drivers. We don't exactly have to distribute the firmware blob. Actually, we have to not distribute it because its license doesn't authorize it. And it is only available on the driver website. It's not even the same as the one embedded in the windows driver (yes, it is embedded in the driver, it doesn't come as an independant file on a CD or whatever). In such case, even if the license of the driver is free, it can *not* go into main. Mike
Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 11:44:37AM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Huh? If a driver requires a firmware blob be copied from a driver CD, Please repeat after me: drivers do not require firmwares, hardware devices require firmwares. Then, how do you explain the ipw2200 case where driver version 0.5 and less will only work with a certain firmware and version 0.6 and more will only work with an other firmware ? Isn't that what we could call a requirement ? Mike
Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 04:43:50PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: Please repeat after me: drivers do not require firmwares, hardware devices require firmwares. Then, how do you explain the ipw2200 case where driver version 0.5 and less will only work with a certain firmware and version 0.6 and more will only work with an other firmware ? Isn't that what we could call a requirement ? No, why? I can't see how this could be related to my argument. I'm telling you some drivers *do depend* on a certain firmware. You're still repeating the opposite. Now explain me how in ipw2200 case the driver doesn't *depend* on the firmware, since you seem to know the truth. Mike
Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
On Sun, Oct 24, 2004 at 03:41:13AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Is this the case even if the firmware is in a flash chip attached to the device? If the total amount of non-free software on a user's system is the same regardless, why are we concerned about how it's packaged? 'kay, this has already been debated earlier, but let me rephrase it. If some driver depend on *loading* a non-free firmware, i.e. being *totally* useless without, it goes into contrib. Same applies to any software in debian, right ? Mike
Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 07:42:20PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Drivers do not require firmwares, hardware devices require firmwares. Well, actually, there are cases where the communication between firmware and driver is tight and both need each other, i.e driver won't work with another firmware and vice versa. This is applicable to many other programs in main too (and is not one of the criteria specified by the policy), so I can't see your point. The point is, some drivers DO require firmwares. I'd rather say: Some depend on firmware. In that case, if the firmware is non-free, the driver can't go in main. Mike
Re: non-free firmware: driver in main or contrib?
On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 11:34:33AM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: Drivers do not require firmwares, hardware devices require firmwares. Well, actually, there are cases where the communication between firmware and driver is tight and both need each other, i.e driver won't work with another firmware and vice versa. Mike
Re: firmware status for eagle-usb-*
On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 05:46:07PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: This is clearly not appropriate; it is not perfectly reasonable to install a driver package without the firmware, any more than it is reasonable to install a dynamically-linked binary without its shared library dependencies. In both cases, the functionality is limited to simply imforming the user that a necessary component was not installed. Except in the case of a driver that also works on devices that have the firmware embedded in a ROM chip. Mike
Re: Debian the Mozilla Firefox Trademarks
[Just a reminder] While we are here talking about the Mozilla Firefox case, don't forget Debian distributes Mozilla and Mozilla Thunderbird as well, in the same conditions. Mike
Re: Advice for software license
On Tuesday February 10 2004 07:32, Don Armstrong wrote: First off, debian-legal isn't really a place for distributing advice on which license to choose, although we can let you know which ones are DFSG Free, and which ones are likely to conflict with other libraries. (...) Well, the request was probably bad worded, but the main point was to be sure not getting license conflicts and/or DFSG incompatibility... Anyway thanks for your answers. I think I'll just go for full LGPL, that seems to be the less brain-damage solution (and if I don't get it wrong, with LGPL, I don't even need linking exceptions...). Mike
Advice for software license
Hi all, I'm currently developping (well, quite slowly, I must say), what is supposed to be an XML framework (cocoon like, but without java, and much less sophisticated), and need some licensing advice (since, well, I'll also be maintaining a debian package for it, I'm asking here) This is supposed to come in separate packages. The central point is a library, linked to libltdl (LGPL) and libxml2 (MIT or such). This library is able to dynamically load modules (which could possibly be licensed differently from the library). One module is linked to libpcre, an other is linked to libxslt, and others could be linked to things like imagemagick library, sqlrelay, etc. Finally, there are several different implementations of the library, one being a full featured standalone application, an other a standalone CGI, and an other an Apache module. Considering all these different licenses graviting around the project, I was wondering which one(s) would be suitable to avoid licensing conflicts. My very first idea was Affero GPL with some linking exceptions (which should be needed for linking to apache), but I'm now considering just going for LGPL for the whole and/or GPL for some parts where possible, but I must admit that having so much licenses graviting around is a bit scary (therefore, it's so easy to create incompatibilities...). Any idea is welcome ^^ Regards Mike
Re: pvpgn ITP
On Monday December 29 2003 05:09, Robert Millan wrote: I think there should be no problem, specialy since pvpgn hasn't recieved any notice from Blizzard, and they're hosted in Germany where the DMCA doesn't apply. (...) DMCA doesn't apply there, but the local flavour of EUCD (European Union Copyright Directive) does, which is, if I recall correctly, even worse than the DMCA... Mike
Re: MPlayer DFSG compatibility status
On Tuesday 07 October 2003 19:26, Gabucino wrote: Don Armstrong wrote: d, libmpeg2 - We - the core developers - do not intend to waste time searching for modification dates and such (nor do we know what exactly you wish for), All that's needed is to comply with GPL 2a [and probably for any other GPLed libraries which you've included and modified from various sources in mplayer.] So is there anybody who wants to do this? What about... You ? That is supposed to be an upstream duty... Mike
Re: MPlayer DFSG compatibility status
On Thursday 09 October 2003 14:24, Gabucino wrote: Gabucino wrote: I wonder if there's still any obstacle in the way of MPlayer's inclusion into Debian. Please list _actual_ licensing problems of MPlayer so we can discuss them - the purpose this list exists for. The following issues' discussion has started so far: - libavcodec's possible patent infringements: even if they do exist, xine (which contains this library) was let into debian main. - ASF patent: it seems there is an agreement that there is no reason to fear Microsoft on this part. However - of course - I don't want to say the final word; this is just my understatement so far. - Win32 DLLs: current linux media players (including MPlayer) are more than able to live without them. You forgot the non-respect of the license of the libraries included in mplayer (you know, the thing having been brought in another branch of this thread). Mike -- I have sampled every language, french is my favorite. Fantastic language, especially to curse with. Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d'enculé de ta mère. It's like wiping your ass with silk! I love it. -- The Merovingian, in the Matrix Reloaded
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Monday 22 September 2003 12:36, Mathieu Roy wrote: My girlfriend photography sitting on my computer is not free software. Who cares about the licence of your girlfriend photographs ? Are you willing to put them in main ? The point is that the photographs on your computer are _software_. Whether they are free or not has absolutely no link with the current thread. Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Monday 22 September 2003 14:32, Mathieu Roy wrote: The point is whether every software needs to be free or just program and their documentation. The point is whether every software IN DEBIAN needs to be free. Mike
Re: Starting to talk
Why do I have the impression to be in an infinite loop ?
Re: Starting to talk
On Monday 22 September 2003 17:05, Mathieu Roy wrote: Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] a tapoté : Why do I have the impression to be in an infinite loop ? Because you are confronted with a situation where your arguments, that you repeat and repeat, do not convince your interlocutor (me in this case)? Ah okay, now I understand ; you are trying to make the same discussion over and over again, with every single debian-legal poster... You know, there is an easy way out, if you're fed up. The question is : am I the only one to be fed up by you ? Apart from that, you did not answered to my question. Why? Do I need to repeat my question? Parce que tu casses les couilles. Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Monday 22 September 2003 16:39, Mathieu Roy wrote: Now, I think that the question is not really what the DFSG allows. Because it's pretty clear that the DSFG does not allow GFDLed documentation with Invariant section. The question is: do we think that tolerating this non-DFSG essays in some GFDLed documentation is more harmful to Debian than removing these GNU manuals? That's the question. No, that's NOT the question. As you just told, DFSG does not allow GFDLed documentation with Invariant Section, thus they can not be distributed in main. Whether it is harmful or not is NOT the point. The point is that they are non-free, thus they can not be distributed in main. Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Monday 22 September 2003 16:58, Richard Stallman wrote: If, OTOH, your only goal is to persuade Debian to accept the GFDL with invariant sections as free enough for inclusion in our distribution, I don't see that such a discussion could ever bear fruit without a concrete proposal spelling out the alternative guidelines that should apply to documentation. I don't plan to discuss even small GFDL changes here. I think people will present a proposal for guidelines for free documentation for Debian. The definition of software that includes documentation is simply the only one that permits Debian to include documentation at all, and only if it complies with the DFSG. I've mentioned the other possible choices, so there's no need for repetition now. Okay, so nothing is going to change from both sides. Now you can stop mailing on this list. Thanks Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Sunday 21 September 2003 19:55, Mathieu Roy wrote: I do not consider a bug as a philosophical failure but a technical one. Did you really pass PP ? Mike -- I have sampled every language, french is my favorite. Fantastic language, especially to curse with. Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d'enculé de ta mère. It's like wiping your ass with silk! I love it. -- The Merovingian, in the Matrix Reloaded
Re: A solution ?!?
On Saturday 20 September 2003 02:16, Nathanael Nerode wrote: You seem to be suggesting that this would satisfy the distribution terms of the GFDL. Are you really suggesting this? If so, we may have a solution. Unfortunately, the invariant sections are not the only issue for non-freeness of GFDL. Mike
Re: A solution ?!?
On Saturday 20 September 2003 11:08, Mathieu Roy wrote: Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] a tapoté : On Saturday 20 September 2003 02:16, Nathanael Nerode wrote: You seem to be suggesting that this would satisfy the distribution terms of the GFDL. Are you really suggesting this? If so, we may have a solution. Unfortunately, the invariant sections are not the only issue for non-freeness of GFDL. Please, try to be constructive. The invariant section is the only (apparently) philosophical issue. The others issues are clearly practical, it's easier to get rid of it. Invariant section is a philosophical issue with a (proposed and discussable) practical solution, while others issues you say are practical would need philosophical solutions... i.e. changing the license itself. Which one is easier ? Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Saturday 20 September 2003 09:50, Richard Stallman wrote: Manuals are not free software, because they are not software. The DFSG very clearly treats software and programs as synonymous. Richard, once and for all, please read http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg00690.html Thanks for mentioning that message to me; nobody had mentioned to me before (at least since the start of 2003). It is a message from Bruce Perens, suggesting that the DFSG should be taken to mean something quite contrary to what it actually says. If you are willing to disregard the meaning of some of the words in the DFSG in order to reinterpret it, there is more than one way to do so. It is absurd to argue rigidly that the DFSG obviously says exactly this when what it actually says is something else. If you are willing to disregard the explanation of the meaning of a text by its author in order to reinterpret it, you're on the wrong way. It is absurd to argue rigidly that the DFSG obviously doesn't say that when its author says it is. Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Saturday 20 September 2003 18:47, Mathieu Roy wrote: And you are sure that this phrase is part of an Invariant section? And you are sure that this phrase is part of an Invariant section? Mathieu, are you too lazy to find by yourself that both sentences appear in the Distribution section of the GNU Emacs Manual, which is an Invariant Section, as stated in http://www.gnu.org/manual/emacs-21.2/text/ emacs.txt.gz ? Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Friday 19 September 2003 14:22, Richard Stallman wrote: Manuals are not free software, because they are not software. The DFSG very clearly treats software and programs as synonymous. And we very clearly treat everything in Debian as software (see the first clause of the Social Contract). That clause appears to neglect the fact that there are things other than software in the system. It seems to say that all the software must be free software. Richard, for the sake of my blood pressure, please read http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg00690.html (bis repetita) Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Thursday 18 September 2003 13:05, Richard Stallman wrote: Well, since Debian will contain only 100% Free Software, and I think most of us (and you, if I interpret your previous emails correctly) agree that GFDL manuals are not Free Software, it would seem to be a natural conclusion that Debian will not contain them. Manuals are not free software, because they are not software. The DFSG very clearly treats software and programs as synonymous. Richard, once and for all, please read http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg00690.html Mike
Re: Unidentified subject!
On Thursday 18 September 2003 13:05, Richard Stallman wrote: I am not interested in beating a dead horse. You have been for at least a whole week. Please stop that. Thanks. Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise: a proposal
On Friday 12 September 2003 23:05, Richard Stallman wrote: I don't really believe it. In the 1980s, formalized free software was a new concept for almost everybody. Today, there are too many free software projects for the word _not_ to get out. My experience is just the opposite: our views are mostly suppressed. The open source movement is very effective at substituting their word for ours. I find that most of the people who use our software have never even heard of our philosophy. So your purpose is to spread GNU propaganda in invariant sections of GNU documentation, adding practical inconvenience where there shouldn't be. How would you expect Debian to consider such manipulation free ? Mike
Re: A possible GFDL compromise
On Wednesday 10 September 2003 17:55, Richard Stallman wrote: Where we draw the line, when judging licenses as free or not, is whether you can practically speaking make the code or the manual do the substantive job you want. If license restrictions make it impossible to make the technical changes you want, then the license is non-free. If they make it possible, but with conditions you might not necessarily like, it is free but with a practical inconvenience. Then, a license allowing to freely distribute a software or a modified version of this software in binary form only is free, but with a practical inconvenience. Mike -- I have sampled every language, french is my favorite. Fantastic language, especially to curse with. Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d'enculé de ta mère. It's like wiping your ass with silk! I love it. -- The Merovingian, in the Matrix Reloaded
