Re: Missing licenses in upstream source files
Ben Finney wrote: [note: quotations in random order] (We're now in ‘debian-legal’ territory; please follow up there.) Too often, though, such files are a set of license *terms* only (e.g. the text of the GPL), with no copyright status or explicit *grant* of license. That's not enough for Debian to know the rights of recipients: mere inclusion of license terms is not a grant of license under those terms. I don't agree. Only in journals you will find copyright notice and author on every pages. Don't mean that there are copyright problem on my favorite book, in inner pages. I think it the same for sources. You could write the license (or a reference) on every file, or you could write only a general file (e.g. COPYING), if it is clear that the license cover all the files. This is true particularly for small programs. On large programs or when there are multiple licenses I recommend upstreams to put a copyright notice and license for every important file (i.e. sources and non-trivial header files). IANAL, but other contributors are not listed in the legal header, but still copyright owner, so the same assumptions we do: not all contributor are listed, and same license as top header we could do the same assumptions for file without explicit legal notice (but with a top level license and an AUTHOR-like file). See below: What is needed is an explicit copyright notice and grant of license. An example: Copyright 2009 Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au You have permission to copy, modify, and redistribute under the terms of the WTFPL. For full license terms, see LICENSE.txt. That is, we need the copyright status (who holds it, when did it begin) and explicit grant of license (what the recipient is permitted to do with the work) to be unambiguous for every part of the work. Or in other words, you need enough explicit information, from the copyright holder, to write the ‘debian/copyright’ file. If the referenced file has *all* of that, and every part of the work is unambiguously covered by it, it's enough. There are not such thing as unambiguous ;-) I sent you few patches: patch A: a patch to correct a typo patch B: a patch to enhance the WTFP (code-only patch, without touching the legal header). and I did a NMU: patch C: a not yet defined patch You (as most of upstream) incorporated patches A and B in your sources, without further reference (but maybe on a CREDIT file or changelog). Are you still the only copyright owner? I don't think so. What license on my modification? the same license (or public domain?) If you want to relicense the program to WTFAOPL, did you need my permission? A tangent question: What about patch C: note in debian/copyright I wrote that packing things are licensed with the WTFPL4 [Note that dh-make on GPL2 only program uses GPL3 for packaging license]. My interpretation is that patch C will have the original license and only debian/* have the WTFPL4. ciao cate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Missing licenses in upstream source files
* Giacomo A. Catenazzi c...@debian.org [090320 10:08]: Too often, though, such files are a set of license *terms* only (e.g. the text of the GPL), with no copyright status or explicit *grant* of license. That's not enough for Debian to know the rights of recipients: mere inclusion of license terms is not a grant of license under those terms. I don't agree. Only in journals you will find copyright notice and author on every pages. Don't mean that there are copyright problem on my favorite book, in inner pages. I think it the same for sources. You could write the license (or a reference) on every file, or you could write only a general file (e.g. COPYING), if it is clear that the license cover all the files. While I agree that a single licence grant suffices, two limitations: 1) The grant should be in a form that it is reasonable to believe it fits two the whole content: a) simply a COPYING file in the tarball with the GPL in it does not suffice, and especially not if the package uses autotools. As when those are called the wrong way (i.e. without arguments), they just copy the file in. Also in other cases just copying a license file in is hard to take as an grant of an license, a little sentence above the license or in the documentation or somewhere else like this program is available under is a grant in my non-lawyerish eyes. b) when package contains materials from obviously different origin[1], it is far too likely that something went wrong upstream, so better ask for clarification. 2) When being in upstream role or making suggestions to upstream, please choose the one license grant per non-trivial file approach. It makes lives easier for all people much easier. Especially as code tends to hitch-hike in other programs. When you then have some code that every search engine shows you is copied from somewhere else, but you do not know where it origins from or if it actually has a free license, things get ugly... Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link [1] like sources with different coding style, or code and other things like images and so on. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Missing licenses in upstream source files
Giacomo A. Catenazzi c...@debian.org writes: Ben Finney wrote: Too often, though, such files are a set of license *terms* only (e.g. the text of the GPL), with no copyright status or explicit *grant* of license. That's not enough for Debian to know the rights of recipients: mere inclusion of license terms is not a grant of license under those terms. I don't agree. Only in journals you will find copyright notice and author on every pages. Don't mean that there are copyright problem on my favorite book, in inner pages. I think it the same for sources. You could write the license (or a reference) on every file, or you could write only a general file (e.g. COPYING), if it is clear that the license cover all the files. This is true particularly for small programs. On large programs or when there are multiple licenses I recommend upstreams to put a copyright notice and license for every important file (i.e. sources and non-trivial header files). Since this concurs with what I said, it seems we agree. I don't know who you're disagreeing with, but I'm glad we're of the same opinion. -- \“When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to | `\ ask is if they ever press charges.” —Jack Handey | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Missing licenses in upstream source files
(We're now in ‘debian-legal’ territory; please follow up there.) Dominik Smatana dominik.smat...@gmail.com writes: One more license-newbie question: In some upstream source files there is just one single line comment at beginning: // Please see included LICENSE.TXT licensecheck says UNKNOWN of course... Is such reference to external file sufficient for source files to be packed for Debian? What is needed is an explicit copyright notice and grant of license. An example: Copyright 2009 Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au You have permission to copy, modify, and redistribute under the terms of the WTFPL. For full license terms, see LICENSE.txt. That is, we need the copyright status (who holds it, when did it begin) and explicit grant of license (what the recipient is permitted to do with the work) to be unambiguous for every part of the work. Or in other words, you need enough explicit information, from the copyright holder, to write the ‘debian/copyright’ file. If the referenced file has *all* of that, and every part of the work is unambiguously covered by it, it's enough. Too often, though, such files are a set of license *terms* only (e.g. the text of the GPL), with no copyright status or explicit *grant* of license. That's not enough for Debian to know the rights of recipients: mere inclusion of license terms is not a grant of license under those terms. -- \ “I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its | `\ eggs in my brain, because later you might think you're having a | _o__) good idea but it's just eggs hatching.” —Jack Handey | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
