Re: licensing question for nom.tam.fits
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi Francesco! Am 28.08.2012 19:19, schrieb Francesco Poli: On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:37:46 +0200 Florian Rothmaier wrote: Hi to everyone involved in debian-legal, Hello! I've got a licensing issue related to the astronomical Java library fits (nom.tam.fits) from Thomas McGlynn. The newest release can be obtained at: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/fits/java/v1.0/v1.08.1/ . In the code, I find the following copyright statement: /* Copyright: Thomas McGlynn 1997-1999. * This code may be used for any purpose, non-commercial * or commercial so long as this copyright notice is retained * in the source code or included in or referred to in any * derived software. */ When I wrote an e-mail to Thomas McGlynn, he replied: I believe the lines you quote are themselves the entirety of the license. There was no intent to associate this with any specific more general license. Unfortunately these license lines do not seem to be enough to make the library clearly Free Software. I think they are far too vague and implicit: - the term use is ambiguous at best; does it just cover running a program that links with library? or is it implicitly intended to also cover other activities such as copying, modification, redistribution of verbatim and modified copies? - there's no explicit permission to copy and redistribute - there is a reference to derived software, but no explicit permission to create and distribute such derived software I believe that such license lines make the library unsuitable for distribution in Debian (main) or even in the non-free archive. That was also my worry when I saw these lines. Now, I'm not sure how to proceed. [...] I'd appreciate your help! If you want this library to be included in Debian, I think you should contact its copyright holder again and persuade him to re-license the library in a clearly DFSG-free manner, preferably under the terms of a well known and widely used Free Software license. I would personally recommend the copyright holder to re-license the library under the terms of the Expat/MIT license [1], which is very simple and similar in spirit to the goals that were probably in the mind of the drafter of the above quoted license lines. [1] http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt After your reply, I contacted the copyright holder again and tried to explain him how the situation is and forwarded him your licensing suggestion. Now I have to wait for his reaction. Thanks in advance You're welcome, I hope this helps. Yes, thank you very much, Francesco! and please cc me in your replies since I'm not subscribed to debian-legal. Done. Bye and good luck with your persuasion effort! Thanks and best regards, Florian -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJQPx4DAAoJEGXz/obPl241tlcP/2LTMSq6DxYpBz1Tm+A5UDOS WDMwJIItYLHi3mYcFbOoDBHJT5FTmFfGjZ3s3H3uO2npiR0slNI0JYlONDI+TReq C4eWZ74iMeFnQgfBsr1S4dqlB7wZlVuLJmh2GsmkfUsL6GKGO50FPWOJsozSBLYW FEpUOfGxeFMP25V9bVcaZzI23bTuU17ZGks5bzEo/0+LAmYjrCzrf3uFUF8a5PpH d8QLEKdtm5b8Uu9M+bdcoZ5MRgiya/GvApHXS+qd7o6RyFqhARsKfA96T/tfD749 sujvXeZoaKM9Z8/WHOxM9MMQJ33U00y+Jsmf9gWMa3m+FOOs3axOIrdlAF9x8Vl4 mE5EI0YymhRjr8r6718EPIGOi6PeBJrjbZs1+sqhTmqLfDD9BQfXBwZYkANDKFIf dybyDflQAMsOaeVc8U6CHs9UdAHFpr4rvzBGjPOWcIK+9Reld+iDPKZpfvdJN/Zk wKY2ik2NOGYnNjN5m7Esz4+j8CHFIkdZx0wmSw8FZG02GHOYY3P0O1tWFCb9a+YN JZQgAGNubx7ZLYlwHuU1osXvVtgeXSpVgbXHQIhCarNJ1L3dZGT94JfSB0fDNFkO RKEySR0GRqK70tzB/UpDwHnXfZt9t4Q/FfKP2TAMPjrWn6gBZaZ4LKQMiRc7XvWU jQ8UgBdIUmfOSugOy8EE =BL/1 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- 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/503f1e09.2020...@ari.uni-heidelberg.de
About packages-metadata [was: Re: Freeness of this license]
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:50:46 +0900 Charles Plessy wrote: [...] I would like to advertise the packages-metadata repository: http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/collab-qa/packages-metadata/ svn://svn.debian.org/collab-qa/packages-metadata/ http://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamMetadata Today it already contains 3431 Debian copyright files. Most of them are up to date (but consistency checks have not been implemented yet). Using this tool, one can search for similar license terms in the Debian archive. Note that the pool includes the non-free section... How can one search for similar terms in the Debian archive? I failed to spot a dedicated search functionality... Do you mean that one can search by cloning the subversion repository and then using grep (and other similar tools) recursively in the resulting local directory tree? -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgpp8STXojtj2.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Freeness of this license
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:48:35 +1000 Ben Finney wrote: Bastien ROUCARIES roucaries.bast...@gmail.com writes: [...] License to use, copy, modify, sell and/or distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without royalty, subject to the following terms and conditions: […] I agree that the text covered by that elision is a standard 3-clause BSD-style license. As I said, I think it is not so similar to the 3-clause BSD license. Please re-read the 3 clauses you snipped and compare them with the 3 clauses in http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license They are not the same. They may be similar in effects, perhaps, but they are not the same... LICENSEE shall indemnify, [...] This is an imposition of boundless and unknowable costs on the licensee, based on the action of other parties. It goes far beyond the (already included) warranty disclaimer, and reaches into the future life of the licensee to oblige legal defense of the copyright holder. It makes the work non-free, in my opinion. Thanks for sharing your opinion. Your insight is much appreciated! If the paragraph were dropped, the disclaimer of warranty earlier would still stand, which should be sufficient. It would also make the license almost identical to a 3-clause BSD license, so I would just encourage the copyright holder to reduce license proliferation by issuing a standard text instead of their own variant. I agree with the recommendation and I personally suggest the adoption of the 3-clause BSD license: http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgp7v1QkBBBPt.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: About kstars-data-extra-tycho2 distributability
On Martes, 21 de agosto de 2012 02:55:43 Charles Plessy wrote: Le Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 07:54:05PM +0100, Noel David Torres Taño a écrit : On the package kstars-data-extra-tycho2 it has arisen a doubt about its distributability: See bug #681654 Dear Noel, sorry to discard the arguments you already gave in #681654, but have you considered asking for a clarification to one of the current mainstream distributors ? http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?target=httpcat=I/259 Have a nice day, Hi Charles I thought I sent this before, but it seems that not. Regards Noel Torres er Envite ---BeginMessage--- Dear Noel Torres, here is the CDS policy for the scientific data we distribute: Catalogues available at CDS contain scientific data distributed for free, for a scientific usage. Companies including such data in their commercial products cannot charge their clients for the data. Furthermore, users must be informed of the origin of the data: this means an explicit reference to the service provided by the CDS and also to the original author(s) of each catalogue. Let us know if you need more information best regards, Caroline Bot, CDS Le Mardi 21 Août 2012 20:52 CEST, Noel David Torres Taño env...@rolamasao.org a écrit: Dear CDS team I want to package some data for informatic usage. The data are an extraction from the Tycho2 Catalogue. Data came originally from NASA ADC, and I saw at http://web.archive.org/web/20070303235508/http://adc.astro.umd.edu/adc/questions_feedback.html#policies that the policy for data coming fro there is Public Domain. But actually they are not online, and you are the main providers of the data. Could you please clarificate about the data License? I've searched your site and found nothing about that. Thanks in advance Noel Torres ---End Message--- signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: About packages-metadata [was: Re: Freeness of this license]
Le Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 07:25:30PM +0200, Francesco Poli a écrit : Do you mean that one can search by cloning the subversion repository and then using grep (and other similar tools) recursively in the resulting local directory tree? Yes, exactly. Since the all the copright files are in a subdirectory, the grep command can also be run on '*/*.copyright' instead of recursively; this will remove some noise as Subversion keeps copies in subdirectories. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Debian Med packaging team, http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- 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/20120830230352.ga3...@falafel.plessy.net
Re: About kstars-data-extra-tycho2 distributability
Le Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 07:54:05PM +0100, Noel David Torres Taño a écrit : On the package kstars-data-extra-tycho2 it has arisen a doubt about its distributability: See bug #681654 On Martes, 21 de agosto de 2012 02:55:43 Charles Plessy wrote: sorry to discard the arguments you already gave in #681654, but have you considered asking for a clarification to one of the current mainstream distributors ? http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?target=httpcat=I/259 Le Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 07:33:38PM +0100, Noel David Torres Taño a écrit : I thought I sent this before, but it seems that not. from: HOTLINE-DU-CDS Non-Nominatif (UDS) cds-quest...@unistra.fr subject: Re: About Catalogues License message-id: 31d-5035ef80-1b-53516180@99327283 Dear Noel Torres, here is the CDS policy for the scientific data we distribute: Catalogues available at CDS contain scientific data distributed for free, for a scientific usage. Companies including such data in their commercial products cannot charge their clients for the data. Furthermore, users must be informed of the origin of the data: this means an explicit reference to the service provided by the CDS and also to the original author(s) of each catalogue. Hi Noel, sorry that I did not find it by myself. The following parts of their answer is ambiguous. data distributed for free, for a scientific usage Does it mean that other usages, for instance commercial, artistic or military, are disallowed if downloading the data for free ? Companies including such data in their commercial products cannot charge their clients for the data. Does it mean that for-profit use is disallowed, or does it mean that, while one can charge for the software packages that redistributes and displays the data, the presence of the data can not be used as a justification in the price ? For that question in particular, the SIL open font license is an interesting example. It is Free according to Debian, but note the following clauses: 1) Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in Original or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself. 2) Original or Modified Versions of the Font Software may be bundled, redistributed and/or sold with any software, provided that each copy contains the above copyright notice and this license. http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=OFL_web It means that one can sell a software that contains the font, but one can not sell an isolated file that contains just the font. Perhaps this is what is meant for the data in the CDS above ? All in all, I think that you unfortunately need to ask for one more clarification. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- 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/20120830235727.gb3...@falafel.plessy.net
