Winetricks may be inciting copyright infringement
Hello, Winetricks [1] is a package for easily installing many programs and libraries into Wine. It is quite popular with Wine users. Among many programs, it allows installing IE 6, IE7, IE8, all versions of .NET from 1.1 to 4.5 and some parts of DirectX. Unfortunately, many libraries that it distributes are illegal to install on Linux or it is legal to install them under limited circumstances (such as having a Windows license). Winetricks does not tell the user which programs and libraries require a Windows license and which may be problematic or downright illegal to use. Some programs pull in additional dependencies, so it is difficult to determine what is being installed other then by analyzing the source code of Winetricks, which defeats its whole purpose. For example the license terms for .NET 2.0 (which gets installed also when we install .NET 3.0) contain such a statement: MICROSOFT SOFTWARE SUPPLEMENTAL LICENSE TERMS MICROSOFT .NET FRAMEWORK 2.0 Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) licenses this supplement to you. If you are licensed to use Microsoft Windows operating system software (the “software”), you may use this supplement. You may not use it if you do not have a license for the software. You may use a copy of this supplement with each validly licensed copy of the software. The last sentence may be understood as forbidding use of .NET 2.0 on other operating systems then Windows. [1] https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/winetricks -- Greetings, Mateusz Jończyk AEI, Informatyka, Semestr 3 Magisterskich, BDiIS -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/53ea0026.1000...@o2.pl
Re: Winetricks may be inciting copyright infringement
Mateusz Jończyk mat.jonc...@o2.pl writes: Unfortunately, many libraries that it distributes are illegal to install on Linux or it is legal to install them under limited circumstances (such as having a Windows license). So what? winetricks is not part of main, so it is the responsibility of the user to ensure compliance with the license. Hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/87tx5hewsq@mid.gienah.enyo.de
Re: Winetricks may be inciting copyright infringement
On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 02:07:17PM +0200, Hendrik Weimer wrote: Mateusz Jończyk mat.jonc...@o2.pl writes: Unfortunately, many libraries that it distributes are illegal to install on Linux or it is legal to install them under limited circumstances (such as having a Windows license). So what? winetricks is not part of main, so it is the responsibility of the user to ensure compliance with the license. AFAIK, that's always the case, even if they were in main. Or now $any_network_client are also inciting to download illegal content just because they don't warn that some content could be illegal to download? regards, -- Ricardo Mones ~ You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. /usr/games/fortune signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Winetricks may be inciting copyright infringement
On Aug 12, 2014, at 2:07 PM, Hendrik Weimer hend...@enyo.de wrote: Mateusz Jończyk mat.jonc...@o2.pl writes: Unfortunately, many libraries that it distributes are illegal to install on Linux or it is legal to install them under limited circumstances (such as having a Windows license). So what? winetricks is not part of main, so it is the responsibility of the user to ensure compliance with the license. Winetricks is part of contrib, and the debian website states Every package in contrib must comply with the DFSG. [1]. If winetricks turns out to be DFSG incompatible (the requirement of having a MS Windows license suggests that is the case), maybe it should be moved to non-free? [1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-contrib -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/886eca64-e3d6-4c5e-8efd-3d4c4d919...@gmail.com
Re: Winetricks may be inciting copyright infringement
Ricardo Mones mo...@debian.org writes: On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 02:07:17PM +0200, Hendrik Weimer wrote: Mateusz Jończyk mat.jonc...@o2.pl writes: Unfortunately, many libraries that it distributes are illegal to install on Linux or it is legal to install them under limited circumstances (such as having a Windows license). So what? winetricks is not part of main, so it is the responsibility of the user to ensure compliance with the license. AFAIK, that's always the case, even if they were in main. Packages in main are expected to conform to the DFSG, which require that there are no limitations on the use of the software. Hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/87ppg5euuv@mid.gienah.enyo.de
Re: Winetricks may be inciting copyright infringement
Nick Oosterhof nikolaas.ooster...@unitn.it writes: Winetricks is part of contrib, and the debian website states Every package in contrib must comply with the DFSG. [1]. If winetricks turns out to be DFSG incompatible (the requirement of having a MS Windows license suggests that is the case), maybe it should be moved to non-free? winetricks is licensed under the LGPL, which is a DFSG-compatible license. Some of the external components that can be installed using winetricks may or may not have tricky licensing terms, but this is perfectly acceptable for a package in contrib. Hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/87lhqteuj6@mid.gienah.enyo.de
Re: Winetricks may be inciting copyright infringement
On 08/12/2014 07:49 AM, Hendrik Weimer wrote: Ricardo Mones mo...@debian.org writes: On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 02:07:17PM +0200, Hendrik Weimer wrote: Mateusz Jończyk mat.jonc...@o2.pl writes: Unfortunately, many libraries that it distributes are illegal to install on Linux or it is legal to install them under limited circumstances (such as having a Windows license). So what? winetricks is not part of main, so it is the responsibility of the user to ensure compliance with the license. AFAIK, that's always the case, even if they were in main. Packages in main are expected to conform to the DFSG, which require that there are no limitations on the use of the software. Hendrik As a counterexample, it is perfectly possible to create illegal (e.g. trademark infringing) images via any image editor, such as GIMP. The user ultimately takes responsibility for their own actions, and Debian cannot reasonably be expected to limit the users actions to only those which are legal in his/her jurisdiction. *That* would be non-free, if it were even possible. That said, it would be really nice to have a convenient way for the user to review and vet the dependencies of each program they install via winetricks with respect to license dependencies. However, that would be a feature request. If you are interested, direct such comments upstream. Regards, Jonathan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/53ea39be.5000...@gmx.us
