from:"Miriam Ruiz"

Re: would this custom license considered DFSG-free/GPL-compatible

2016-10-04 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2016-10-04 15:55 GMT+02:00 Paul Wise :
> On Tue, Oct 4, 2016 at 9:45 PM, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
>> ok -- playing devil's advocate (just a phrase, I am not of that opinion
>> about the upstream ;)) -- nothing there states about connectivity
>> (Internet) or media (digitized, printed) how they must be made
>> accessible.  Could be via mail, bottle in the ocean, ...
>
> ... telepathy might be another option ;)

Would a judge accept that? :P

Greetings,
Miry

Re: GPL + question

2015-05-29 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2015-05-29 16:06 GMT+02:00 Ole Streicher oleb...@debian.org:
Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes:
On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:09:34PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
Same for me. However: the (L)GPL allows even an unmodified
redistribution under a later license.
This is key -- redistribution. It doesn't change the license.

It does. Just look into the license (resp. the header, for simplicity):

| you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
| General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
| either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

So, redistribution may change the license.

It is indeed quite a grey area, and quite confusing, in my opinion.
According with the (simple but enough for my purposes) definition in
Wikipedia (Copyright is a form of intellectual property, applicable
to any expressed representation of a creative work. It is often shared
among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or
license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rightsholders.
These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative
works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as
attribution.) [1], it is the author[s] the one[s] who has the rights
to license the work.

GPL2 [2] says: This License applies to any program or other work
which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may
be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The
Program, below, refers to any such program or work, and a work
based on the Program means either the Program or any derivative work
under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or
a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or
translated into another language., so the unmodified program is
explicitly defined by the license as a work based on the Program. It
also says that Activities other than copying, distribution and
modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its
scope, so the license does explicitly not apply to relicensing. You
can't relicense other person's work released under GPL2.

What the license says is that You must cause any work that you
distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived
from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no
charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. It is
also said that If the Program specifies a version number of this
License which applies to it and any later version, you have the
option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or
of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the
Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may
choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

So in my opinion, if you modify a code which was released under GPL2+
and you license your modifications as GPL3+, the resulting work has to
also be GPL, and the terms or conditions that apply are those of the
version 3 of the lincense, or later, but you're not effectively
relicensing the code that is not yours, so that part would be still
licensed as GPL2+ by the author and copyright holder. So if you later
removed the part of code that was covered by a different license, the
resulting code would be still under the original license, because you
were never the copyright holder, and you never had permission to
relicense it. I seriously doubt that any judge would rule otherwise.

That's just my two cents.

Greetings,
Miry

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
[2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

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Re: Free as in speech, but not as in beer

2015-04-01 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2015-04-01 8:20 GMT+02:00 Alessandro Rubini rub...@arcana.linux.it:

 The only thing I'm sure about is that upstream has a built-in bug,
 easily removable.  This bug has a novel and interesting reason to
 exist, and it's unclear whether debian should fix it immediately or
 later, or not fix it.  I'm disappointed about all this handwaving
 about freedom, when it's just a a bug, even if on purpose.

Let me take it one step further. What about if a DD introduced that
limitation into an existing software that they are maintaining, on
purpose, on the same conditions? Yeah, I know that the ethical rights
to do so are not as strong, but the legal background is the same, and
the business model would also be the same, right?

I wouldn't like worsening the overall quality of the operating system,
or the service to our users, to promote particular business models
that are flawed from design, and that build essentially not on
providing added value, but on extorting and blackmailing users who do
not have enough technical knowledge to remove the limitations
themselves.

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: Free as in speech, but not as in beer

2015-03-26 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2015-03-26 10:57 GMT+01:00 Paul van der Vlis p...@vandervlis.nl:
 Op 25-03-15 om 21:00 schreef Riley Baird:
 They're probably doing some crazy AGPL bits on top of more restrictively
 licensed bits; since they're the copyright holder, they can do that, but
 it may mean that no one else can actually use and/or distribute the
 code.

 No, it's plain AGPL v3. But he asks friendly not to remove some code and
 then redistribute.

 Social Contract Section 4: Our priorities are our **users** and free
 software

 Both. Not users more then free software.

And adding artificial restrictions to software that harm our users,
even when it might benefit upstream, will not help either our users
nor free software, despite what might be argued that benefiting
upstream could indirectly help the software they produce.

But, regardless of abstract debates, this is what I consider the most
likely outcome of such situation, if it ever appears. Imagine someone
packages the software including that restriction and uploads it to the
archive. If someone uses the software, it is quite likely that some
user will file a bug request asking the maintainers to remove that
particular restriction, In the case that the developer refuses to
remove the restriction, what I would expect is a flame that will
eventually end up in the CTTE intervening or a GR, because I'm sure
that not all DDs will see such a situation with good eyes. In fact, as
Walter Landry said, there's precedent of such kind of restrictions
being removed for our users' sake, for example the case of xpdf. In
the end, I would eventually expect that the restriction would be
removed. And, even in the unpredictable case that Debian kept it,
Ubuntu, Mint and any other derivatives could also remove it on their
own, they don't need Debian's permission to do so.

As I said (and this doesn't have anything to do with Debian, per se),
I don't think in the end that might be a sustainable business model,
sorry.

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: Free as in speech, but not as in beer

2015-03-24 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2015-03-24 20:04 GMT+01:00 Paul van der Vlis p...@vandervlis.nl:
 Op 24-03-15 om 18:38 schreef Paul R. Tagliamonte:

 Unless it allows modification and redistribution of this (and we do so),

 What when the DD who packages it, would package it with the 5 user
 limitation?

If the 5 user limitation is a requirement, then the license is
definitely not DFSG-free (and, also, they would have to figure out how
to manage the contradiction between this limitation and the AGPL).
Depending on the license, it might go to non-free, though.

If it is not a requirement, but a suggestion, like please, be nice,
our business odel depends on the fact that the software is published
with this limitation, then I think they should probably rethink their
business model, because it is quite likely not going to work.

And, even if some developer would upload it with that limitation,
someone will likely file a bug request to remove it, and they will
have to eventually remove it anyway. Keep in mind, from the Social
Contract, that Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software.

Greetings,
Miry


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Question about Facebook's Osquery: Additional Grant of Patent Rights

2014-10-29 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Hi,

Facebook has published what seems a nice piece of code called osquery
under a BSD3 license [1] [2] [3]. I was surprised by an Additional
Grant of Patent Rights document that says the following [4]:


Additional Grant of Patent Rights

Software means the osquery software distributed by Facebook, Inc.

Facebook hereby grants you a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive,
irrevocable (subject to the termination provision below) license under any
rights in any patent claims owned by Facebook, to make, have made, use, sell,
offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Software. For avoidance of
doubt, no license is granted under Facebook’s rights in any patent claims that
are infringed by (i) modifications to the Software made by you or a third party,
or (ii) the Software in combination with any software or other technology
provided by you or a third party.

The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice,
for anyone that makes any claim (including by filing any lawsuit, assertion or
other action) alleging (a) direct, indirect, or contributory infringement or
inducement to infringe any patent: (i) by Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or
affiliates, whether or not such claim is related to the Software, (ii) by any
party if such claim arises in whole or in part from any software, product or
service of Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, whether or not
such claim is related to the Software, or (iii) by any party relating to the
Software; or (b) that any right in any patent claim of Facebook is invalid or
unenforceable.


I'm talking about the part whether or not such claim is related to
the Software. The license is obviously free (BSD3), but I wonder this
patent license can affect, in practice, DFSG freedoms. I'd like to
know what other think about it.

Thanks,
Miry


[1] https://code.facebook.com/posts/844436395567983/introducing-osquery/
[2] https://github.com/facebook/osquery
[3] https://github.com/facebook/osquery/blob/master/LICENSE
[4] https://github.com/facebook/osquery/blob/master/PATENTS


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Re: FYI: debian-legal is discussing the inclusion in the Debian archive of erotic interactive fiction depicting the sexual abuse of children

2014-03-14 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-14 9:59 GMT+01:00 Jo Shields direct...@apebox.org:
 *TRIGGER WARNING* in case it wasn't painfully obvious for this thread by
 now.

Thanks for the warning. Just for the record, I can confirm that there
has been people already triggered by all this situation. We can't
forget that, as the global prevalence of child sexual abuse has been
estimated at 19.7% for females and 7.9% for males [1], in a mailing
list of say 100 people, there are gonna be about 12 people who have
gone through it, and the psychological consequences it has, even years
later, makes that the triggering that these situations cause can be
very hurtful. I'm not saying that there should be censorship regarding
what and how we can discuss things just because emotions play a cig
part of it, but I ask everyone involved to take it into account that
we're hurting actual people that are part of the project just by
having this debate.

I'm not commenting your post in general, just to thank you for your
thoroughful analysis, not only of the game itself but also of its
circumstances and the references it includes. I'm not familiar with
4chan nor Krautchan nor Bernds, so your mail is very enlightening and
adds more information that I was unaware of. I haven't played the game
myself, but I know that doing an analysis of this kind needs a lot of
effort and thick skin, and I really appreciate it. I'm sure that the
FTP Team will too. Thanks.

Before all this discussion gets out of hand, I'll try to summarize my
understanding of the situation as it is now:
1) It has been agreed by everyone that the game is, at least, illegal
in most of our countries, and it shouldn't be packaged in Debian. As
far as I know, no one is arguing that, or questioning that. Not even
by who initially proposed it.
2) There is currently a somehow abstract debate about whether
something can/should be saved of the game, alluding the artistic
quality of the non-sexual components of the game. I can't comment on
this, I haven't seen them far away from those in the web page. I don't
know if something should or could be saved or not. I don't know if
even the fact of saving something and knowing where it comes from can
be hurting to both the project or the people in Debian in itself.
3) Up to now, there hasn't been an actual proposal of package to even
discuss, so the whole debate is abstract and I don't think anyone can
say anything concrete about something that is not even tangible. I
repeat: No one has started packagin anything, as far as I know, no one
has tried to upload anything, no one has made anything apart of
talking. At least that is my current understanding of the situation.
4) For what I know, the game itself, up to the current moment, is not
even DFSG-free. There is the promise of opening up the source code,
but that hasn't even happened yet.
5) The FTP Masters are making an effort to publicly clarify the
situation and calm all the people that is upset about this, even
though -I repeat- there is no actual proposal of any package at the
moment, and it has already been agreed that the game itself, as it is,
cannot be included in Debian.The FTP Masters need time to talk it
through and decide if they want to preventively establish some limits
or not, and there is really no urgency, because there is not an actual
proposal of any kind to accept or reject. Lets not put more pressure
on them than needed.
6) What the FTP Masters are debating, as far as I know, is noth
whether they will allow these kind of games (for some definition of
these kind that ranges between everything adult-only to something
more restricted). Up to now, as far as I know, there has been no
explicit limist placed on what should be allowed in Debian (apart from
being DFSG free). What I understand of what we're expecting from FTP
Masters is not to allow anything that was forbidden, but to make a
decision about whether some limits of some kind should be added
explicitly beforehand, to avoid the problems caused by not having an
explicit policy about this.
7) I know that there has always been some concern about establishing
explicit moral limits to what gets into debian for fear that somehow
someone might be abusing these rules to censor things that were not
intended to be excluded from the beginning.
8) We trust the FTP Masters. Up to now, they have proven that they are
sensible people who work hard to make Debian the best they can, as we
all do. Thanks, guys!
9) For everyone who has an eye on this thread: Debian itself -the
community, the project- has not done anything that can supportive of
these kind of games (for some definition of these kind). The
discussion and arguments on both sides have been made by individual
people (DDs, Contributors or not) in the exercise of their own
individual freedom of expression, and no one has talked yet in behalf
of the whole project.
10) Fortunately, the debate has been polite and civil up to now
(meaning no insults, personal attacks and the such), and confined to
the

Re: FYI: debian-legal is discussing the inclusion in the Debian archive of erotic interactive fiction depicting the sexual abuse of children

2014-03-14 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-14 11:30 GMT+01:00 Vincent Cheng vch...@debian.org:
 (If replying to me via debian-women or debian-legal, please cc me as
 I'm not subscribed to those lists.)

 On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 3:07 AM, Miriam Ruiz mir...@debian.org wrote:

 3) Up to now, there hasn't been an actual proposal of package to even
 discuss, so the whole debate is abstract and I don't think anyone can
 say anything concrete about something that is not even tangible. I
 repeat: No one has started packagin anything, as far as I know, no one
 has tried to upload anything, no one has made anything apart of
 talking. At least that is my current understanding of the situation.

 Nils Dagsson Moskopp has already proposed an outline for a set of
 packages for Unteralterbach [1]; presumably that means he's serious
 about packaging this for Debian. In addition to that, Bas Wijnen has
 already offered to sponsor this package [2], which alarms me even
 more. So yes, there is an element of concrete-ness to this debate, and
 it's why I've started to actively voice my displeasure about the
 entire situation on debian-devel-games (a few days ago I assumed that
 this was just an attempt at trolling and promptly ignored it; it looks
 like I was wrong).

Let me explain what I mean with different words then: FTP Masters -as
far as I know- generally decide whether to accept or not a package by
its actual contents. Up to now, no one has developed any concrete
package that anyone could examine, and thus, the whole debate is
entirely theoretical and abstract. At the moment there is not a
concrete package to be accepted or rejected. There is undoubtable the
possibility that there is a concrete package in the future. I guess
that, depending on what FTP Masters decide, and what might be inside
that particular theoretical package, a decision could be made. For
example. it wouldn't be the same to try to make a package with just
the backgrounds of the game, even with their origin, than one that
contained the sexual images or dialogs. At some point, the details of
concrete proposal -if there ever is one- might matter a lot.

 Due to the above, I'm going to be watching the progress of
 Unteralterbach's packaging very closely in the coming months, as well
 as opposing this every step of the way. If this actually makes it into
 the NEW queue, I have no hesitation on raising this issue again on
 -devel and -project, and/or all other steps available to me as a DD to
 oppose this (e.g. on the remote chance that this actually passes
 through the NEW queue, I'll forward this issue to the tech-ctte, and
 sponsor a GR to get Unteralterbach removed from the archive if need
 be).

You have every right to do so, of course. I suspect that you're not
the only one in the project who has that position.

I would suggest to wait for what the FTP Masters say before making too
much noise or starting anything, as one of the things I would like to
prevent is to attract external groups that try to cconvert Debian into
their particular field battle between freedom of expression and the
rest of the human rights. That's just my personal opinion, and of
course you're entirely free to do whatever you feel more convenient,
but I'd suggest to at least wait for whatever the FTP Masters have to
say before starting a GR or getting more people involved.

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: FYI: debian-legal is discussing the inclusion in the Debian archive of erotic interactive fiction depicting the sexual abuse of children

2014-03-13 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-13 11:17 GMT+01:00 Johannes Schauer j.scha...@email.de:

 This discussion might not be the last one about inclusion of content
 (pornography, violence, theory of evolution, bdsm, lgbt or whatever else one
 might find offensive) in Debian which is in some way illegal in one or more
 jurisdictions.  I didnt hear a word from ftp-masters on this yet but if 
 content

theory of evolution? seriously? O_o

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: FYI: debian-legal is discussing the inclusion in the Debian archive of erotic interactive fiction depicting the sexual abuse of children

2014-03-11 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-11 17:39 GMT+01:00 Mateusz Jończyk mat.jonc...@o2.pl:

There is a danger, if the Debian project falls prey to a moral panic, that it
will self-censor to the extent of producing a chilling effect upon itself.

This is not a moral panic. A real harm is being done.
According to statistics [2]
One in 20 children (4.8%) have experienced contact sexual abuse. This has
probably a devastating effect on their lives.

We should probably make an effort to keep this discussion civil, not
only to set an example for other flames in the whole project, but also
because this is the kind of discussion that can easily get out of
hands. Right now there is no need to make any decision at all, it is
in the hands of the FTP Masters, and we as a project trust them.

Please, before giving any opinion, one way or the other, I'd suggest
to be as calm as possible and re-read twice. We don't want to start a
flame, and we don't want the noise.

A sane person tries to judge morally their actions, which often includes
predicting
their consequences. It has been mentioned here already and I find it likely
that
the game may trigger some people sick of paedophilia and more harm may be
done.

Whenever I have used the word triggering in my mails, has been right
for the opposite reason. I meant triggering the victims. We certainly
don't want to cause any emotional breakdown to anyone, so I suggest we
treat this topic calmly and as non-emotional as possible. When I mean
triggering the victims, I mean triggering PSTD [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder

I honestly don't think that the game can make anyone behave in a way
they wouldn't if they haven't played. The same way that violent people
are not so because they play violent games. I haven't played the game
myself, and I probably couldn't even if I had curiosioty enough to
try, but most than anything, in that regards, I would be concerned
about whether there is an implicit or explicit apology of stuff. That
would certainly be illegal almost everywhere and, most of all, none of
us would want it in Debian.

To make it clear once and again, what I'm concerned about is the victims.

As has been mentioned previously [3], including this will have a devastating
effect
on Debian.

Unfortunately we don't have debian-children so that we may forward it to that
list.

This should probably belong more to debian-parents. Having a
debian-children group has been among my TODO ideas for the future, but
even if it currently existed, they would be the last I would want to
forward this to.

Hugs,
Miry

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Re: FYI: debian-legal is discussing the inclusion in the Debian archive of erotic interactive fiction depicting the sexual abuse of children

2014-03-11 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-11 19:40 GMT+01:00 Tobias Hansen than...@debian.org:
Am 11.03.2014 17:54, schrieb Miriam Ruiz:
Right now there is no need to make any decision at all, it is
in the hands of the FTP Masters, and we as a project trust them.

As far as I am aware there is not even the need for the FTP masters to
decide because there is no Debian developer who is considering to
package or sponsor the game. (Or is there?) There was just someone who
is not a Debian developer or maintainer and who has not contributed to
the Games Team before who asked on debian-devel-games if this game can
be included. By being somewhat well-spoken and not mentioning child
abuse in the beginning he got the discussion going. But as long as there
is no Debian developer who considers uploading something like that I
really don't know why to continue the discussion.

There is certainly no need of, at the moment, but I was referring to
Paul's words:

I can think of a few people who'd likely support it's inclusion, but
this isn't the mainstream viewpoint. There's an ftpteam meeting about
this coming up, and there'll be an 'official' response.

I haven't played the game myself, and I quite likely won't, so I don't
have a personal opinion. All I know is that different people have
different points of view about what the games contains. I guess that
most of us are building our opinion on other's, thus being a 2nd or
3rd hand opinion. i honestly don't know how the game is like, whether
it is legal or not in some countries or others, or if it would be
removing some scenes. There is a great difference in one case and the
other.

Even before all the discussion started, when I noticed that it would
be a controversial game I asked both the DPL and the FTP Masters to
know their position. Just for the record, it is quite likely that at
some point or other there will be some kind of games for adults
proposed, probably not as this one, according to what has been said
about it, but for adults nonetheless. It will be a good thing to know
in advance what to do about that. It would be a waste of time to go
through all the process of packaging the game to jave it rejected for
social or moral reasons in the end. Legal reasons are a different
thing.

Greetings,
Miry

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Re: Unteralterbach visual novel (was: Re: Introduction)

2014-03-11 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-11 20:26 GMT+01:00 Ian Jackson ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk:

 in Debian.  That doesn't amount to censorship.  People who want to
 find interesting interactive fiction are probably not going to be
 looking for it in our archive.

You mean that we shouldn't package any interactive fiction game of any
kind, or were you referring just to this one?

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: FYI: debian-legal is discussing the inclusion in the Debian archive of erotic interactive fiction depicting the sexual abuse of children

2014-03-11 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-11 22:23 GMT+01:00 Sam Kuper sam.ku...@uclmail.net:

Now that this conversation has descended into farce, I'm out. I only
hope that if the issue does cease to become moot[1] and Debian decides
to reject Unteralterbach (which, to repeat, I have no opinion about)
the project will not do so in a way that would prevent balanced
discussion of *other* works.

The most important reason that has to weight, in my opinion, is
whether is legally safe for debian and for the administrators of the
mirrors (that want to distribute it). That's the reason why I CC'ed
Debian Legal since the beginning

I honestly believe that almost none of those of us discusing the game
has even tried it (I haven't at least) and I don't think anyone who
hasn't even tested it can have a solid opinion. As far as I
understand, we're all defining our position 2nd hand on Bas' analysis.

I would suggest everyone not to waste their energies discussing morals
about this, or whether freedom of speech or morals should have a
higher weight. I don't think that's the point. The latest reports I've
read from the FTP masters were clear and their arguments well exposed,
and I'm sure that would be the case here. If someone don't agree with
whatever they decide, there are also ways to appeal the decision.

After all that has been said, I don't really expect any DD to be brave
enough to try to upload this game unless it's pretty clear that we
have a mislead idea about what the game is about, Even if the game
wasn't what it seems to be, someone has to be very brave or crazy to
be able to face the attacks that would certanily follow, which are
quite likely to turn into nasty personal attacks at some point, as has
been already suggested here.

Greetings,
Miry

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Re: Re: FYI: debian-legal is discussing the inclusion in the Debian archive of erotic interactive fiction depicting the sexual abuse of children

2014-03-11 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-11 23:34 GMT+01:00 Jo Shields direct...@apebox.org:
I honestly believe that almost none of those of us discusing the game
has even tried it (I haven't at least) and I don't think anyone who
hasn't even tested it can have a solid opinion. As far as I
understand, we're all defining our position 2nd hand on Bas' analysis.

Let's be very, very, very clear then.

This is a game where you play a paedophile. The aim is to rape local
little girls, whilst evading the authorities. Success is rewarded with
graphic scenes of sex with children, failure with being thrown in
prison. The sex content is only optional in the sense that you can out
yourself to the authorities and get thrown in jail rather than continue
with the actual game content. Where game content consists of a few
hundred drawn images of graphic sex acts with children. The script
unrpa.py can be used to extract all the assets from the .rpa files in
the upstream-distributed game.

We're not talking about some great moral position on artistic integrity
here. There are interesting visual novels made with Ren'Py worth
considering for Debian. But I don't think, on any sane planet, Hero
Paedo Fucks Kids In German is a game we want in the archive.

*Seriously* how is it possible that this bullshit has taken up as much
time as it already has?

Thanks for the analysis and for the clarity. This description of the
game has nothing to do with the original one that I read.

Greetings,
Miry

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Re: Unteralterbach visual novel (was: Re: Introduction)

2014-03-10 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-10 2:44 GMT+01:00 Bas Wijnen wij...@debian.org:

For that reason, I would advise not to include this game in Debian (and
not to spend your time on packaging it). But note that I'm not setting
the rules here. If you feel strongly that it adds value to the system,
feel free to explain why, and please also explain why you think that my
objections are less important than the contributions.

Finally, I'm pleased to see someone here who is interested in packaging
visual novels. I like that concept, and would certainly like to see
more of them in Debian. Just not this one.

Lots of thanks for your efforts analyzing it. I am so looking forward
to having visual novels in Debian too. I haven't had time to even test
this one (I can understand some German, but I'm not fluent in it, and
that means quite an effort and time, as well as not really
understanding everything that goes on), apart from seeing the graphics
in the web page, and reading the comments in previous mails. I find
your description of the game very disturbing, and I'm thinking that it
may be even be triggering for some people.

Having read your report, even if someone decided to package it, I
wouldn't advise to include it in the archive without speaking
beforehand with lawyers that could advice us on the possible risks.
I'm not familiar enought with the law in different countries to know
what's allowed or not, but from your analysis I fear that by
distributing it we might be puting in risk the administrators of some
of our mirrors, and I'd like to be sure that's not the case. On the
other hand, it's almost impossible to make something that it's not
illegal in at least one country in the world. For example, I would be
a strong supporter of having LGBT-themed games in the archives, and
they might not be legal in Russia.

I really appreciate your effort in analysing a game as hard as this
one might seem. Lots of thanks!

Greetings,
Miry

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Re: Unteralterbach visual novel (was: Re: Introduction)

2014-03-10 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2014-03-10 14:48 GMT+01:00 Nils Dagsson Moskopp n...@dieweltistgarnichtso.net:

Miriam Ruiz mir...@debian.org writes:
in the web page, and reading the comments in previous mails. I find
your description of the game very disturbing, and I'm thinking that it
may be even be triggering for some people.

I would like to avoid that problem by clearly labeling the game package,
similar to how fortunes-off is labeled (Please do not install this
package if you or your users are offended by depictions of [...]).

Yup, we'd certainly do that in the description of the package. It is
important that anyone has a clear idea of what it is before installing
any package.

I remember having read a page about a more formalized game labeling
effort of the Debian Games Team, but I could not find the web page.

It's something I have been looking into for a while, but it hasn't
been implemented up to a usable level for the moment, and I have never
been sure if there was demand for it, or if it was just a crazy idea
of mine:

https://wiki.debian.org/OpenRating

I agree and consider it a bad thing if anyone suffers because of this.

How are these issues handled currently?

I honestly don't know. Probably the DPL might have an idea, or maybe
someone in Debian Legal.

Greetings,
Miry

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Re: Introduction

2014-03-03 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Hi,

This was quite predictable to happen sometime. Games are a lot about
telling stories, and stories can come in very different flavours. As
we are planning to maybe getting a game into Debian, that has explicit
erotic or sexual contents -I haven't really played it myself, so I
don't really know the extent of the contents, the messages delivered,
or if it is just an erotic story or if it has some kind of apology of
something-, I thought it would be wise to inform both the Debian Legal
mailing list and the DPL, to gather some feedback if it is feasible or
if there are some limits to what is acceptable in the repositories of
the project, keeping especially in mind the problems we might cause to
mirrors, distributors or sellers, and if there's a need to handle
these cases especially.

Please, keep the Games Team in CC.

Greetings,
Miry

2014-03-03 18:37 GMT+01:00 Nils Dagsson Moskopp n...@dieweltistgarnichtso.net:

I am not that interested in most video games, as I think they contain
needless grinding. However, I am interested in games with interesting
mechanics or story, like Warzone 2100 or the games by Jason Rohrer.

I am going to start with trying to package Bernd und das Rätsel um
Unteralterbach - a visual novel set in present-day bavaria containing
(optional) erotic content - as soon as the author releases source code
and assets. Getting it packaged is important to me as I found that
Ren'Py makes code bit-rot fast, having contributed to a VN myself.

I am somewhat anxious about packaging Unteralterbach, as it may show -
depending on player choices - content pertaining to sexual abuse, bdsm,
consent, moral panics, slut shaming, virgin shaming, religion, etc. and
makes fun of the german federal police and several contemporary public
figures. However, I believe that the author has handled these issues in
a suitable manner, delivering a compelling story based on these themes.

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Re: Judgement about the EUPL

2014-02-16 Thread Miriam Ruiz

As I know (maybe I just didn't found it) there is no final judgement about
the EUPL.

EUPL 1.1 [1] has this clause [2]:

Compatibility clause:

If the Licensee Distributes and/or Communicates Derivative Works or
copies thereof based upon both the Original Work and another work
licensed under a Compatible Licence, this Distribution and/or
Communication can be done under the terms of this Compatible Licence.

For the sake of this clause, Compatible Licence refers to the
licences listed in the appendix attached to this Licence. Should the
Licensee's obligations under the Compatible Licence conflict with
his/her obligations under this Licence, the obligations of the
Compatible Licence shall prevail

Appendix
Compatible Licences according to article 5 EUPL are:
- GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) v. 2
- Open Software License (OSL) v. 2.1, v. 3.0
- Common Public License v. 1.0
- Eclipse Public License v. 1.0
- Cecill v. 2.0

So it's hard to say that it's not DFSG-free.

I don't know who makes this final judgement (or more generally how it is
made).

The decision is generally made by the ftp masters. The easiset way to
find out is to check whether there are already packages under that
license in the archive, which I really don't know,

Greetings,
Miry

[1] https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/system/files/EN/EUPL%20v.1.1%20-%20Licence.pdf
[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Public_Licence#Comparison_to_other_open_source.2Ffree_software_licences

2014-02-16 17:46 GMT+01:00 Sven Bartscher sven.bartsc...@weltraumschlangen.de:
The last post to discussions about the EUPL are now five years old.
As I know (maybe I just didn't found it) there is no final judgement about
the EUPL.
I don't know who makes this final judgement (or more generally how it is
made). But I think it's time to make it.
So basically I'm looking for a decision that is clear enough to put on the
wiki page about DFSGLicenses[1]

Kind regards
Sven Bartscher

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses#Public_Domain

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Re: data and software licence incompatabilities?

2013-09-03 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2013/9/3 Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org

 Le Mon, Sep 02, 2013 at 10:06:01AM -0500, Gunnar Wolf a écrit :
 
  Excess repetition makes many of us regulars pay less attention to the
  topics. I'll mention this specific example, trying not to make it into
  an ad-hominem: Francesco has a *great* license comprehension and
  comparison skill, much greater than mine, and I appreciate reading his
  messages when I am starting, or have time, or am in a good mood. But I
  know there is a very high probability his mails will include a Well,
  but remember I don't think any CC licenses are as good as GPLv2!
  paragraph.
 
  So, Francesco: I will also tune in with Steve's request. I think your
  point would be better driven if not constantly repeated. And you would
  find this crowd much more likely to accept your ideas.

 Hello everybody,

 I think that this discussion is going completely out of proportions.
  Francesco
 always makes sure that his replies contain an informative answer.  In the
 last
 part of his emails, he adds his point of view in a way that it is very
 clear
 that it is not Debian's.  People who already read it can easily skip it,
 just
 like email signatures.

 If Debian bans Francesco from this list, I will fee very ashamed of us.

 Also, with such a low threshold for banning people who are polite,
 precise, who
 do not engage into flamewars, and never show aggressivity, we will set the
 stage for massive purge and witch-hunting, because of many people are
 within
 the treshold.


Hi,

I wasn't planning on participating in this discussion but, as you said, it
has  gotten so out of proportions that I thought it wouldn't be that bad
after all. I share Charles'  and Gunnar's point of view, I appreciate
Francesco's contributions to the mailing list and, even though Gunnar is
right about the high probability of his mails including something like
that, it doesn't bother me as much as seems to bother other people here.
His contributions are always polite, reasoned and respectful, and I
appreciate that. Just for the record, even though I might not agree with
his point of view about some things, I prefer debian-legal with the
presence of Francesco, and I honestly don't see any reason why a ban should
even be considered. At least that's my point of view.

Greetings,
Miry

Re: license question

2012-03-16 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2012/3/17 Jérémy Lal kapo...@melix.org:
Hi,
could anyone help me resolve this license question :
https://github.com/isaacs/inherits/commit/0b5b6e9964ca

i'm not smart enough to grasp what the author wants in that case.

Just for the record, the license says:

General Public Obviousness License

The Author asserts that this software and associated documentation
files (the Software), while the Author's original creation, is
nonetheless obvious, trivial, unpatentable, and implied by the
context in which the software was created. If you sat down and
thought about the problem for an hour or less, you'd probably
come up with exactly this solution.

Permission is granted to use this software in any way
whatsoever, with the following restriction:

You may not release the Software under a more restrictive license
than this one.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

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Educational Community License 1.0

2011-08-18 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Hi,

A project I'm interested in is considering the The Educational
Community License 1.0 [1]:

---

This Educational Community License (the License) applies
to any original work of authorship (the Original Work) whose owner
(the Licensor) has placed the following notice immediately following
the copyright notice for the Original Work:

Copyright (c) year copyright holders

Licensed under the Educational Community License version 1.0

This Original Work, including software, source code, documents,
or other related items, is being provided by the copyright holder(s)
subject to the terms of the Educational Community License. By
obtaining, using and/or copying this Original Work, you agree that you
have read, understand, and will comply with the following terms and
conditions of the Educational Community License:

Permission to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and
sublicense this Original Work and its documentation, with or without
modification, for any purpose, and without fee or royalty to the
copyright holder(s) is hereby granted, provided that you include the
following on ALL copies of the Original Work or portions thereof,
including modifications or derivatives, that you make:

The full text of the Educational Community License in a location viewable to
users of the redistributed or derivative work.

Any pre-existing intellectual property disclaimers, notices, or terms and
conditions.

Notice of any changes or modifications to the Original Work, including the
date the changes were made.

Any modifications of the Original Work must be distributed in such a manner as
to avoid any confusion with the Original Work of the copyright holders.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

The name and trademarks of copyright holder(s) may NOT be used
in advertising or publicity pertaining to the Original or Derivative
Works without specific, written prior permission. Title to copyright in
the Original Work and any associated documentation will at all times
remain with the copyright holders.

---

I don't think there is any obvious problem with it, but I thought it
would be better to ask here too, just in case, as there doesn't seem
to be any package in the archive using it (AFAIK). What do you think?

Greetings and thanks,
Miry


[1] http://opensource.org/licenses/ecl1
[2] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Educational_Community_License


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Re: Bug#570621: Parsing output = derivative work?

2011-03-08 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2011/3/8 Mahyuddin Susanto udi...@ubuntu.com:
 Parsing the output of a program doesn’t make a derivative work. However,
 if this parsing is vital for the operation of the application and makes
 it useless without that program, what is the difference with dynamic
 linking to a library? To a programmer, there might be one, but to a
 court, there wouldn’t be any.


 Thanks for CCing to debian-legal
 anyway, i'm really confused for this packages, but i'm open for input
 for a best solutions

In general, I wouldn't consider parsing the output of another program
to de a derivative work. According to the GPL FAQ [1]:

Where's the line between two separate programs, and one program with
two parts? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will
decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the
mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a
shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication
(what kinds of information are interchanged).

If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are
definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run
linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means
combining them into one program.

By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are
communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs.
So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are
separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are
intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too
could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger
program. 

[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation

Greetings,
Miry


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is RtMidi license DFSG-free?

2010-10-17 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Hi all,

I'm thinking about building a package for RtMidi [1], as I'm
developing a package of a software that embeds it, and already found
some other packages in the archive doing it. I'm not very keen on
having duplicated code around. In any case, the license [2], a custom
licensed based on MIT, seems to be a bit wierd:


RtMidi: realtime MIDI i/o C++ classes
Copyright (c) 2003-2010 Gary P. Scavone

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

Any person wishing to distribute modifications to the Software is
requested to send the modifications to the original developer so that
they can be incorporated into the canonical version.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.


Especially this part: Any person wishing to distribute modifications
to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original
developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical
version., can it be considered DFSG-free?

There are at least two packages already in the archive embedding this
code, so it's probably already been considered DFSG-compliant, unless
it is an error, but I want to be sure about it.

Greetings and thanks,
Miry


[1] http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/
[2] http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/index.html#license


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Re: Releasing under a different liberal license?

2010-10-15 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2010/10/15 Magnus Blomfelt magnus.blomf...@gmail.com:
 2010/10/15 Miriam Ruiz mir...@debian.org:
 Hi,
 Hi Miriam

Hi!

 I did some research and I think I managed to find the original author.
 A private mail has been sent and it would be good to know how it goes!

Hey, that will be great! Thanks! :)

 (I'm new to this list and not a Debian Developer.)

Welcome!!! :)

Greetings,
Miry


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Releasing under a different liberal license?

2010-10-14 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Hi,

There's some old code I am working on, but which unfortunately is not
supported by upstream anymore. Thus, I've decided to become the new
upstream and make the code evolve myself. The original license says
hat:

   Permission to use, copy, and distribute this software and its
   documentation for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted,
   provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies.

   Permission to distribute binaries including jfs-files for any purpose
   is hereby granted.

   This software is provided as is without express or implied warranty.

Some time ago, I wrote to the original upstream asking for
clarification of the license:

 Hi,

 I'm interested in your program JFS2, even though it is
 unmaintained now. I just have a doubt regarding the
 license of the program:

   Permission to use, copy, and distribute this
 software and its
   documentation for any purpose with or without fee
 is hereby granted,
   provided that the above copyright notice appear in
 all copies.

   Permission to distribute binaries including
 jfs-files for any purpose
   is hereby granted.

   This software is provided as is without express
 or implied warranty.

 Does the license include permission to modify the code
 and redistribute the modified program?

 Also, does this license covers the contents of
 jfsdoc204.tar.gz too?

 Thanks in advance,
 Miry

And I received a very clarifying answer:

 Hi,

 Regarding the license of JFS2.

 The intension with the license was: you can use the program and its
 documentation any way you want, as long as you don't try to take control
 over (copyright) the program (I should y have releases it under a
 GNU-lincense). So the answer to your questions is:

  Does the license include permission to modify the code
  and redistribute the modified program?

 Yes. You are welcome to modify the code and redistribute the modified code.

  Also, does this license covers the contents of
  jfsdoc204.tar.gz too?

 Yes. You can use the documentation any way you want.

 Best regards
 Jan

Upstream seems not to be reachable anymore, the original web site has
disappeared ( http://inet.uni2.dk/~jemor/jfs.htm ) and I think that
his email address at that domain might be too. I have been evolving
and cleaning the code for a couple of weeks (
http://repo.or.cz/w/jfs-fuzzy.git ), but I'd like to release my
version with a more standard license (I'm thinking about BSD-2 or MIT)
before uploading the package to Debian.

My question is then, can I release my derivative version of the
software under a BSD-2 or MIT license (respecting the original
copyright statements, of course)?

Lots of thanks,
Miry


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Re: Distribution of media content together with GPLv2 code in one package?

2010-04-05 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2010/4/5 Francesco Poli f...@firenze.linux.it:
 On Sun, 4 Apr 2010 23:52:45 -0700 Steve Langasek wrote:

 On Sun, Apr 04, 2010 at 08:11:26PM -0700, Walter Landry wrote:
  Steve Langasek vor...@debian.org wrote:
   On Mon, Apr 05, 2010 at 12:22:53AM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote:
   However, it is my opinion that works with unavailable source do not
   comply with DFSG#2, regardless of the license.

   Your opinion is not relevant.  The text of the DFSG is what's relevant, 
   and
   the text says that *programs* must include source code, not arbitrary
   non-program works distributed in Debian.

  That was voted on 2004 and Debian decided that you are incorrect.  It
  is time to move on.

 No, it did not.  Debian decided that all works must comply with the DFSG.
 DFSG #2 does not apply to non-program works.

 Steve, please clarify your interpretation of the DFSG.
 It sounds very awkward to me.

Even though it might sounded ackward when I first read this, Steve can
have a point here. If I am understanding correctly, he's referring to
the difference of meaning between the terms software and program.
DFSG applies to everything Software, but DFSG#2 explicitly applies
only to computer programs. I'm using the definitions in the Wikipedia
as an example for clarifying the point, not that they should be
mandatory in any way:

Software [1]: Digitally stored data such as computer programs and
other kinds of information read and written by computers.
Program [2]: Sequence of instructions written to perform a specified
task for a computer.

DFSG#2 says that: The program must include source code, and must
allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form.

I'm not really sure if I really agree with the implications of Steve's
interpretation of DFSG#2, but I have to admit that it might make
sense, and that the answer is not obvious for me.

Greetings,
Miry

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_software
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_program


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Re: License question for new package

2009-10-17 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Hi,

Have a look at this part: With the exception of content with an
individual readme file, all
content is copyright Platinum Arts LLC and permission is required for
distribution. It is not even valid for non-free without an special permission.

My approach for this package was to package te game engine and the
lite game data set (free) into main, and then add the extended data
set, with permission, to non-free.

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: Converting a licence to be DFSG compliant

2009-08-04 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2009/8/4 Brian claremont...@gmail:
 The smssend package was removed from Debian for the reason stated in bug
 #399685.

Have a look at http://www.gnome.org/~markmc/openssl-and-the-gpl.html

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: legal questions regarding machine learning models

2009-05-27 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2009/5/27 Mark Weyer we...@informatik.hu-berlin.de:
  This looks very similar to distributing a picture which is a 2D
  rendering of a 3D model without distributing the original model. This is
  already accepted in the archive, and the reason is that a 2D picture is
  its own source, and can serve as a base for modified versions this way.

 I disagree with this decision by the FTP masters.
 I personally think that, in most cases, the 2D rendering is not the
 actual source, since many modifications would be best made by changing
 the 3D model and re-rendering the 2D image.

 I agree with you. In particular, in many cases a single 3D model is used
 to create many 2D images. If you don't have the model, you need to do
 the modification many times.
 And then there is the case of increasing the resolution...

I don't know if it would be technically possible to go to that
extremes. Having the source code of all the music and video intros for
all the games, of all the sounds, could be probably 100 times bigger
than the current archives. Well, you get the idea. I don't think it's
a single package what we're talking about. I remember there was a
thread some time ago on what would happen if we took the having a
whole free source and toolchain when applied to music, and how it
would be absolutely impossible to achieve, at least right now. Any
idea on what to do in those situations?

Greetings,
Miry

PS:I'm CC'ing to the Debian Games Team mailing list.


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Re: GPL2 vs. GPL3

2009-04-15 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2009/4/14 Michael Crawford mdcrawf...@gmail.com:
 There are actually four licenses to consider.  Each is different from
 the others in significant ways; it would be a terrible mistake to
 choose any of them without fully understanding the consequences of
 one's choice:

 GPL2 only
 GPL2 or any later version
 GPL3 only
 GPL3 or any later version

You're forgetting another option: dual license GPL2 only and GPL3 only :)

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: Judgement about the EUPL

2009-04-06 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Just in case anyone is interested, I've attached the diff between
versions 1.0 and 1.1. You can also read it online [1]

Greetings,
Miry

[1] http://pastebin.com/f64abf600
--- EUPL-1.0.txt	2009-01-23 13:09:40.0 +0100
+++ EUPL-1.1.txt	2009-01-23 13:15:14.0 +0100
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-European Union Public Licence (EUPL) v1.0
+European Union Public Licence (EUPL) v1.1
 
   Copyright (c) 2007 The European Community 2007
 
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@
 Licensor (as defined below) has placed the following notice immediately
 following the copyright notice for the Original Work:
 
-  Licensed under the EUPL V.1.0
+  Licensed under the EUPL V.1.1
 
 or has expressed by any other mean his willingness to license under the
 EUPL.
@@ -85,7 +85,8 @@
   o Distribution and/or Communication: any act of selling, giving,
 lending, renting, distributing, communicating, transmitting,
 or otherwise making available, on-line or off-line, copies of
-the Work at the disposal of any other natural or legal person.
+the Work or providing access to its essential functionalities
+at the disposal of any other natural or legal person.
 
2. Scope of the rights granted by the Licence
   The Licensor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-
@@ -145,7 +146,9 @@
   o Copyleft clause: If the Licensee distributes and/or
 communicates copies of the Original Works or Derivative Works
 based upon the Original Work, this Distribution and/or
-Communication will be done under the terms of this Licence.
+Communication will be done under the terms of this Licence or
+of a later version of this Licence unless the Original Work is
+expressly distributed only under this version of the Licence.
 The Licensee (becoming Licensor) cannot offer or impose any
 additional terms or conditions on the Work or Derivative Work
 that alter or restrict the terms of the Licence.
@@ -179,9 +182,9 @@
   he/she brings to the Work are owned by him/her or licensed to him/
   her and that he/she has the power and authority to grant the
   Licence.
-  Each time You, as a Licensee, receive the Work, the original
-  Licensor and subsequent Contributors grant You a licence to their
-  contributions to the Work, under the terms of this Licence.
+  Each time You accept the Licence, the original Licensor and
+  subsequent Contributors grant You a licence to their contributions
+  to the Work, under the terms of this Licence.
 
7. Disclaimer of Warranty
   The Work is a work in progress, which is continuously improved by
@@ -240,9 +243,8 @@
   to download the Work from a remote location) the distribution
   channel or media (for example, a website) must at least provide to
   the public the information requested by the applicable law regarding
-  the identification and address of the Licensor, the Licence and the
-  way it may be accessible, concluded, stored and reproduced by the
-  Licensee.
+  the Licensor, the Licence and the way it may be accessible,
+  concluded, stored and reproduced by the Licensee.
 
   12. Termination of the Licence
   The Licence and the rights granted hereunder will terminate
@@ -260,11 +262,14 @@
   applicable law, this will not affect the validity or enforceability
   of the Licence as a whole. Such provision will be construed and/or
   reformed so as necessary to make it valid and enforceable.
-  The European Commission may put into force translations and/or
-  binding new versions of this Licence, so far this is required and
-  reasonable. New versions of the Licence will be published with a
-  unique version number. The new version of the Licence becomes
-  binding for You as soon as You become aware of its publication.
+  The European Commission may publish other linguistic versions and/or
+  new versions of this Licence, so far this is required and
+  reasonable, without reducing the scope of the rights granted by the
+  Licence. New versions of the Licence will be published with a unique
+  version number.
+  All linguistic versions of this Licence, approved by the European
+  Commission, have identical value. Parties can take advantage of the
+  linguistic version of their choice.
 
   14. Jurisdiction
   Any litigation resulting from the interpretation of this License,

Re: Judgement about the EUPL

2009-03-28 Thread Miriam Ruiz

EUPL v1.1 full text:

  European Union Public Licence (EUPL) v1.1

  Copyright (c) 2007 The European Community 2007

 Preamble

The attached European Union Public Licence (EUPL) has been elaborated
in the framework of IDABC, a European Community programme, with the aim to
promote Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public
Administrations, Business and Citizens. IDABC continues and deepens the
previous IDA (Interchange of data between Administrations) programme.
Software applications, such as CIRCA, a groupware for sharing documents
within closed user groups, IPM, a tool helping administrations to close
the gap between them and their stakeholders by providing a powerful and
yet easy to use tool for direct consultation through the Internet, or
eLink, a tool comprising the identification of remote services and the
provision of reliable and secure messaging services over a network
infrastructure, have been developed within the framework of the IDA or
IDABC programmes. The European Community, on the basis of the contracts
that permitted the development of such software, is owner of all
Intellectual Property Rights and consequently of the source code and
executables.

Such IDA or IDABC developed tools are used by public administrations
outside the European Institutions, under a licence delivered by the
European Commission, which is the Institution acting on behalf of the
European Community since the copyright for those tools belongs to the
European Community. For some time, interest has increased in the
publication of the software source code under a licence that would not
limit access and modifications to the source code.

The original EUPL Licence was established for such software, as
corresponding to the IDABC objectives. The Licence is written in general
terms and could therefore be used for derivative works, for other works
and by other licensors.

The utility of this Licence is to reinforce legal interoperability by
adopting a common framework for pooling public sector software.
This preamble is not a part of the EUPL Licence.

 Licence

This European Union Public Licence (the EUPL) applies to the Work or
Software (as defined below) which is provided under the terms of this
Licence. Any use of the Work, other than as authorised under this Licence
is prohibited (to the extent such use is covered by a right of the
copyright holder of the Work).

The Original Work is provided under the terms of this Licence when the
Licensor (as defined below) has placed the following notice immediately
following the copyright notice for the Original Work:

  Licensed under the EUPL V.1.1

or has expressed by any other mean his willingness to license under the
EUPL.

   1. Definitions
  In this Licence, the following terms have the following meaning:
  o The Licence: this Licence.
  o The Original Work or the Software: the software distributed
and/or communicated by the Licensor under this Licence,
available as Source Code and also as Executable Code as the
case may be.
  o Derivative Works: the works or software that could be created
by the Licensee, based upon the Original Work or modifications
thereof. This Licence does not define the extent of
modification or dependence on the Original Work required in
order to classify a work as a Derivative Work; this extent is
determined by copyright law applicable in the country
mentioned in Article 15.
  o The Work: the Original Work and/or its Derivative Works.
  o The Source Code: the human-readable form of the Work which is
the most convenient for people to study and modify.
  o The Executable Code: any code which has generally been
compiled and which is meant to be interpreted by a computer as
a program.
  o The Licensor: the natural or legal person that distributes
and/or communicates the Work under the Licence.
  o Contributor(s): any natural or legal person who modifies the
Work under the Licence, or otherwise contributes to the
creation of a Derivative Work.
  o The Licensee or You: any natural or legal person who makes
any usage of the Software under the terms of the Licence.
  o Distribution and/or Communication: any act of selling, giving,
lending, renting, distributing, communicating, transmitting,
or otherwise making available, on-line or off-line, copies of
the Work or providing access to its essential functionalities
at the disposal of any other natural or legal person.

   2. Scope of the rights granted by the Licence
  The Licensor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-
  exclusive, sub-licensable

Re: issues with the AGPL

2009-03-24 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2009/3/25 Sean Kellogg skell...@gmail.com:
 On Tuesday 24 March 2009 05:22:34 pm Greg Harris wrote:
  Free-software licenses especially are (by definition) unilateral
  grants of permission, so I can't see how you lump them under contract.

 Um, no. Software licenses are one instance of a class of unilateral
 contracts. Another instance is product warranties. Yet another class is
 a store's advertised prices for goods. There are others.
 Mr. Harris here is correct, for *most* cases. There does exist, however, a 
 hypothetical license which is NOT a contract... though you don't see them 
 very often. This is where person A gives something to person B without any 
 expectation from person B. This is a unilateral grant of permission and would 
 not be enforceable as a contract for lack of consideration. However, the 
 license is still good until such time as A withdraws the grant, which he 
 could conceivably do at any time. It's no different than if I invite you into 
 my house, which the court sees as a license to enter my property, converting 
 the person from trespasser to invitee but I can kick that person out 
 whenever I like. The moment we sign a lease (another form of contract) I lose 
 that power because the contract grants the leasor the right to be on the 
 premises and is enforceable (assuming I got something in the lease, like rent 
 money).

 In case anyone is wondering, the general point of view of law professor who 
 write articles about such things is that the GPL *is* a contract, because it 
 requires the recipient to forbear certain warranty rights.

All that is for USA, right? Do you know whether it works that way in
other countries than USA, and probably UK, Canada and Australia too?

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: issues with the AGPL

2009-03-23 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2009/3/23 Greg Harris glhar...@panix.com:

 I do not profess any expertise or experience with Debian policies other
 than a general reading. Nor do I think of myself as a defender or
 critic of any particular variation of a free license that an author
 might choose. From the various objections I have read about the AGPL,
 however, there seem to be a number of people who do not share its
 goals. But I do not recall reading any statement of objections that
 concluded it was not a free license or that set forth any realistic
 example of impracticability. I could be persuaded; I just haven't seen
 any substance so far. (I'm just a bystander, of course, so you need not
 think you've won or lost anything by my opinion.)

I don't want to light that flame again, as there is nothing new about
it since last time we discussed it, so I personally have nothing to
add to what I said in previous threads and I just don't like to move
in circles discussing the same things all over again. I'm just writing
to confirm that there are some of us who don't consider AGPL as free
(even though I acknowledge that Debian as an organization does, for
the moment), and that in the last threads there have been some
scenarios described that where problematic. The consensus you seem to
describe does not exist.

Greetings,
Miry


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Using NASA Imagery

2009-01-17 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Does anyone know if NASA conditions [1] are DFSG-free? According to
what's written there, it seems to me that they're public domain (NASA
still images; audio files; video; and computer files used in the
rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon
data in any format, generally are not copyrighted.), but I want to
make sure.

Greetings,
Miry

[1] http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html


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Re: gnome-mastermind trademark question

2008-12-02 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2008/12/2 Filippo Argiolas [EMAIL PROTECTED]:


 Hi Miriam, probably you should forward them my last reply too.

Yup, sorry, I wrote my email before yours.

 As I said I'm open to a name change or a suggestion.
 The game it's been in Debian for more than one year now and no one
 ever complained.

Well, you already read Steve's answer, he doesn't seem to share my
point of view.

 I could have continued to ignore it but *I* choosed to resume this
 issue because I'm a bit worried about it, so, please stop talking
 about unilateral changes or things like that.
 If you don't think the game it's worth feel free to remove it. But if
 it's just a name issue I'm quite open towards a change.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that the game wasn't worth it. I'm really
sorry if it sounded like this. I was more describing my personal
position in an abstract case, I wasn't talking about gnome-mastermind
in concrete.

 Anyway I think you should really agree against some fixed
 (cross-distro) policy about this kind of things because I don't think
 it's something up to the opinion of single developers or packagers but
 they should be agreed with the community and with respective legal
 departments of each distributor.

It all depends in every case. Of course, in this case, as you're open
to suggestions and to find a way to solve the problem, the best would
be to do it upstream. That's not always the case for every upstream.

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: gnome-mastermind trademark question

2008-12-02 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2008/12/2 Hans de Goede [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Ok, well in that case I'll pass I'm already bothering legal way too often
 with games related questions.

It would be better to have a name upstream likes, but if the name is
not legally safe for Fedora, it won't be for Debian either and
ignoring the problem won't fix it. We definitely have to find a way to
cope with this situations, my personal position is that either
upstream changes the name, or we change it unilaterally if the game is
worth it, or we avoid packaging the game until upstream acknowledges
the problem and reacts to it.

(internal note: We should file a bug to Debian's package about this)

Greetings,
Miry


Brief  summary of previous mails [1], as I'm CC'ing both the
Debian/Ubuntu Games Team, Debian Legal and gnome-mastermind's
maintainer in Debian, due to the relevance -in my opinion- of the
discussion. The rest can safely ignore it:

Evgeni Golov wrote:
 Hey * (especially Hans),

 Filippo Argiolas ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) joined #freedesktop-games,
 asking if we could do something about the inclusion of his game
 gnome-mastermind[1] in Fedora.

 He stated that the game is not included because of Fedora worrying
 about the trademark of the original mastermind game, but eg Debian
 didn't.
 IANAL, but I don't see a real issue here, gnome-mastermind !=
 mastermind

2008/12/1 Hans de Goede [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 Games and trademarks is an interesting topic to discuss on the new games-list
 in general, I've noticed that other distro's (Debian for example) do not seem
 to care much about this, even though it can be a real issue see the Scrabulous
 example. In Fedora however, we always rename games which are clones, when they
 have names to close to the original name, where possible working together with
 upstream. Some examples:
 lbreakout2 - lbrickbuster2
 armagetron-ad - armacycles-ad
 gnometris - gnome-falling-blocks
 xgalaga - xgalaxy

[1] http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/games/2008-December/68.html


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Re: AGPL and Debian

2008-12-02 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2008/12/2 Florian Weimer [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Resource requirements have not traditionally been considered factors
 in judging software freeness.

 But you are right that the AGPL (and perhaps the GPL version 3 as
 well) fail my personal test for DRM-ness: A feature which, once added,
 cannot be legally removed, is DRM.  However, I don't believe in adding
 random checks to the DFSG, so this is rather pointless. 8-/

We should somehow tag those conflictive licenses with debtags, so that
users can filter out the ones they don't wont easily. I don't object
to having AGPL in Debian, but I don't plan to install anything under
that license in my system, and AFAIK there are other people in the
same situation as I. This wouldn't hurt those who consider if free,
but at the same time would allow us to filter them out easily.

The debtags could be implemented as an addon, and not added by default
to the base debtags vocabulary.


Greetings,
Miry


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Re: AGPL and Debian

2008-11-28 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2008/11/28 Joerg Jaspert [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 Hi,

 recently we, your mostly friendly Ftpmaster and -team, have been asked
 about an opinion about the AGPL in Debian.

 The short summary is: We think that works licensed under the AGPL can
 go into main. (Provided they don't have any other problems).

Thanks for the clarification, Ganneff :)

Greetings,
Miry


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about software patents

2008-11-25 Thread Miriam Ruiz

Hi,

Does anyone know how this affects us -if it does- and if it might
change anything for the packages and programs that have problems with
software patents? Might there be any consequences out of this -even
though it is somehow USA-specific- or is it just blog noise?

Greetings,
Miry



The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly
developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many
and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims
to such innovators as Google, Inc. [1]

The Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new
restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by
Congress in article 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these
three — the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal — the Office takes
the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless
they 'result in a physical transformation of an article' or are 'tied
to a particular machine. [2]

In two recent decisions announced after the oral arguments in the
Bilski case, Ex parte Langemyr (May 28, 2008) and Ex parte Wasynczuk
(June 2, 2008), [3] the PTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences
has now supplied an answer to that question: A general purpose
computer is not a particular machine, and thus innovative software
processes are unpatentable if they are tied only to a general purpose
computer.

[1]
The Death of Google's Patents?
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2008/07/the-death-of-go.html

[2]
The Death of Nearly All Software Patents?
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/07/24/1458215.shtml

[3]
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/bpai/its/fd081495.pdf
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/bpai/its/fd081496.pdf


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Re: Alternatives to Creative Commons

2008-09-19 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2008/9/19 Arc Riley [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Yes, I am upset this is the second time someone has made unfounded and
 unresearched claims on this list regarding extra clauses being applied to
 our software, and a good example why I'd prefer if Debian not have anything
 to do with our project.

That's quite unfair. Two people make some comments on what they think
in a Debian mailing list on behalf of their own individual freedom and
you get a tantrum and don't wanna talk with those evil Debian guys
again? You don't even know what kind of affiliation they have with
Debian (none of them are Debian Developers), and even if they were,
you cannot take one person's opinion as representing the official
position of the whole Debian project.

I recommend you to calm yourself down a bit, take it easy and look at
all this criticism an suggestions from the perspective it deserves.
Lets try to keep all this civilized and not take it personal (this
also goes for Jamie Jones, who seems to be taking this
legal-intended-to-be discussion as a personal attack).

I am seriously interested in understanding how other people interpret
GPL regarding the relationship between game data and engines because
it might directly affect my work and, at some point, maybe the Games
Team will have to seriously consider this aspects, so I'd thank you if
you could avoid making this thread as aggressive as it is becoming, so
that everyone can freely express their point of view without fear of
being attacked personally for not thinking the same. Also, if whatever
is said might also be relevant to the Games Team, I'd thank if you
kept the Team's mailing list address in the CC field, as not all of
its members are in this mailing list.

I guess I'll keep this topic still for a while, so that everyone cools
down a bit, and bring it up again in the future, to see if we can
politely and openly discuss all the points of views and consequences
every interpretation might have.

Thanks,
Miry


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Re: Alternatives to Creative Commons

2008-09-18 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2008/9/18 Jamie Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Multiple tar.gz files could probably fix that - or requiring users to
 checkout from the revision control system. That may very well mean the
 data will be in non-free and the game in contrib, but that is not unlike
 GFDL licensed documentation that isn't free enough for main.

I wasn't referring to non-free data, but instead of DFSG-data with a
license not-compatible with GPL. Such as GPL'ed engine and CC-by-sa
3.0 data. They should both go to main, as both would be DFSG-free, but
with not-compatible licenses.

The scenario you're describing wouldn't be suitable anyway either if
you consider them to be a whole as Arc is saying, because the licenses
would be incompatible no matter in which repository you place them.

 I'm certainly familiar with the GPL and know you could apply it to code
 and data, but, you need to consider - 1) people will make replacement
 game data anyway regardless of license (and that isn't necessarily a bad
 thing) - 2) We may not wish the data to be as free as the code.
 Perhaps we want to have our names attributed to our work on a prominent
 place (eg it could help with our careers to be known for awesome game
 data in cool opensource game), perhaps we don't want it to be
 commercially distributed by non-copyright holders, perhaps we don't want
 it to be modified.

That's a different situation you're describing, as you're talking
about non-free data. In any case, you would also have the same problem
of non-redistributability depending on how you interpret GPL, but I
was meaning a situation in which data was free.

 If you really want to change these license on the data files, I'd
 strongly suggest you contact the copyright holders (and there may be
 many of them in some projects) and find out why they picked the license
 they did, and once you have done that, see if they would be interested
 in relicensing it to match the code.

If upstream is using a third party GPL'ed engine (say quake, for
example) and Arc's extreme interpretation of GPL was right,they
wouldn't legally be able to distribute the game themselves. It is
nothing Debian-specific.

Greetings,
Miry


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Re: Alternatives to Creative Commons

2008-09-17 Thread Miriam Ruiz

2008/9/17 Arc Riley [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 There is absolutely no issue licensing game data under the (L/A)GPL.  In
 fact, this is required for at least the GPLv3 in that the license applies to
 the whole of the work, and all it's parts, regardless of how they are
 packaged.   Thus if the game code or any dependencies (ie, the engine) are
 licensed under the GPL, the data must be licensed under a GPL compatible
 license (which the CC licenses are not).

 After numerous conversations with copyright lawyers on the specific subject
 of games, the entire game is one copyrighted work.

This might be really relevant for us, the Games Team, as there seem to
be quite a lot of games that have a different license for the engine
and the game data, and the combination of GPL and CC-by-sa seems to be
getting more and more popular. According to what you're saying, if we
consider the entire game as one copyrighted work, that might make some
games simply not distributable.

On the other hand, for some games (and theoretically for most of
them), the same game engine can be used with different data, and some
times vice-versa. If this is the case, the situation might be similar
to a media player and media data, or to a word processor and the
document. The game engine can be seen as the program, and the game
data as the document it applies too. We've had this discussion on how
to consider the relationship between games and game data for some
time, and in fact it might have relevant consequences such as the game
being in contrib or main for some games depending on how we consider
it and, if GPL is to be understood as that, might make some games
impossible to distribute. It might probably depend on every case, and
whether different sets of data really exist, or at least could be
created.

I'm really interested on the different point of view that might exist
about this matter.

I'm CC'ing the message to the Games Team, as the thread might be
important for us.

Greetings,
Miry


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