License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread Ole Streicher
Hi,

I asked this question already some months ago in debian-mentors, but
didn't get an answer:

How is the license of a binary Debian package determined?

The file debian/copyright only contains the license of the sources;
however the binary license may differ -- f.e. when a BSD source is
linked to a GPL library. Also there is usually more than one license
used in the sources.

Since Debian is a binary distribution, I am wondering if there is any
canonical way to get the license of a (binary) package?

Best regards

Ole


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Re: License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread Riley Baird
 How is the license of a binary Debian package determined?
 
 The file debian/copyright only contains the license of the sources;
 however the binary license may differ -- f.e. when a BSD source is
 linked to a GPL library. Also there is usually more than one license
 used in the sources.

I'd say that it would probably be a matter of checking the license for
all of the sources that were used to make the particular binary that you
are concerned about - and then, checking the Debian dependencies for
packages which your binary links to, in case there is a GPL-like linking
clause.

 Since Debian is a binary distribution, I am wondering if there is any
 canonical way to get the license of a (binary) package?

Not that I know of, unfortunately. Hopefully someone else will have an idea.

That being said, if you distribute all packages with their sources and
dependencies (and possibly a copy of /usr/share/common-licenses), you
should probably be okay. (Of course, packages marked essential do not
need to be included in the list of dependencies, so that could be a
problem as well.)

Honestly, though, I doubt that anyone is going to take legal action over
something like this. They'd probably just ask you to change the license
notice.


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Re: License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread Ben Finney
Ole Streicher oleb...@debian.org writes:

 How is the license of a binary Debian package determined?

 The file debian/copyright only contains the license of the sources;

Not true. The ‘debian/copyright’ file is installed by each binary
package ‘foopackage’ as the ‘/usr/share/doc/foopackage/copyright’ file,
and constitutes the copyright information for that binary package.

 however the binary license may differ -- f.e. when a BSD source is
 linked to a GPL library. Also there is usually more than one license
 used in the sources.

Right, so the source package should have a ‘debian/copyright’ which
specifies copyright information for all binary packages generated from
that source.

 Since Debian is a binary distribution

Debian consists of both source and binary packages equally, so I don't
know what you are characterising there.

 I am wondering if there is any canonical way to get the license of a
 (binary) package?

The binary package ‘foopackage’, once installed, has its copyright
information at ‘/usr/share/doc/foopackage/copyright’.

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Ben Finney


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Re: License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread Riley Baird
 however the binary license may differ -- f.e. when a BSD source is
 linked to a GPL library. Also there is usually more than one license
 used in the sources.
 
 Right, so the source package should have a ‘debian/copyright’ which
 specifies copyright information for all binary packages generated from
 that source.

ftp depends on libreadline6, which is under the GPL. However, ftp's
debian/copyright file only lists BSD licenses.


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Re: License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread Francesco Poli
On Fri, 14 Nov 2014 07:17:00 +1100 Riley Baird wrote:

  How is the license of a binary Debian package determined?
  
  The file debian/copyright only contains the license of the sources;
  however the binary license may differ -- f.e. when a BSD source is
  linked to a GPL library. Also there is usually more than one license
  used in the sources.
 
 I'd say that it would probably be a matter of checking the license for
 all of the sources that were used to make the particular binary that you
 are concerned about - and then, checking the Debian dependencies for
 packages which your binary links to, in case there is a GPL-like linking
 clause.

That's the way to go, as far as I know.
Unfortunately, it may be tedious and time consuming in some
cases...  :-(

 
  Since Debian is a binary distribution, I am wondering if there is any
  canonical way to get the license of a (binary) package?
 
 Not that I know of, unfortunately. Hopefully someone else will have an idea.
[...]

I am not aware of any requirement (in the current Debian Policy) to
document the effective license for binary packages.
The debian/copyright file is intended for clearly documenting the
licensing status of source packages, not the effective licenses of
binary packages built from them.

You may want to take a look at:

https://bugs.debian.org/694657#45
https://bugs.debian.org/694657#130

The whole bug log could be an interesting read, but it's quite long, so
please check it out only if you are searching for a way to kill
time!  ;-)

I am not aware of any update on the matter: I suppose the determination
of the effective licenses of binary packages is still something to be
done manually.


I hope this answers Ole's question, although maybe in a disappointing
way...


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Re: License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread Francesco Poli
On Thu, 13 Nov 2014 21:43:10 +0100 Francesco Poli wrote:

[...]
 The debian/copyright file is intended for clearly documenting the
 licensing status of source packages, not the effective licenses of
 binary packages built from them.
[...]

Mmmmh, I wrote this too fast, on the basis of what was said in the
cited bug log (#694657)...   :-(

But I've just remembered another thread about this same issue:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2013/01/msg7.html
(with all its direct and indirect replies)

In that thread it is claimed that the Debian Policy is to be
interpreted as requiring that the licensing status of *binary* packages
be documented.

However, in practice, it turns out that this is not always done
thoroughly, whenever the binary licensing differs from the source
licensing...   :-/


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Re: License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread Charles Plessy
Le Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 05:35:00PM +0100, Ole Streicher a écrit :
 
 I asked this question already some months ago in debian-mentors, but
 didn't get an answer:
 
 How is the license of a binary Debian package determined?
 
 The file debian/copyright only contains the license of the sources;
 however the binary license may differ -- f.e. when a BSD source is
 linked to a GPL library. Also there is usually more than one license
 used in the sources.

Hi Ole,

in some packages I maintain, I put such information in the debian/copyright
file (in the License field of the header, as I am using the machine-readable
format).

However, it is not canonical, nor automated.

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan


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Re: License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread David Prévot
Hi,

Le 13/11/2014 16:37, Ben Finney a écrit :

 The file debian/copyright only contains the license of the sources;
 
 Not true.

That’s a strong affirmation. Policy 4.5 may deserve some clarification,
but I wouldn’t be so affirmative (or negative).

https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#s-dpkgcopyright

 The ‘debian/copyright’ file is installed by each binary
 package ‘foopackage’ as the ‘/usr/share/doc/foopackage/copyright’ file,
 and constitutes the copyright information for that binary package.

That’s an incomplete description of how dh_installchangelogs works, more
information is available in dh_installchangelogs(1) (e.g., you’re free
to provides the debian/foopackage.copyright file in the source that will
be installed in /usr/share/doc/foopackage/copyright, but you can also
override it or not use debhelper at all).

Regards

David



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Re: License of binary packages

2014-11-13 Thread Ben Finney
David Prévot taf...@debian.org writes:

 Le 13/11/2014 16:37, Ben Finney a écrit :

  The ‘debian/copyright’ file is installed by each binary package
  ‘foopackage’ as the ‘/usr/share/doc/foopackage/copyright’ file, and
  constitutes the copyright information for that binary package.

 That’s an incomplete description of how dh_installchangelogs works,
 more information is available in dh_installchangelogs(1) (e.g., you’re
 free to provides the debian/foopackage.copyright file in the source
 that will be installed in /usr/share/doc/foopackage/copyright, but you
 can also override it or not use debhelper at all).

True, my apologies. I was mistakenly assuming the package in question
uses Debhelper to install copyright files. Nonetheless, the copyright
for each binary package is in the source package, in the vast majority
of Debian packages.

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