-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dear Francesco,
fortunately, the upstream author Thomas MyGlynn made a new release for which he added a statement that the code is in the public domain. In my debian package which can be found at http://mentors.debian.net/package/fits or http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=debian-science/packages/fits.git I chose the GPL-3 for the debian/* files but a guy from the debian-science mailing list suggested to put the Debian package under a less restrictive license. Thus my question is which license should be chosen in the case that the sources are in the public domain? Best regards, Florian Am 28.08.2012 19:19, schrieb Francesco Poli: > On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:37:46 +0200 Florian Rothmaier wrote: > >> Hi to everyone involved in debian-legal, > > Hello! > >> >> I've got a licensing issue related to the astronomical Java library >> "fits" ("nom.tam.fits") from Thomas McGlynn. >> >> The newest release can be obtained at: >> http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/fits/java/v1.0/v1.08.1/ . >> >> In the code, I find the following copyright statement: >> /* Copyright: Thomas McGlynn 1997-1999. >> * This code may be used for any purpose, non-commercial >> * or commercial so long as this copyright notice is retained >> * in the source code or included in or referred to in any >> * derived software. >> */ >> When I wrote an e-mail to Thomas McGlynn, he replied: >> "I believe the lines you quote are themselves the entirety of the >> license. There was no intent to associate this with any specific more >> general license." > > Unfortunately these "license lines" do not seem to be enough to make the > library clearly Free Software. > I think they are far too vague and implicit: > > - the term "use" is ambiguous at best; does it just cover running a > program that links with library? or is it implicitly intended to > also cover other activities such as copying, modification, > redistribution of verbatim and modified copies? > > - there's no explicit permission to copy and redistribute > > - there is a reference to derived software, but no explicit > permission to create and distribute such derived software > > I believe that such "license lines" make the library unsuitable for > distribution in Debian (main) or even in the non-free archive. > >> >> Now, I'm not sure how to proceed. > [...] >> I'd appreciate your help! > > If you want this library to be included in Debian, I think you should > contact its copyright holder again and persuade him to re-license the > library in a clearly DFSG-free manner, preferably under the terms of a > well known and widely used Free Software license. > > I would personally recommend the copyright holder to re-license the > library under the terms of the Expat/MIT license [1], which is very > simple and similar in spirit to the goals that were probably in the > mind of the drafter of the above quoted "license lines". > > [1] http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt > >> >> Thanks in advance > > You're welcome, I hope this helps. > >> and please cc me in your replies since I'm not >> subscribed to "debian-legal". > > Done. > > Bye and good luck with your persuasion effort! > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with undefined - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJQuK4sAAoJEGXz/obPl241LcoQAK51ae/DGV8zhAWSOaHGPsRb lhEXt8gZgTtlBC1+UPL/YGAiHGjDKvZaesCdpDs97I5sraTgRHp/wtIxKliQcfvl LLIQMVuUFFEFGApdK2h31M3y6NzpwJVxTUa0o939oy2LBX714S1rRzqvyVl7i+c+ GsrGwtEsPF2beVHaiIF/Gi1fQeFILoyiPLYhtqIeB0vB4tDbk5K8S0W3kgmY3czI lqrjmJyfkry3x2ngLOZmH9wd7OqstYhVrWStXR/mw0X5cs75AGAlWhbYR0XHdtP+ g5SoLlp8uqlt2ENuzMBHxnyZKjBQIUXv2OpLDjWcCsDC87sD3zXqVqWCp58DfGXT H4w7JIhZ1IAR1k5zQ4D5fAKWogbt7Xvn2H+pim8QHVnXJUfCjGnO3Kzb7g4tShXL WKpCMo6ae7ctjarwLovGHFoWhhL7Q7K0ONhcT6ZzLxOc3nZzRRLVIkjRqPsPVKqi dfUeYQbnvcjWSnOiz+VJi/WIsjHK05OL41FWB1rPFwjMHtsi+NN9RGWN0/nYQSUT u6YoG3cO3XI7Z6hJBRomC9PhGyWasa8t/GkPeJsfqp1hAdG5k3Z4q+EKOlNUrDWh 8F+qDXhB3tqHSMivwGCkshEgoxxkVb9OGUoRu3biSxSiL3TreA10Y3QaGK5aSA6r ka3f8QfRZjsZhvcenbZn =Sjag -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
