Bug#1001274: scowl source has (probably outdated?) problematic license conditions
On Tue, 07 Dec 2021, Gernot Hillier wrote: > The Debian copyright however cites from r/pos/README that "The MWords > package was explicitly placed in the public domain". To me at least, > it's unclear whether the both READMEs were considered and if yes, it > would really help to add some clarifying statements in copyright why > the licensing terms in the (old?) README files don't apply (any > more?). mwords and pos are both part of the Moby Words project, which Grady Ward dedicated to the public domain (and also provided an equivalent license) on June 1, 1996. See https://web.archive.org/web/20170930060409/http://icon.shef.ac.uk/Moby/ for more details (and the original source files). They're present in the source, because that's how they are distributed upstream, but the copyright file lists the actual licensing. [Maybe a case to be made to clarify this in the upstream source, but I don't think a Debian specific patch is warranted here.] -- Don Armstrong https://www.donarmstrong.com
Bug#1001274: scowl source has (probably outdated?) problematic license conditions
Source: scowl Version: 2019.10.06-1 During licensing checks of the "scowl" sources, we identified two problematic files. r/pos/README-orig as well as r/mwords/README. Both say: [...] This documentation, software and/or database was developed and copyrighted by Grady Ward and is licensed, not sold, to you on a non-exclusive, non-transferable basis. The documentation, software and/or database and derivative works of this database may not be copied in whole or part except for archival purposes as provided by law. [...] The Debian copyright however cites from r/pos/README that "The MWords package was explicitly placed in the public domain". To me at least, it's unclear whether the both READMEs were considered and if yes, it would really help to add some clarifying statements in copyright why the licensing terms in the (old?) README files don't apply (any more?). I also reported an upstream bug at https://github.com/en-wl/wordlist/issues/333.
