Re: Bug#523093: undetermined copyright/license violation
Hi Jo, Nice to see your newly found interest in C++ packages (though, not completely unexpected) :-) On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 06:26:18PM +0100, Jo Shields wrote: Please note that this project in its current form contains swathes of major copyright violations and cannot be uploaded to Debian - almost all source files contain Tomboy source, with Copyright unilaterally changed. Compare, for an example, http://gitorious.org/projects/gnote/repos/mainline/blobs/master/src/preferencesdialog.cpp to http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/tomboy/trunk/Tomboy/PreferencesDialog.cs?revision=2349view=markup This kind of rewrite is completely permitted under Tomboy's license - changing the copyright without the author's permission is not. If there's a problem, we'll get it sorted out, but I need more specific info on your findings; the example you pasted shows a file with nor copyright statement neither license information (from tomboy) and one with both of them (in gnote). Please tell me which of these (in your judgement) apply: - The new file seems to be asserting copyright for the code as a whole, and it's not implicitly understood that it only applies to the originality added to it by rewriting in C++. (this is somewhat contentious, since there are examples of other programs doing the same, but it can be fixed by adding a clarification to each file) - The new license (GPL v3) is incompatible with LGPL v2.1 (it's not; see section 13 of the LGPL v2.1) - There are copyright/license statements being replaced, elsewhere in the code. (if this is so, please give some example) - Something else. (be my guest) Tomboy's upstream have been alerted, and are trying to contact the GNote author to resolve the issue Good to know. I'll speak with the gnote author too, but first you'll have to give some more information, or at least point me to it :-) Is there some description/summary of the problem elsewhere I can check? - until then, GNote cannot be considered suitable for Debian. Sure. Btw, I'm adding debian-legal to CC, perhaps they can provide some insight (as you know, when there are doubts about legal stuff it is considered good practice to discuss things in that list). Cheers -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#523093: undetermined copyright/license violation
On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 21:05 +0200, Robert Millan wrote: Hi Jo, Nice to see your newly found interest in C++ packages (though, not completely unexpected) :-) Nothing wrong with C++ in moderation. My last ITP was a C++ browser plugin. On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 06:26:18PM +0100, Jo Shields wrote: Please note that this project in its current form contains swathes of major copyright violations and cannot be uploaded to Debian - almost all source files contain Tomboy source, with Copyright unilaterally changed. Compare, for an example, http://gitorious.org/projects/gnote/repos/mainline/blobs/master/src/preferencesdialog.cpp to http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/tomboy/trunk/Tomboy/PreferencesDialog.cs?revision=2349view=markup This kind of rewrite is completely permitted under Tomboy's license - changing the copyright without the author's permission is not. If there's a problem, we'll get it sorted out, but I need more specific info on your findings; the example you pasted shows a file with nor copyright statement neither license information (from tomboy) and one with both of them (in gnote). Please tell me which of these (in your judgement) apply: - The new file seems to be asserting copyright for the code as a whole, and it's not implicitly understood that it only applies to the originality added to it by rewriting in C++. (this is somewhat contentious, since there are examples of other programs doing the same, but it can be fixed by adding a clarification to each file) - The new license (GPL v3) is incompatible with LGPL v2.1 (it's not; see section 13 of the LGPL v2.1) - There are copyright/license statements being replaced, elsewhere in the code. (if this is so, please give some example) - Something else. (be my guest) GNote's source (I gave an example, but examples cover pretty much the entire source tree) includes verbatim copies of Tomboy's source. This is a reasonable way to develop a port (i.e. keep the old code there to refer to when writing new code) - however, the copyright header in the file is clearly asserting that the file is 100% copyrighted by Hubert Figuiere when it's not. Continuing with PreferencesDialog.cs as the example, compare: preferencesdialog.cpp lines 68-73 - PreferencesDialog.cs lines 66-71 preferencesdialog.cpp lines 90-103 - PreferencesDialog.cs lines 88-100 preferencesdialog.cpp lines 385-396 - PreferencesDialog.cs lines 403-408 And so on. * Copyright (C) 2009 Hubert Figuiere is simply false, and a clear violation of Tomboy's license. Hubert's work is impressive, but is not his own work - it's the people in http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/tomboy/trunk/AUTHORS?revision=2210view=markup plus him. I'm not doing a detailed analysis on every file in Tomboy's source tree because frankly there's too much of it. Tomboy's upstream have been alerted, and are trying to contact the GNote author to resolve the issue Good to know. I'll speak with the gnote author too, but first you'll have to give some more information, or at least point me to it :-) Is there some description/summary of the problem elsewhere I can check? You'd need to speak to the Tomboy people for more detail. Try #tomboy on GIMPnet - until then, GNote cannot be considered suitable for Debian. Sure. Btw, I'm adding debian-legal to CC, perhaps they can provide some insight (as you know, when there are doubts about legal stuff it is considered good practice to discuss things in that list). Cheers signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Why is OpenSSL not in non-free?
Adrian Bunk b...@stusta.de wrote: On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 01:36:29PM +, MJ Ray wrote: I'd happily update http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ but I can't see how it makes it sounds as if 4-clause BSD wouldn't meet DFSG. Can you clarify? [...] Licenses currently found in Debian main include: [...] This excludes the unmodified BSD License. If the 4-clause BDS License is considered to meet the DFSG, then this should be something like 4-clause, 3-clause and 2-clause BSD License. Or just BSD License. The linked common licence is the modified BSD licence AFAIK, so I don't feel that either of those would be accurate. I've added the unmodified BSD licence with its own entry, along the lines of the wiki description. I'm pretty sure it's in debian. I've also removed some obsolete work in progress, added directions on searching the list archive, current packages and the REJECT FAQ and changed a few wordings slightly. Diff is at http://cvs.debian.org/webwml/english/legal/licenses/index.wml?root=webwmlr1=1.14r2=1.15 Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#523093: undetermined copyright/license violation
On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 08:30:30PM +0100, Jo Shields wrote: If there's a problem, we'll get it sorted out, but I need more specific info on your findings; the example you pasted shows a file with nor copyright statement neither license information (from tomboy) and one with both of them (in gnote). Please tell me which of these (in your judgement) apply: - The new file seems to be asserting copyright for the code as a whole, and it's not implicitly understood that it only applies to the originality added to it by rewriting in C++. (this is somewhat contentious, since there are examples of other programs doing the same, but it can be fixed by adding a clarification to each file) - The new license (GPL v3) is incompatible with LGPL v2.1 (it's not; see section 13 of the LGPL v2.1) - There are copyright/license statements being replaced, elsewhere in the code. (if this is so, please give some example) - Something else. (be my guest) [...] the copyright header in the file is clearly asserting that the file is 100% copyrighted by Hubert Figuiere when it's not. [...] And so on. * Copyright (C) 2009 Hubert Figuiere is simply false, Alright. So, I understand you mean option 1 (see my paragraph starting with The new file seems to be asserting... above). Unless there's a clear consensus in -legal that this is not a problem, I will assume it is. I'm fine with extra clarification, for the sake of correctness, it just means a bit more work. I'll speak with the gnote author about it. and a clear violation of Tomboy's license. Notice license and copyright statements are two separate issues. AFAIK LGPL doesn't explicitly require that a license notice is preserved mixing code with other licenses like the BSD license does, but I could be mistaken. Any advice on this from -legal? -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Why is OpenSSL not in non-free?
* MJ Ray: The linked common licence is the modified BSD licence AFAIK, so I don't feel that either of those would be accurate. I've added the unmodified BSD licence with its own entry, along the lines of the wiki description. I'm pretty sure it's in debian. Yes, the DFSG originally referred to the unmodified, 4-clause BSD license. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#523093: undetermined copyright/license violation
In message 20090408194833.ga5...@thorin, Robert Millan r...@aybabtu.com writes and a clear violation of Tomboy's license. Notice license and copyright statements are two separate issues. AFAIK LGPL doesn't explicitly require that a license notice is preserved mixing code with other licenses like the BSD license does, but I could be mistaken. Any advice on this from -legal? If it's not your code, and the licence does not give you explicit permission, then you can't change the licence and shouldn't remove the licence note. Note that the GPLs fall in this category! The way you change the licence with this sort of code is by licencing your code with a compatible licence. The licence for the resulting combined work is the Venn Intersect of the two licences. If there's no intersect, then you can't distribute. For an example, if a program has three authors, one of whom uses BSD, the second uses LGPL 2.1 or later and the third uses GPL 3 then the Venn Intersect is GPL 3, which is the licence that applies to the work as a whole. However, any recipient is at full liberty to strip out parts of the work, and use whatever licence the author granted. Cheers, Wol -- Anthony W. Youngman - anth...@thewolery.demon.co.uk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#523093: undetermined copyright/license violation
[ Adding Hubert Figuiere (gnote upstream) to CC, note that he's probably not subscribed ] Hi Anthony, On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 09:20:44PM +0100, Anthony W. Youngman wrote: In message 20090408194833.ga5...@thorin, Robert Millan r...@aybabtu.com writes and a clear violation of Tomboy's license. Notice license and copyright statements are two separate issues. AFAIK LGPL doesn't explicitly require that a license notice is preserved mixing code with other licenses like the BSD license does, but I could be mistaken. Any advice on this from -legal? If it's not your code, and the licence does not give you explicit permission, then you can't change the licence and shouldn't remove the licence note. Note that the GPLs fall in this category! The way you change the licence with this sort of code is by licencing your code with a compatible licence. The licence for the resulting combined work is the Venn Intersect of the two licences. If there's no intersect, then you can't distribute. Does this apply on a per-file basis? It seems we have three different situations: a- old file has no copyright/license statement, and a new copyright/license statement (for Hubert / GPLv3+) was added. b- old file has a copyright/license statement, which is left verbatim since the file wasn't modified (or only minimally). c- old file has a copyright/license statement, the new file adds its own GPLv3+ header and BOTH copyright lines (but not the LGPLv2.1 header). Is any of these at fault? You're saying that C is incorrect because it should include both license headers (and not just both copyright lines)? Is A also at fault because it should say explicitly that the copyright only covers Hubert's changes (even if noone else bothered to assert their copyrights)? For an example, if a program has three authors, one of whom uses BSD, the second uses LGPL 2.1 or later and the third uses GPL 3 then the Venn Intersect is GPL 3, which is the licence that applies to the work as a whole. However, any recipient is at full liberty to strip out parts of the work, and use whatever licence the author granted. Yeah, I understand the combined result is GPLv3; the only doubt I have is whether it's necessary to explicitly mention each license. If it's not, is there anything else we should take care of? Thanks -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#523093: undetermined copyright/license violation
In message 20090408212528.ga19...@thorin, Robert Millan r...@aybabtu.com writes [ Adding Hubert Figuiere (gnote upstream) to CC, note that he's probably not subscribed ] Hi Anthony, On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 09:20:44PM +0100, Anthony W. Youngman wrote: In message 20090408194833.ga5...@thorin, Robert Millan r...@aybabtu.com writes and a clear violation of Tomboy's license. Notice license and copyright statements are two separate issues. AFAIK LGPL doesn't explicitly require that a license notice is preserved mixing code with other licenses like the BSD license does, but I could be mistaken. Any advice on this from -legal? If it's not your code, and the licence does not give you explicit permission, then you can't change the licence and shouldn't remove the licence note. Note that the GPLs fall in this category! The way you change the licence with this sort of code is by licencing your code with a compatible licence. The licence for the resulting combined work is the Venn Intersect of the two licences. If there's no intersect, then you can't distribute. Does this apply on a per-file basis? It seems we have three different situations: Depends how you define a work. I'd say (based on your stuff below) then if the only reason for modifying a file is to modify the copyright status, then you shouldn't be modifying it. a- old file has no copyright/license statement, and a new copyright/license statement (for Hubert / GPLv3+) was added. b- old file has a copyright/license statement, which is left verbatim since the file wasn't modified (or only minimally). c- old file has a copyright/license statement, the new file adds its own GPLv3+ header and BOTH copyright lines (but not the LGPLv2.1 header). Is any of these at fault? You're saying that C is incorrect because it should include both license headers (and not just both copyright lines)? If the new file is all Hubert's work, then he can put whatever copyright and licence lines he likes in there. Basically he should put there (c) Hubert and licence GPLv3+. If it's a NEW file, why should he put anything else there? Or are you mixing it with A, which is a mix of old and new? Is A also at fault because it should say explicitly that the copyright only covers Hubert's changes (even if noone else bothered to assert their copyrights)? If it doesn't make clear that Hubert's copyright and licence only apply to his changes, yes. In fact, I would say that it's a major breach of etiquette to change the licence - if Hubert knew the original licence was NOT GPLv3+, he should use the original licence for his mods, not GPL it. But note my use of *should*, not *must*. For an example, if a program has three authors, one of whom uses BSD, the second uses LGPL 2.1 or later and the third uses GPL 3 then the Venn Intersect is GPL 3, which is the licence that applies to the work as a whole. However, any recipient is at full liberty to strip out parts of the work, and use whatever licence the author granted. Yeah, I understand the combined result is GPLv3; the only doubt I have is whether it's necessary to explicitly mention each license. In the project copying file, you should say that the combined work is GPLv3, and mention that components may have different, compatible, licences. If it's not, is there anything else we should take care of? Each author *should*, as a matter of *courtesy*, explicitly mention the licence in all of their files, and *should* *not* use a different licence when modifying a different author's original files. Thanks Cheers, Wol -- Anthony W. Youngman - anth...@thewolery.demon.co.uk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#523093: undetermined copyright/license violation
Anthony W. Youngman deb...@thewolery.demon.co.uk writes: Basically he should put there (c) Hubert and licence GPLv3+. Small nit (and all in my layman's understanding): Copyright notices, when they were required at all (most recently in the UCC), were never valid with “(c) Person Name”. That is, “(c)” doesn't mean “copyright”: Only “Copyright”, the abbreviation “Copr.”, or the copyright symbol “©” are any use as a way of legally indicating a copyright notice. These days the UCC is essentially obsoleted by the Berne convention and copyright obtains with or without a valid notice; but if we request such notices, we should at least make them legally-meaningful. -- \ “One of the most important things you learn from the internet | `\ is that there is no ‘them’ out there. It's just an awful lot of | _o__)‘us’.” —Douglas Adams | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
