Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 01:24:09AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 04:57:09PM -0400, Mark Jason Dominus wrote: I am the original author of the manual page in question. I am presently negotiating with CMP, who acquired the Perl Journal a few years ago, to obtain complete and unambiguous copyright on the article. If I succeed, I will release the original article and 'perlreftut', the derived manpage, under the GNU FDL or whatever other license the Debian maintainers think appropriate. Sounds great! Thanks for letting the Debian Legal team know about this. I should advise you though, in all fairness, that the GNU FDL (any version released to date) is not regarded by the Debian Project as a DFSG-free[1] license, so relicensing the works in question under the GNU FDL alone would not result in a material difference in their handling by the Debian Project. One reason for this assessment by the Debian Project is that the GNU FDL is not GNU GPL-compatible, so it is not possible for third parties to move FDL-licensed documentation into Perl code via POD, for instance, at least not without negotiating with the copyright holder of the GNU FDL-licensed documentation. Using the GNU FDL may make the works more appealing to some other organizations, however. I personally recommend multi-licensing the works under the GNU GPL v2, the Clarified Artistic License, and (if your wish), a version of the GNU FDL. Note that from what I have gathered from the mailinglist archive, it's not just that perlreftut is only AL, it's also that the license only allows you to distribute it with the Perl distribution, you can't for instance make a site collecting documentation, and put perlreftut there. Abigail
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 04:57:09PM -0400, Mark Jason Dominus wrote: I am the original author of the manual page in question. I am presently negotiating with CMP, who acquired the Perl Journal a few years ago, to obtain complete and unambiguous copyright on the article. If I succeed, I will release the original article and 'perlreftut', the derived manpage, under the GNU FDL or whatever other license the Debian maintainers think appropriate. Sounds great! Thanks for letting the Debian Legal team know about this. I should advise you though, in all fairness, that the GNU FDL (any version released to date) is not regarded by the Debian Project as a DFSG-free[1] license, so relicensing the works in question under the GNU FDL alone would not result in a material difference in their handling by the Debian Project. One reason for this assessment by the Debian Project is that the GNU FDL is not GNU GPL-compatible, so it is not possible for third parties to move FDL-licensed documentation into Perl code via POD, for instance, at least not without negotiating with the copyright holder of the GNU FDL-licensed documentation. I also think that you should chose a license that is compatible with the license of the code that you are documenting, to allow cut/pasting examples between the two. The GFDL doesn't fulfil that. However, just to correct Branden, being GPL-imcompatible does not make the GFDL non-free. There are other reasons that make the GFDL non-free. Thanks, Peter
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 08:39:28AM -0400, Peter S Galbraith wrote: However, just to correct Branden, being GPL-imcompatible does not make the GFDL non-free. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that; I know it's not the case. A consequence of writing mail in the small hours, I guess. GPL-incompatibility is, however, still a practical problem, because a *lot* of Perl code in the world is dual-licensed Artistic/GPL by virtue of being licensed under the same terms as Perl itself. -- G. Branden Robinson| There's nothing an agnostic can't Debian GNU/Linux | do if he doesn't know whether he [EMAIL PROTECTED] | believes in it or not. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Graham Chapman pgpQaWtqSsYWK.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
I am the original author of the manual page in question. I am presently negotiating with CMP, who acquired the Perl Journal a few years ago, to obtain complete and unambiguous copyright on the article. If I succeed, I will release the original article and 'perlreftut', the derived manpage, under the GNU FDL or whatever other license the Debian maintainers think appropriate. Even if I don't succeed in this, I will try to negotiate a less restrictive license. Can I suggest that if something like this comes up in the future, you try contacting the original author for assistance? I would have done something sooner, but the problem was brought to my attention only this afternoon. Mark-Jason Dominus [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] It's already separated from perl into perl-doc. Then we cannot distribute it legally at all. I'm not totally certain about that, as one could argue that perl-doc is merely a segmentation of the entire perl system that Debian distributes. However, that's open to interpretation either way. It pretty clearly is non-free, and should probably be removed from perl-doc. Probably? Hey, I'm a relativist. Absolutes scare me. But since you prod me: Yes, either something should be done to make it free, or it should be removed. Don Armstrong -- CNN/Reuters: News reports have filtered out early this morning that US forces have swooped on an Iraqi Primary School and detained 6th Grade teacher Mohammed Al-Hazar. Sources indicate that, when arrested, Al-Hazar was in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square and a calculator. US President George W Bush argued that this was clear and overwhelming evidence that Iraq indeed possessed weapons of maths instruction. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://www.anylevel.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu pgpPxyw8No3yV.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Sun, Jul 27, 2003 at 08:31:33PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 01:25:52AM +0200, Jakob Bohm wrote: [snip] (I find your reading to have so little to do with DFSG#1 that I'm having difficulty figuring out where to start, so I'll leave that to others.) Well, obviously his reading of DFSG #1 is designed to be maximally compatible with obliterating the distinction between main and non-free, and having Debian ship as many warez as possible. Hey, as long as you don't have to pay for it, it's all good! -- G. Branden Robinson|Lowery's Law: Debian GNU/Linux |If it jams -- force it. If it [EMAIL PROTECTED] |breaks, it needed replacing anyway. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | pgpOpIBMSjW7Q.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 10:05:18PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Jakob Bohm wrote: This manpage (and a few others) are very important parts of the perl package documentation. Separating it from perl is a non-option from the perspective of users. It's already separated from perl into perl-doc. Then we cannot distribute it legally at all. The requirement is as part of the Standard Version of Perl, or as part of its complete documentation, whether printed or otherwise. Thus perl-doc qualifies, a subset named perl-doc-nonfree does not. Note that several other manpages in perl-doc carry variations of this license. Most of them seem to be reprints from the Perl Journal. It appears that the publishers have tried to grant as many freedoms as they could, while still being able to sell some dead trees. And while we are at it, historically many free software packages (free as in almost limitless freedom) have included reprints of journal articles and academic papers regarding their design, often with similar or more restrictive conditions imposed by the publisher of the printed version. -- This message is hastily written, please ignore any unpleasant wordings, do not consider it a binding commitment, even if its phrasing may indicate so. Its contents may be deliberately or accidentally untrue. Trademarks and other things belong to their owners, if any.
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
Scripsit Jakob Bohm [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 10:05:18PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Then we cannot distribute it legally at all. The requirement is as part of the Standard Version of Perl, or as part of its complete documentation, whether printed or otherwise. I stand corrected - provided that there are not *other* parts that are moved from perl-doc to perl-doc-nonfree (or pulled entirely due to more serious problems). And while we are at it, historically many free software packages (free as in almost limitless freedom) have included reprints of journal articles and academic papers regarding their design, often with similar or more restrictive conditions imposed by the publisher of the printed version. True. But since, these days, most everybody seems to agree that documentation in Debian must be just as free as software, these articles should not be included in the .deb. (I do not particularly care whether they are also left out of the orig.tar.gz. Others might). -- Henning Makholm Al lykken er i ét ord: Overvægtig!
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Jakob Bohm wrote: This manpage (and a few others) are very important parts of the perl package documentation. Separating it from perl is a non-option from the perspective of users. It's already separated from perl into perl-doc. Furthermore, in this case, the information in that documentation is pretty much supplanted by perlref and associated documentation. DFSG 1 says that the freedoms need only apply in the context of larger diverse distributions, and need not apply to individual files or even packages when those files or packages are taken out of context. No. DFSG #1 deals with the freedom to distribute, _NOT_ the freedom to modify. Any reading that construes it in this way conflicts with #3. At least this appears to be the only meaningful reading of the phrase ...as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. It's not the only meaningfull one, as that phrase merely means that you can legally and freely distribute the program as an agregate with other programs. [Eg, you can do what Debian does, and actually distribute the package as part of Debian.] The license on perlreftut and several other key perl manpages says that when not taken out of context, the file may be used under the Artistic license. The problem is that this conflicts with DFSG #3 and coincidentaly, the Artistic License itself, clause #3: 3. You may otherwise modify your copy of this Package in any way, provided that you insert a prominent notice in each changed file stating how and when you changed that file, and provided that you do at least ONE of the following: So it precludes the rather trivial modification of taking perlreftut and embedding it in a distribution of documentation that is not perl. DFSG 10 says that the Artistic license can be assumed to meet the DFSG. It does, but we're not dealing with the Artistic license here... this is an Artistic License with an additional rider with strange interactions. It pretty clearly is non-free, and should probably be removed from perl-doc. Ideally someone should contact the copyright holder and request that they just release the code under the same terms as perl itself (namely Artistic and GPL.) [Whoever does this should read the previous discussion on -legal and -devel about proper copyright clauses for dual licenses.] Don Armstrong -- A one-question geek test. If you get the joke, you're a geek: Seen on a California license plate on a VW Beetle: 'FEATURE'... -- Joshua D. Wachs - Natural Intelligence, Inc. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://www.anylevel.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu pgpCbFSM9TI8q.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
Scripsit Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Jakob Bohm wrote: This manpage (and a few others) are very important parts of the perl package documentation. Separating it from perl is a non-option from the perspective of users. It's already separated from perl into perl-doc. Then we cannot distribute it legally at all. It pretty clearly is non-free, and should probably be removed from perl-doc. Probably? -- Henning MakholmManden med det store pindsvin er kommet vel ombord i den grønne dobbeltdækker.
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 01:13:00AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 01:25:52AM +0200, Jakob Bohm wrote: This manpage (and a few others) are very important parts of the perl package documentation. Separating it from perl is a non-option from the perspective of users. Objection. The sole purpose of this manpage is to duplicate things contained in other documentation. It is not an important part of the perl documentation, which is complete in itself and generally much better written. The perlfaq document had a similar license, although it now reads: This documentation is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. I'll try to convince the copyright holder for perlreftut to use a similar copyright, and in the interim will remove the page. --bod
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 01:34:04AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 03:55:55AM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Guido Trotter [EMAIL PROTECTED] It seems that perlreftut(1) is quite non DFSG-free. So it does. It will have to be relicensed or removed. I concur. Alternatively, the package containing it could be moved to non-free... #pragma begin_sarcasm(1000) Move perl to non-free?, things seem to be getting out of hand here lately. I expect sarge+1 to not contain any of: gcc, emacs, perl, anything written in C, C++ or perl, anything needing an interpreter or compiler written in C, C++ or perl. This effectively excludes almost everything except the text of the social contract, the text of some other Debian documents, the KJV bible and perhaps a few more tidbits. Nothing else is pure enough for citizen Robespierre and the committee. #pragma end_sarcasm() This manpage (and a few others) are very important parts of the perl package documentation. Separating it from perl is a non-option from the perspective of users. I believe that this file should be considered as acceptable under the following interpretation of the DFSG: DFSG 1 says that the freedoms need only apply in the context of larger diverse distributions, and need not apply to individual files or even packages when those files or packages are taken out of context. At least this appears to be the only meaningful reading of the phrase ...as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license on perlreftut and several other key perl manpages says that when not taken out of context, the file may be used under the Artistic license. DFSG 10 says that the Artistic license can be assumed to meet the DFSG. Sincerely A scared used -- This message is hastily written, please ignore any unpleasant wordings, do not consider it a binding commitment, even if its phrasing may indicate so. Its contents may be deliberately or accidentally untrue. Trademarks and other things belong to their owners, if any.
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 01:25:52AM +0200, Jakob Bohm wrote: This manpage (and a few others) are very important parts of the perl package documentation. Separating it from perl is a non-option from the perspective of users. Objection. The sole purpose of this manpage is to duplicate things contained in other documentation. It is not an important part of the perl documentation, which is complete in itself and generally much better written. I believe that this file should be considered as acceptable under the following interpretation of the DFSG: DFSG 1 says that the freedoms need only apply in the context of larger diverse distributions, and need not apply to individual files or even packages when those files or packages are taken out of context. At least this appears to be the only meaningful reading of the phrase ...as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license on perlreftut and several other key perl manpages says that when not taken out of context, the file may be used under the Artistic license. DFSG 10 says that the Artistic license can be assumed to meet the DFSG. I believe that this interpretation is insane. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | pgpt2gBjJtUQy.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 01:25:52AM +0200, Jakob Bohm wrote: On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 01:34:04AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: I concur. Alternatively, the package containing it could be moved to non-free... #pragma begin_sarcasm(1000) [...] #pragma end_sarcasm() See what happens when I leave out my X-Joke header? -- G. Branden Robinson| A fundamentalist is someone who Debian GNU/Linux | hates sin more than he loves [EMAIL PROTECTED] | virtue. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John H. Schaar pgpxEgfYB9k3M.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 01:25:52AM +0200, Jakob Bohm wrote: So it does. It will have to be relicensed or removed. I concur. Alternatively, the package containing it could be moved to non-free... #pragma begin_sarcasm(1000) Move perl to non-free?, things seem to be getting out of hand No, the package containing it, which means creating a perl-doc-non-free package. Obviously, the author relicensing is by far the best option. (snipped sarcastic rant apparently complaining that people actually expect Debian to remain 100% Free Software) DFSG 1 says that the freedoms need only apply in the context of larger diverse distributions, and need not apply to individual files or even packages when those files or packages are taken out of context. At least this appears to be the only meaningful reading of the phrase ...as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license does not give permission to use the file as part of an arbitrary aggregate software distribution--it only permits it when aggregated with Perl. I can't package it with hello world, and if that isn't enough, then it fails DFSG#1. The license explicitly forbids this document's use with forked versions of Perl. It is clearly and unambiguously non-free. Playing with the words of the DFSG won't change that. (I find your reading to have so little to do with DFSG#1 that I'm having difficulty figuring out where to start, so I'll leave that to others.) -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Sun, Jul 27, 2003 at 08:31:33PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: No, the package containing it, which means creating a perl-doc-non-free package. But wait--we can't even do that, due to the very licensing we're discussing. Even worse. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 03:55:55AM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Guido Trotter [EMAIL PROTECTED] It seems that perlreftut(1) is quite non DFSG-free. So it does. It will have to be relicensed or removed. I concur. Alternatively, the package containing it could be moved to non-free... -- G. Branden Robinson|I am sorry, but what you have Debian GNU/Linux |mistaken for malicious intent is [EMAIL PROTECTED] |nothing more than sheer http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |incompetence! -- J. L. Rizzo II pgp7PyNEZeq9a.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
Package: perl-doc Version: 5.8.0-18 Severity: serious Justification: Policy 2.2.1 Hi, It seems that perlreftut(1) is quite non DFSG-free. Here is an extract from the bottom of the manpage: Distribution Conditions Copyright 1998 The Perl Journal. When included as part of the Standard Version of Perl, or as part of its complete documentation whether printed or otherwise, this work may be distributed only under the terms of Perl's Artistic License. Any distribution of this file or derivatives thereof outside of that package require that special arrangements be made with copyright holder. Thanks, Guido -- Guido Trotter Jabber ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Public PGP key available on: http://www.cs.unibo.it/~trotter/
Re: Bug#202723: perl-doc: Non-free manpage included
Scripsit Guido Trotter [EMAIL PROTECTED] It seems that perlreftut(1) is quite non DFSG-free. So it does. It will have to be relicensed or removed. (This does not add much, I know, but I felt the cc: to debian-legal ought to result in some kind of response from us d-l people). -- Henning Makholm However, the fact that the utterance by Epimenides of that false sentence could imply the existence of some Cretan who is not a liar is rather unsettling.
