Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself, Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself

[Ben Finney]

Mattia Rizzolo  writes:

> On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 06:10:57AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> > This issue should be resolved by the upstream distributor, as I
> > agree with you that they are not compliant with the conditions of
> > the license. You may want to have that discussion with them.
>
> I wonder how to contact R people, I've never approached R world
> before.

Nor I. You could start by summarising the issue to the Debian R folks
, and perhaps direct them to our
conclusions.

-- 
 \  “I tell you the truth: this generation will certainly not pass |
  `\   away until all these things [the end of the world] have |
_o__)  happened.” —Jesus, c. 30 CE, as quoted in Matthew 24:34 |
Ben Finney

Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself, Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself

[Mattia Rizzolo]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 06:10:57AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> This issue should be resolved by the upstream distributor, as I agree
> with you that they are not compliant with the conditions of the license.
> You may want to have that discussion with them.

I wonder how to contact R people, I've never approached R world before.
Furthermore, I currently don't have the time, nor the willing force,
needed to carry on a "legal" discussion with an upstream, much less with
whoever maintains the guidelines of such a big world as CRAN.

> I also agree with Paul Wise, that the Debian source package conforms to
> the license conditions (by always including the required text). So any
> redistributor of Debian, or this component from Debian, will by default
> not violate those conditions.

cool.

-- 
regards,
Mattia Rizzolo

GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18  4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540  .''`.
more about me:  http://mapreri.org  : :'  :
Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri  `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia  `-


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Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself, Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself

[Ben Finney]

Mattia Rizzolo  writes:

> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 07:52:18AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> > Mattia Rizzolo  writes:
> > 
> > > What I'm saying is that IMHO the only license requirement (the
> > > second paragraph of it that you reported above, about including
> > > the copyright notice *and* the permission notice in any copy of
> > > the software) is not fulfilled by R packages.
> > 
> > Thanks for clarifying.
> > 
> > Can you point us to a representative source package that you think has
> > this problem?
>
> src:r-cran-praise (as of current version 1.0.0-1) is a good example.

I see. The upstream source does not include the “above copyright notice
and this permission notice” as required by the license conditions.

That is a violation of the license conditions, I agree.

> As also pabs said [1] we should be good enough, but I'd prefer we
> could drop the enough here.
>
> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2016/03/msg00067.html

This issue should be resolved by the upstream distributor, as I agree
with you that they are not compliant with the conditions of the license.
You may want to have that discussion with them.

I also agree with Paul Wise, that the Debian source package conforms to
the license conditions (by always including the required text). So any
redistributor of Debian, or this component from Debian, will by default
not violate those conditions.

-- 
 \   “bash awk grep perl sed, df du, du-du du-du, vi troff su fsck |
  `\ rm * halt LART LART LART!” —The Swedish BOFH, |
_o__)alt.sysadmin.recovery |
Ben Finney

Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself, Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself

[Mattia Rizzolo]

[you forgot to CC me on this, anyway, I temporarly subscribed d-legal@]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 07:52:18AM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> Mattia Rizzolo  writes:
> 
> > Yes, I see how the MIT license is DFSG-free.  What I'm saying is that
> > IMHO the only license requirement (the second paragraph of it that you
> > reported above, about including the copyright notice *and* the
> > permission notice in any copy of the software) is not fulfilled by R
> > packages.
> 
> Thanks for clarifying.
> 
> Can you point us to a representative source package that you think has
> this problem?

src:r-cran-praise (as of current version 1.0.0-1) is a good example.

As also pabs said [1] we should be good enough, but I'd prefer we could
drop the enough here.

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2016/03/msg00067.html

-- 
regards,
Mattia Rizzolo

GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18  4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540  .''`.
more about me:  http://mapreri.org  : :'  :
Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri  `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia  `-


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Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself, Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself

[Ben Finney]

Mattia Rizzolo  writes:

> Yes, I see how the MIT license is DFSG-free.  What I'm saying is that
> IMHO the only license requirement (the second paragraph of it that you
> reported above, about including the copyright notice *and* the
> permission notice in any copy of the software) is not fulfilled by R
> packages.

Thanks for clarifying.

Can you point us to a representative source package that you think has
this problem?

-- 
 \ “God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to |
  `\ explain those things that you do not understand.” —Richard P. |
_o__)Feynman, 1988 |
Ben Finney

Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself, Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself

[Mattia Rizzolo]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 04:28:30PM +1100, Ben Finney wrote:
> Mattia Rizzolo  writes:
> > Based on http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
> >
> > This is a template. Complete and ship as file LICENSE the following 2
> > lines (only)
> >
> > YEAR:
> > COPYRIGHT HOLDER: 
> >
> > and specify as
> >
> > License: MIT + file LICENSE
> >
> > Copyright (c) , 
> 
> I don't think any of the above text implies a *requirement* on the
> recipient of the license.

even if it mayb not be a requirement it is still followed.

> Indeed, the license grant begins at the standard “MIT” (which is
> Expat-equivalent) permission grant:
> >
> 
> > a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
> > "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
> > without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
> > distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
> > permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
> > the following conditions:
> >
> > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
> > included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
> 
> That alone grants all the DFSG-conformant freedoms. I don't think
> anything else in the text is rightly interpreted to restrict those
> freedoms in any way.

Yes, I see how the MIT license is DFSG-free.  What I'm saying is that
IMHO the only license requirement (the second paragraph of it that you
reported above, about including the copyright notice *and* the
permission notice in any copy of the software) is not fulfilled by R
packages.

> It would be better if the guidelines were more clearly phrased to be
> guidance for *how* to apply the license; as it is, they are terse and
> too easily misread. But I think a careful reading would not imply any
> extra restriction on the license recipient.

I haven't read any extra restriction, what I read is that this "how to
apply the license" breaks the license requirements.

> So in my opinion, this is just a clumsy way to present a page that
> nevertheless is an explicit grant of the standard Expat license
> conditions in a work.
> 
> In short: this does not IMO disqualify the work from conforming to the
> DFSG.

but IMO it disqualifies the work from conforming to the MIT
requirements.

-- 
regards,
Mattia Rizzolo

GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18  4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540  .''`.
more about me:  http://mapreri.org  : :'  :
Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri  `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia  `-


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Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself, Re: R packages licensed MIT but not shipping a copy of the MIT license itself

[Ben Finney]

Mattia Rizzolo  writes:

> So, today I discovered [0] that R-project has some polices regarding
> licenses [1].  In particular they have one regarding the MIT license
> [2].  This needs to go together with their extensions manuals [3].
>
> Read together they say that if you have an R module you want to license
> under MIT (which is really Expat) you have to:

I think the wording is ambiguous.

At the  there are no
requirements, and no license grants at all, for the dozen license names
listed. It simply states that those licenses are “in use” for the code
base.

Then some statements that R and some specific parts are “licensed
under”, or “distributed under”, specific named license conditions. Those
could be taken as grant of license as specified in those texts (the GPL
v2, the GPL v3, the LGPL v2.1), since they all give explicit freedom to
do all the actions needed for DFSG freedom.

So the issue you raise would turn on what restrictions are implied by
the earlier listed license pages.

For the “MIT License” page, we have:

> Based on http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
>
> This is a template. Complete and ship as file LICENSE the following 2
> lines (only)
>
> YEAR:
> COPYRIGHT HOLDER: 
>
> and specify as
>
> License: MIT + file LICENSE
>
> Copyright (c) , 

I don't think any of the above text implies a *requirement* on the
recipient of the license.

Indeed, the license grant begins at the standard “MIT” (which is
Expat-equivalent) permission grant:
>

> a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
> "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
> without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
> distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
> permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
> the following conditions:
>
> The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
> included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

That alone grants all the DFSG-conformant freedoms. I don't think
anything else in the text is rightly interpreted to restrict those
freedoms in any way.

It would be better if the guidelines were more clearly phrased to be
guidance for *how* to apply the license; as it is, they are terse and
too easily misread. But I think a careful reading would not imply any
extra restriction on the license recipient.

So in my opinion, this is just a clumsy way to present a page that
nevertheless is an explicit grant of the standard Expat license
conditions in a work.

In short: this does not IMO disqualify the work from conforming to the
DFSG.

Thank you for taking software freedom seriously for Debian recipients.

-- 
 \“If it ain't bust don't fix it is a very sound principle and |
  `\  remains so despite the fact that I have slavishly ignored it |
_o__) all my life.” —Douglas Adams |
Ben Finney