Bug#840573: unicon: DFSG-incompatible license

[Adrian Bunk]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 11:58:00AM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2016, Joao Eriberto Mota Filho wrote:
> 
> > Source: unicon
> > Severity: serious
> > Tags: upstream
> > Justification: Policy 2.2.1
> > 
> > Dear Maintainer,
> > 
> > The file unicon/ImmModules/cxterm/utils/HZtable.h has the following license:
> > 
> > Copyright 1994,1995 by Yongguang Zhang.  All Rights Reserved
> > 
> > Permission to retain, use, modify, copy, and distribute CXTERM 5.0
> > in source or binary and its documentation (hereafter, the Software)
> > for non-commercial purpose is hereby granted to you without a fee,
> > provided that this entire copyright and permission notice appear in
> > all such copies, that no charge be associated with such copies,
> > that distribution of derivative works (including value-added
> > distributions such as with additional input dictionaries or fonts)
> > include clarification that such added or derived parts are not from
> > the original Software, and that the names of the author(s) not be
> > used to endorse or promote such works.
> > 
> > THE AUTHOR(S) DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, 
> > INCLUDING
> > ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL
> > THE AUTHOR(S) BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES 
> > OR
> > ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
> > WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION,
> > ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS 
> > SOFTWARE.
> > 
> > There is a restriction for commercial use.
> 
> Probably not the intent (as this is an old license), but certainly
> it's the letter.
> 
> BTW: There is a similar wording in the Perl license: "You may not
> charge a fee for this Package itself."
>...

The Perl situation is different.


In Perl this is part of a larger clause in the Artistic licence.

The clause in the Artistic licence explicitely allows charging money for 
a software distribution that includes perl, and that makes it DFSG-free.

This is a borderline case, and likely the DFSG are worded this way to 
allow code under the Artistic licence in main.


unicon does not allow usage for commercial purpose, which is a clear 
violation of DFSG clause 6.

Using Debian in your business, or selling a computer with Debian 
installed, are pretty basic usecases that are not possible with
such licencing.


> Thanks.

cu
Adrian

-- 

   "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
   "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
   Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Bug#840573: unicon: DFSG-incompatible license

[Santiago Vila]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 08:42:39AM -0300, Eriberto Mota wrote:

> I suggest to see if unicon builds without the file. I did a primitive
> test and yes, builds. However is needed a better test.

Yes, I was going to suggest exactly that.

Apparently, this package just needs a repack excluding the non-free files.

Thanks.

Bug#840573: unicon: DFSG-incompatible license

[Eriberto Mota]

Hi,

2016-10-13 6:58 GMT-03:00 Santiago Vila :
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2016, Joao Eriberto Mota Filho wrote:
>
>> Source: unicon
>> Severity: serious
>> Tags: upstream
>> Justification: Policy 2.2.1
>>
[...]
>>
>> There is a restriction for commercial use.
>
> Probably not the intent (as this is an old license), but certainly
> it's the letter.
>
> BTW: There is a similar wording in the Perl license: "You may not
> charge a fee for this Package itself."
>
> This is an orphaned package (maintained by "Debian QA"). In case you
> use this package yourself, would you like to forward this bug upstream
> (just to see if author would be willing to change the license), or
> should we just move this to non-free?
>
> I'm Cc:ing Balint, who made the last QA upload (maybe he uses the
> package himself, I don't).


I don't use this package. The file in focus was taken by upstream from
other source code.

The source unicon provides unicon-imc2. It is a dependency for zhcon.
It is a recomend for task-chinese-s, task-korean and task-chinese-t.
These are recommeds for live-task-localisation.

The popcon for unicon-imc2 and for zhcon are 1481 and 1484.

I suggest to see if unicon builds without the file. I did a primitive
test and yes, builds. However is needed a better test.

Regards,

Eriberto


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Bug#840573: unicon: DFSG-incompatible license

[Bálint Réczey]

Hi,

2016-10-13 11:58 GMT+02:00 Santiago Vila :
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2016, Joao Eriberto Mota Filho wrote:
>
>> Source: unicon
>> Severity: serious
>> Tags: upstream
>> Justification: Policy 2.2.1
>>
>> Dear Maintainer,
>>
>> The file unicon/ImmModules/cxterm/utils/HZtable.h has the following license:
>>
>> Copyright 1994,1995 by Yongguang Zhang.  All Rights Reserved
>>
>> Permission to retain, use, modify, copy, and distribute CXTERM 5.0
>> in source or binary and its documentation (hereafter, the Software)
>> for non-commercial purpose is hereby granted to you without a fee,
>> provided that this entire copyright and permission notice appear in
>> all such copies, that no charge be associated with such copies,
>> that distribution of derivative works (including value-added
>> distributions such as with additional input dictionaries or fonts)
>> include clarification that such added or derived parts are not from
>> the original Software, and that the names of the author(s) not be
>> used to endorse or promote such works.
>>
>> THE AUTHOR(S) DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING
>> ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL
>> THE AUTHOR(S) BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR
>> ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
>> WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION,
>> ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
>>
>> There is a restriction for commercial use.
>
> Probably not the intent (as this is an old license), but certainly
> it's the letter.
>
> BTW: There is a similar wording in the Perl license: "You may not
> charge a fee for this Package itself."
>
> This is an orphaned package (maintained by "Debian QA"). In case you
> use this package yourself, would you like to forward this bug upstream
> (just to see if author would be willing to change the license), or
> should we just move this to non-free?
>
> I'm Cc:ing Balint, who made the last QA upload (maybe he uses the
> package himself, I don't).

I don't use the package either.

I don't think moving it to non-free is a reasonable solution because this
license is incompatible with GPL thus unicon as a whole can't be licensed
under GPL thus it looks like it does not have a valid license.

One could argue that .h files can't be licensed, but HZutil.c also share the
same license.

One option would be asking the cxterm upstream to relicense the files under
GPL if it fails and the unicon package is not usable without those files then
it should probably be removed from the archive. :-(

Cheers,
Balint

Bug#840573: unicon: DFSG-incompatible license

[Santiago Vila]

On Wed, 12 Oct 2016, Joao Eriberto Mota Filho wrote:

> Source: unicon
> Severity: serious
> Tags: upstream
> Justification: Policy 2.2.1
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> The file unicon/ImmModules/cxterm/utils/HZtable.h has the following license:
> 
> Copyright 1994,1995 by Yongguang Zhang.  All Rights Reserved
> 
> Permission to retain, use, modify, copy, and distribute CXTERM 5.0
> in source or binary and its documentation (hereafter, the Software)
> for non-commercial purpose is hereby granted to you without a fee,
> provided that this entire copyright and permission notice appear in
> all such copies, that no charge be associated with such copies,
> that distribution of derivative works (including value-added
> distributions such as with additional input dictionaries or fonts)
> include clarification that such added or derived parts are not from
> the original Software, and that the names of the author(s) not be
> used to endorse or promote such works.
> 
> THE AUTHOR(S) DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING
> ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL
> THE AUTHOR(S) BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR
> ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
> WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION,
> ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
> 
> There is a restriction for commercial use.

Probably not the intent (as this is an old license), but certainly
it's the letter.

BTW: There is a similar wording in the Perl license: "You may not
charge a fee for this Package itself."

This is an orphaned package (maintained by "Debian QA"). In case you
use this package yourself, would you like to forward this bug upstream
(just to see if author would be willing to change the license), or
should we just move this to non-free?

I'm Cc:ing Balint, who made the last QA upload (maybe he uses the
package himself, I don't).

Thanks.

Bug#840573: unicon: DFSG-incompatible license

[Joao Eriberto Mota Filho]

Source: unicon
Severity: serious
Tags: upstream
Justification: Policy 2.2.1

Dear Maintainer,

The file unicon/ImmModules/cxterm/utils/HZtable.h has the following license:

Copyright 1994,1995 by Yongguang Zhang.  All Rights Reserved

Permission to retain, use, modify, copy, and distribute CXTERM 5.0
in source or binary and its documentation (hereafter, the Software)
for non-commercial purpose is hereby granted to you without a fee,
provided that this entire copyright and permission notice appear in
all such copies, that no charge be associated with such copies,
that distribution of derivative works (including value-added
distributions such as with additional input dictionaries or fonts)
include clarification that such added or derived parts are not from
the original Software, and that the names of the author(s) not be
used to endorse or promote such works.

THE AUTHOR(S) DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING
ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE AUTHOR(S) BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR
ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION,
ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

There is a restriction for commercial use.

Regards,

Eriberto