date:20150529

Hi,

I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my
packages. The package in question is missfits. It contains a
directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark
Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel
Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+.

debian/copyright currently mentions only GPL-3+ for the whole package.

The ftp-master now asked me to add GPL-2+ for these files to
debian/copyright. But I think that this would be wrong, since the files
under src/wcs are not distributable under GPL-2+ (because they contain
GPL-3+ code from Emmanuel Bertin).

Do I miss an important point here?

Best regards

Ole


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DFSG-ness of two

2015-05-29 Thread Paul Gevers

Hi Debian legal,

I am investigating two files in the Lazarus source with the following
two licenses. I am wondering what you make of this (mostly wondering
about clause 3 of the first license and clause 1 of the second). My
interpretation of this is that they are non-DFSG, but I am also aware
that some fonts also have a similar clause (about it being only in a
collection of fonts for sale). As removing the files will involve some
heavy lifting from our side, I rather ask here.

First:
- You may use this software in any kind of development,
- including comercial, redistribute, and modify it freely,
- under the following restrictions :
- 1. This software is provided as it is, without any kind of
-warranty given. Use it at Your own risk.The author is not
-responsible for any consequences of use of this software.
- 2. The origin of this software may not be mispresented, You
-must not claim that You wrote the original software. If
-You use this software in any kind of product, it would be
-appreciated that there in a information box, or in the
-documentation would be an acknowledgement like
-
- Partial Copyright (c) 2004 Andrey V. Sorokin
-http://RegExpStudio.com
-mailto:a...@mail.ru
-
- 3. You may not have any income from distributing this source
-(or altered version of it) to other developers. When You
-use this product in a comercial package, the source may
-not be charged seperatly.
- 4. Altered versions must be plainly marked as such, and must
-not be misrepresented as being the original software.
- 5. RegExp Studio application and all the visual components as
-well as documentation is not part of the TRegExpr library
-and is not free for usage.

Second:
Windows XP Theme Manager is freeware. You may freely use it in any
software, including commercial software, provided you accept the
following conditions:
1) The software may not be included into component collections and
similar compilations which are sold. If you want to distribute this
software for money then contact me first and ask for my permission.
2) My copyright notices in the source code may not be removed or modified.
3) If you modify and/or distribute the code to any third party then you
must not veil the original author. It must always be clearly
identifiable that I, Mike Lischke, am the original author.
Although it is not required it would be a nice move to recognize my work
by adding a citation to the application's about box or a similar place.



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Re: GPL + question

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 09:32:12AM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
 Hi,
 
 I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my
 packages. The package in question is missfits. It contains a
 directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark
 Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel
 Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+.

Upstream authors can't change licensing of any files, under any
conditions, ever.

If I say a file is GPLv2+, it is forever GPLv2+, even if it's combined
with a GPLv3 work, in that case the *files* are still GPLv2+, that other
file is a GPLv3 work, and the *combined work* is distributed under the
terms of the GPLv3, since it satisfies the license of every file in the
combined / derived work.

 debian/copyright currently mentions only GPL-3+ for the whole package.

Yeah, debian/copyright isn't what the binary is distributed under, it's
what the source licenses are.

If it had MIT/Expat code, you'd still need it in debian/copyright if the
other files are GPLv2+

 The ftp-master now asked me to add GPL-2+ for these files to
 debian/copyright. But I think that this would be wrong, since the files
 under src/wcs are not distributable under GPL-2+ (because they contain
 GPL-3+ code from Emmanuel Bertin).

Nah, it's wrong because you said LGPLv2+, adding it sounds right.

Just because files are being combined in such a way that they're
distributed under different terms than some of the files doesn't mean we
exclude them.

Just like Expat is contained within BSD-3. Or ISC is contained in Expat.
You still need all three, since that's the licese for the file.

Only the copyright holder can change what a *work* is licensed as.
Anyone can distribute a derived work inline witht he terms of their
license. That may also contains other terms as well.

 Do I miss an important point here?
 
 Best regards
 
 Ole

Cheers,
 Paul

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Re: GPL + question

Maximilian maximil...@actoflaw.co.uk writes:
 and this seems to imply that the end user can choose which licence
 suits them.

Not only the end user -- also (in our case) the upstream author. So, he
can choose to redistribute the files under GPL-3+. Being them modified
or not.

 However, if Emmanuel Bertin's code is specifically licensed as GPLv3
 only then it needs to be made clear that this is the case where
 applicable - the fact that this code is GPLv3 only ought not affect
 the fact that the other original files may be GPLv2+.

True. However, the original files are not in the upstream tarball and
therefore do not need to be documented in debian/copyright.

This is even the case if original and redistributed filed differ only by
their license.

Best regards

Ole


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Re: GPL + question

2015-05-29 Thread Paul R. Tagliamonte

That's literally what I said.

d/copyright is for source not binary.
On May 29, 2015 8:42 AM, Riley Baird 
bm-2cvqnduybau5do2dfjtrn7zbaj246s4...@bitmessage.ch wrote:

   I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my
   packages. The package in question is missfits. It contains a
   directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark
   Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel
   Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+.
 
  Upstream authors can't change licensing of any files, under any
  conditions, ever.
 
  If I say a file is GPLv2+, it is forever GPLv2+, even if it's combined
  with a GPLv3 work, in that case the *files* are still GPLv2+, that other
  file is a GPLv3 work, and the *combined work* is distributed under the
  terms of the GPLv3, since it satisfies the license of every file in the
  combined / derived work.

 But there are multiple works being combined into the one file. So some
 parts of the file are GPLv2+ and other parts of the file are GPLv3. The
 file as a whole can only be distributed under GPLv3.

Re: GPL + question

Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes:
 On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 09:32:12AM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
 Hi,
 
 I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my
 packages. The package in question is missfits. It contains a
 directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark
 Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel
 Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+.

 Upstream authors can't change licensing of any files, under any
 conditions, ever.

Generally spoken, this is wrong (or please point me to the source). For
example, I can give you a file saying do what you want with it, then
this is the license.

However, do what you want with it includes that you can republish the
file as GPL.

For GPL. GPL-2+ contains a statement

| you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
| General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
| either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
| version.

which means: the upstream author is allowed to redistribute the (changed
or even unchanged) files under version 2, or also under version 3.

Since he redistributed them under version 3 or later, the license of
these files is GPL-3+. The statement above explicitely allows him to do
so.

 If I say a file is GPLv2+, it is forever GPLv2+

Could you strengthen this with a reference?

 even if it's combined with a GPLv3 work, in that case the *files* are
 still GPLv2+,

The files are modified. The author of the modification applied GPL-3+ to
the changed file. He has the right to do so (see above), and since
original and change are glued together (neither the change nor the
original are separately distributed by upstream), the modified file
cannot be distributed by GPL-2 anymore.

 debian/copyright currently mentions only GPL-3+ for the whole package.

 Yeah, debian/copyright isn't what the binary is distributed under, it's
 what the source licenses are.

I speak about sources.

 The ftp-master now asked me to add GPL-2+ for these files to
 debian/copyright. But I think that this would be wrong, since the files
 under src/wcs are not distributable under GPL-2+ (because they contain
 GPL-3+ code from Emmanuel Bertin).

 Nah, it's wrong because you said LGPLv2+, adding it sounds right.

It is wrong. The files in src/wcs are not distributable under GPL-2,
since they contain changes that are GPL-3+.

 Only the copyright holder can change what a *work* is licensed as.
 Anyone can distribute a derived work inline witht he terms of their
 license. That may also contains other terms as well.

If the original license allows, then anyone can redistribute the files
under a different license. And (L)GPL has a paragraph that allows this
under certain conditions (namely LGPL - GPL, and version upgrades).

Best regards

Ole


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Re: GPL + question

2015-05-29 Thread Maximilian

I'm probably wrong, but the code that was originally GPLv2+ remains licensed 
under the GPLv2 *in addition* to the GPLv3 that the overall package is licensed 
under.

The GPLv2 states that:

'if the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it 
and any later version, you have the option of following the terms and 
conditions *either* of that version *or* of any later version published by the 
Free Software Foundation' (my emphasis)

and this seems to imply that the end user can choose which licence suits them.

However, if Emmanuel Bertin's code is specifically licensed as GPLv3 only then 
it needs to be made clear that this is the case where applicable - the fact 
that this code is GPLv3 only ought not affect the fact that the other original 
files may be GPLv2+.

As said above I'm probably wrong, but at least that's the way I see it!


Regards,
Max

On 29 May 2015 08:32, Ole Streicher oleb...@debian.org wrote:

 Hi, 

 I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my 
 packages. The package in question is missfits. It contains a 
 directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark 
 Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel 
 Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+. 

 debian/copyright currently mentions only GPL-3+ for the whole package. 

 The ftp-master now asked me to add GPL-2+ for these files to 
 debian/copyright. But I think that this would be wrong, since the files 
 under src/wcs are not distributable under GPL-2+ (because they contain 
 GPL-3+ code from Emmanuel Bertin). 

 Do I miss an important point here? 

 Best regards 

 Ole 


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Re: GPL + question

Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes:
 On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 10:41:58PM +1000, Riley Baird wrote:
 But there are multiple works being combined into the one file. So some
 parts of the file are GPLv2+ and other parts of the file are GPLv3. The
 file as a whole can only be distributed under GPLv3.
 I don't see the point in adding LGPL, *IFF* the works *ARE* modified
 and derived works. Not just straight copy-paste. I'd be interested
 in what changes took place, I don't see any marking of it.

Same for me. However: the (L)GPL allows even an unmodified
redistribution under a later license. It is up to upstream to decide
whether he chooses the original or a later one. And since I take these
files from upstream, not from the original author, I am bound to his
decision, independently whether the files are modified or not.

Therefore, if he chooses to redistribute the files in src/wcs/ under
GPL-3+, than this is the license for these file, and it should be
documented as such under debian/copyright. And in this case, the
redistribution under a GPL-3+ is clear (by adding the according
statement to the file headers).

 This doesn't appear to be the case, this looks like LGPLv2.1+ files were
 modified by someone licensing their changes under GPLv3+, which is
 legit. I believe treating this file as GPLv3+ is fine / good enough.

The reason here is not modification (although it makes this case clear),
but redistribution. Upstream has chosen to redistribute the files under
GPL-3+, and if we want to use these files, we have to respect this.

Best regards

Ole


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Re: GPL + question

 I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my
 packages. The package in question is missfits. It contains a
 directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark
 Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel
 Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+.
 
 debian/copyright currently mentions only GPL-3+ for the whole package.
 
 The ftp-master now asked me to add GPL-2+ for these files to
 debian/copyright. But I think that this would be wrong, since the files
 under src/wcs are not distributable under GPL-2+ (because they contain
 GPL-3+ code from Emmanuel Bertin).

From the facts you have given, I think that your view is correct.


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Re: GPL + question

  I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my
  packages. The package in question is missfits. It contains a
  directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark
  Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel
  Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+.
 
 Upstream authors can't change licensing of any files, under any
 conditions, ever.
 
 If I say a file is GPLv2+, it is forever GPLv2+, even if it's combined
 with a GPLv3 work, in that case the *files* are still GPLv2+, that other
 file is a GPLv3 work, and the *combined work* is distributed under the
 terms of the GPLv3, since it satisfies the license of every file in the
 combined / derived work.

But there are multiple works being combined into the one file. So some
parts of the file are GPLv2+ and other parts of the file are GPLv3. The
file as a whole can only be distributed under GPLv3.


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Re: GPL + question

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 10:41:58PM +1000, Riley Baird wrote:
 But there are multiple works being combined into the one file. So some
 parts of the file are GPLv2+ and other parts of the file are GPLv3. The
 file as a whole can only be distributed under GPLv3.

the terminology being thrown around was so confusing I had to look at the
source to see what was actually going on here :)


There was *one* work, which *was* LGPL. By an author. They published
it on their own.

This work will forver be LGPL.

The author of this package took that source, and *modified* it
(modified, *not* combined). This modified work is distributed as
GPLv3.

I don't see the point in adding LGPL, *IFF* the works *ARE* modified
and derived works. Not just straight copy-paste. I'd be interested
in what changes took place, I don't see any marking of it.

Defer to the ftp-master who processed it. Ask them for clarification
(feel free to point to this mail)


In the case where two works are combined into one file - this is
functionally compilation (at least not the preferred form of
modification, which means it's *not* source)

This doesn't appear to be the case, this looks like LGPLv2.1+ files were
modified by someone licensing their changes under GPLv3+, which is
legit. I believe treating this file as GPLv3+ is fine / good enough.

Cheers,
  Paul

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Re: GPL + question

   If I say a file is GPLv2+, it is forever GPLv2+, even if it's combined
   with a GPLv3 work, in that case the *files* are still GPLv2+, that other
   file is a GPLv3 work, and the *combined work* is distributed under the
   terms of the GPLv3, since it satisfies the license of every file in the
   combined / derived work.

  But there are multiple works being combined into the one file. So some
  parts of the file are GPLv2+ and other parts of the file are GPLv3. The
  file as a whole can only be distributed under GPLv3.

 That's literally what I said.

You gave the impression that each *file* could only be under one
license, which would be good for the purposes of d/copyright, but isn't
the case.


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Re: GPL + question

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:09:34PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
 Same for me. However: the (L)GPL allows even an unmodified
 redistribution under a later license.

This is key -- redistribution. It doesn't change the license. If I get
this file after you say it's GPLv3, it's still LGPLv2.1+ to me if I
remove it from other works that change the distribution terms (unless
it's been modified, in which case the licensing of the work on the whole
changes, and yadda yadda yadda)

I originally thought there was a different question being asked; sorry
about that (the terms used and not looking at the source didn't help :))

 It is up to upstream to decide
 whether he chooses the original or a later one. And since I take these
 files from upstream, not from the original author, I am bound to his
 decision, independently whether the files are modified or not.

Unmodified, the license of the works is unchanged, even if we
*distribute* under a different one.

 Therefore, if he chooses to redistribute the files in src/wcs/ under
 GPL-3+, than this is the license for these file, and it should be
 documented as such under debian/copyright. And in this case, the
 redistribution under a GPL-3+ is clear (by adding the according
 statement to the file headers).
 
  This doesn't appear to be the case, this looks like LGPLv2.1+ files were
  modified by someone licensing their changes under GPLv3+, which is
  legit. I believe treating this file as GPLv3+ is fine / good enough.
 
 The reason here is not modification (although it makes this case clear),
 but redistribution. Upstream has chosen to redistribute the files under
 GPL-3+, and if we want to use these files, we have to respect this.
 
 Best regards
 
 Ole

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Re: GPL + question

2015-05-29 Thread Paul R. Tagliamonte

 Or a CLA. Or breaking copyright law. Or modified the work and distribute
 it under a superset of the old terms. Or or or :)

For the record; I don't believe Apple is breaking copyright law, and I
didn't mean to imply that :)


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Re: GPL + question

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 04:06:52PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
 Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes:
  On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:09:34PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
  Same for me. However: the (L)GPL allows even an unmodified
  redistribution under a later license.
  This is key -- redistribution. It doesn't change the license.
 
 It does. Just look into the license (resp. the header, for simplicity):

No, it doesn't.

|   Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the
| Library as you received it specifies that a certain numbered version
| of the GNU Lesser General Public License or any later version
| applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and
| conditions either of that published version or of any later version
| published by the Free Software Foundation.

Note this says you have the option of following the terms and conditions of
the version noted, *or* any later version, *not* that you relicense, you can
just follow different terms.

This means you can redistribute under the terms of whatever, but not relicense.

To relicense implies you hold copyright, since only the copyright holder
can license their works, even copylefted works.

 | you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
 | General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
 | either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 
 So, redistribution may change the license.

No, you may redistribute it under different terms, *not* relicense. You may
*use* GPLv2+ as GPLv3+, *BUT* the original work is *STILL* GPLv2+, since
you can't relicense works.

To relicense implies you hold copyright, since only the copyright holder
can license their works, even copylefted works.



Snipping the rest, this seems to be your major point of confusion.

Cheers,
  Paul


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Re: GPL + question

Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes:
 No, you may redistribute it under different terms, *not* relicense. You may
 *use* GPLv2+ as GPLv3+, *BUT* the original work is *STILL* GPLv2+, since
 you can't relicense works.

Sorry, but I still think release under the terms of the General Public
License v3+ means that the file has the license GPLv3+.

 To relicense implies you hold copyright, since only the copyright
 holder can license their works, even copylefted works.

Again: please provide a reference for this. The copyright holder has
surely the initial right to license his work, but I don't see a reason
why he can't transfer this.

It is also wrong for the changed case that we have: If only the
copyright holder (Mark Calabretta) had the right to change the license,
then the files in question could not have been modified and distributed
under the GPL-3+ license by the upstream author (Emmanuel Bertin) --
since even the modified files are still copyrighted by Mark, so the
Emmanuel alone could not change their license. This is, however, against
the idea of the + in the GPL versions.

Therefore, please show a proof that only the copyright holder can change
the license.

Best regards

Ole


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Re: GPL + question

Miriam Ruiz mir...@debian.org writes:
 So in my opinion, if you modify a code which was released under GPL2+
 and you license your modifications as GPL3+, the resulting work has to
 also be GPL, and the terms or conditions that apply are those of the
 version 3 of the lincense, or later, but you're not effectively
 relicensing the code that is not yours, so that part would be still
 licensed as GPL2+ by the author and copyright holder.

I may give to others the permission to use the modified/redistributed
file under GPL-3+. This permission is what is usually called License.

In that sense, the license is changed.

 So if you later removed the part of code that was covered by a
 different license, the resulting code would be still under the
 original license,

The license is usually granted to a file as a whole, not to specific
lines. If got got a changed file from me, and you revert my changes,
then you are still bound to the conditions that we agreed about when you
got the file -- these conditions are the license. If we agreed on
GPL-3, then you are bound to GPL-3.

 because you were never the copyright holder, and you never had
 permission to relicense it. I seriously doubt that any judge would
 rule otherwise.

Just again this example:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/bsd/sys/msg.h

This is a file that is initially copyrighted by Daniel Boulet (and
licensed under BSD-2-Clause). However, without any other change, it also
has the header

| Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.
| [...]
| This file contains Original Code and/or Modifications of Original Code
| as defined in and that are subject to the Apple Public Source License
| Version 2.0 (the 'License'). You may not use this file except [...]

So, Apple puts another license to this file, probably without having the
permission of Daniel Boulet.

Would you accept such a file in Debian? It is clearly not BSD-licensed,
even if an unchanged BSD-licensed version exists.

When trusting the Apple Lawyers a bit, then this contradicts your
argumentation.

Best regards

Ole


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Re: GPL + question

Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes:
 I don't know any jurisdiction where I can take a work of yours and now
 claim I have the rights to it under a different license.

Apple did, as I have shown. I think they have good lawyers.

Best

Ole


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Re: GPL + question

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:43:21PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
 Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes:
  I don't know any jurisdiction where I can take a work of yours and now
  claim I have the rights to it under a different license.
 
 Apple did, as I have shown. I think they have good lawyers.

Or a CLA. Or breaking copyright law. Or modified the work and distribute
it under a superset of the old terms. Or or or :)

(FWIW, BSD-alikes deal perfectly fine with further restrictions so long
 as their terms are met; GPL does not.)

 Best
 
 Ole

For further clarification, I'd suggest asking the FSF about the
differences in relicensing vs redistributing under the GPL/LGPL.

Cheers,
  Paul


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Re: GPL + question

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:11:12PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
 Again: please provide a reference for this. The copyright holder has
 surely the initial right to license his work, but I don't see a reason
 why he can't transfer this.

Via copyright asignment, not licensing, unless the license includes a
copyright asignment to an entity.

 It is also wrong for the changed case that we have: If only the
 copyright holder (Mark Calabretta) had the right to change the license,
 then the files in question could not have been modified and distributed
 under the GPL-3+ license by the upstream author (Emmanuel Bertin) --

They *can* since the work as modified *can* be distributed under the
terms of the GPLv3+, *without* changing the original work's license, but
the *file* can be distributed as GPLv3+, since that's the minimum
license needed to comply with all parts.

 since even the modified files are still copyrighted by Mark, so the
 Emmanuel alone could not change their license. This is, however, against
 the idea of the + in the GPL versions.

No, it's really not.

 Therefore, please show a proof that only the copyright holder can change
 the license.

Wat? Copyright statute? What jurisdiction? If you want to fight this, I
suggest you get a lawyer, I don't know any jurisdiction where I can take
a work of yours and now claim I have the rights to it under a different
license.


The proof is on you -- where does it say you can relicense someone
else's copyrighted work / IP? Not *redistribute*, *relicense*.


Cheers,
  Paul

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2015-05-29 16:06 GMT+02:00 Ole Streicher oleb...@debian.org:
Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org writes:
On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 03:09:34PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
Same for me. However: the (L)GPL allows even an unmodified
redistribution under a later license.
This is key -- redistribution. It doesn't change the license.

It does. Just look into the license (resp. the header, for simplicity):

| you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
| General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
| either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

So, redistribution may change the license.

It is indeed quite a grey area, and quite confusing, in my opinion.
According with the (simple but enough for my purposes) definition in
Wikipedia (Copyright is a form of intellectual property, applicable
to any expressed representation of a creative work. It is often shared
among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or
license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rightsholders.
These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative
works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as
attribution.) [1], it is the author[s] the one[s] who has the rights
to license the work.

GPL2 [2] says: This License applies to any program or other work
which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may
be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The
Program, below, refers to any such program or work, and a work
based on the Program means either the Program or any derivative work
under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or
a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or
translated into another language., so the unmodified program is
explicitly defined by the license as a work based on the Program. It
also says that Activities other than copying, distribution and
modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its
scope, so the license does explicitly not apply to relicensing. You
can't relicense other person's work released under GPL2.

What the license says is that You must cause any work that you
distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived
from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no
charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. It is
also said that If the Program specifies a version number of this
License which applies to it and any later version, you have the
option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or
of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the
Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may
choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

So in my opinion, if you modify a code which was released under GPL2+
and you license your modifications as GPL3+, the resulting work has to
also be GPL, and the terms or conditions that apply are those of the
version 3 of the lincense, or later, but you're not effectively
relicensing the code that is not yours, so that part would be still
licensed as GPL2+ by the author and copyright holder. So if you later
removed the part of code that was covered by a different license, the
resulting code would be still under the original license, because you
were never the copyright holder, and you never had permission to
relicense it. I seriously doubt that any judge would rule otherwise.

That's just my two cents.

Greetings,
Miry

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
[2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

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Re: GPL + question

Please end this thread, it's getting nuts. Ask the FSF if you're still unclear.

Thanks,
Paul

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Paul Tagliamonte paul...@debian.org wrote:
On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 05:11:12PM +0200, Ole Streicher wrote:
Again: please provide a reference for this. The copyright holder has
surely the initial right to license his work, but I don't see a reason
why he can't transfer this.

Via copyright asignment, not licensing, unless the license includes a
copyright asignment to an entity.

It is also wrong for the changed case that we have: If only the
copyright holder (Mark Calabretta) had the right to change the license,
then the files in question could not have been modified and distributed
under the GPL-3+ license by the upstream author (Emmanuel Bertin) --

They *can* since the work as modified *can* be distributed under the
terms of the GPLv3+, *without* changing the original work's license, but
the *file* can be distributed as GPLv3+, since that's the minimum
license needed to comply with all parts.

since even the modified files are still copyrighted by Mark, so the
Emmanuel alone could not change their license. This is, however, against
the idea of the + in the GPL versions.

No, it's really not.

Therefore, please show a proof that only the copyright holder can change
the license.

Wat? Copyright statute? What jurisdiction? If you want to fight this, I
suggest you get a lawyer, I don't know any jurisdiction where I can take
a work of yours and now claim I have the rights to it under a different
license.

The proof is on you -- where does it say you can relicense someone
else's copyrighted work / IP? Not *redistribute*, *relicense*.

Cheers,
Paul

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Re: GPL + question

2015-05-29 Thread Simon McVittie

On 29/05/15 16:30, Ole Streicher wrote:
 Miriam Ruiz mir...@debian.org writes:
 So in my opinion, if you modify a code which was released under GPL2+
 and you license your modifications as GPL3+, the resulting work has to
 also be GPL, and the terms or conditions that apply are those of the
 version 3 of the lincense, or later, but you're not effectively
 relicensing the code that is not yours, so that part would be still
 licensed as GPL2+ by the author and copyright holder.
 
 I may give to others the permission to use the modified/redistributed
 file under GPL-3+. This permission is what is usually called License.
 
 In that sense, the license is changed.

I think you're mixing up the license of a work, and the effective
license of a combined work.

A work is an abstract legal thing, dating back to when the most advanced
computer available was a monk with an abacus.

A file is a computing concept. The law says nothing about files. If
various people have contributed bits of a file, my understanding is that
the file is a combined work consisting of individual works by those people.

To distribute a file that contains one or more works in a way that
copyright would not normally allow without the result being illegal, you
must get permission from all the copyright holders. A copyright license
is just pre-emptive permission from a copyright holder - if you follow
these conditions, the answer is yes - so the most common way to get
permission from all the copyright holders is to comply with all the
conditions imposed by all the copyright holders, simultaneously. For
instance, if the file combines a GPL-2+ work with a GPL-3+ work, you
must simultaneously comply with both

 GPL-2 or GPL-3 or some future version

and

 GPL-3 or some future version

In this simple case, the second condition implies the first, so you
might use a shorthand: this is effectively the same as the whole thing
being GPL-3+. However, this is just a shorthand, and the real status is
somewhat more complicated.

However, the general case is not this simple:

 http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1456.1.26/bsd/sys/msg.h
 
 This is a file that is initially copyrighted by Daniel Boulet (and
 licensed under BSD-2-Clause). However, without any other change, it also
 has the header
 
 | Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.
 | [...]
 | This file contains Original Code and/or Modifications of Original Code
 | as defined in and that are subject to the Apple Public Source License
 | Version 2.0 (the 'License'). You may not use this file except [...]

So what you have here is (claimed to be) a file containing a combination
of a work by Daniel Boulet, licensed under BSD-2-Clause, and a work by
Apple, licensed under APSL-2.0.

To distribute that file, assuming that the claim is true, you must
simultaneously comply with the conditions of the BSD-2-Clause license
(because if you don't, you are infringing Daniel Boulet's copyright),
and with the conditions of the APSL-2.0 (because if you don't, you are
infringing Apple's copyright).

If Apple have not, in fact, modified the file (except to add their
license boilerplate, which might not be sufficiently creative to be
considered to be a copyrightable work), then their assertion that they
hold copyright on the file might not actually be true. If that is the
case, then it might be possible (at your own legal risk) to disregard
that part, then defend yourself on that basis if they sue you. I
wouldn't want to try it myself, because Apple's lawyers are more
expensive than I can afford; and there's no real point anyway, because
you can presumably just get Daniel Boulet's original version of the file
from FreeBSD (?) and avoid the whole issue.

If the two licenses are contradictory (one says you must do something
and the other says you must not, e.g. GPL-2 and GPL-3, or GPL and
OpenSSL) then the combined work is non-distributable. I suspect these
two licenses are not contradictory, though - the BSD-2-clause license
doesn't require much.

 Would you accept such a file in Debian? It is clearly not BSD-licensed,
 even if an unchanged BSD-licensed version exists.

If we can exercise the rights demanded by the DFSG while simultaneously
complying with both the applicable licenses, then the work is Free.

I don't know the precise status of the APSL-2.0 (neither do I
particularly want to), but if the two licenses were a pair that I know
to be Free and non-contradictory (e.g. BSD-2-clause and GPL), then the
ftpmasters would (and frequently do) accept files like that in Debian.

S


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Re: GPL + question

2015-05-29 Thread Charles Plessy

Le Fri, May 29, 2015 at 09:32:12AM +0200, Ole Streicher a écrit :
 
 I just had a discussion with an ftp-master who rejected one of my
 packages. The package in question is missfits. It contains a
 directory, src/wcs/ with files that were originally released by Mark
 Calabretta under LGPL-2+, but changed by the upstream author (Emmanuel
 Bertin) and released in the package under GPL-3+.
 
 debian/copyright currently mentions only GPL-3+ for the whole package.
 
 The ftp-master now asked me to add GPL-2+ for these files to
 debian/copyright. But I think that this would be wrong, since the files
 under src/wcs are not distributable under GPL-2+ (because they contain
 GPL-3+ code from Emmanuel Bertin).
 
 Do I miss an important point here?

Hi Ole,

I am also surprised by this request (isn't there a typo with a L missing in
front of GPL-2+ ?).

The README in src/wcs contains:

   This directory contains a modified version of the WCSlib V2.2 library by 
Mark
   Calabretta mcala...@atnf.csiro.au, released under the GNU Lesser General
   Public License.  The original version was downloaded from
   ftp://ftp.cv.nrao.edu/fits/src/wcs/.  See
   http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/mcalabre/WCS/wcslib for more details.

Here, the author of missfits says that he modified the copy of the WCSlib that
he redistributes with the sources of missfits.

In addition, he added a GPLv3+ header on top of each file.

Unfortunately, WCSlib version 2.2 is so old that I could not find a pristine
copy on the Internet to confirm that each file was really modified.

If it were me, I would give the benefit of the doubt to the upstream author of
missfits, and trust him that if he added a GPLv3+ header, it is because he
modified the files, as he says in the README.

In that case, the license to be indicated in debian/copyright should be GPLv3+.

Have a nice week-end,

Charles

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Re: DFSG-ness of two

On Sat, 30 May 2015 10:46:04 +0900
Charles Plessy ple...@debian.org wrote:
 Le Sat, May 30, 2015 at 11:26:59AM +1000, Riley Baird a écrit :
- 3. You may not have any income from distributing this source
-(or altered version of it) to other developers. When You
-use this product in a comercial package, the source may
-not be charged seperatly.
   
   This clause is really annoying, but it seems to allow the file to be
   sold as part of a commercial package. Hence, it could perhaps be
   considered to meet DFSG#1.
  
  But a developer doesn't have the freedom to sell the software for
  profit to other developers.
 
 as suggested in the original question, this clause is similar to clause 1 of
 the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which is DFSG-Free.
 
Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in 
 Original
or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself.

The second sentence is similar to the Open Font License, but I was
talking about the first sentence.

 Have a nice week-end,

You too!


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Re: GPL + question

   Only the copyright holder can change what a *work* is licensed as.
 
 Unless the copyright holder grants the permission to do so, I would
 say...

Let's say I hold copyright on a work, and I grant someone else
permission to change the license of a work. Who would enforce the
second license? Only a copyright holder can enforce their copyrights.


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Re: DFSG-ness of two

  - 3. You may not have any income from distributing this source
  -(or altered version of it) to other developers. When You
  -use this product in a comercial package, the source may
  -not be charged seperatly.
 
 This clause is really annoying, but it seems to allow the file to be
 sold as part of a commercial package. Hence, it could perhaps be
 considered to meet DFSG#1.

But a developer doesn't have the freedom to sell the software for
profit to other developers.


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Re: DFSG-ness of two

2015-05-29 Thread Charles Plessy

Le Sat, May 30, 2015 at 11:26:59AM +1000, Riley Baird a écrit :
   - 3. You may not have any income from distributing this source
   -(or altered version of it) to other developers. When You
   -use this product in a comercial package, the source may
   -not be charged seperatly.
  
  This clause is really annoying, but it seems to allow the file to be
  sold as part of a commercial package. Hence, it could perhaps be
  considered to meet DFSG#1.
 
 But a developer doesn't have the freedom to sell the software for
 profit to other developers.

Hi Riley,

as suggested in the original question, this clause is similar to clause 1 of
the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which is DFSG-Free.

   Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in Original
   or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself.

Have a nice week-end,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan


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Re: GPL + question