Re: Nethack General Public License

[MJ Ray]

Le 28 juin 2023 16:25:09 GMT+01:00, Joshua Allen  a écrit :
>Dear Debian Legal,
>
>I was going through the Nethack General Public License and even though it is a 
>free software license obviously not compatible with the GNU GPL, how do you 
>maintain it without calling it nethack though since the only official nethack 
>releases can be called nethack. If you were to append the same license on top 
>of the NGPL but remove references to nethack, it would still qualify because 
>the terms are the same im just changing the name of the program derivative.

I don't see the problem with maintaining it. You do not have to remove 
references to nethack. You only cannot call other things nethack inaccurately.

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJR

Re: Packaging text licenses

[MJ Ray]

2019-12-15 1:26:28 PM Jonas Smedegaard : [...]
> As others in this thread have pointed out, Debian explicitly omits
> classifying license fulltexts as "free software" or "non-free software".
>
> As I understand it, you personally classify license fulltexts as
> "non-free software" and then add a rule that they are exceptionally
> accepted in main under specific narrow circumstances. [...]

I think personalising this discussion does not help anything.

How could one classify licence fulltexts that would enable them to be included 
in Debian under current rules otherwise?

Those packages using licence texts feel a bit like ones that display an 
included non-free image in response to certain actions and I am fairly sure 
that has not been acceptable in the past.

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Re: Tux licensing again

[MJ Ray]

Eriberto Mota  wrote:

> I am packaging a software that distribute a Tux image [...]
> The original license can be viewed here[1]. [...]
> [1] https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/

That page also includes "Feel free to do whatever you see fit with the
images, you are encouraged to integrate them into other designs that
fit your need" and I note that whoever wrote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tux.png has summarised it as a 
liberal permission.

> For me the Tux license don't explicitly allow one redistribute the
> original or modified image. However, looks like I am wrong because
> there are packages in 'main' using the Tux license.
> 
> Can someone say me "you are wrong, so go ahead, upload your package"?

I feel pretty confident that "whatever you see fit" includes redistribution.

So go ahead, upload your package.

Hope that helps,
-- 

MJR http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

Re: ad hoc license: is it DFSG-conformant ?

[MJ Ray]

Jerome BENOIT wrote:
> One of my package, nayty not to mention it [1], has a new copyright
> notice [2] that is mean to be compatible.
> 
> I am considering to migrate it to main:
> please can you confirm that the new copyright notice is effectively 
> DFSG-conformant.

Unless I'm going blind again, you forgot to tell us what [1] and [2] are.

Hope that helps,
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Re: CISST licence and DFSG

[MJ Ray]

Riley Baird wrote [apparently not citing authors]:
>> DFSG-free software usually refrain from restricting use or download.
> 
> Is this a requirement? The Microsoft Public License states:
> 
> If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not
> accept the license, do not use the software.

It's not a requirement but IMO it's worth seeking to change if the
licence has other problems.  Usage is an act not normally restricted by
copyright so it often indicates that a licence is pretending to be a
contract or hybrid copyright/patent licence, instead of a simple
conditional copyright licence grant.

Hope that explains,
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Re: Expat + exception = DFSG-compatible?

[MJ Ray]

On 10/13/15 08:50, Dmitry Smirnov wrote:
> On Tuesday 13 October 2015 09:10:10 Florian Weimer wrote:
>> The restriction you cited violates DFSG §5 (“No Discrimination Against
>> Persons or Groups”).
> 
> Well yes, but then how GPL termination clause is not a violation?

Because it is a clause explaining what happens if someone behaves in a
way which isn't allowed under most copyright laws anyway and mainly sets
out how that person can gain a new licence by ceasing violation.

> Listing known offenders in addition to the text of the license wouldn't be 
> violation of DFSG §5, right?

Yes, it probably would - how would the listed people ever gain a new
valid licence?

Hope that explains,
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Re: Question about a "custom" license from dictconfig

[MJ Ray]

Riley Baird wrote:
> My intuition would tell me that other people named Vinay Sajip would not
> be able to use their name in advertising or publicity pertaining to the
> software. However, this same logic would also apply to everything
> written under 3-clause BSD, the only difference being that the names
> that you are not allowed to use are not expressly stated.

With BSD's slightly better wording, I think you could use your own name
even if it was the same as the name of an earlier author, as long as you
made it clear that it was your name and not that other author.

I probably worry too much about this because of my past.  If it's
already in debian, then I'd not worry about this further for now unless
there's a clear consensus.  There are far bigger problems about.

> Also, how does not allowing the usage of a name in advertising make it
> non-DFSG free?

Discrimination against named persons fails DFSG 5 for sure, doesn't it?

It might also fail 1 or 3 because it seems like the reverse of licences
that REQUIRE authors to disclose their names, which I think have been
widely regarded as failing to meet DFSG and even gave rise to the
Dissident Test.

Hope that explains,
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Re: Question about a "custom" license from dictconfig

[MJ Ray]

Dariusz Dwornikowski wrote:
> I encountered this license while packaging (as in this file [1]). My
> questions is, what type of license is it, and is it DFSG compatible ?
> 
> Please CC me, I am not on the list. 
> 
> [1] 
> https://bitbucket.org/vinay.sajip/dictconfig/raw/53b3c32dea4694cd3fb2f14b3159d66d3da10bc0/src/dictconfig.py

This looks close enough to MIT/Expat-style licensing that most of it
seems to meet the DFSG.

The only thing I'm not sure about is whether it's OK for other people
also called "Vinay Sajip" to release changes under their own name.
Anyone know?  If not, then it fails DFSG.

Do you know whether the author would consider switching to MIT/Expat or
zlib wording?  They're linked from http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/

# Copyright 2009-2010 by Vinay Sajip. All Rights Reserved.
#
# Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
# documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,
# provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that
# both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
# supporting documentation, and that the name of Vinay Sajip
# not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution
# of the software without specific, written prior permission.
# VINAY SAJIP DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE,
INCLUDING
# ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL
# VINAY SAJIP 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.

CC'd as requested.

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Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license

[MJ Ray]

On 4 August 2014 13:26:11 GMT+01:00, Ian Jackson 
 wrote:
>(-project dropped from the CC)
>
>MJ Ray writes ("Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license"):
>> Secondly, unless it says otherwise, a naming restriction in a
>> copyright licence doesn't permit honest source attribution and all
>> the other nominative and fair uses that a trademark would. This is
>> more of a problem for Debian.
>
>Can you please confirm that the question I put in my draft questions
>for SFLC, on this subject, addresses this point ?  If I haven't
>fully captured your understanding of the problem then my draft needs
>to be updated.

I'm not sure it does. The question to me should be more like "does putting a 
name restriction in the copyright licence rather than using a trademark licence 
mean we lose any ability to package this software under its own name and if so, 
how?" but worded more slickly like you do.

At best, the earlier paragraph suggesting we rely on assurances from trademark 
holders rather than usual rights in law, just for packaging, seems beside the 
point. At worst, it could mislead about the question.

I take your point about rudeness. I shouldn't fight fire with fire. Sorry.
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Re: Standardization documents in xsd and wsdl format

[MJ Ray]

On 11 July 2014 16:20:45 CEST, Mattias Ellert  
wrote:
>Standardization bodies tend to want to not have random
>people making random changes to their standardization documents that
>would create incompatible versions of the standards. The documentation
>licenses used by these organization therefore usually do not allow
>modification.

The other answers seem correct to me. I just wish to note that standards 
organisations would be far better off providing public key signatures of the 
official standards documents to protactively demonstrate approval, instead of 
trying to use restrictive copyright licensing to reactively prosecute 
innovators who confuse, often in error.

After all, the copyright licence doesn't prevent unauthorised modification or 
alert people to it. It just gives the licensor and others ways to punish people.
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Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license

[MJ Ray]

On 31 July 2014 01:03:00 CEST, Charles Plessy  wrote:
>Back to the question of rebranding, the PHP developers have already
>explained
>that because PHP is a three-letter word, they are not in a position to
>protect their name with a trademark.   Therefore, they do it with a
>license.
>
>We can not take Mate and distribute it as “Gnome Plus”.  We can not
>take a fork
>of PHP and call it “BetterPhp”.  People can not take a Debian CD, add
>non-free
>software, and sell it as “Debian Enhanced”.  We and other protect our
>names,
>and PHP does it too.  I do not see a problem.

There are two problems with trying to use a copyright licence to do the job of 
a trademark. It's like trying to use a gun to cut your steak.

One, it doesn't affect people who write something without using your code. We 
could clean- room write the perfect hamster punisher and then distribute it as 
PHP, possibly harming their reputation, but their licence would do nothing to 
stop us. This is not a worry for Debian but it does show why the licence term 
is not much like a trademark.

Secondly, unless it says otherwise, a naming restriction in a copyright licence 
doesn't permit honest source attribution and all the other nominative and fair 
uses that a trademark would. This is more of a problem for Debian.

Isn't part of the reason why the name PHP cannot be trademarked that 
restricting use of such a simple name is obnoxious?

There are many ways this could be solved, but the ostrich approach of closing 
the bugs without fixing them and hiding this from users must be one of the 
worst. Please support another approach.
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Re: Zend Engine License

[MJ Ray]

On 2 August 2014 04:51:30 CEST, Riley Baird 
 wrote:
>Another thought: Doesn't the Zend Engine License also have the same
>problem as the PHP License in that we are not allowed to use the words
>"Zend" or "Zend Engine" for modified versions of the Zend Engine?
>
>
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What package is that in?

I notice that Zend framework seems to be under a BSD style licence, without 
that sort of clause.
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Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license

[MJ Ray]

On 1 August 2014 17:59:11 CEST, Ian Jackson  
wrote:
>Similar situations often arise in relation to trademarks.  Our usual
>approach in such cases has been to rely on the informal assurances,
>and not seek any kind of formal trademark licence amendment.

I thought we relied on the fact that trademark law isn't as brain dead as 
copyright laws and actually allows honest description, functional uses and 
other things that we do.

Firefox's renaming was more to do with the trademark licence being used to try 
to force in a few non free files and restrict downstream autonomy IIRC.

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Re: [PECL-DEV] Re: Re: [PHP-QA] Debian and the PHP license

[MJ Ray]

On 30 July 2014 22:00:17 CEST, Stas Malyshev  wrote:
> If Debian OTOH decides to make their own
>fork of PHP, they can distribute it still, but not under the name of
>"PHP". I don't think Debian even claimed that the thing they distribute
>under the name of PHP is anything but the original product, so I don't
>see a problem here. I'm not sure why there's an effort to seek
>maximally
>contorted interpretation of the rules that would appear to disallow
>Debian to do something that Debian is already doing, has been doing for
>years, and nobody ever objected to Debian doing and nobody ever intends
>to object. To me this effort does not seem to be constructive, and not
>leading to any improvement of anything, but only to more inconvenience
>and annoyance to everybody involved.

I think everyone does claim that. You do know Debian doesn't just distribute 
the binaries from Php.net, right? No contortion: the php5 in Debian is a 
derived work. Here's a list of patches 
http://sources.debian.net/src/php5/5.6.0%7Erc2%2Bdfsg-5/debian/patches

I agree that renaming would not be constructive. Why can't people call this 
PHP, please, PHP project? Would you change the licence to something more usual, 
like MIT/X style?
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Re: CC-BY-SA-4.0

[MJ Ray]

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Hash: SHA256

Dmitry Smirnov wrote:
> It would be especially nice if someone could refer to or write a
> short digest about differences from v3.0.

I tried to wdiff
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode and
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode and it's
basically unusable.  :-(

Reading them side-by-side:

1. A broader "Adapted Material" replaces "Adaptation" and there's a
few new terms like CARR and Database Rights, while some like Publicly
Perform and Reproduce are removed. No Overall Change for DFSG IMO;

2. The "Fair Dealing Rights" section is merged into the license grant
section - NOC;

3. Minor wording changes to the licence grant (irrevocable instead of
perpetual, for example) - NOC;

4. The "Restrictions" section becomes "License Conditions" with
similar minor wording changes. I think the new phrasing is much
simpler but I didn't spot any substantial changes except the explicit
approval of pseudonyms. NOC;

5. New section on "Sui Generis Database Rights" which I guess may be
an ODBL-killer.  Looks like a useful supplement;

6. More wording changes about warranties and liability and at least
it's only in bold and not HARD TO READ CAPITALS now. Improvement;

7. The Termination section gains an automatic restart clause.
Interesting and debatable but NOC for DFSG;

So it's no worse than 3.0 and I don't remember what I thought of that :-)

> [2]: https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses

I'll update that now.

Hope that helps,
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Re: ODC-By license -- DFSG-compliant?

[MJ Ray]

On 09/19/13 23:59, Nick Oosterhof wrote:
> In the future this /may/ end up in BioSig [1]. But more generally we would 
> like to share neuroimaging data (fMRI, MEEG) collected from human 
> participants and/or phantoms, in the context of cognitive neuroscience 
> .experiments. 
> 
> [1] http://biosig.sourceforge.net/index.html
[...]
> Thanks. I also subscribed to the debian-legal list.

Should we stop cc'ing?

>>> 2.4 Relationship to Contents in the Database. [...]
>> So I think it will nearly always need another licence to make a package
>> meet DFSG because it does not cover the copyright of the Contents (see 2.2).
> 
> Can the Contents be licensed under ODC-By as well, or would that create 
> something circular / recursive?

I think that would create an absurdity, a licence for Contents that says
it does not apply to Contents = no valid licence = all rights reserved.

> [...] If not, what other license would be suitable?

OKFN publish http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/dbcl/1.0/ but I don't
know if any volunteers have reviewed that for debian, I've got to get to
work soon and it would probably be better as its own thread, for
visiblity.  Based on my personal experience of Rufus and others at OKFN,
I'd be surprised if one of their licences failed DFSG.

I think sometimes there could be insufficient creativity in the Contents
(so no copyright) and a Public Domain Declaration or CC0 may be best,
depending on the laws where it was created; but I'd strongly suggest
considering MIT/Expat, BSD or GPL, depending on your aims.  Some argue
against using them for data, but MIT and BSD aren't limited to programs
and the GPL definition of "Program" is wide enough to cope with anything.

[3.3 multiple licensing]
>> How does multiple-licensing interact with section 4.2.a?  Can we
>> distribute under a multiple-licensing ourselves?
> 
> I would assume that the Licensor, if they made the Database, is allowed to 
> license the Database under multiple License. Is it correct to interpret the 
> foregoing as that if You receive the same database under multiple licenses, 
> then You are can choose whichever license to use. If you choose to use the 
> ODC-By license, then you are bound by section 4.2.

Yeah, the Licensor can do anything, but that includes things that don't
meet the DFSG.  So might this mean that something multiple licensed
could fail DFSG if both licences require us to use only that licence.

I assume BioSig database rights are only under ODC-By, so this problem
doesn't bite yet.

> [...] So the remaining question is, I think, whether Content can be licensed 
> under ODC-By. If not, another question is whether it has to be licensed under 
> another license, and if so, which license would be most appropriate.

No and (as ever) it depends on the aim but I'd prefer one of MIT/BSD/GPL.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Berkeley DB 6.0 license change to AGPLv3

[MJ Ray]

On 09/13/13 09:12, Honza Horak wrote:
> I haven't found any topic about this change on Oracle's Berkeley DB
> discussion platform, so I created one and it surprisingly isn't without
> reply as I wrongly supposed:
> https://forums.oracle.com/message/1118
[...]
> I don't give myself much hope, but why not try it and not giving them
> the feedback (and of course a try to push them to change things back).

Because I'd have to agree to Oracle's 21-section Terms of Use and
32-section "Privacy Policy" and ain't nobody got time for that much
legalese unless you get some kind of kinky enjoyment out of reading it
or you've got real skin in that game.

That may be why there wasn't any topic about the change until yours -
thanks for doing that, nonetheless.  Could you link them to this and
other easier-to-join forums, please?

IMO, Oracle can dead-end BDB if they want.  If it's still wanted,
hopefully someone will fork it and maintain it better.  I think that's
happened to other Oracle projects when they went a bit nutty.

Thanks,
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Re: ODC-By license -- DFSG-compliant?

[MJ Ray]

compliance by third parties with this License, but You may
> enforce any rights that You have over a Derivative Database. You are
> solely responsible for any modifications of a Derivative Database made
> by You or another Person at Your direction. You may not impose any
> further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed
> under this License.

This helps to meet DFSG 7.

> 9.3 Unless terminated under Section 9.1, this License is granted to You
> for the duration of applicable rights in the Database. 

This helps to meet DFSG 1, as does 9.5 about relicensing.

I would welcome other analyses.
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Re: data and software licence incompatabilities?

[MJ Ray]

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On 03/09/13 04:13, Steve Langasek wrote:
> Francesco, if you want to get Debian to *change its position* on
> licenses where you think an error has been made, please start a
> discussion in an appropriate forum such as debian-project and Cc:
> the ftp team.  debian-legal is not and never has been the place to
> get changes made to the policy [...]

Dear Listmasters and debian-legal,

Whatever else, the complaint about abuse by over-repetition seems
valid, but I'm not sure what terms of reference listmasters use to
review complaints.  http://bugs.debian.org/536575 is still open.

However, the above descriptions of debian-project and debian-legal are
rather misleading.  Positions on licences have been developed on
debian-legal many times, while debian-project mainly was used when
there were wider whole-project concerns.

At the moment, the official descriptions of the two lists are:

debian-legal - Copyright, licensing and patent issues;
Discussions about legality issues such as copyrights, patents etc.

debian-project - Discussions about non-technical issues in the project;
Discussion about non-technical topics related to the Debian Project.

I suggest adding "related to the Debian Project. Please summarise
non-Debian personal opinions on your website rather than this list."
to the description of debian-legal but I feel it would be unfair to
punish someone today for exceeding a restriction not yet written down,
so let's revisit it a month or so after that sort of change.

I will submit the list topic change as a wishlist bug Real Soon Now
unless I'm told not to.

Regards,
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Re: data and software licence incompatabilities?

[MJ Ray]

On 02/09/13 16:06, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> But when an issue becomes such a FAQ (or FRT - Frequently Repeated
> Topic), more efficient ways should be found. For example, we could
> request the listmasters to add this information as a (short, one-line)
> disclaimer to every post to the list, together with the instructions
> on how to subscribe / unsubscribe.

Should we move http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq under
http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ and update it to include that?

(Ironically, dfsg-faq seems to have no copyright licence, but I'll
assume that's not going to be a problem.)

Regards,
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Re: data and software licence incompatabilities?

[MJ Ray]

On 01/09/13 16:39, Paul Tagliamonte wrote:
> Perhaps you'd be interested in helping:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2013/01/msg00043.html

I'll make a better attempt to move this forwards later, but just as a
status update on that suggestion: I think Charles and I both subscribed
to debian-dak as suggested in that message, I've done a bit of
-l10n-english-style language tidyup work, but debian-dak doesn't seem
to do anything relevant to licensing as far as I've seen so far.

Confused,
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Re: [OT] Re: AGPL request for summary of recent discussion

[MJ Ray]

On 02/09/13 21:27, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
>> MJ Ray  phonecoop.coop> writes:
>> > whether software follows the DFSG or not, yet the number of subscribers
>> > seems to be generally increasing towards some asymptote
>> > http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-legal.png
> You know that l.d.o is not the only interface to those lists, right?

Yes, but we have good usage data on that interface and I've no evidence
that subscription is stronger or weaker on other interfaces.  I doubt
any usage data shows "considering unsubscribing" clearly either, but if
anyone has more comprehensive data, I'm happy to defer to it.

>> > [...] how does
>> > someone convince others without explaining the problems?
> I never said he shouldn’t explain the problems. I merely suggested he
> explain it in places where they can be addressed instead of in the place
> where Debian contributors go when they want advice on the project’s
> position on something, or sth. like that.

Even though I sometimes prod people to concentrate on vital topics with
questions like "what software in debian is this about?", I've been
reminded often enough that this list's charter ("Discussions about
legality issues such as copyrights, patents etc") doesn't limit it to
stating or even developing the project's position.

I'm wondering what places.  It already happens on the bug tracker, as
noted earlier in this discussion.  It happened on the FSF drafting
interface, as far as people were able, for all the notice they took of
many comments.  I wouldn't suggest raising the AGPL's drawbacks in the
list or forum or MUC of each package released under it.

If no-one wants to explain where/how they feel licence interpretation
differences should be explained more usefully/less annoyingly, I'll
regard this as EOT from me too.

Regards,
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Re: AGPL request for summary of recent discussion

[MJ Ray]

On 02/09/13 12:14, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> Paul Wise  debian.org> writes:
>> Likewise. I don't appreciate the disrespectful tone some folks have
>> displayed in this and other recent threads. I would like to remind
> 
> Oh great, and who’s going to deal with trolls then? You’re not
> holding Francesco to them, I’m noticing.

I think there's a few mails in the archive from me on those lines, but I
usually contact people off-list with such specific criticisms.
Basically, I feel it's a minor problem because Francesco seems polite if
repetitive - although I think this thread started because someone
doesn't follow the list closely, so I'm not sure if that got noticed!

> I’ve heard that Francesco is the reason people are considering
> unsubscribing from this list. Yes, it’s *that* bad. [...]

Well, we "hear" things like that every time someone doesn't agree about
whether software follows the DFSG or not, yet the number of subscribers
seems to be generally increasing towards some asymptote
http://lists.debian.org/stats/debian-legal.png

There are solutions short of unsubscribing, such as filtering, if you
really cannot stand to hear certain voices.  So far, I think I've
filtered three people out during 10 years.  The conduct on this list has
improved over time, but it could always improve further, of course.

> (And, for the record, I did try to make constructive suggestions
> how Francesco can try to get his point across better.)

I noticed a suggestion that Francesco should work to become a DD because
he's "not even a Debian Developer!" which seems a bit of a throwback to
the "non-package-maintaining contributors not welcomed" dark ages.  Even
as someone in it, I feel most of the project is moving beyond a
keyring-cabal mentality.

I also noticed a suggestion that Francesco should shut up and then try
to convince the project about the problems with the AGPL "from
within"(huh?), which seemed rather absurdly destructive to me: how does
someone convince others without explaining the problems?

Both of those were in close proximity to some quite sharp words.

Were there other suggestions I didn't notice?  If not, I think we may
have different understandings of "constructive".

> Sorry I’m brutally honest. And yes, I stand by my actions.

No need to be sorry about honesty: please be sorry for not being polite
and collaborative, or at least not being clear.

> And, tbh, if this is official (someone finally says something
> against a long-standing annoyment, to the rejoicing of other
> people including DDs who suffered under said annoyment, only
> to be flamed by people who have failed to contribute so far)
> I can understand unsubscribing. It’s “only” Debian that suffers.

I'm sorry that you feel flamed.  That was not my intent.

I regret that my debian contributions over recent years have been
smaller than I'd like, for various reasons mostly related to working on
other projects, but I feel pabs (maintains over thirty packages, does QA
uploads and NMUs, sponsors over forty more) has contributed well, so
listen to pabs if that's your criteria.

Regards,
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Re: AGPL request for summary of recent discussion

[MJ Ray]

On 01/09/13 18:12, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> //mirabilos (with backing from other DDs in this group, by private mail)

Well, I'm a DD too, I don't back that sort of disrespectful, sarcastic,
uncollaborative, overlong rant and yes, lurkers support me by email too!

I'll accept that the link to 2008 wasn't current, but it's still the
current situation as far as I know.  I didn't realise from
http://lists.debian.org/loom.20130827t135650-...@post.gmane.org that the
request was only interested in the last quarter-year.  Maybe phrasing it
more explicitly than "still" would have helped get better replies with
relevant references.

Hope that helps,
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Re: AGPL request for summary of recent discussion

[MJ Ray]

On 29/08/13 16:15, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> Francesco, [stuff]

Look, there's a command in email software for sending a reply to one
person.  "Reply to List" or "Reply to All" is not it - if anyone is
going to lecture others on how "to improve your communication
behaviour", start by using the correct command, eh?

Personally, I felt Francesco's message added value by giving a
reference, which paultag did not do.  The note about disagreement is the
cost of that added value.  I share some of them and have suggested the
Co-operative Exceptions to overcome the most serious:

   1. Developers need publish their modifications only (not the whole
application source code with all unusual libraries) as long as they link
back to our source code repository.

   2. The running application need not check if the source code is
currently on-line (so long as it is usually and can be requested).

Hope that explains,
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Re: Berkeley DB 6.0 license change to AGPLv3

[MJ Ray]

On 19/07/13 15:29, Ondřej Surý wrote:
> would FOSS Exception similar to
> http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception/ fix the
> relicensing problem?

If it does what the summary says ("permits distribution of certain MySQL
Client Libraries with a developer’s FOSS applications licensed under the
terms of another FOSS license listed below, even though such other FOSS
license may be incompatible with the GPL") then I think it would only if
its list contains all licences in debian in BDB-using packages.  I
expect asking apt or similar for the rdepends and checking their
copyrights might be one way to do that.

Hope that informs,
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Re: AGPLv3 Compliance and Debian Users

[MJ Ray]

On 11/07/13 14:55, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 03:12:39PM +0200, Ansgar Burchardt wrote:
>> And with open source software you often deal with "modified" versions,
>> so claiming this is a special case ("[...] was specifically based on
>> modification, _not_ on public performance or other use") seems a bit odd
>> to me.
> 
> That's another issue, what does it take for the software to be
> 'modified' for purposes of that section, and you rightly call
> attention to it. But to say that the package *as received from the
> distro* triggers section 13 *inherently* is inconsistent with the
> language of section 13 and the intent of the drafters.

Many network applications aren't used "as received from the distro".
Quite often a bit of customisation and configuration is required.  With
PHP scripts for example, configuration is often done by modifying the
PHP code.  The AGPLv3 doesn't except that from section 13, does it?  The
definition of Corresponding Source in section 1 looks very much like it
includes them and had a chance to exclude them along with the System
Libraries but does not do so.

So at the moment, I feel I agree with Ansgar Burchardt: modified
versions are a frequent situation for users.  So I ask licensors to
explicitly grant permission to distribute only the patches and a link to
the upstream.

This might not have been the intent, but this wouldn't be the first
quirk in AGPLv3.

Regards,
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Re: Berkeley DB 6.0 license change to AGPLv3

[MJ Ray]

On 03/07/13 16:34, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote: [...]
> I know that some have complained that compliance with AGPLv3 may require
> more work by Debian redistributors.  That is a reasonable concern, but I
> think the issue can be mitigated. [...seems to continue to other topics...]

OK, how?

My preferred method at the moment is to grant or request from copyright
holders the following additional permissions:

* Developers need publish their modifications only (not the whole
application source code with all unusual libraries), as long as it
provides a URL or link back to complete upstream source code repository/ies.

* The running application need not check if the source code is
currently on-line (so long as it is usually and can be requested).

But I doubt Oracle will grant additional permissions, so how can the
issue be mitigated?

Thanks,
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Re: Advice regarding chess engine database files license

[MJ Ray]

Paul Wise 
> On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 6:13 PM, MJ Ray wrote:
> > The Gaviota Engine licence shouldn't apply to the database files. See
> > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput for a similar topic.
> 
> Sounds like they should go to contrib though, due to the non-free build-dep?

If the database files need to be built by the Gaviota Engine, I think.
I don't know it well enough to say.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Advice regarding chess engine database files license

[MJ Ray]

Varun Hiremath 
> The chess tablebase files are generated by the Gaviota Engine whose
> license is clearly not DFSG compatible. However, the author is
> releasing the generated database files under the MIT license. Is the
> MIT license for these database files DFSG compatible?  [...]

Yes, MIT/X11 is DFSG-compatible and http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses
says similar licences are already in the archive.

The Gaviota Engine licence shouldn't apply to the database files. See
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput for a similar topic.

Thanks for asking,
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Re: Opinion about GPL-2 exception [sequitur-g2p]

[MJ Ray]

Giulio
> Is there any way to be 100% sure? I am still waiting for a reply
> from upstream on this.

As far as I know, the only way to be 100% sure is for it to be subject
to a precedent-setting court ruling or legislation, but even that will
only provide certainty for one jurisdiction - and it's generally
expensive and unpredictable, so let's not go there.

Do the best you can.  It's all you can do.

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Re: Public Domain again

[MJ Ray]

"Bernhard R. Link" 
> (So I'd be suprised if any jurisdiction would translate a
> "I hereby place this work in the public domain" to anything but
> either making it public domain where possible or to a full permissive
> license).

Sadly, "in the public domain" has two meanings:

 1. the copyright-lacking sense used already in this thread;

 2. publicly available.

I've not seen case law, but I fear that it would be reasonably
possible for someone to convince a court that a holder meant to make a
work available but not permit everything.

Anyone seen it tried?

Thanks,
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Re: Public Domain again

[MJ Ray]

Jérémy.
> Public domain is not a license, its meaning depends
> on the country you're in. What if that country applies
> laws that violate DFSG ?
> 
> Please enlighten me.

Why?  Does this affect any software that you're packaging?

Short answer: any software in that country is not free software, but the
bug is with the country's legal system, not Debian.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Opinion about GPL-2 exception [sequitur-g2p]

[MJ Ray]

Giulio Paci 
> "Should a provision of no. 9 and 10 of the GNU General Public License be 
> invalid or become invalid, a valid provision is deemed to have been agreed 
> upon which comes closest
> to what the parties intended commercially. In any case guarantee/warranty 
> shall be limited to gross negligent actions or intended actions or fraudulent 
> concealment."
[...]
> What is your opinion about this exception? Is this exception acceptable for a 
> Debian package in main?

I don't think it's more restrictive than what the courts should do and
what's in the GPL-2 already, so I would accept it, but I'm not 100% sure.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Which license should mercurial_keyring choose?

[MJ Ray]

Christoph Mathys 
> Upstream has kind of dual licensed the package under GPL and BSD license 
> (PKG-INFO says BSD, the implementation file mercurial_keyring.py says GPL).
> 
> I contacted upstream and he is willing to change the license to whatever 
> is required, but preferable to one of the two that have already been 
> used. The idea is to avoid having to ask permission from all contributors.
[...]
> What license should I recommend to the author of the package?

If the implementation file mercurial_keyring.py says GPL for a reason
(like contributions from someone else under GPL), then GPL would be
safest.

Otherwise, if he's no problem with BSD not being share-alike, then
go for BSD (or actually BSD-like as you have to put your own name
in, because BSD is not a General licence).

Thanks for working to clarify that!
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Re: "dissident test" has been proven wrong and should not be used any more

[MJ Ray]

Osamu Aoki wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 09:40:20AM -0400, Paul Tagliamonte wrote:
> > It's not wrong, I think this is a perfectly great application of DFSG
> > point 5.
> > 
> > More simply, it checks for license that discriminates against people who
> > wish to not use their real name, for privacy or otherwise.

Back in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2008/08/msg00123.html
(which http://wiki.debian.org/DissidentTest fails to credit)
I documented its origins in Brian Ristuccia's messages
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/05/msg00057.html and
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/08/msg00282.html

> But that is not the only outcome of the famous but ill guided "dissident
> test".  That is why we need to use DFSG itself and stop using "dissident
> test".  This has been discussed many times.  

Fine.  Any time you see someone say or write that it fails the
dissident test, replace "the dissident test" with "a combination of
DFSG 1 and DFSG 5" in your mind.  Many others would like to keep the
shorthand.

> I also think if a person is a real dissident who is determind to violate
> lethal legal requirements of his regime, he will not hesitate to violate
> a petit legal requirement of the license text. He will use any tools
> available in his hand to change his regime.  So why worry about
> unenforceable part of the license text.  That is what I think.

Oh wow.  I am really sorry to see such contempt for dissidents emailed
out from an address @debian.org - they may be fighting completely evil
state oppression while wishing to respect the wishes of their fellow
creative workers.  Do you really think that avoiding a law which says
"all authors must be shot" would mean someone will necessarily ignore
authors' licences?

> For more http://wiki.debian.org/IpadicLicense .

I remain uncomfortable with that licence which - due to what that page
dismisses as "bad English" - seems to import the entire law of every
country as a condition of the licence.  And that page also notes the
internal contradictions in the licence.  But whether or not that is
worth the risk is for ftp-masters and project leaders, ultimately.

The arguments on that wiki page look like rants, misunderstandings and
personal abuse of some past contributors.  It's shameful and needs a
good clean-up.  I'm trying to recover my wiki account, but I may
forget before that process completes, so please feel free to step in.

Regards,
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Re: A trademark add-on to the AGPL license

[MJ Ray]

Thomas Goirand 
> I would like to package z-push in Debian. It seems to me that it's ok to
> ship it in Debian, but I'm not sure if it's ok to keep the upstream name
> z-push, due to some addition to the AGPL license. 
> [...]
> If you want to propagate modified versions of the Program under the name
> "Z-Push", you may only do so if you have a written permission by Zarafa
> Deutschland GmbH (to acquire a permission please contact Zarafa at
> tradem...@zarafa.com).
> 
> Any legal advice would be welcome.

This is not legal advice, but I broadly agree with TG's approach.

Debian will package the software, so it won't be unmodified source,
so the "you may only" bites and we should rename.

One could argue that it is simply a statement of fact about
trademarks, but then why add this to the AGPL?  A factual statement
doesn't need to be in the copyright licence at all.

Also, is this an added restriction that renders the AGPL unusable?

Hope that helps,
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Re: `free' in GNU and DSFG?

[MJ Ray]

Hiroki Horiuchi from Japan
> After reading your words, now I think The Free Software Definition is
> really permissive, but this very *permissiveness* made GNU's definition
> insufficient for Debian Project.
> 
> Am I right?

I don't think so.  The DFSG dates from 1997.  The Free Software
Definition only got that name around 2001.  Back in 1998, there were
only three freedoms... see
http://web.archive.org/web/19980126185518/http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Think of them as two parallel developments for similar concepts -
one is a definition, the other is a set of guidelines to follow.
Like http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq#four_freedoms says:

"[the FSF's four freedoms] are the Free Software Foundation's
articulation of what it believes all software users deserve. (Note
that full exercise of Freedoms 1 and 3 requires access to the
source code.) They are elegantly phrased, and arguably an
improvement in some ways on the earlier DFSG. However they refer
to exactly the same set of freedoms as the DFSG. If a license is
inconsistent with the FSF's four freedoms, you can be sure that
Debian will also consider it non-free."

Hope that explains,
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Re: Figlet relicensed from AFL to BSD-3

[MJ Ray]

Jonathan McCrohan 
> To me, this means that the main figlet package is now DFSG-compliant.
> Would someone else be able to confirm for me that this package is ok to
> move back from non-free to main?

If all the files are now under that licence, I think it is OK.

(crc.c, crc.h, inflate.c, inflate.h, zipio.c, zipio.h had a licence
that compelled distribution, not AFL.  I have not checked that they
are new-BSD too.)

Hope that helps,
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Re: Do you consider charity shops non commercial?

[MJ Ray]

Paul Wise 
> This is the relevant section of the CC NC licenses:
> 
> You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3
> above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward
> commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. The exchange of
> the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing
> or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed
> toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided
> there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with
> the exchange of copyrighted works.
> 
> It sounds to me that there is no risk of you infringing that section
> since your playing of music will not require payment.

To the contrary, I suggest that this use of music is primarily
directed toward commercial advantage, by making the shops a more
pleasant place for shoppers and thereby selling more, so I think it
does risk infringing.

Charity shops are blatently commercial (and are often operated by
unrestricted trading companies, rather than the actual charities),
even though they do good things with their profits.

Like others have suggested: it's best to ask a lawyer and/or the
licensor.  I think there used to be a Law Works scheme for UK
charities and their trading arms to get free advice.

I'd also expect the various obnoxious UK monopolies like the PRS to
take a keen interest in this matter and probably hassle you like they
do most other businesses, so it's best to be sure of the reasoning
behind the decision.

Not sure that this is really a question about debian though.

Hope that informs,
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Re: Name restriction and forced acknowledgement OK?

[MJ Ray]

debian-de...@liska.ath.cx (Olе Streicher)
> Mark Weyer  writes:
> > On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:19:04AM +0100, Ole Streicher wrote:
> >>  c. The name(s) of all routine(s) in your derived work shall not
> >> include the prefix "iau".
> > Non-free: It effectively forbids using a modified library as a drop-in
> > replacement for the original library.
> 
> This is true. What they effectively want is that nobody refers f.e. to a
> function iauEpj2jd() that is not approved by the International
> Astronomical Union, so that they reach a kind of "uniformness"
> here. However, they are effective with that only for the licensees of
> the library; one could easily build a completely independent library
> with the same name.

Whatever good intentions they may have, they should not deny users the
freedoms to implement functions in different ways (iauEpj2jd_cached),
or to combine it with another library that includes a function called
iauque (for example).

If they want to assure people that iauEpj2jd is their iauEpj2jd, they
should probably do something like gpg-signing their source code, rather
than try to use copyright to stop other functions with the same name.
As noted above, it doesn't stop independent libraries.

> > It fails DFSG 3. 
> 
> Why? It just requires that they get a different name.

I would have said it fails DFSG 4.  One rename is fine, but this
requires that everything is renamed, which is a practical pain in the
bum for no good effect, and tries to grab an infinite number of names.

> If it is really non-free: would a library, where I (as the packager)
> would change all prefixes from iau to IAU (as an example) be free in the
> dfsg sense? This change would allow anyone to adopt the source code and
> to write a drop-in replacement.

I'm not sure.  Is the law case-sensitive?  If so, HOW DID HARD-TO-READ
SHOUTY DISCLAIMERS EVER GET STARTED? ;-)

> *  4. In any published work or commercial products which includes
> * results achieved by using the SOFA software, you shall
> * acknowledge that the SOFA software was used in obtaining those
> * results.

This might fail DFSG 9 (must not contaminate other software) but
doesn't this actually exceed the power of copyright?

Here's a FAQ about whether the GNU GPL can be applied to program output:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput

So I'm not sure that this is even a valid copyright licence.  If not,
then we don't have enough freedoms to include the library at all.

> *  By post:   IAU SOFA Center
> * HM Nautical Almanac Office
> * UK Hydrographic Office
> * Admiralty Way, Taunton
> * Somerset, TA1 2DN
> * United Kingdom

I'm in Taunton on Wednesday... do they accept personal callers? ;-)

Regards,
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Re: License impact of opencore-amr and vo-aacenc/amrwbenc

[MJ Ray]

Fabian Greffrath 
> [Posting this again to debian-legal, as suggested by Jonas. Keeping 
> pkg-multimedia and pkg-gstreamer in CC for this initial mail, but 
> please keep replying to -legal. Sorry for the inconvenience!]

I'm confused by the above, so I'm keeping all the CCs.

> [...], but according to their respective debian/copyright 
> files, the packages are still released under the terms of the GPL-2+. 
> Is this simply an oversight and should get changed to GPL-3?

As I understand it (IANAL), no: the sources are still GPL-2+
because they don't contain anything requiring them to change.

> For the same reason we have a libav-extra package in Debian which 
> provides a libavcodec library linked against the aforementioned 
> libraries. According to its debian/copyright file, the GPL-3 applies 
> to the resulting binary packages. What does this mean for packages 
> linking against this variant of libavcodec? What are the exact license 
> incompatibilities that we want to avoid by providing this variant? 

I think that is best asked of its Maintainer.

> Does this mean that a package which is licensed under GPL-2 (not 2+) 
> cannot get linked against the GPL-3'ed libavcodec?

Yes, that's what it means.

Source: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility

Is GPLv3 compatible with GPLv2? (#v2v3Compatibility)

No. Some of the requirements in GPLv3, such as the requirement
to provide Installation Information, do not exist in GPLv2. As
a result, the licenses are not compatible: if you tried to
combine code released under both these licenses, you would
violate section 6 of GPLv2.

Hope that informs,
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Re: MIT +no-false-attribs

[MJ Ray]

Jérémy Lal 
> following npm license is Expat + one restriction,
> is it still DFSG ?

If it just this one addition:
> Distributions of all or part of the Software intended to be used
> by the recipients as they would use the unmodified Software,
> containing modifications that substantially alter, remove, or
> disable functionality of the Software, outside of the documented
> configuration mechanisms provided by the Software, shall be
> modified such that the Author's bug reporting email addresses and
> urls are either replaced with the contact information of the
> parties responsible for the changes, or removed entirely.

Then I feel that would be acceptable under DFSG 4 but it's not exact
and I have not looked for similar examples in the archive.

The wording could be better and suggests a need to consult a lawyer.
Actually, as a quick fix, could you just remove the undefined word
"Author's" from it?

Hope that helps,
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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

[MJ Ray]

Kay Hayen 
> // This code is in part copyright Kay Hayen, license GPLv3. This has the 
> consequence that
> // your must either obtain a commercial license or also publish your 
> original source code
> // under the same license unless you don't distribute this source or its 
> binary.

I do not agree that the above is an accurate description of the
GPLv3's consequences.  Maybe "commercial" is being used when
"proprietary" is meant.  As written, it looks like an additional
restriction that can be completely ignored, as described in GPLv3
section 7.

[...]
> # If you submit Kay Hayen patches to this software in either form, you
> # automatically grant him a copyright assignment to the code, or in the
> # alternative a BSD license to the code, should your jurisdiction 
> prevent
> # this. [...]

I suspect this would be overridden by any statement included with the
patch submission, like the ASF wording acknowledges.

> I don't want to discuss my intent. I am not interested to discuss if my 
> approach is too paranoid and need not be, that may be true, but I don't 
> want to take the risk. This the work of most of my spare time for a long 
> time now.

I won't discuss this, but I will note that your intent looks a little
unfair, demanding that others grant you more permissions than you
grant them.  Of course, that is your right while you are maintaining
the project, but it may limit contributions.

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Re: Mozilla Public License 2.0 released

[MJ Ray]

Paul Wise 
> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:53 AM, MJ Ray wrote:
> 
> > Is the headline that, in a fit of Not Invented Hear and licence
> > proliferation, Mozilla is planning to phase out the GPL/LGPL
> > tri-licensing?
> 
> Please redirect your complaints somewhere they may have an affect, to
> Mozilla themselves or one of the free software oriented news outlets
> like lwn.net.

I've submitted something similar to one of the linked pages, but I'd
appreciate other debian-legal contributor opinions because this move
seems too incredibly daft to be true!

Regards,
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Re: Mozilla Public License 2.0 released

[MJ Ray]

Paul Wise 
> Mozilla has released the Mozilla Public License version 2.0:
> 
> http://lwn.net/Articles/474070/
> http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/01/03/mozilla-public-license-version-2-0-released/
> https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/

Is the headline that, in a fit of Not Invented Hear and licence
proliferation, Mozilla is planning to phase out the GPL/LGPL
tri-licensing?

What are they thinking and are some independent bodies criticising
this move?  Sadly, it appears that FSF and OSI have approved :-(


Concerning the licence itself because I expect there's some software
which hasn't been iced yet: it appears to be a combined copyright and
patent licence with all the usual problems of exporting software
patents to non-swpat jurisdictions and terminating if you sue any
contributor for non-software patent infringement.

The saving grace is that it appears that most things under MPL 2.0 can
be combined with a Hello World to convert to a GNU *GPL.

Disappointed,
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Re: Unsure If Array 30 Chinese Input Method is DFSG Free or Not.

[MJ Ray]

Yao Wei (魏銘廷) 
> I want to confirm if the license below is DFSG free or not:
> http://www.array.com.tw/company/array_license.pdf
> 
> The most suspicious part is:
> When any derived and related work of Array Input Method is released to
> public, the licensee must inform the original author of Array Input
> Method within one month by sending an e-mail to:
> arra...@ms10.hinet.net with the subject: "Informing: Array Input
> Method".

The freedom to share one's changes freely under the same terms as the
original is essential (DFSG 1+3), so that "must" looks to me like a
fairly classic case of postcardware.  I don't believe that has ever
been regarded as acceptable under DFSG.  See, for example,
http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html#weird_clauses and
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/01/msg00010.html

> There was a chat in #debian-mentors which claims it has discrimination
> on users who don't use email. I've found it may not pass dissident
> test (the user must send an email to the original author, thus
> dissident may expose its email). However, I am wondering if the
> "desert island" test is not a *public* environment. IMHO, it is not
> necessary to inform the author in that environment in that extreme
> case.

I have no way of knowing if the original licensor would agree with
that, but regardless of the tests, I feel that this software does not
appear to meet DFSGs 1 and 3.

I second the suggestion of Paul Wise: asking for a well-known free
software licence would be worthwhile.

Thanks,
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Re: Thoughts on GPL's Appropriate Legal Notices? or the CPAL?

[MJ Ray]

Richard Fontana 
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 08:57:56PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> > I don't know of anywhere that "Powered by SugarCRM" is a legal notice.
> > Does anyone?  What legal effect does it have?
> 
> I worked on the drafting of GPLv3 at my previous job (no tomatoes,
> please :). You may note that section 7 of (A)GPLv3 says that it is not
> a GPL-incompatible "further restriction" for one (with appropriate
> copyright authorization) to "Require preservation of specified
> reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in
> the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it".
> 
> The FSF was convinced by certain arguments at the time that a
> conventional "Powered by" logo, such as were in vogue at the time for
> certain companies, was equivalent to an author attribution (if the
> logo in some sense did, in fact, refer to the 'author'). 

You're not there any more so I'll spare you my tomatoes about the
buggy software and processes used for the public drafting of the
GPLv3, the way the private sector outnumbered the civil and the
generally opaque manner of the FSF around that time.

Can you remember what arguments support the idea that "Powered by
SugarCRM" is an author attribution?

Especially in cases like this, I think the man on the Clapham omnibus
would probably assume it referred to the running software, rather than
the non-author licensor - it's not a Matrix-style or BlackMirror-style
human-powered world.  This seems deeply counter-intuitive to me and
it's not in the FAQ.

> SugarCRM relicensed to GPLv3 shortly after the FSF's final publication
> of GPLv3. The additional licensing terms concerning the logo and so
> forth that were in place at the time met with the FSF's approval.

This raises two questions that I can't follow now:

1. Anyone know where is that approval documented?

2. What were the terms in place around 29 June 2007 compared to now?

> As an example of how I've applied this in practice, working with the
> Fedora Project, we succeeded in getting Zarafa to revise its AGPLv3
> additional terms to scale them back to approximately what SugarCRM had
> been doing.

I thought Zarafa relied on a trademark.  I don't know the Fedora
Project well enough: where might I find that work described?  (So far
I found https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=498194 but it's
not specific about this aspect.)

Thanks,
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Re: Thoughts on GPL's Appropriate Legal Notices? or the CPAL?

[MJ Ray]

"Clark C. Evans" 
> Is there a debian-legal position on "Appropriate Legal Notices" 
> aspect of the GPLv3.  Including 5(d) and 7(b); OR, alternatively, 
> the OSI approved Common Public Attribution License ("CPAL").
> 
> I'm asking because having appropriate credit really resonates 
> with with those in my organization who are getting behind 
> releasing our entire medical informatics system (and modules).
> So, this could be done under GPL /w ALN or under the CPAL.
> 
> In particular, what of SugarCRM's use of this mechanism?

I don't know of anywhere that "Powered by SugarCRM" is a legal notice.
Does anyone?  What legal effect does it have?

So, I don't believe SugarCRM's interpretation of ALN to include their
slogan and logo is acceptable.  As you can read near the end of
section 0, the ALN is basically the copyright notice and warranty
disclaimer.  Therefore, SugarCRM's current terms would seem to
include an additional restriction, contradicting section 10 as
explained by section 7, meaning no-one other than the licensor can
distribute it. Boo!

I don't like CPAL - I see Francesco Poli has offered links to past
discussions.  I wonder what the reasoning of the failed OSI was.

I think requiring attribution is fine in an ALN and requesting people
give you credit with a logo would be a good idea, but trying to force
them sucks.

Hope that informs,
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Re: Lawyer request stop from downloading Debian

[MJ Ray]

Ken Arromdee wrote:
> [GPLv2, section 3]  That section only applies if you got a
> written offer.  People who use Bittorrent to download (and therefore to
> upload) Debian don't have a written offer, so they can't take advantage of
> that clause.  (Debian itself is, as you point out, distributing source on the
> same medium, so may be okay, but the downloader isn't.)

If they're using something like
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/6.0.1a/i386/bt-cd/
to start the download, then I think it's still the debian project
distributing the iso, albeit through the computers of willing participants,
so mmagallo's idea would suffice.

I'd welcome further explanation (cases?) why the project's torrents
aren't the project distributing.

Thanks,
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Re: Lawyer request stop from downloading Debian

[MJ Ray]

Stefan Hirschmann wrote:
> Short English summary:
> -
> A lawyer from Augsburg, Germany sent a "Abmahnung" [2] to a person which 
>downloaded Debian using Bittorrent.
> The company "Media Art Holland b.v" claimed that she has the "Nutzungs 
> und Verwertungsrechte" (something like distribution rights).
> 
> The lawyer wants the poster to pay 700 Euro and stop uploading of Debian.
> -
> 
> My opion is that this behavior is not good for Debian's reputation and 
> the project should take legal action against the lawyer and this company.
> [1] http://www.lima-city.de/thread/abmahnung-im-haus (written in German)
> [2] see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abmahnung

I agree.  I'm cc'ing the DPL to see if the project can ask SPI-inc.org
lawyers for assistance.  Do we have access to German legal expertise?

Hope that helps,
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Re: Chicken Dance License

[MJ Ray]

Andrew Harris wrote:
> I am the author of a new Free Software license called the Chicken Dance
> License. It is a BSD-based license that offers extra hilarity over most, if
> not all, other Free Software licenses. This new legal infrastructure that I
> seek to create will result in less hair-pulling and teeth gnashing, and more
> out-loud proclamations of "LOLOL".

I feel that making a new licence will only make people laugh if it is
simple and funny, like WTFPL or No Problem Bugroff.  This one is not
simple and IMO not funny either: it's like a long drawn-out retelling
of a joke which was only mildly amusing the first time.  And can't you
hear the teeth gnashing at you for this act of unnecessary licence
proliferation?

> Please read the v0.1 license text at
> http://supertunaman.com/cdl/cdl_v0-1.txt and the drafting of v0.2 (where we
> are currently addressing concerns raised by the OSI review list) at
> https://github.com/supertunaman/cdl/ and let me know Debian's opinion on the
> license.

Debian is an operating system. Don't personify it. It hates that ;-)

What software is under this licence?  Will it ever be in debian?
As the name suggests, the Debian Free Software Guidelines are about
software, not licences.

A tidied-up wdiff of v0.1 and http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license
follows.  I suggest that it is trivially impossible for software under
this licence to meet the DFSG because it is basically postcardware
(the video is like a postcard, with added lawyerbombs because of the
difficulty of quantifying half the persons affiliated - fails DFSG 1),
plus there is a restriction on the field of use (around an abitrary
word - fails DFSG 6) which might also cause contamination of other
software (fails DFSG 9).

My advice: switch to WTFPL or No Problem Bugroff.

 BEGIN 644 WDIFF --

Copyright (c) [-2000 ] {+, }
All rights reserved.
{+Chicken Dance License v0.1}
{+http://supertunaman.com/cdl/ }

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
met:

 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials
provided with the distribution.

 3. [-The] {+Neither the} name of the [-author] {+
   nor the names of its contributors} may be used to endorse or
   promote products derived from this software without specific
   prior written permission.

{+4. An entity wishing to redistribute in binary form or include this
software in their product without redistribution of this software's
source code with the product must also submit to these conditions
where applicable: * For every thousand (1000) units distributed, at
least half of the employees or persons affiliated with the product
must listen to the "Der Ententanz" (AKA "The Chicken Dance") as
composed by Werner Thomas for no less than two (2) minutes * For every
twenty-thousand (2) units distributed, two (2) or more persons
affiliated with the entity must be recorded performing the full
Chicken Dance, in an original video at the entity's own expense, and a
video encoded in OGG Theora format, at least three (3) minutes in
length, must be submitted to , provided 's contact
information.  The dance must be based upon the instructions on how to
do the Chicken Dance that you should have received with this
software. If you have not received instructions on how to do the
Chicken Dance, then the dance must be chicken-like in nature.  * Any
employee or person affiliated with the product must be prohibited from
saying the word "plinth" in public at all times, as long as
distribution of the product continues. }

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE [-AUTHOR ``AS IS''] {+COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"} AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE [-AUTHOR] {+COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR
CONTRIBUTORS} BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF
USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED
AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN
ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. {+ ACCEPTS NO LIABILITY
FOR ANY INJURIES OR EXPENSES SUSTAINED IN THE ACT OF FULFILLING ANY
OF THE ABOVE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, ACCIDENTAL OR OTHERWISE. }

 END 

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Re: scientific paper in package only in postscript form non-free?]

[MJ Ray]

Mark Weyer wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 07:39:58PM +0100, Francesco Poli wrote:
> > On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:26:39 +0000 (GMT) MJ Ray wrote:
> > > Sure, it should be - what happens if [the source] no longer exists?  That 
> > > seems
> > > quite possible for a years-old journal paper.
> > 
> > This seems to be a FAQ...

Not on http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq though.  What FAQ should
I have been looking at?

Thanks for the answer.

[...]
> I am asking because I tend to disagree. The scenario I have in mind is that
> someone takes a, say, GPLed work, modifies it, and distributes the modified
> work without (what would otherwise be called) sources, claiming that he "lost"
> the sources.

I agree that would be a problem, but GPL is a special case because of
the explicit definition of source.  I was asking about the general
case.

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Re: scientific paper in package only in postscript form non-free?

[MJ Ray]

Paul Wise wrote:
> This seems to be the definition used by the ftp-masters, they have
> rejected packages containing PDF files that looked like they were
> generated before and this is explicitly mentioned in the REJECT-FAQ:
> 
> Source missing: Your packages contains files that need source but do
> not have it. These include PDF and PS files in the documentation.
> 
> http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html

Indeed, but that REJECT-FAQ has not been applied to this package as
far as I can tell, maybe because it predates it.  Maybe someone who
thinks those PS files should be removed should reportbug it?

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Re: scientific paper in package only in postscript form non-free?

[MJ Ray]

Francesco Poli wrote: [...]
> It's true that there's no clear definition of the term "source code"
> in the DFSG text, but the most accepted definition of source in the
> context of Free Software has been the one found in the GNU GPL, for
> quite a long time.

Are you sure it's the most accepted?  I didn't find numbers on it.

> [...]
> > I feel it's a grey area, so if the PS files aren't too difficult to
> > reconstruct, I'd still let them stay.
> 
> I instead think that the actual source code (= preferred form for
> modifications) should be searched for.

Sure, it should be - what happens if it no longer exists?  That seems
quite possible for a years-old journal paper.

Thanks,
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Re: scientific paper in package only in postscript form non-free?

[MJ Ray]

Paul Wise wrote:
> [...] It is doubtful that the PostScript files are
> the source code referred to by DFSG item 2. More likely is that the
> source files are TeX documents.

Cool, where is the agreed clearer version of DFSG 2 that says what it
means by source code?

I think one is deep into language lawyerism and death by dictionaries
if you want to say those PS files aren't source code.  To do that
needs more detail than exists in the current DFSG.  The DFSG text and
two alternative definitions from dict are shown below: one would
accept the PS files, the other would reject them.

I feel it's a grey area, so if the PS files aren't too difficult to
reconstruct, I'd still let them stay.


Just to remind myself: [http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines]

2. Source Code

The program must include source code, and must allow distribution
in source code as well as compiled form.

WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  source code
   n : program instructions written as an ASCII text file; must be
   translated by a compiler or interpreter or assembler into
   the object code for a particular computer before
   execution

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  source code
   
   (Or "source", or rarely "source
  language") The form in which a computer program is written by
  the programmer.  Source code is written in some formal
  programming language which can be compiled automatically into
  {object code} or {machine code} or executed by an
  {interpreter}.
   
  (1995-01-05)
   

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Re: scientific paper in package only in postscript form non-free?

[MJ Ray]

Salvatore Bonaccorso asked:
> I'm in the process of preparing a NMU for autoclass [1]. During
> checking the package I encountered the two postscript files kdd-95.ps
> and tr-fia-90-12-7-01.ps . Both are awailable from [2].
> 
> Can these be shipped in the source and binary package?
> 
>  [1] http://bugs.debian.org/614525
>  [2] 
> http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/tech/rse/synthesis-projects-applications/autoclass/autoclass-c/

They're in the upstream source tarball, so I think they're covered
by the current copyright statement
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/a/autoclass/current/copyright
which isn't a licence that requires original source code (like GPL
might IIRC) and arguably PS files are program source code anyway
so I think I'd ship it in both.  Why do you think not?

If we had an easier-to-use source code for the files, we should
include that, but PS is OK.

Hope that informs,
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Re: License question

[MJ Ray]

Bernhard Reiter asked:
> The following license applies to one cardset included with
> pysolfc-cardsets (currently waiting for review). It looks like MIT/X to
> me, but as IANAL, I was wondering if this is DFSG compatible and thus
> okay to include? (I'm currently not including it because I wasn't sure.)
[...]
> PS Please CC me as I'm not a list subscriber!

Searching the legal list archives for the first line finds the
gxditview licence quoted in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/1999/06/msg00019.html

Looking at the gxditview licence in
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/g/groff/current/copyright
finds it to be identical apart from the names.

So I don't see a reason not to include it.

Hope that helps,
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Re: The "Evil Cookie Producer" case

[MJ Ray]

Andrew Ross wrote:
> The full license can be found at http://itextpdf.com/terms-of-use/agpl.php
[...]
> I don't want to mis-represent what Bruno has said, so hopefully he'll
> chime in and expand further if I get anything wrong here. I think the
> following paragraph from Bruno sums up his viewpoint:
> 
> "The AGPL and the extra term ensure the consumer's RIGHT to know
> that the PDF was produced by iText. Denying this right is IMO
> exactly the abuse of Free Software the AGPL wants to avoid."

I doubt that the AGPL wants to be a souped-up advertising clause,
given the FSF's past arguments such as
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
(Please don't personify the AGPL. It hates that.)

I feel that this case depends on whether specifying a particular
exact wording of a legal notice is "reasonable" (as it says in
the AGPL).  I'm pretty sure it's not, but I'd welcome any evidence
either way.

Would someone more knowledgeable about the case like to clarify the
point with licensing@fsf or shall I?

Thanks,
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Re: The "Evil Cookie Producer" case

[MJ Ray]

Bruno Lowagie wrote:
> Please don't avoid the question: does the freedom to hide information 
> prevail over the freedom to get information?

You mean like you avoided the question: what is the actual case here?

This list works better when it is discussing actual software which be
considered for debian.  So I dislike this discussion of food and
anyway, I think all cookies are evil, so what does it matter? ;-)

The FAQ and its tests are illustrative but slightly controversial and
not decisive - although I think I've posted how I believe they follow
from the DFSG in the past.  The AGPL is a known big dispute in this
group.  Mentioning both in one post with no software smells fishy.

I particularly liked it when the original post asked if I'd prefer
to die.  Can I choose to die at the hands of Hitler force-feeding
me one of those nutty cookies?  If only that worked...

Happy Sunday!
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Re: Bug#614390: cmake provides files under proprietary license

[MJ Ray]

Modestas Vainius wrote:
> this bug is serious (i.e. the file is not shippable), isn't it? Problematic 
> copyright notice is below.

The copyright notice is false (the confidentiality has been broken)
but I see no permission to distribute, so your claim seems correct.

Hope that helps,
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Re: default CC license version number is always latest?

[MJ Ray]

Ricardo Mones asked:
>   I've found a theme which states it's licensed 'Creative Commons by-nc-sa'.
>   My question is whether is possible assume the version of the license or
>   not (note that my first reaction to this is "this is not a valid license",
>   but I'm not sure if my feelings are right).

I think it would be reasonable to assume it's under the latest version
on the date of publication, but I don't know if that's good enough for
ftpmasters.  It would be better to clarify, of course.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Unclear source data situation

[MJ Ray]

Noel David Torres Taño wrote:
> No comments on this?

I didn't understand what anyone was meant to do with it.

Make it easy to understand what you want

If you want something, come right out and say it. People read so many
emails that they often don't guess at what a cryptic message means,
but delete and move on to the next one. Help them to understand what
you want. If you want a reply, ask a question, or finish the email
with a request for replies. If you don't want a reply (on a thank-you
note, for example), mention that too.

More tips: http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html

Thanks,
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Re: debian.* domains

[MJ Ray]

Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> > Thanks, but please don't do that.  If you wish to register a debian.*
> > domain and donate it to the project, please contact
> > hostmas...@debian.org to arrange it.
> 
> Actually it is hostmas...@spi-inc.org as SPI is doing this part of
> Domain handling for Debian.

Cool. Does http://www.debian.org/intro/organization need changing
to make that clear?

Regards,
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Re: debian.* domains

[MJ Ray]

inkvizitor68sl asked:
> Is it possible to use debian.* domains for websites with documentation
> about Debian (and sometimes - for Ubuntu and some other distros, as
> much of manuals can be used at any distro) ? I mean here some blogs.
> Personal, for this moment, but there will be new authors in nearly
> time.

Thanks, but please don't do that.  If you wish to register a debian.*
domain and donate it to the project, please contact
hostmas...@debian.org to arrange it.

> Is it possible to use domain like forum.debian.* to place here debian
> localized forum?

Wouldn't you prefer to put your forum in debian.net instead?

> Not commercial use, maybe some ads (near to FOSS) only to pay for
> hosting or ads from hoster, who will support us.

Sorry, ads are commercial use.  The current trademark policy
http://www.fr.debian.org/trademark says we insist you don't use 
debian in the domain name of a business.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Packaging the MeeGo stack on Debian - Use the name ?

[MJ Ray]

quim@nokia.com wrote:
> Julian wrote:
> >  * Package names contain meego everywhere. According to common
> >believe, they are not subject to trademark restrictions (that's
> >why we had a firefox compatibility package for
> >firefox->iceweasel transition). They are merely an
> >implementation detail, that MeeGo set in stone, and we cannot
> >change it without breaking compatibility
> 
> As said, as long as you respect the license of the package you are
> free to reuse, redistribute, etc, keeping the original name of the
> package.

Assuming you mean "copyright license of the package" and not the
trademark licensing under discussion, then I think that would be fine.
Could http://meego.com/trademark be updated to remove the "includes
project packages" wording, please?

Thanks,
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Re: Packaging the MeeGo stack on Debian - Use the name ?

[MJ Ray]

Ibrahim Haddad wrote:
> We would ask you to move away from using {M,m}-e-e-{G,g}-o or any subset of
> those letters or sounds in that order, alone or in combination with other
> letters, words or marks that would tend to cause someone to make a
> reasonable connection of the reference with the MeeGo mark. We specifically
> discussed one possibility for illustration purposes – which is to use MG in
> the place of MeeGo.  We do not think that a plain text MG, when used in
> reference to the code, as in a file or project or team name, would cause a
> reasonable person to be confused.

OK, so for this to be possible, {M,m}-e-e-{G,g}-o must be never used
in the works of The Meego Project as a functional term.  That is to
ask, is it possible to change the name without impacting on other
software which uses the works of The Meego Project?  There is no
libmeego* or anything like that?

If there is a libmeego*, then clearly meego should be used in some way
for interoperability and I suggest the trademark policy changes to be
reasonable and explicitly allow use of meego as part of functional
names.  That is, drop the file name constraint above.  It's just
honest description of the upstream source of the code and not
necessarily used in product names.  File names aren't normally covered
by trademarks, are they?

If there isn't a libmeego* or similar, I guess all is well and I
thank everyone for clarifying it.

Regards,
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Re: is RtMidi license DFSG-free?

[MJ Ray]

Miriam Ruiz wrote:
> Especially this part: "Any person wishing to distribute modifications
> to the Software is requested to send the modifications to the original
> developer so that they can be incorporated into the canonical
> version.", can it be considered DFSG-free?

It looks like a request not a requirement, so it's fine as far as I
understand the DFSG.  I have not tried a wdiff against other licences
to see if there's another subtle change.

Hope that helps,
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Re: license confusion GPL + openssl license - ipsec-tools/racoon

[MJ Ray]

Stefan Bauer wrote:
> Basically that is true, setkey as part of ipsec-tools is using parts of
> openssl-headers. Howto deal with that? From what i've read is, that if
> the upstream authors are aggree on adding an openssl exeption to there
> license, that would be a solution around this problem. I would be happy
> about your answers about that. 

That's one option.

Another would be to rewrite to use gnutls which is itself GPL.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Catalyst Career Group use of Debian logo

[MJ Ray]

philip tricca wrote:
> I've run across a company using the Debian logo slightly modified in a 
> way that appears to violate the logo license (at least in my reading of 
> it): its use is not in reference to the Debian project.  The company 
> site can be found here: http://www.catalystcareergroup.com/
> 
> Not sure what to do aside from ask for clarification here.  Does anyone 
> have an opinion?

First of all, I'd check that the logo is pretty near identical to the
debian one (so covered by the logo license) and post the results of
the comparison to this thread.  If so, I'd inform lea...@debian about
this thread and ask if he'd pass it to the lawyers through spi-inc.org.

Readers of this list aren't the copyright holder, so what we can do
directly is limited.  I may also be completely wrong about what to
do :-)

Hope that helps,
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Re: Ubuntu trademark non-free?]

[MJ Ray]

"Giacomo A. Catenazzi" 
> On 11.08.2010 07:27, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > If the source code of a package shipped in Debian is identical to that
> > provided upstream under the same name, there is no license issue; this is
> > nominative use which is not prohibited, regardless of the existence of a
> > trademark.
> 
> I don't agree. Same product don't give the authority to use the same 
> trademark. (think about a jeans factory who produce jeans for a 
> well-know mark. It cannot sell using the same mark on its own.).

Indeed, but the factory could say that it also makes jeans for that
mark and that would not be trademark infringement because it would be
honest descriptive use of the mark.  (Of course, it may be a breach of
their contract with the mark holder.)

So, there is a boundary or limit somewhere there.  A trademark is
not as restrictive as some imaginary copyright-for-names.

[...]
> > and we routinely ship modified versions of source code
> > using package names which match the upstream trademarks, on the grounds that
> > package names are not trade but computer interfaces, and are thus also not
> > trademark infringement.
> 
> I was thinking because upstream allowed it (implicit license). Our
> internal requirement to ask for authorization to pack a software
> "can we pack your software 'foo-bar' for Debian and others?" implicitly
> grant us also the use of ev. trademark license for package name.

Whose internal requirement?  If debian.org, where is it?  Maybe I
should be contacting upstream to ask for authorisation instead of
relying on LICENSE, but it's been some time since I uploaded a truly
new package and I took a quick look at policy, devref and NM guide
without spotting such a requirement.

> It is the first time I read a motivation like yours, so I'm curious
> about what the others think about trademarks.

I think they're mostly irrelevant for package names and command names
because they are an indication of the services provided by the
package, in accordance with honest practices, as illustrated by
stating our upstream source, so they're not infringing.

But I'm not aware of precedent, so I feel that renaming may often be a
good way of avoiding trouble with a well-funded aggressive trademark
holder who claims package or command names are covered.

Hope that informs,
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Re: RC bug filled against desktop-base related to the open logo.

[MJ Ray]

Gustavo Franco wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 7:13 PM, MJ Ray  wrote:
> > Gustavo Franco wrote:
> >> * Btw, if it was the open logo, we're not talking about software. DFSG
> >> quote about Derived Works states "original software";
> >
> > I feel that's unacceptable - the logo is software, even if it might
> > not be a program in some formats.  Arguing otherwise would allow all
> > manner of unmodifiable rubbish into debian.
> 
> Technically, if you consider a logo is a software itself - where's the
> source code? I mean the uncompressed and descriptive formats (SVGs and
> friends) that were used to generate the compressed and sometimes lossy
> ones (PNG, JPG, ...).  [...]

The source code will vary and may sometimes be the file itself.
It should be provided in the source tarball, where it exists.

This is not a new argument and I don't see it taking us any place
new.

Sorry,
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Re: Debian Open Use Logo License (was Re: RC bug filled against desktop-base related to the open logo.)

[MJ Ray]

Julien Cristau wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 00:54:22 -0300, Gustavo Franco wrote:
> > Let's tackle this from a different angle. What were the ongoing
> > concerns and aren't they solved yet? Who do I need to talk to in order
> > to change the license?
> > 
> The DPL.
> 
> AFAIK when the logo license was changed, the lawyer advised to keep the
> logo with debian under a restrictive license, and the dpl and spi board
> went along with that.

That's my recollection.  The minutes are at
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/meeting-minutes/2008/meeting-minutes-2008-03-19.txt/view
but the ongoing concerns aren't stated there or in the logs at
http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-general/2008-March/002567.html

It refers to an earlier meeting whose minutes are at
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/meeting-minutes/2007/board-meeting-june-18th-2007.html
which also doesn't state the concerns.  It predates my log-posting
effort (and I was physically at that meeting), but it was videoed at
http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2007/debconf7/low/379_SPI_board_meeting.ogg
- it's almost exactly 15 minutes in, but doesn't state the concerns
very clearly.  The explanation was "There was additional feedback from
Greg, who's our lawyer, saying that there may be issues with
relicensing the actual textual representation of the word debian
because that may imply that we don't want to enforce the trademark of
debian, so there's an additional little paragraph saying that the
licence only applies to the graphical swirl and the graphical swirl
and bottle. It doesn't apply to the textual representation."

I'm not sure if adding a statement that we will enforce the trademark
would avoid that implication, but then is the textual representation
really still free from restrictions on field of endeavour?

Anyway for "What were the ongoing concerns and aren't they solved yet?"
the answer might be that only SPI board and DPL of that time know.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Open Database License (ODbL)

[MJ Ray]

Francesco Poli wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Aug 2010 11:30:35 +0200 Francesco Poli wrote:
> 
> [...]
> > ## ODC Open Database License (ODbL)
> 
> Better late than never, what follows is my own personal analysis of the
> license.

I thank Francesco Poli for this analysis and regret that I do not have
time just now for a similar level of detail.  I concentrate on the
vexing sections 4.3 and 4.6.

> [...]
> > 4.3 Notice for using output (Contents). Creating and Using a Produced
> > Work does not require the notice in Section 4.2. However, if you
> > Publicly Use a Produced Work, You must include a notice associated with
> > the Produced Work reasonably calculated to make any Person that uses,
> > views, accesses, interacts with, or is otherwise exposed to the Produced
> > Work aware that Content was obtained from the Database, Derivative
> > Database, or the Database as part of a Collective Database, and that it
> > is available under this License.
> > 
> >   a. Example notice. The following text will satisfy notice under
> >   Section 4.3:
> > 
> > Contains information from DATABASE NAME, which is made available
> > here under the Open Database License (ODbL).
> > 
> > DATABASE NAME should be replaced with the name of the Database and a
> > hyperlink to the URI of the Database. "Open Database License" should
> > contain a hyperlink to the URI of the text of this License. If
> > hyperlinks are not possible, You should include the plain text of the
> > required URI's with the above notice.
> 
> This clause should be read *carefully*: it seems to be narrow enough to
> be an acceptable restriction (putting a little notice in Produced Works
> does not look like a big deal), but I may be missing something
> important.
> 
> What do other debian-legal regulars think?

I think it acceptably protects integrity of the source and doesn't
contaminate other software because it's only the Produced Work which
needs to be affected.  Which DFSG(s) should I be considering?

> [...]
> > 4.6 Access to Derivative Databases. If You Publicly Use a Derivative
> > Database or a Produced Work from a Derivative Database, You must also
> > offer to recipients of the Derivative Database or Produced Work a copy
> > in a machine readable form of:
> > 
> >   a. The entire Derivative Database; or
> > 
> >   b. A file containing all of the alterations made to the Database or
> >   the method of making the alterations to the Database (such as an
> >   algorithm), including any additional Contents, that make up all the
> >   differences between the Database and the Derivative Database.
> > 
> > The Derivative Database (under a.) or alteration file (under b.) must be
> > available at no more than a reasonable production cost for physical
> > distributions and free of charge if distributed over the internet.
> 
> This clause seems to imply (among other things) that someone who uses a
> Derivative Database, or even just a Produced Work from a Derivative
> Database, on a networked server, is compelled to make the whole
> Derivative Database available to the remote users. [...]

Need it be made available over the internet?  The final paragraph
doesn't seem to specify that the Derivative Database or alteration
file must be distributed over the internet if the Produced Work is.

If distributed over the internet, I hope we don't have a commerce
restriction problem (DFSG 6) and unresolved questions about access
control similar to the AGPLv3, but it does look to me that we do. :-(
I think I'm on some ODBL email list.  I'm sorry I missed this.  I'll
raise it on their email list when I get time.

> In summary, my own personal opinion is that the main troublesome parts
> of this license are in section 4.6 and *possibly* in section 4.3 (but
> the latter section is probably OK).
> 
> Anyway, I would like to restate that, in order to not add to license
> proliferation, it would have been better, if this new database-specific
> license had not been written at all.

What other licences cover EU database rights?

If this is the first, then I think this proliferation is actually the
fault of MEPs, the Council of Ministers and the European Commission
for creating new rights that are restricted by default, and not the
licence authors.

Hope that helps,
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Re: RC bug filled against desktop-base related to the open logo.

[MJ Ray]

Gustavo Franco wrote:
> Please bear with me if it was discussed here before, I wasn't CC'ed.

Do you want to be?  I've guessed yes, but please state explicitly.

Pre-filing discussion is around
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2010/06/msg00014.html

> Pompee William filled #587668 (The Debian open logo with "Debian" is
> not compliant to the Debian policy) against desktop-base. #587482 was
> filled against gdm-themes
> 
> I don't really see the point for the following reasons, but would like
> you to shed some light:
> 
> * It's not the open logo itself, but the swirl + Debian with Debian's
> logo regular font;

This is arguably an acceptable reason for copyright, although I'm
unsure whether it's still derived from it.  Why was the debian
in the usual font put there?  To look like the logo with text?

> * Btw, if it was the open logo, we're not talking about software. DFSG
> quote about Derived Works states "original software";

I feel that's unacceptable - the logo is software, even if it might
not be a program in some formats.  Arguing otherwise would allow all
manner of unmodifiable rubbish into debian.

> * If DFSG explicitly included images, fonts and music we would still
> need to protect Debian trademark.

Protect it from what?  Misuse maybe, but there are other laws against
abuse and honest use isn't restricted by trademark (at least not here
http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/1994/ukpga_19940026_en_1.html#pt1-pb3-l1g11
).  As I understand it, 11(2)(b) means that indicating the intended
purpose of a backdrop as one for a debian system is not infringing a
trademark (so doesn't need a trademark licence).  Do others think
I've understood that correctly?  Are other laws (TRIPS?) similar?

So in this case, there might be only the question of whether the
expression is derived from the logo with text, so would be affected by
its (non-free) copyright licence.  What do others think of that?

Hope that helps,
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Re: Sample/reference code of RFCs

[MJ Ray]

markus schnalke asked:
> It's about the package `masqmail'. The upstream release includes an
> MD5 implementation (in src/md5). This MD5 code is the reference
> implementation code from RFC 1321 and RFC 2104.

See http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=293932#50
which basically recommends libmd as a faster, freer replacement.

As I understand it, the RSADSIMD5M-DA licence does not allow
distribution of derivatives explicitly.  And the code's slower.

[...]
> But the code from RFC 2104 shows no copyright information at all. See
> http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2104.txt
> (In the Appendix, page 8 and 9.)
> 
> Can I include this code in Debian?

In the absence of permission, the default is no permission, so no.
Probably BCP 78 applies, but that's not enough for inclusion.  

> This question is important, because I couldn't find a public domain
> implementation of this function.

That's a shame but I don't know hmac_md5 myself.  Is there a free
software (rather than PD) implementation?  There appear to be several
HMAC-MD5 implementations in debian already, including libmhash2, but
they don't look like drop-in replacements.

> P.S.
> I'm off-list, please CC me.

Done.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Providing an openssl-linked pycurl

[MJ Ray]

Yavor Doganov wrote:
> Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:23:16 +0100, MJ Ray
> > If the GPL program links with another library, why does it need ifdefs
> > or configure options?  Surely that's left to the library?
> 
> Well, the program can check for the presence of libcurl-gnutls and
> libcurl, and conditionally link with it.  Or, in the hypothetical
> case, it can conditionally use libfoo or libbar, either of which can
> be linked against OpenSSL/GnuTLS/NSS/etc.

Good point (I've not been hacking C much recently).  If it's using
libfoo which can be linked against OpenSSL/GnuTLS, is the source
of the GPL program derived from OpenSSL, though?

If not, we can still distribute the version that doesn't link against
libssl.

I agree with you that it sounds like an awkward bug in most
Pantomime-using GPL applications and wish you well with the
alternative version.

Thanks,
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Re: Providing an openssl-linked pycurl

[MJ Ray]

Yavor Doganov wrote:
> Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:09:19 +0100, MJ Ray
> > Yavor Doganov wrote:
> >> I see no difference between this scenario and a classic C program that
> >> supports both OpenSSL and GnuTLS via #ifdef's and `configure' options.
> > 
> > In the C-ifdef scenario, the GPL program is derived from both OpenSSL
> > and GnuTLS.  That is, its programmer obviously knows about OpenSSL's
> > functions.
> 
> Not necessarily.  The program may not be using OpenSSL/GnuTLS
> functions at all; it may link with another library (or 2 different
> libraries) which hide/abstract these.

If the GPL program links with another library, why does it need ifdefs
or configure options?  Surely that's left to the library?

> [...] Consider a real world example.  lusernet.app links against
> libpantomime1.2, which links against libssl for SSL support.
> 
> $ ldd /usr/bin/LuserNET | grep ssl
>   libssl.so.0.9.8 => /usr/lib/i686/cmov/libssl.so.0.9.8 (0xb6dc2000)
> 
> This is a serious bug in my book.
> 
> LuserNET doesn't use any OpenSSL functions at all.  [...]

Then I don't see why it's a bug in LuserNET, nor how LuserNET is derived
from OpenSSL.  It feels more like a bug in libpantomime1.2 linking
against libssl for SSL support even when that support is not required.

> [...]  On the other hand, Pantomime can be ported to GnuTLS (it's
> in my TODO actually, because of the above issue), in which case it
> matters not from the app author's view how the library implements
> internally TCP connection, SSL handshake, etc.  [...]

That would be a great thing to do.  More power to your elbow!

Thanks
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Re: Providing an openssl-linked pycurl

[MJ Ray]

Yavor Doganov wrote:
> Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:35:45 +0100, MJ Ray
> > I think the suggestion is that software using python-pycurl would not
> > change if they were using openssl or gnutls.  I don't understand how the
> > GPL'd software is derived from openssl if it works interchangably with
> > gnutls on the other side of pycurl.  Can you explain?
> 
> I see no difference between this scenario and a classic C program that 
> supports both OpenSSL and GnuTLS via #ifdef's and `configure' options.  

In the C-ifdef scenario, the GPL program is derived from both OpenSSL
and GnuTLS.  That is, its programmer obviously knows about OpenSSL's
functions.

In the pycurl scenario, the GPL program is derived from pycurl.  The
difference is that the GPL-using programmer need not know about
OpenSSL's functions, so I don't see how it can be said to be derived
from it.  It would even be written the same in a world without
OpenSSL, as long as pycurl is the same whether it's a version derived
from OpenSSL or a version derived from GNUTLS.

Can you explain why the GPL program using pycurl is derived from
OpenSSL, please?

> Or a C program linking against an LGPL'ed library which links against 
> libssl.  If the library is modified to use GnuTLS instead, the program 
> would still continue to work with that variant of the library 
> interchangably (provided it is API/ABI compatible, of course).  If the 
> program is using the gnutls-linked variant of the library, it needs no 
> exception.  If it is using the openssl-linked variant, it does because of 
> the indirect linking with libssl.

So, as long as debian usually installs the gnutls-linked variant, no
problem, right?

It's up to the user if they want to modify their system to install
the variant that may cause distribution/licensing problems.  Merely
having it available doesn't seem like a problem to me.

I repeat that I feel the best solution is to bugfix GNUTLS, broken
software or broken servers, before they break the OpenSSL variant too.
Rebuilding pycurl seems like a dirty/uncertain workaround.

Regards,
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Re: Providing an openssl-linked pycurl

[MJ Ray]

Yavor Doganov wrote:
> Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:57:24 +0100, Guido Trotter
> > Now, what would be the status of (unmodified) GPL python software which
> > imports pycurl?
> 
> According to the FSF licensing team, such software must be under
> GPL+OpenSSL exception.
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2009/04/msg00038.html

Where "such software" is gajim which was "using the Python OpenSSL
bindings".

I think the suggestion is that software using python-pycurl would not
change if they were using openssl or gnutls.  I don't understand how
the GPL'd software is derived from openssl if it works interchangably
with gnutls on the other side of pycurl.  Can you explain?

Thanks,
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Re: logo license with debian - no warranty missing?

[MJ Ray]

Charles Plessy wrote:
> it would be much more productive if this scenario would be accompanied with
> some data and facts about which law in which country make the non-warranty
> disclaimer necessary, exemplified by cases where these laws have successfully
> been used in court by the plaintiff.

Here is a commentary about implied warranties referring to the
Universal Commercial Code adopted by most US states: Desai et al,
'Information Technology Litigation and Software Failure', The Journal
of Information, Law and Technology (JILT) 2002 (2)

(found through http://www.bailii.org/ )

> In the absence of such an analysis, the discussion is purely about fear,
> uncertainty and doubt. [...]

If we have to take everything back to basics, this list will flood.
If someone wishes to question a widespread practice, then that is
good, but I suggest it's worth doing some research first and posting
the results before suggesting it's FUD.

(Now, if someone wants to question why disclaimers are often in
hard-to-read capitals throughout... ;-) )

> It is the addition of extra clauses and vague disclaimers that sometimes make
> licenses non-free (clauses like ‘do not kill people with my software’), so
> let's resist to temptation of making our license statements longer than what
> is necessary.

Sure, but it need not be very long and doesn't make it non-free.

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Re: Providing an openssl-linked pycurl

[MJ Ray]

Guido Trotter wrote:
> According to my understandment:
> 
> - OpenSSL is released under a license which is GPL incompatible, unless an
>   exception to the GPL is used in the software compiled with it. Debian cannot
>   distribute GPL software released under the unmodified GPL and linked against
>   OpenSSL.
> - pycurl is released under the LGPL (2.1 or later) or a MIT/X derivative
>   license based on the one of curl itself. Neither of these licenses is
>   incompatible with OpenSSL, and as for curl itself we should be able to
>   provide a version of pycurl which uses openssl.
> 
> Am I correct up to here?

http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/p/pycurl/current/copyright
suggests so.

> Now, what would be the status of (unmodified) GPL python software which 
> imports
> pycurl? Is this considered the same as linking, and would it have to make sure
> it uses the GNUTLS version, by depending on it?

What GNUTLS version?  Oh, it looks like that's the current version.

As I understand it, if the GPL python software were derived from
openssl in some way, then there would be a problem.  Otherwise, not.
If it worked with a GNUTLS version of pycurl
unmodified/interchangably, I think it's unlikely there's a problem.

But then the GNUTLS version must exist to be sure things work, so why
not use the GNUTLS version?  In the case of bug 515200, the report
about www1.banking.first-direct.com has a solution in bug 532752
(which maybe could be used by some setopt call in pycurl?), while the
dynamic routing firewall problem awaits more information in bug 532752
since June 2009.

If there are bugs in GNUTLS or remote servers, please try to help
their maintainers to debug them, rather than rebuilding every single
gnutls-using package to use openssl and spread a licensing can of
worms which gnutls helps to keep closed.

Also, is rebuilding even a proper fix for 515200?  It looks like
www1.banking.first-direct.com might have a problem and I suspect maybe
if/when openssl supports whatever feature is causing connection
problems (TLS1.1?), it might fail too then.

> This might open discussions about how to provide the feature tecnically 
> (different module
> names in python, conflicting packages, etc) and make sure legality is kept, 
> but
> in the meantime we'd just like a legal opinion on what would or would not be
> ok. (also considering it's OK for a user to use GPL+OpenSSL software if he
> wants, it's just not OK for us to distribute it).

To be clear: I do not offer a legal opinion.  I am not a lawyer.  Ask
one if you want legal opinion.  If you want the debian project to ask,
I think you need to persuade some official (ftp-master or leader seem
most likely) to request it.

Hope that explains,
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Re: Debian Open Use Logo License (DOULL): warranty provided?

[MJ Ray]

Pompee William  wrote:
> According to the DOULL there's no warranty provided for the use of the 
> "software" referring to the logo WITHOUT Debian but there's nothing said 
> for the logo WITH Debian. Does it assume I may complain to the Debian 
> Project for the use of a derivative work from the logo WITH Debian in a 
> SVG format with an embedded script which could exploit a software 
> security hole and mess up my system?

In the absence of wording in the licence, I think that depends on
local laws.

Note that the logo with the word debian should not be included in
debian because it does not meet the DFSG, so some contributors
here will not want to assist with the current licence.

Regards,
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Re: Copyright on small shell script

[MJ Ray]

markus schnalke asked:
> [1] http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/postfix/2000-09/0392.html
[...]
> I surely do want to give credit. My point is about including 18162
> bytes of license for 262 bytes of straight forward code.
> 
> What do you think?

I think the email from Marco is trivial because he says so.

I think the improved script on the postfix list crosses the
creativity threshold and could be subject to copyright.  However,
if no copyright holder has identified themselves, I doubt they
can prove it, but that's not usually enough for debian - we try
to be nice to programmers and respect their work.  Copyright
holders don't absolutely have to identify themselves, says
http://www.iusmentis.com/copyright/crashcourse/requirements/

It might even be able to suggest that posting it to
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/postfix/2000-09/0392.html
implies a permissive licence, but it would be nicer to ask
luciano l. mannucci and Wietse Venema if their part can be used
under whatever licence.

> Please CC me as I'm off-list.

Done.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Bug#565884: Please include CeCILL* licenses in common-licenses

[MJ Ray]

Thibaut Paumard suggested:
> there is a growing body of packages (or at least files) under
> [1]CeCILL license in the archive. [...]
> [1] http://www.cecill.info/licences.en.html

Roughly how many packages/files are under the licence?

CeCILL Article 5.3.4 states "The Licensee can include a code that is
subject to the provisions of one of the versions of the GNU GPL in the
Modified or unmodified Software, and distribute that entire code under
the terms of the same version of the GNU GPL."

So, if the debian dir is under the GPL, the entire package could be
distributed under the GPL and CeCILL wouldn't be its copyright and
distribution license.  I don't remember and policy manual section 12.5
doesn't seem explicit on this: would that mean we don't need to
include the CeCILL text in the package?

Hope that helps,
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Re: BOINC: lib/cal.h license issue agree with the DFSG?

[MJ Ray]

Nicolas Alvarez  wrote:
> MJ Ray wrote:
> > I'm not convinced that there is consensus on choice-of-venue being
> > acceptable.  I suspect there's a mix of considering it acceptable,
> > thinking we can fight it when needed and ignorance.
> 
> This choice-of-venue discussion looks like it won't get consensus soon, and 
> it is getting us away from the original thread topic.
> 
> How about we try this? Let's assume for a moment that choice-of-venue is 
> both acceptable and allowed by the DFSG. Then look at the *rest* of the 
> cal.h license terms instead of continuing the argument about this one.

I agree that one failure makes it fail to follow the DFSG, but if
someone's going to contact AMD, it seems worth addressing all problems
and not let things like choice-of-venue get dismissed because they're
usually merely controversial rather than clear-cut REJECT reasons.

Given the number of problems and possible problems, requesting a
switch to something Expat-like seems a good option to me.

Hope that helps,
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Re: BOINC: lib/cal.h license issue agree with the DFSG?

[MJ Ray]

Marco d'Itri  wrote:
> mdpo...@troilus.org wrote:
> >The usual argument is that choice of venue violates DFSG #5 by
> >discriminating against people who live outside the venue.  Is there some

I feel it's some combination of DFSG 5 (discriminating on location)
and DFSG 1 (non-monetary cost of use), so it's not really clear-cut.

> The usual argument of the DFSG revisionists is that everything is a
> restriction or a discrimination, so it's not really helpful.

DFSG-revisionist Marco d'Itri posts much nonsense, from misattributed
quotes, to accusations that myself and others joining debian-legal since
2003 introduced new interpretations of the DFSG, including things which
had apparently been common since before 1999.  Debunk him if you want
to try to quieten him for a bit.

See http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/12/msg00161.html for
more detail.

Regards,
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Re: BOINC: lib/cal.h license issue agree with the DFSG?

[MJ Ray]

Sean Kellogg wrote:
> > Moreover, in the present case, I think that I honestly stated that the
> > DFSG-freeness of choice of venue clauses is controversial and then I
> > provided my own personal opinion, *explicitly* labeling it as such. [...]
> 
> The problem with this line of argument is that it sounds very
> similar to the climate skeptics / intelligent design crowd.

So objecting to agreeing to travel to Texas from Europe (or be judged
in one's absence which I believe means you almost always lose) is very
similar to a religious argument to you?

Wow, it seems an utterly practical matter to me.

> The
> approach seems to be, "continue to inject controversy even when
> there is community consensus, in hopes of giving the appearance of
> true division." Sure, it's their right to believe as they wish, and
> to speak as they wish, but to the community that has moved on it
> sure is awfully annoying and dilatory. The FUD strategy has a way of
> getting of people's nerves awfully quickly :)

I'm not convinced that there is consensus on choice-of-venue being
acceptable.  I suspect there's a mix of considering it acceptable,
thinking we can fight it when needed and ignorance.

Returning to the intelligent design analugy, it's like the difference
between outlawing promotion of it completely and stopping it being
taught as the One True Way.

Hope that explains,
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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

[MJ Ray]

Andrew Dalke wrote:
> On Dec 17, 2009, at 3:41 AM, MJ Ray wrote:
> > Maybe a proper citation instead of a bare URL
> > would have helped avoid this confusion.  (Line wraps would help too.)
> 
> Since my first post, of which I think you are talking about, also
> included the book title and author name, I figured that was
> sufficient. [...]

It included a variation of the book title, so it's not reasonable to
blame anyone for being confused about whether it was exactly the same
book or not.

> I think you're the first person in about 12 years to mention that
> linewraps are a problem. I stopped carefully linewrapping [...]

Don't carefully linewrap - fix the mail client.  I suspect Apple Mail
is missing format=flowed when you want it, but I don't know for sure.
I guess this nicely spikey reply might be why people stopped
mentioning the breakage about 12 years ago.  Not fun.  I don't
bother that much any more, but this list hasn't generally succumbed
to the waves of Outlook easy-to-write-but-hard-to-read emails yet.

> > So people who were persuaded to buy the book were persuaded by the book
> > - is that surprising for this type of book?
> 
> Pardon? One isn't required to purchase an item via Amazon before one
> can comment on said item, at least to my understanding. I believe
> one could get the book from the library and also comment on Amazon.
> Or read parts of it online and gratis, as I did.

I click "Create a Review".  The options are "No, I am a new customer"
and "Yes, I have a password".  Nothing suggests a way for non-customers
to comment.  Maybe it's possible, but it seems like a minority sport.

> > Also, remember that Amazon ...
> 
> It seemed an appropriate source to try to understand if the views of
> Youngman were singular, rare, or widely espoused.

and I explained why the click-to-buy patenter's site might not be an
appropriate source.  OK?

[...]
> Again, I was not thorough. Given that the response came so quickly
> I would assume it's a matter of a few moments to point to something
> definite, and that my details responses would indicate that it's
> not a trivially found and widely expressed idea.

Assumption is the mother of all mistakes.  There's also the point
that Larry Rosen does seem to be a smart lawyer who can make a
convincing argument which mere developers can't perfectly refute
even if we're sure the conclusions like pay-my-lawyers are wrong.

[...]
> I still hold that Youngman is wrong in saying that relicensing takes
> away user rights, as a universal statement. The best counter example
> is the GFDL->Creative Commons relicensing, when the original GFDL's
> license grant is essentially identical to the GPLs. 

OK, if that's the counter example, please show how a user can obtain
the same rights they would have had with the GFDL'd copy when they
only obtain one under a CC licence?

Relicensing seems to remove a possible licence for everyone
downstream.

[...]
> > As far as I recall (I read it too long ago), the book was partly a
> > sales pitch for Rosen's licences
> 
> I did not notice anything in the chapters I read which mentioned any
> of his licenses. I did not read the entire book. Nor do I know of the
> 5-point definition of which you also spoke. It may have occurred
> after he published the book.

So you haven't read it and you made these conclusions? It sounds like
you are going off at half-cock. There's a free online copy, you know.

> [...] There's also
> the doctrinaire point that Debian considers the Artistic License to
> be free, in opposition to GNU.

This isn't that black-and-white.  It's far fuzzier than that.

GNU actually says "We cannot say that this is a free software license
because it is too vague; some passages are too clever for their own
good, and their meaning is not clear."
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ArtisticLicense

So, they are not willing to rule it in, but they don't really rule it
out and they do accept it as part of perl's licence:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#PerlLicense

For whatever reason, ftpmasters may have decided it's vague but good
enough.  Thanks to Artistic 2, this is a disappearing problem.

> [...] rather than blunt
> statements about my need to do yet more work, or vague and not easily
> confirmed statements regarding the character of the people involved.

Sure, but it's a bit hard if someone challenges one to justify an
opinion of another person on a mutual project years ago with
documentary evidence.

Given how long this project has been running, sometimes debian-legal
contributors are primary sources, odd as that may seem.  They still
benefit from verifying in secondary sou

Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

[MJ Ray]

Andrew Dalke wrote:
> On Dec 14, 2009, at 9:16 PM, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
> > I can't be bothered to read the book, but if it's the book I think it is, 
> > then I already have read it and came to the conclusion that the author was 
> > blind.
[...]
> > Read it for yourself, make sure you've got a copy of the GPL next to you so 
> > you can *check* every reference he makes, and see if you come to the same 
> > conclusion I did, namely that the black letter of the GPL flatly 
> > contradicted the core assumption on which a large part of this book is 
> > based.
> 
> You haven't read it and you made that conclusion? It sounds like you are 
> promulgating hearsay and rumor. There's a free online copy which I linked to, 
> and if what you are saying is right then it should be easy to point out some 
> of the contradictions.

This part followed "if it's the book I think it is, then I already
have read it".  Maybe the contradictions aren't in the part of the
book linked, but elsewhere in the book read.  The link seemed to be to
a PDF of part of a book and Anthony W. Youngman wrote that he couldn't
be bothered to read it.  Maybe a proper citation instead of a bare URL
would have helped avoid this confusion.  (Line wraps would help too.)

Further, Anthony W. Youngman isn't the only debian-legal contributor
to think Larry Rosen's interpretations should not be taken wholesale,
nor the only one who can't give full citations because those
impressions were formed by interactions as much as literature.  I'm
another and I'm pretty sure there are others.

> BTW, none of the reviewers on Amazon agree with you
> http://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/product-reviews/0131487876/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
> and I thought that if the the book would be that poorly written then there 
> would be some evidence. [...]

So people who were persuaded to buy the book were persuaded by the book
- is that surprising for this type of book?

Also, remember that Amazon filed the notorious click-to-buy patent,
uses DRM/TPM to erase books from their e-book reader (RMS called it
the Amazon Swindle) and tries to overthrow laws they don't like (such
as France's Lang Law), so some free software fans won't touch them
with a bargepole.  It's not a good place to go for reviews of free
software related books.

It scores 3.8 our of 5 on http://www.librarything.com/work/72601
(compared to 4.17 for Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of
Richard M. Stallman http://www.librarything.com/work/179957 which
I think is the highest-rated book in the cluster: read them yet?)

As far as I recall (I read it too long ago), the book was partly a
sales pitch for Rosen's licences and also included an attempt to
correct one of the big mistakes of the Open Source Initiative and pick
a 5-point definition of Open Source which could actually compete with
the 4-point Free Software Definition.  I think OSI still use 10
points, so that's how convincing the book is.

Even without knowing the problems of the choice-of-venue and
pay-my-lawyers clauses in Larry Rosen's quesionable licences, it
should be immediately obvious that that book is probably going to have
an inflammatory perspective.  Its title is "Open Source Licensing:
Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law" which manages to
squeeze two of http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html into
one book title.

Hope that illuminates,
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Re: Are debian/ubuntu distributions "commercial applications" from a legal point of view?

[MJ Ray]

Laszlo Lebrun wrote:
> Do you know about any jurisprudence about that question?

I'm pretty sure that commercial applications in legal use means
something different to commercial software applications, so I'd say
that the act of distribution itself is sometimes a commercial
application.

I'm not aware of a particularly clear definition of "commercial
application" in law but I'm no lawyer.

One definition from Football Association Premier League Ltd & Ors v QC
Leisure & Ors [2008] EWHC 1411 (Ch) seems to be "for the purposes of
trade and [...] for commercial use" compared with private, which is
"for his and his family's personal use and only at his home or
workplace".

However, note that the debian free software guidelines are broken
by software which limits commercial applications, so they should not
be part of the distribution. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

Hope that explains,
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Re: New Adobe CMaps license free enough for Debian?

[MJ Ray]

Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> I believe that I quoted the _license_ part of a CMap source header, 
> deliberately leaving out the _copyright_ and _disclaimer_ parts, ad I 
> considered those irrelevant for the question at hand.

I think it's probably important to have the disclaimer because some
licensors have tried to slip licence restrictions or liabilities into
what they labelled as disclaimers; and it's useful to know the
copyright holder in case it's one of the few that insists on
particular interpretations of terms like "use".

It also makes it slightly easier to spot common-licenses and compare
with them with wdiff because they are included in debian whole.

Thanks for asking.  I've nothing much to add to other comments on
the substantial question.  ccing as originally requested.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Are these licenses DFSG?

[MJ Ray]

cate wrote:
> Eugen Dedu wrote:
> > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=532456, about licenses
> I think there is a problem in terminology. AFAIK (but IANAL), the
> "any use" doesn't include distribution of software.
> For this reason I think it is safe to classify it as non distributable,
> 
> It seems that the author intention was to interpret the "any use" in
> a wider manner, but this is not legally safe for us.

I'd agree with that unless someone can tell me why not.  I think
there's case law about "use" not including distribution.  Ideally,
suggest that the licensor uses some well-understood terms like the
modified BSD or the MIT/Expat ones.

Also, please note that software can satisfy the DFSG, rather than
licences.  It is confusing to ask whether licences "are" DFSG because
clearly they are not guidelines.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Art content licensing question

[MJ Ray]

Bart Kelsey wrote:
> I may have overstepped a bit in terms of "aggregate".  What I'd *like* for
> this license to cover is basically a *project* -- a piece of software, as a
> whole, which makes use of the media in question.  There isn't really a need
> to contaminate *other* software with this license.

If the game engine can be split from the media in question then it is
*other* software and the aim of this licence is to require particular
licence terms on it, which will break DFSG #9.

Copyright law generally doesn't work on a project level and that's a
feature, not a bug, because it allows us to rescue good code from
being aggregated with restricted works.

Regards,
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Re: Serious problem with geoip - databases could not be build from source

[MJ Ray]

Patrick Matthäi  wrote:
> GeoIP is a quite usefull library for geolocation.
> It has got a stable ABI/API and upstream is normaly very helpfull with
> patches and issues.
[...]
> Currently I see only three options:
> 1) upstream decides to open his build system
> 2) we move it to contrib with all consequences
> 3) we leave it as it is

4) we deduce the build system by looking at the CSVs and how the
library uses the binary dat files, then junk the upstream-built
dat files.  I've no idea if this is feasible, but it's another
option.

It seems a shame if an upstream wants a library removed from the
debian operating system and uses data files to achieve that, but
shouldn't we respect that for now?

Hope that helps,
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Re: "BSD-LBNL license"

[MJ Ray]

David Bremner 
> The text of BSD-LBNL-License.doc (blech, I know) is as follows
[...]
> The weird parts (as far as I can tell) are 
[...]
> - the comment about "commercial use". This does not seem to be
> reflected in the terms of the license.
[...]
> Any comments?
> 
> I'm not subscribed to debian-legal, so please CC me.

The above is the only one that makes me doubt its acceptability under
the DFSG.  I'm also mildly concerned that this seems to be a licence
for a specific licensee which is incomplete and not a general public
licence in the usual way, although it seems like it is offered to
everyone without need to notify, so it might be OK.

I'd try asking the t...@lbl.gov address to confirm BSD-LBNL-License.doc
can be used for commercial use as long as those terms are acceptable.

Hope that helps,
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Re: Mono License changes over time and the risks this is presenting.

[MJ Ray]

Peter Dolding  wrote: [...]
> In fact the head of Microsoft has said That only Novell and other
> people who have signed agreements is protected.  So all the class
> libraries of mono need to move to the restricted section.   Hopefully
> this will push the .Net wanting people to get clarification of the
> patent status. [...]

"restricted section"?  I think that's confusing debian with another
distribution that has a restricted component (rhymes with bizar-roo).

I think the usual decision is that we'll (re)move it when some people
demonstrate an actual patent problem for our users.  It's nearly
impossible for us to decide whether a patent applies and it is in the
interests of most patent holders to exaggerate their scope.

Hope that explains,
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Re: License requiring to reproduce copyrights in binary distributions.

[MJ Ray]

Charles Plessy  wrote:
> It appeared in various discussions about either DEP5 or the NEW queue that
> licenses vary in their requirement for reproducing the authors copyrights in
> binary distributions. [...]

I wonder if the licence requirements are the deciding factor.  With
the increasing criminalisation of copyright infringement worldwide,
users may need to show their local police or state agent that they
have a valid copyright licence for any copies.  How can users do that
reliably if the binary distributions aren't reproducing the authors'
copyrights?

Puzzled,
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Re: MusicXML 2.0?

[MJ Ray]

Francesco Poli  wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:45:00 +0200 Francesco Poli wrote:
> > A. DEFINITIONS
> [...]
> > "Original Program" means the original version of the software
> > accompanying this Agreement as released by Recordare LLC, including
> > source code, object code and documentation, if any.
> > 
> > "Program" means the Original Program and Contributions.
> [...]
> > Title to copyright in the Program will at all times remain with
> > Copyright Holder.
> [...]
>
> Does this mean that Recordare LLC imposes transfer of copyright on
> Contributions from Contributors to Recordare LLC, as a condition of the
> grant of license?

I think that's accurate: was the old QPL the best case of this
problem, or is there a stronger argument?

The license transfer problem asked about in the thread opener doesn't
cause problems because the licence seems to be to all recipients ever.

Hope that helps,
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Re: InaTux's "Author's Choice of Terminology License"

[MJ Ray]

"oohay moc."  wrote:
> Yes. I don't know much about copyright. But, I would guess that with
> a properly written license, that you would "append" it to a legal
> copyright registration along with the work that the license is
> covering, and send it to the "patent office" of copyrights. [...]

Please, don't guess unless unavoidable.  Copyright and related rights
are now utterly counter-intuitive.  I collected some useful links at
http://people.debian.org/~mjr/legal/licences.html
and http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/
including http://www.iusmentis.com/
which has various crash courses.

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct


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