Re: Legal status of Audacity in releases newer than Bullseye
>>>>> "Bone" == Bone Baboon <bone.baboon@disroot.org> writes:
Bone> Here is some additional details.
Bone> Two key issues with Muse Group's new privacy policy for
Bone> Audacity are the on by default telemetry and that Audacity can
Bone> no longer be used for any purpose contradicting freedom 0.
Bone> # On by default telemetry
Bone> On by default telemetry is being introduced to Audacity. The
Bone> on by default telemetry collects IP address information,
Bone> system information and Audacity version information.
That's not a GPL violation.
Anyone is free to modify the software to turn that off.
It's not something Debian is likely to keep. It's up to the individual
maintainer though.
Bone> # Freedom 0
Bone> Audacity can no longer be used for any purpose. Section 3 of
Bone> the Muse Group's new privacy policy for Audacity
Bone> <https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/>
Bone> says:
>> 3 Minors
>>
>> 1 The App we provide is not intended for individuals below the
>> age of 13. If you are under 13 years old, please do not use the
>> App.
That's not a GPL violation. It's not a license restriction on the app.
It's not even a usage restriction on the app; it's a request. It seems
like it is very carefully worded to avoid falling under certain laws
without being a license restriction.
If you don't like that text, remove it from your copy of the app and
stop using any web services that privacy policy applies to.
None of the above are DFSG violations either.
Let's take DFSG 5:
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The **license** must not discriminate against any person or group of
persons.
Emphasis added by me.
It's not a DFSG violation if the software discriminates against
persons. We aren't very fond of such discrimination and might well not
package such software (or might remove such discrimination), but it's
not a DFSG violation.
I could totally stick a game in Debian that started up by popping up a
dialogue box. "Are you under 18? yes/no?" And if you click no, pops up
"This childish game is only for those under 18," and exits. That would
not be a DFSG violation. I suspect if I did that I'd get a number of RC
bugs, and generally the community would probably end up deciding Debian
didn't want to ship that game in that way.
The DFSG requires that we able to remove that discrimination if we like.
We can change the privacy policy for software we ship, at least in so
far as it affects interactions on your local system.
(We ought to respect privacy policies of web services we connect to and
accurately reflect what they are).
None of the issues you are bringing up are license issues, nor do they
affect what changes Debian (or our users) can make to the software.
The Debian maintainers of the packages in question can decide which of
the upstream changes they wish to revert.
It seems likely we'll turn off telemetry by default, because we often
do.
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