Re: stormbaancoureur license issues
2008/1/9, Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org>:
> On Jan 9, 2008 9:33 AM, Miriam Ruiz <little.miry@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The problem in fact is that GPL should not be applied to artwork,
> > because it doesn't make sense, but if it is, the discussion could be
> > deep enough for us to want to involve the whole of Debian in it.
>
> The DFSG requires "source code" too (see DFSG #2).
Of course it does, not only the source code but the whole toolchain.
That's where the philosophical problems arise: ¿What's the source code
of a photo taken with a digital camera and modified with GIMP? ¿What's
the toolchain of an ogg music recording made by a real musical group
singing and playing guitars, even when the partiture is GPL? What I
mean is that GPL itself makes really no sense in many cases when
applied to artwork. In fact, even defining what source code is
("preferred form of modification") in some cases can be somehow
tricky. A JPEG file would never be considered source code, even if
it's the one your digital camera gives to you. That's one of the
things to decide: ¿What is source code for every different kind of
art?
Second, as I said, we need to have a whole free toolchain. For
example, the programs, sounds and systems needed to make a proper mp3
song from the partiture, or from the original MIDI tracks, might not
be free at all, especially if they include external hardware parts,
like a synthethiser or like a real music group and singer. If you take
some photos and do some rendering, and mix all of it in GIMP, and then
modify stuff on it by hand, and so on, it might be impossible to have
an automatic free rendering toolchain, even to be able to repeat the
whole process. Shall that be non-free?
Then, there are the technical limitations. If we had to store in the
repositories the whole integral source of video clips in games, and
the whole source, including original partiture, samples, multiple
tracks, and so, it might be technically impossible to store all of it.
Just the source of a single video, incl. its audio, could be as big as
the whole Debian source code!
I don't mean I disagree with you at all, on the contrary. In fact,
there's a GR stating that everything in Debian shall be DFSG-free, not
only the software, but it's not straight-forward to decide what that
means in every context. In fact, what I'm saying is that this
discussion, in my opinion, exceeds the possibilities of the Games Team
and should involve the whole Debian. We severely risk having to let
most of the games out of it if we go extreme, I guess you're conscious
of that. We would need to have every single source file for every
single texture, sound, models, videos, movement recording and so in
every single game. I once asked for the source code of the art to an
upstream of a 2 Mb game, and he sent me more than 50 Mb just of
graphic source... are we really able to cope with that?
I seriously think that, if we want to get to a real decision on this,
we should get d-devel and d-legal involved too.
Of course, that does not mean that, in the cases where what the source
code is is clear enough, and it's technically feasible to have it in
the archive, we have to demand it to comply. I'm not sure if that
should apply to logos, anyway. Even Debian fonts are not free, so we
cannot have a free toolchain for Debian logo. If we decide to demand
the whole toolchain for all the logos in the archive, and demand to
have the 3D models and fonts with which they have been generated, we
would probably have to put RC bugs against half the archive. I'm not
sure if we want that or not, but it exceeds the Games Team by a lot.
And, in fact, ftpmasters have already read that README file and
approved it when the game was put into Debian, it's nothing that has
been kept on secret.
What do we do about it and its consequences?
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/05/msg00035.html
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/04/msg00206.html
[3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/05/msg00272.html
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