Re: Bug#292322: emacspeak: might be non-free
Hi,
It seems to me that the maintainer of emacspeak is not very much
interested in this package currently, or at least didn't have time for a
couple of months. Therefore I forward this bug report to -devel and
-emacsen, in the hope to find somebody who is more interested.
Personally, I only came across the issue because I reported #291970, and
thought about NMU'ing it. I have no further interest in emacspeak except
that it doesn't break auctex, which is the result of that bug.
I don't even know why I looked at the copyright file..., but once I did I
couldn't let this go unnoticed.
Regards, Frank
Frank Küster <frank@kuesterei.ch> schrieb:
> Package: emacspeak
> Version: 17.0-1
> Severity: severity
>
> The copyright of emacspeak is confusing, and the package is possibly non-free:
>
> debian/copyright claims two contradicting licenses for the
> packages. The first seems to be present in some source files:
>
> ,----
> | Copyright:
> |
> | Source files contain this copyright notice:
> | ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | ;;{{{ Copyright:
> |
> | ;;;Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997 T. V. Raman Adobe Systems Incorporated
> | ;;; Copyright (c) 1996 by T. V. Raman
> | ;;; All Rights Reserved.
> | ;;;
> | ;;; This file is not part of GNU Emacs, but the same permissions apply.
> | ;;;
> | ;;; GNU Emacs is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> | ;;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> | ;;; the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
> | ;;; any later version.
> | ;;;
> | [...]
> `----
>
> On the other hand, there is a file etc/COPYRIGHT which seems to be a
> copyright file for the whole package. The license therein is non-free
> because it does not explicitly allow modifcation:
>
> ,----
> | ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
> | ;;; Author: T. V. Raman, <raman@cs.cornell.edu>
> | ;;;Copyright (C) 1995 -- 2002, T. V. Raman
> | ;;; All Rights Reserved
> | ;;; Author: T. V. Raman, Digital Equipment Corporation. <raman@crl.dec.com>
> | ;;; Copyright 1994, 1995 by Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, MA.
> | ;;; All Rights Reserved
> | ;;; $Id: COPYRIGHT,v 17.0 2002/11/23 01:29:08 raman Exp $
> | ;;;Permission to use, copy, and distribute this software and its documentation
> | ;;;for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
> | ;;;copyright notice appears in all copies and that both that copyright notice
> | ;;;and this permission notice, including the disclaimers below, appear in
> | ;;;supporting documentation, and that the name of Adobe and Digital not be
> | ;;;used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software
> | ;;;without specific, written prior permission.
> |
> | Digital Equipment Corporation, and T.V. Raman
> | ;;;DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED
> | ;;;WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL Digital
> | ;;;Equipment Corporation, or T.V. Raman 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 OR ANY ACTION OF
> | ;;;ANY OTHER KIND WHATSOEVER, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR
> | ;;;PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
> | ;;; Permission to use, copy, 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 Adobe Systems not be used in
> | ;;; advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without
> | ;;; specific, written prior permission.
> `----
>
> (this is repeated for Adobe, and the disclaimer once more for DEC)
>
> This file is still present in the current upstream version.
>
> Additionally, the source contains a lot of sound files without
> specific copyright notice. Some are probably just sounds needed to
> synthesize speech, and may not be copyrightable, or be spoken and
> copyright by Mr. Raman. But files like
>
> emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/bbc-world-service.ram
> emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/science-in-action-bbc.ram
> emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/cnn-biz.ram emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/cnn-si.ram
> emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/cnn-cnn.ram emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/cnn-sports.ram
> emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/cnn-es.ram emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/cnn-top-stories.ram
> emacspeak-17.0/realaudio/radio/cnn-hn.ram
>
> Do sound like somebody else had a copyright on them.
>
> Minor issues with the copyright file:
>
> ,----
> | Emacspeak is written and maintained by T. V. Raman <raman@cs.cornell.edu>
> `----
>
> But does not say who are the copyright holders; from the later parts it
> seems that two companies are involved, too.
>
> ,----
> | It was downloaded from
> | ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/raman/emacspeak/
> `----
>
> However, the current sources are at
>
> http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/emacspeak/
>
> Regards, Frank
>
> -- System Information
> Debian Release: 3.0-bunk-2
> Architecture: i386
> Kernel: Linux alhambra 2.4.27 #1 Sam Sep 25 11:29:41 CEST 2004 i686
> Locale: LANG=de_DE@euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE@euro
>
>
--
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer
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