Some licensing questions regarding celestia
Hi!
[Please CC me]
I'm the new maintainer of celestia which is a space simulation program.
As such it contains a lot of data, numerical data such as positions of
stars as well as 3D models and textures.
The copyright status of all this data is a real mess and we (the authors
and me) are trying to clarify it.
What I got out of the whole FDL debate is that data in Debian has to be
DFSG-free (with which I agree).
celestia is released under the terms of the GPL.
Now the questions:
1) If one includes public-domain material in a GPL work, does one have
to state what material is in the public domain?
2) Are there any GPL-compatibility issues when the data is licensed
differently from the GPL? So if an author grants the rights to copy,
modify and redistribute is it enough to basicaly say: "This software is
GPLed but file xyz is licensed according to the following statement:
..."?
Does a list like the following suffice?
---snip---
Filename: xyz
Author: Name
Terms: blah...
Filename: abc
...
---snip---
3) What rights do need to be granted for data to be included in
non-free. In particular what about the following:
---snip---
JPL Image Policy
JPL images are available for use by the public free of charge. However,
by electing to download images from this web site the user agrees that
Caltech makes no warranties or representations with respect to its
ownership of copyrights for the images, does not represent others who
may claim to be owners of rights in the images, and makes no warranties
as to the quality of the images.
Commercial users (excluding journalistic uses) are required to copy the
JPL Image Release document and return a signed copy to the Caltech's
Intellectual Property Counsel, California Institute of Technology M/C
201-85, Pasadena, California 91125, who will countersign document and
return a copy to you. Copies may be faxed to (626) 577-2528. This
document will become effective when it is countersigned by Caltech.
---snip---
TIA,
Mika
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