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Re: Questions about the "Unicode Terms of Use"




"Lior Kaplan" <kaplan@debian.org> wrote in message [🔎] 46AE4DBA.2070109@debian.org">news:[🔎] 46AE4DBA.2070109@debian.org...
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Hi,

I would like to package [0] a software that contains a file [1] from
unicode.org.

The copyright / license notice is :
Copyright (C) 1999-2005, ASMUS, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distributed
 under the Terms of Use in http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html.

The license at license [2] isn't a free software license nor does it
complies with the DFSG.

But Sections A.4. says:
Further specifications of rights and restrictions pertaining to the
use of the particular set of data files known as the "Unicode
Character Database" can be found in  Exhibit 1.

That sections is relevant for the file in question, as that section says
it's relevant to files download from a specific path.

Exhibit 1 [3] seems as a free software sections:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
 a copy of the Unicode data files and any associated documentation
(the "Data Files") or Unicode software and any associated
documentation (the "Software") to deal in the Data Files or Software
without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the
Data Files or Software, and to permit persons to whom the Data Files
or Software are furnished to do so, provided that (a) the above
copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear with all copies
 of the Data Files or Software, (b) both the above copyright
notice(s) and this permission notice appear in associated
documentation, and (c) there is clear notice in each modified Data
File or in the Software as well as in the documentation associated
with the Data File(s) or Software that the data or software has been
modified.

And the question - do you think I can include the file in Debian. The
reason I'm not sure, is the whole mess regarding the non-free license
and its free section.



My undertsnading is that the first notice allows you to use the terms of the second notice to distribute that file. The second notice appears to be similar to the expat licence, and does indeed look free to me.

It does seem odd that even the second notice appears to refer back to the main notice via the link. However, I'm reasonably confident that the Unicode Consortum intends for "EXHIBIT 1" to be the entire licence agreement for the data files. At the very least, "Exhibit 1" alone seems to grant all needed rights, and the reference to the main terms of use document is only part of the copyright statement, and is not part of the actual terms.

I would prefer if Unicode would clarify this, but I personally would not be concerned about it.

IANAL, IANADD.



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