Re: RFS: kstars-data-extra-tycho2 (third try)
Hi Noel,
Noel David Torres Taño wrote:
> On Sábado 18 Septiembre 2010 22:38:23 Noel David Torres Taño escribió:
> > Dear mentors,
> >
> > I am looking for a sponsor for my package "kstars-data-extra-tycho2".
> >
> > * Package name : kstars-data-extra-tycho2
> > Version : 1.1r1-1
> > Upstream Author : Akarsh Simha, Jason Harris <kstars-devel@kde.org>
> > * URL :
> > http://edu.kde.org/kstars/downloads/tycho2_mag_12.5-1.1.tar.bz2
> > * License : GPL
Well, as discussed in bug #597202, it's not really clear why the data
would be GPL.
The first question is, was the original Tycho 2 catalogue released in
the public domain (or a GPL-compatible license). The ADC statement
doesn't provide much information in that regard; they say that ADC data
is public domain (but go on to say "for scientific use only", which is
quite contradictory), and although they were distributing the Tycho 2
catalogue, I very much doubt they are the copyright holder (that would
be the ESA). So I think you need to track down the real copyright holder
and make sure the data has indeed no copyright.
The second question (which is only relevant if the original data set is
free) is, did Akarsh Simha and Jason Harris modify this original data
set to an extent that would justify a new copyright (did they create an
original work out of it; simply modify the data format or filtering out
some data is not something that would justify a new copyright). If so,
it should be made clear what they did, and the resulting data set can be
released under the GPL with both of them as copyright holders. If not,
then they are not the copyright holders (and if the original data set is
in the public domain, then no one is), and the upstream license should
not be GPL.
--
Benoît Knecht
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