Bruce - fiat required to end discussion on lyx/copyright ?
Bruce, if you feel it is appropriate, I'd like you to use your magic
fiat power to end the discussion about lyx, contrib, and so forth, by
endorsing the appropriate part of the new policy manual. I've
attached a copy below.
According to that part lyx, all the Motif packages and the compress
installer need to go in contrib because of their dependency (at build-
or run-time) on non-free software.
Alternatively, if noone objects to this message proposing a sensible
different _policy_ rather than that we should make an exception I'll
take it that what I've written there is agreed by the project.
Ian.
2. Package copyright
--------------------
Please study the copyright of your submission *carefully* and
understand it before proceeding. If you have doubts or questions,
please ask.
The aims of the policy detailed below are:
* That any user be able to rebuild any package in the official
Debian distribution from the original source plus our patches.
* That we make available in our packaging formats as much software
as we can.
* That it be easy for people to make CDROMs of our distribution
without violating copyrights.
All packages in the Debian distribution proper must be freely useable,
modifiable and redistributable in both source and binary form. It must
be possible for anyone to distribute and use modified source code and
their own own compiled binaries, at least when they do so as part of a
Debian distribution.
Packages whose copyright permission notices (or patent problems) do
not allow distribution and copying for profit, without restriction on
the amount charged, or where distribution is restricted according to
the medium used, or where the distributor must ask any kind of special
permission of the authors, or with other onerous conditions, may only
be placed in the semi-supported non-free section of the Debian FTP
archives. This is important so that CDROM manufacturers can distribute
Debian without having to check the copyright of each package
individually, simply by leaving out the contents of the non-free area;
CDROM distributors are encouraged, though, to check the copyrights on
programs in non-free individually and include as many as they can.
Packages whose copyright permission notices (or patent problems) allow
only distribution of compiled binaries (and thus of which only
binaries are available), or where the source code which may be
distributed is not the complete source code required to compile the
program (ie, the program cannot be compiled using only packages in the
main Debian distribution), or which depend for their use on non-free
or contrib packages, or allow free use only for a trial period
(shareware), or are demonstration programs lacking vital functionality
(crippleware), or are only installer-packages which require the user
to supply a separate file to be installed, or which fail to meet some
other policy requirements, may only be placed in the semi-supported
contrib section of the Debian FTP archives (unless they need to be in
non-free - see above).
Programs whose authors encourage the user to make donations are fine
for the main distribution, provided that the authors do not claim that
not donating is immoral, unethical, illegal or something similar;
otherwise they must go in contrib (or non-free, if even distribution
is restricted by such statements).
Packages whose copyright permission notices (or patent problems) do
not allow redistribution even of only binaries, and where no special
permission has been obtained, cannot placed on the Debian FTP site and
its mirrors at all.
Note that under international copyright law[1] *no* distribution or
modification of a work is allowed without an explicit notice saying
so. Therefore a program without a copyright notice *is* copyrighted
and you may not do anything to it without risking being sued! Likewise
if a program has a copyright notice but no statement saying what is
permitted then nothing is permitted.
[1] This applies in the United States, too.
Many authors are unaware of the problems that restrictive copyrights
(or lack of copyright notices) can cause for the users of their
supposedly-free software. It is often worthwhile contacting such
authors diplomatically to ask them to modify their terms generally, or
specially for Debian. However, this is a politically difficult thing
to do and you should ask for advice on debian-devel first.
When in doubt, send mail to <debian-devel@lists.debian.org>. Be
prepared to provide us with the copyright statement. Software covered
by the GPL, public domain software and BSD-like copyrights are safe;
be wary of the phrases `commercial use prohibited' and `distribution
restricted'.
Every package submission *must* be accompanied by verbatim copy of its
copyright (with the exceptions of public domain packages and those
covered by the UCB BSD licence or the GNU GPL or LGPL; in these cases
simply indicate which is appropriate). This information must be
included in a file installed by the binary package - see subsection
3.2.6, ``/usr/doc/<package>/copyright''.
--
Ian Jackson, at home. ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk + 44 1223 3 31579
General: ijackson@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk Permanent: ijackson@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Churchill College, Cambridge, CB3 0DS. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/iwj10/
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