Re: Why we must ship at least some licenses (was: Manoj, ...
Hi,
>>"Marcus" == Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:
Marcus> Hello,
Marcus> On Sun, Aug 16, 1998 at 05:30:47PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
Marcus> I quote the GPL for you:
Marcus> " 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
Marcus> source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
Marcus> conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
Marcus> copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
Marcus> notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
Marcus> and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
Marcus> along with the Program."
Marcus> [Note the last sentence. This applies to source code only, but later:]
Note that there is no requirement to give the copyright in the
same tar file, or the same .deb file, or even bundled in together.
We are required to give the copyright to them. And give we
shall. It is right out there in /usr/doc/copyright/. If that is not
good enough, it is there in the base-files package.
Still not good enough? I shall make it a personal goal to
ensure that the verbatim section carries copies of all popular
licenses, so they are available to people who download single
packages.
Marcus> We can only enforce it if we ship the license with the
Marcus> package. If you want to be clever about this, I'll not follow
Marcus> you, as I think this is not only asking for legal problems
Marcus> but also bad for the reputation of Debian.
Marcus> It was not agreed upon the question if the verbatim section
Marcus> should be an integrated part of Debian at all. There have
Marcus> been people supporting it and people who didn't think it
Marcus> should be (beside me and you).
>> Books are copyrighted too. What was the last tiem you say a
>> license on a paperback?
Marcus> According to my dictionary, a paperbook is a "book with a
Marcus> thin cardboard cover". I don't see what this has to do with
Marcus> the current topic, but I have seen quite a few paperbacks
Marcus> with a copyright inside.
It says copyright such and such, all rights reserved. No
license under which the book reaches your hands.
>> We distribute the licese as a courtesy. And even that is
>> satisfied as long as the license exists on the system
Marcus> I don't think so. From the BSD:
Marcus> "2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
Marcus> notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
Marcus> documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution."
We do that. It is in the distribution. We follow the letter of
the law.
>>
>> Saying I create mischief? That my views on laws are
>> disgusting?
Marcus> This is my personal opinion, basing on what you said
I don't give a damn if you are calling me names based on your
own darned opinion. Name calling is na,e calling.
Marcus> about (not) shipping copyrights along the software. At least
Marcus> the licenses "GPL", "LPGL" and "BSD" require us to ship the
Marcus> license with the software.
And we do not have to ship them in the same .deb file. You
made that requirement up. Stick to the facts, please.
We ship the licenses in the distribtuiotn. The licenses are
available on every debian system The licenses are on all our
archives. The law is not being broken, despite your claims to the
contrary.
>> >> And I say we should not have the exception even for copyright
>> >> documents. They should be in the verbatim section, on another CD, but
>> >> in an required package, and with all indications that they are an
>> >> integral part of Debian.
>>
>> Integral part of debian.
Marcus> This doesn't work. The license has to come with the software
Marcus> (maybe not for all licenses, but at least for the GPL, LGPL
Marcus> and the BSD).
Wrong again, Marcus. Wrong again. You really should read what
the document says, not what you want it to say.
Marcus> Even assuming this would not be true I'd still object making
Marcus> the verbatim section an integral part of Debian just to put
Marcus> the copyright licenses there.
Objections with no grounds are useless.
Marcus> Debian does ship source packages and binary packages,
Marcus> too. Everyone can download a binary package, and will not get
Marcus> the copyright. This is a misconception.
>>
>> So what? No law reqiores that the copyright is bundled in. And
>> /usr/doc/package/copyright should trell them where they can
>> get it from.
Marcus> The copyright itself requires it, at least the GPL, LGPL and
Marcus> the BSD. The Artistic license does not seem to make it a
Marcus> requirement, and I didn't checked other licenses.
Incorect. The recipeient merely has to be given the
licenses. We do give every Debian user the licenses, and we make the
license available to everyone else, whether or not they download our
software.
Marcus> The "verbatim" section was not about the copyrights of the
Marcus> software we ship, but was about other immutable
Marcus> documents. You choose to extend the discussion to copyrights
Marcus> as well, and so far I have not heard any voice supporting you
Marcus> in this opinion.
>>
>> And I have heard none supporting you either.
Marcus> Sure. Well, I'm not going into "body-count" here, the
Marcus> participation in the discussion was not high enough to
Marcus> measure the opinion of the majority.
What majority? Jules is the only one presenting a reasonably
balanced summary. And look at what he says. There have been no other
participants for the last dozen or so rounds.
>> >> I shall leave the debian-devel list alone, and uninvolved in
>> >> this debate after this message. Read the archives of debian-policy if
>> >> you are interested in this issue.
>>
Marcus> This is a very serious issue. A copyright is not the funny
Marcus> little text you ignore anyway. It is the only thing that
Marcus> grants our rights.
>>
>> You keep repeating that non-sequitor. Do you really understand
>> what we are talking about? Yes, the copyright is what gives us teh
>> right to distribute. It, however, does not need be bundled in with
>> every piece of software that is covered by it.
Marcus> Actually, yes I know what we are talking about. And it seems
Marcus> that I read the copyrights more carefully than you. The GPL,
Marcus> LGPL and BSD license make it a requirement to ship the
Marcus> license with the source and the executable. I didn't checked
Marcus> other, not so common copyrights.
No, you don't. You extrapolate what you want them to
say. Never does anyone require things be in the same .deb file, or
the same.tar file. They say same distribution, at best, and we do
that. Every single Debian system has the licenses.
You wish we are in violation, but we are not.
>> Alrteady we guarantee that /usr/doc/sopyright/* exist on every
>> Debian system. That goes above and beyond the call of law.
Marcus> This is not enough, I'm afraid. We are not only distributing
Marcus> complete systems. We are also distributing single packages.
Semantically, that is debatable. You may download single a
package,but if you report a bug with none of the other packages
present, you shall be told that without the Debian system, the
package alone is not supported.
We do not support a machine that does not have the essential
packages.
So, we also shall provide the licenses unbundled in the
verbatim section.
manoj
--
How much net work could a network work, if a network could net work?
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
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