Re: location of UnicodeData.txt
On Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 03:54:35PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 07:59:00PM +0200, Richard Braakman wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 08:50:10AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > > Heh. There's another:
> > >
> > > miscfiles: /usr/share/misc/unicode.gz
> > >
> > > The current version is Unicode 3.1.1.
> >
> > According to http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.html there's
> > a version 3.2.
> >
> > Hmm, is this file Free? There's a license on that same page:
>
> This is a question for -legal, FYI.
>
> > Limitations on Rights to Redistribute This Data
> >
> > Recipient is granted the right to make copies in any form for
> > internal distribution and to freely use the information supplied in
> > the creation of products supporting the Unicode^TM Standard. The
> > files in the Unicode Character Database can be redistributed to
> > third parties or other organizations (whether for profit or not) as
> > long as this notice and the disclaimer notice are retained.
> > Information can be extracted from these files and used in
> > documentation or programs, as long as there is an accompanying
> > notice indicating the source.
>
> I see no problem with this license as far as it goes, but it doesn't go
> far enough.
>
> There is no permission granted to make modifications (and distribute
> modified versions). (DFSG 3)
So, according to Branden, international standards are supposed to allow
debian the right to modify them and to distribute the modified versions.
Absent said permission, which is hardly ever going to be given, they
must be considered non-free. (This is, of course, logically forthright.)
Moreover, according to the non-free removal proponents, we should not
even distribute the un-modified copies of these files.
Yet, unicode is supposed to be the canonical character encoding scheme
for debian.
Does this mean every unicode text editor belongs in contrib (depends on
something non-free)?
What an interesting anecdote!
Jim Penny
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