Hi fellow devs, I acknowlege that I sometimes do things in inappropriate ways unintentionally, and I accept the consequences of my fault. And this time I did something unprofessional, leaking messages from -private without asking for permission first. I was wrong. Sorry for that. Mo. On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 05:54:23AM +0000, Mo Zhou wrote: > Hi fellow devs, > > I think sometimes the DFSG has been over-interpreted. Here I'm talking about > the recent REJECTion of src:smartdns from our NEW queue, where QR code pictures > used for donation have been deemed DFSG non-free [1]. I'm not satisfied with > the explanation, and I think there is over-interpretation on DFSG. > > I poked ftp-master about this problem: > > <lumin> spwhitton: I'm quite confused about REJECTION of src:smartdns. Why can > the QR code pictures for software author to receive donations be DFSG-nonfree? > > And I got the following explanations: > > <spwhitton> lumin: IIRC that was not the only reason for REJECT. Otherwise I > would have PRODded. > > <ScottK> lumin: An image of a QR code wouldn't be the preferred form of > modification. They are usually generated from something. If the file it was > generated from isn't present and the tool to generate it isn't in Debian, then > it can't be shipped. Requiring preferred form of modification is one area > where Debian is often stricter than licenses due to DFSG. > > The pictures we're talking about are: > > * https://salsa.debian.org/debian/smartdns/-/blob/master/doc/alipay_donate.jpg > * https://salsa.debian.org/debian/smartdns/-/blob/master/doc/wechat_donate.jpg > > "alipay" and "wechat" are the top-2 domination payment platforms in Chinese > market. And the two QR code pictures are generated from the corresponding > APPs by the upstream author. The whole software project is licensed under > GPL-3 and the QR codes are used for receiving donations. > > Why are they non-free? > > Treating this files as non-free could lead to further problems. > > 1. If I stripped the donation codes from the source. > I believe such behaviour is **unethical**. > > 2. If I decoded the QR code and replaced them with the underlying URLs. > There is no Chinese user who pay through URL instead of QR code. > > 3. If I stripped the donation codes but re-generated them during the package > build process. > "Oh damn, this QR code does not look like the original one and the hashsum > mismatches. Has the Debian developer forged the QR code to be evil?" > I mean there will be doubt if the distributed QR code is not byte-to-byte > equivalent to the one distributed by upstream author. > > Is a QR code for donation really DFSG non-free? Is DFSG over-interpreted in > this case? How should package maintainers deal with QR codes ethically? > > [1] The package has been REJECT'ed for two reasons: > 1. "doc/*_donate.jpg are probably not DFSG-free" > 2. Missing copyright information for "package/luci-compat/tool/po2lmo/src/*" > There is no problem with the second point. This mail only talks about the first point.
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