At 2023-08-23T15:40:06+0100, Adam Sampson wrote: > "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> writes: > > where are we going to get our fortunes from - where's the canonical > > source now that FreeBSD has gone? > > There is Shlomi Fish's version: > https://github.com/shlomif/fortune-mod/ I've been mulling over whether to take the Debian package native, but re-orienting our upstream may be a better idea. The debian/patches directory of our package is depressingly motley. https://sources.debian.org/src/fortune-mod/1%3A1.99.1-7.3/debian/ > This includes the patches from Debian and other distributors, > along with various other updates to the data files, including removing > some (but certainly not all) of the more obnoxious fortunes. Good, on both counts. I had forgotten that the obnoxious cookie files are already ROT13 encrypted in the source, so the complaint about the source package containing them sounds to me like a case of taking a letter opener to the sealed part of the "adult magazine" warning of offensive content, greedily slicing one's way to access, and then complaining to the 7-11 proprietor that your sensibilities are shocked. (Translation: I'm so old I remember magazines doing this; AARP beckons.) I find Amy Lewis's remarks on the matter, from 1995, noteworthy. https://sources.debian.org/src/fortune-mod/1%3A1.99.1-7.3/Offensive/ > I am a bit dubious about the licensing of some of the original > collection, though, even under the most liberal interpretation of fair > use -- for example, songs-poems contains complete lyrics for several > songs that are certainly still under copyright. But they have also been there for a long, long time--not only, in many cases I am sure, since before commercial access to the Internet was a thing, but before many of the lawyers who might attempt to litigate such claims were born. For situations like this, there are theories of estoppel and the principle of laches. In a nutshell, if you sleep on your rights, you risk giving them up--with respect to particular infringements. This is a U.S.-centric observation, but so is the music publishing rights industry--never diverse, but a tall oligopoly today. > (Although I guess we could now add a complete set of Tom Lehrer!) Thank you for bringing this unalloyed happy news to the thread. :) Regards, Branden
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