Sorry, no more RC bugs for non-free data in main (was: Bug#385115: chromium-data: Unclear license for some files)
OK, you win, I will not continue with this. Do whatever you want with the bug.
I'm sending this message to debian-legal, in case other people care.
On 8/30/06, Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
For all you've said up to this point, the sound files being used could be in
the public domain; in which case the only controlling copyright is that
governing the packaging and support files.
OK, so I take files from the web and put them on packages. They could
be in public domain, so there is no problem unless someone find that
they are not, uh?
I think it is silly. Copyright does not work this way. Something
should be treated as copyrighted unless clearly stated it is under
public domain.
That they are unknown to *you* is not grounds for an RC bug claiming that
upstream is distributing files illegally.
And they are unknown to upstream. AFAIK, upstream does never claim
that those files are under artistic license nor under public domain.
It is not me. Why it is this so difficult to understand?
If you're going to claim that the license on these sounds is not what
upstream and the packaging claim it is, the burden of proof lies with you.
Again, upstream does not claim he is copyright holder, and license for
them is not specified. He only claims that he took the files from
other sources. Even if the files are free, credit should be provided,
and the origin clarified. As a positive example, look at this package
(monsterz-data), it is a example of someone who has taken the time to
correctly provided credits and copyright information for the included
wav files:
/usr/share/doc/monsterz-data/copyright
To put all copyrights and references in detail for code and data can
be boring, but omitting them makes no favor to free software. Please,
note that including source code for data files is a different issue.
This is about copyright problems on Debian main archive.
I'm getting tired of all of this. There are still an important number
of packages that carry unlicensed data with them, but I WON'T CONTINUE
reporting bugs. Believe it or not, I have lots of more exciting things
to do than searching for copyright problems and reporting them on my
free time. And instead of people helping me to solve the problems and
make Debian a better product, I got negative responses saying the
problem is myself.
Defending my position each time takes a lot of time (English is not my
native language and my level of English is rather poor). Things I'm
reporting are obviously not allowed by current Debian guidelines, so
justifying and fighting for them each time is a waste of my time.
If most people here thinks that we should not care about this, I would
prefer that guidelines to be updated in consequence, so people who
really care about this kind of copyright issues would know before
choosing to use Debian. So Debian will remain 100% free unless we got
sort of time for the next release, or something taken from the web is
public domain unless someone demonstrate that it is not...
So do not expect myself to give any more of my time to this. And you
can downgrade the priority again or even close the bug if you want, I
do not mind anymore.
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