--- Begin Message ---
- To: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
- Cc: 475376@bugs.debian.org
- Subject: Re: Bug#475376: Source package contains non-free IETF RFC/I-D
- From: Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org>
- Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:24:18 +0200
- Message-id: <874pa9derh.fsf@mocca.josefsson.org>
- In-reply-to: <200804100813.50325.jgoerzen@complete.org> (John Goerzen's message of "Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:13:49 -0500")
- References: <871w5dkhea.fsf@mocca.josefsson.org> <200804100813.50325.jgoerzen@complete.org>
John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
> On Thu April 10 2008 7:45:33 am Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> Severity: serious
>> Package: pygopherd
>> Version: 2.0.17-0.1
>> User: debian-release@lists.debian.org
>> Usertags: nonfree-doc rfc
>>
>> Hi!
>>
>> This source package contains the following files from the
>> IETF under non-free license terms:
>>
>> pygopherd/_darcs/current/doc/standards/rfc1436.txt
>> pygopherd/doc/standards/rfc1436.txt
>
> Are you sure?
>
> That file states:
>
> Status of this Memo
>
> This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
> not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is
> unlimited.
>
> It does not bear an IETF copyright, either.
>
> This does not appear to be the license that the linked resources complain
> about, and in fact they state that older RFCs appear to be DFSG-free.
Hm, I checked more carefully, and it seems RFC 1436 was published during
the (legally interesting) time frame after the US signed the Berne
convention (1989) and before the IETF started adding copyright notices
and adding a license.
The older RFCs referred to by that link, that may be in the public
domain and thus acceptable, are those published before 1989.
So RFC 1436 can thus not be claimed to be in the public domain since it
was published after 1989. Right?
Thus, it needs to have a copyright notice and be released under a
DFSG-compatible copyright license.
I don't think the above license is DFSG free, but I can't find a
discussion about it. It doesn't look like a copyright license at all to
me, and in particular doesn't grant you the right to make modified
copies. Maybe we could bring it up on debian-legal?
Thanks for quick reply!
/Simon
--- End Message ---