Re: RFS: spim
On Monday 19 October 2009 3:42:31 am Ben Finney wrote:
> Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> writes:
> > On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>
wrote:
> > > This grants no permission to redistribute. What license from the
> > > copyright holder does the Debian project have to redistribute this
> > > in ‘non-free’?
> > >
> > > If the answer is “nothing explicit”, then the default copyright
> > > restrictions prevent the Debian project from redistributing the work
> > > at all.
> >
> > Looks like a Debian person contacted him about this a long time ago:
> >
> > http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/non-free/s/spim/current/copyri
> >ght
> >
> > IMO, the statement isn't particularly clear and I would not want
> > Debian to rely on it.
>
> Not only that, it isn't an explicit statement from the copyright holder
> at all; it's someone else reporting in their own words:
>
> Note: James Larus has clarified his license in regards to how it
> relates to packaging and redistribution. He welcomes the packaging
> and redistribution via other media, as long as his copyright is
> retained and source code is distributed.
>
> That's far from what we normally require: explicit written license in
> the copyright holder's own words.
>
> > I'd suggest that upstream should provide a clear statement for
> > debian/copyright that Debian (and Ubuntu) is allowed to distribute
> > spim. It is a shame he refuses to change the license to something free
> > (as mentioned on IRC). If he has a PGP/GPG key to clearsign the
> > statement with, that would be good too.
>
> Perhaps the copyright holder doesn't realise that, if he grants
> additional permissions that “welcome packaging and redistribution”, that
> *is* changing the license (at least, the license as received by Debian).
> The license terms become a union of what he's initially written plus
> that extra permission statement.
Being not on the DL mailing list I don't know if there's been any movement. I
talked to Larus (CC'd here) about it and he said he'd be willing to send a
statement directly to the list.
--
Mackenzie Morgan
http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com
apt-get moo
Reply to: