Re: Bug#669356: electricsheep unsuitable for Debian main?
Linus,
So, it's my opinion that there are two core requirements for
free software: the license needs to be free and the whole work
must be included. What follows is my personal opinion, and
I'm not a lawyer, a representative of Debian Legal, or providing
any sort of legal advice.
Whole Work
----------
If the software is completely usable without _requiring_
specific non-free parts for its operation, then you've got
the whole work. It is the users' right to mix or use the
work in any way they wish, including with proprietary content
files that may be downloaded.
On Fri, Apr 20, 2012, at 02:42 AM, Linus Lüssing wrote:
> However as far as I know the electricsheep package currently
> heavily relies on non-free content to function properly which
> could make it unsuitable for Debian main.
Providing the user the ability to cause the software to download
and use non-free resources on a website is quite fine, so long as
the screen saver's software would completely work as the user
might expect without requiring those non-free resources.
If the work is effectively crippled without the connection to
their proprietary content, then they've not licensed the whole
work so as a matter of policy, I'd prefer partial-works not be
included in Debian. In this case, it's not uncommon for someone
to fork the (incomplete) GPL'd work, remove non-free (CC licensed)
parts and contribue a working free software program. The authors
should know this is a real possibility by using the GPL license.
> > "The videos downloaded and displayed by Electric Sheep are Creative
> > Commons licensed (a mixture of CC-BY and CC-BY-NC). Some jobs
> > rendered by the network may be for images or animations which are not
> > sheep at all, and will not appear in the screen-saver. Some of these
> > are used for commercial purposes in order to support the developers
> > and servers that make the software."
I don't see the point.
In my personal opinion, if the web-browser analogy holds (that
Electric Sheep is a "browser" for screen saver videos), then
this should be unnecessary. In this case, the user would have
the ability to configure where it could get additional screen
saver materials at their own discretion.
Free License
-------------
What is meant by "sheep generated by the algorithem" on the
http://electricsheep.org/reuse page? Are these content files
that are downloaded? If so... is there any value to the software
besides connecting to a proprietary website?
If not, and the automatically generated sheep are part of the
whole work that is being licensed, there is a conflict between
what this "clarification" page and standard GPL license they use.
If they mean to restrict the output of their program such that
it is under the by-nc, then their license should have a non-free
term with this restriction, in which case, their software isn't
free (or even open source). It definately isn't GPL licensed.
Otherwise, if they intend to license their program under the
terms of the GPL, then the output of this program is unencumbered
and they should remove their "clarification" comment about "sheep
generated by the algorithem" since it is incorrect.
I hope this helps. This stuff can be complex so I'm sure others
may have a different take on it.
Best,
Clark
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