Dear people on the debian-legal ML,below you find part of a discussion that started around freerdp bug #659873. I Cc:ed the list earlier today, but unfortunately had a typo in the mail address.
I'd appreciate some expertise on the discussion in bug #659873 [1]. Please Cc: the bug when replying and also the bug submitter [2]. Thanks!
Greets, Mike [1] http://bugs.debian.org/659873 , mailto:659873@bugs.debian.org [2] mailto:659873-submitter@bugs.debian.org On Mo 01 Sep 2014 12:21:27 CEST, Mike Gabriel wrote:
Hi Peter, On Mo 01 Sep 2014 11:27:18 CEST, Peter Astrand wrote:On Mon, 11 Aug 2014, Mike Gabriel wrote:Dear Peter Åstrand, I am the new maintainer of FreeRDP in Debian.Hi and thanks for giving some feedback on this topic.I have read your bug report and will close this bug due to the following reasons:o the issue needs to be discussed with upstream, not in Debian...We disagree. This issue has already been discussed in length with upstream. It is clear that they have a different position. But in any case: GPL covers distribution. If Debian is distributing GPL software without the correct license tags, this would be GPL violation, regardless of what the upstream project claim.o if all rdesktop lines have been rewritten, then FreeRDP can be considered as new code (I haven't checked the actual rewritten code lines, but in general this is how things are seen in such cases IMHO)No, gradually rewriting the code might not be sufficient. As http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise27.html points out: "Many people have reimplemented computer programs by rewriting them to replace the source code with code of their own writing. There is no reason to believe that this would not be a copyright infringement ... Although there is no case law on this point, it would seem that the only way to break the chain of infringing works is by some extraordinary act, such as a clean room implementation."Apache code is compatible with GPL, so the simple solution for Debian would be to simply mark the FreeRDP package as GPL. This is what we suggest.I have just scanned latest packaged-in-Debian freerdp code [1]. I cannot see any hint about FreeRDP upstream having licensed anything as GPL.You have to consider distribution maintainers (like us Debian maintainers) as some sort of librarians. We take software (books) and place them into the correct shelves and make all the books of the library live well together with each other. Nothing more we do.If you feel that FreeRDP upstream is not using the correct license, talk to them (I guess you already have...) and enrol them into using the license that you feel is more appropriate concerning the history of the FreeRDP code.Once upstream complies to this and mentions another licensing scheme in their code file headers, I as the Debian maintainer of FreeRDP will of course honour that change in debian/copyright.Unless upstream cannot be convinced, there is not much I (or Debian in general, I guess) can do for you. Esp. I as the Debian maintainer of FreeRDP cannot relicense the upstream code under another license. That is beyond my scope as a package maintainer (have you ever seen librarians rewriting pages of some of the books they offer in their library???).I am Cc:-inf the Debian Legal mailing list for further feedback. Maybe we get some more input from there.light+love, Mike
-- mike gabriel aka sunweaver (Debian Developer) fon: +49 (1520) 1976 148 GnuPG Fingerprint: 9BFB AEE8 6C0A A5FF BF22 0782 9AF4 6B30 2577 1B31 mail: sunweaver@debian.org, http://sunweavers.net
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