Re: fbpdf license doubt

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Riley Baird <BM-2cVqnDuYbAU5do2DfJTrN7ZbAJ246S4Xix@bitmessage.ch>
writes:

> There has been some discussion on the debian-mentors list about
> copyright and we'd like to get advice from debian-legal.

First, for anyone else reading: note that ‘debian-legal’ is a good forum
for getting advice, but not for official pronouncements.

An official decision on the license of a Debian package cannot come from
a discussion here; official decision-makers are not bound by anything we
say here.

> The original message (not written by me) is below.
[…]
> ----
>
> Hello!
>
> I personally use fbpdf pdf-viewer. I packaged it for myself,
> but I have some doubts about including it in Debian Archive.
>
> First, it have no LICESNSE file, only main source file mention
> modified BSD. I twice mailed author, but seems that he ignored my
> request to add full-fledged LICENSE file.

The Debian Project should ideally have, not only license terms, but an
explicit grant of license. Without that, there is reasonable doubt about
whether in fact the recipient actually has any license in the work.

This is best done by a statement such as:

    This is ‘fnordlib’. This work is free software: you are free to
    perform, modify, and/or reproduce this work, under the terms of the
    Apache License 2.0. See the file ‘LICENSE.ASF-2’ for exact terms.

This makes clear:

* What work is being referred to (“fnordlib”).

* Explicit intention to free the work (i.e. to grant freedoms from what
  copyright and other laws would normally restrict).

* Exactly what actions, normally reserved to the copyright holder
  (“perform, modify, and/or reporoduce this work”), may be done by the
  recipient of the work.

* Exactly what license terms (“the terms of the Apache License 2.0”) the
  recipient must comply with to perform those actions.

* Exactly where in the content of the work itself (“the file
  ‘LICENSE.ASF-2’”) to find the license terms, so they accompany the
  license grant.

Without such an explicit grant of license, there's no strong reason to
consider the mere inclusion of a file ‘LICENSE.ASF-2’ as constituting an
actual grant of license in the work to anyone.

So, you may have success by asking for a simple explicit statement like
that.


Less than ideal, but still feasible, is to get an explicit, unambiguous
grant of license – again, being precise as to which work and which
license terms are being granted – in an email correspondence with the
copyright holder.

The email message (with full header and body) can be included in the
Debian package to demonstrate provenance of the statement, and the text
of the license grant can be extracted for inclusion in the
‘debian/copyright’ file.


Absent an explicit written grant of license in the work, written by the
copyright holder and explicitly granting the same license to all
recipients, you'd be on rather less secure ground to say the package is
free software.

There are certainly packages already in Debian which lack these, but the
FTP masters bear the burden of making a judgement in each case. It's
best to make their job less risky, by working to obtain explicit grant
of license in the work.

-- 
 \      “If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.” —George |
  `\                                                            Carlin |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney