Re: Debian chroot (main apt source list) inside a GPL v3 Android app
Apps Embedded writes ("Debian chroot (main apt source list) inside a GPL v3 Android app"):
> We have developped an open-source Android app based on a Debian wheezy
> chroot.
>
> This Android app licence is GPL v3.
>
> Because licence compatibility could be a nightmare, we would like to verify
> that debootstrap a minimum install of Debian wheezy and using it as
> binaries in our open-source app is really GPL v3 compatible.
This list can give you general suggestions, but I'm afraid we can't
help much with the the details. This list isn't capable of (a) giving
legal advice or (b) granting licensing permissions.
> You will find attached our script to create the minimum Debian Wheezy
> rootfs with some added packages from the "main" apt source list.
If you want to check that your app is distributable under GPLv3, what
you need to do is check that each and every included part has a
GPLv3-compatible licence.
So you should go through the included packages and check each
package's licence individually. Some of the packages will follow
DEP-5 [1] which may make it possible to automate part of this task.
Even if (which is unlikely) anyone here will want to do the necessary
legwork, you probably ought not to rely on that. You will probably
want to do the checking yourself.
Note that you will also need to publish the scripts which you use to
build the app.
You may find that you want some kind of licence-checking software
which can work with DEP-5 format copyright files. I haven't searched
for such software but someone has probably written at least some of
the parts you might want.
Perhaps someone on this list can give some specific pointers.
If you end up writing further software then I'm sure the Debian
Project would want to include it in our distribution. I'd be happy to
help with that and perhaps sponsor it. Please let me know.
Regards,
Ian.
[1] http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5/
https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
Reply to: