Re: Inclusion of PDF with CC Attr 3.0 license

[Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org>]

Le Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 04:38:06PM -0700, Walter Landry a écrit :
> Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> > My personal view is that there would be no problem shipping the PDF,
> > even though Debian's users would have no practical ability to modify
> > this PDF.  Making a modified version of a scientific paper like this
> > one is neither useful, nor, unless especial care is taken, ethical.
> 
> As someone who reads and writes papers, this is not true.  Reusing
> figures for talks and other papers is immensely useful.  Copying the
> LaTeX for an equation can also be quite helpful.  This paper has both
> of these elements.  It is not like it is hard to add the attribution
> required by the license.

Hi all

definitely, when the source is LaTeX, it is tempting to ask the authors or the
publisher if they can provide it.  Indeed, the document discussed here was
produced from a latex source.

	pdfinfo gmd-7-225-2014.pdf 
	Title:          
	Subject:        
	Keywords:       
	Author:         
	Creator:        copernicus.cls
	Producer:       pdfeTeX-1.303
	CreationDate:   Wed Jan 29 10:06:49 2014
	Tagged:         no
	UserProperties: no
	Suspects:       no
	Form:           none
	JavaScript:     no
	Pages:          17
	Encrypted:      no
	Page size:      595.276 x 785.197 pts
	Page rot:       0
	File size:      1329711 bytes
	Optimized:      no
	PDF version:    1.4

But let's also consider the extra work demanded to the authors and package
maintainers.  In some case, perhaps quite frequently, the final action taken
will be that the package maintainer will remove the PDF from the package,
because the author and the publisher will favour the solution that is zero work
to them.  But I would also argue, it is zero gain for the user.  These PDFs are
available on line, so deleting them puts no pressure on the ecosystem to force
the authors to request that the publisher share their build system and then
integrate them in their sofware package.

So my personal point of view is that shipping the PDF in the source package is
harmless, shipping it in a binary package is close to useless, and we should
let the package maintainer chose the solution that he finds most suitable.

Have a nice day,

Charles

-- 
Charles Plessy
Debian Med packaging team,
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan