On Sat, 2020-09-12 at 15:44 +1000, David Bannon wrote: > Yes, I understand that. However, LCL Packages usually have no existence > outside the Lazarus IDE. IIRC the Lazarus IDE has a way to do command-line builds, this came up in the TomboyReborn RFS #964087. Is TomboyReborn the same thing as tomboy-ng? Do we need multiple Tomboy rewrites in Debian? > Sorry, unsure of what you mean here. Depending on how you read it (strictly or with implications), the license either does or does not allow modifications (DFSG item 3). A license that depends on how you read it is an unclear license. An unclear license is dangerous since you cannot know what the author meant to allow. If you cannot know what the author meant then you cannot be sure you are allowed to do what the unclear parts say. If you think you are allowed to modify the code but the author does not and then you modify the code, the author could sue. Personally I would be fairly uncomfortable with relying on such a license. There are such unclear licenses in packages in Debian, but usually they come with a clarification via email about the intent of the clauses. https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines In a recent case of this sort of thing that I discovered, I concluded that the license was intended to cover modification, but only after one of RedHat's lawyers clarified how they dealt with this case. https://bugs.debian.org/963103 https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/a8259f8fb4348c790076ffcaf8721ecba7c714a3.camel@debian.org https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/CAKTje6GYyvHYVo0RVo-4BsLcOofR2zn3e-0SGmtEgR7+j7wtPw@mail.gmail.com Also, based on Daniel Hakimi's mail, it sounds like the KControls author may have illegally changed the license, since there is no indication in the commit message that they got approval from all the copyright holders and looking at the git history there are a couple of other contributors other than Tomas Krysl, but OTOH their contributions don't appear to be large so maybe they aren't copyrightable. > Paul, I wonder if we can talk about the "should"s and the "must"s ? I > really have no control over TK's license. If its unacceptable, then > thats what it is. At some time in the future, its just possible i will > use RichMemo instead but until then, this approach is the only one open > to me. When it comes to unclear licenses, there is no should vs must, there is only a murky zone where you cannot know anything correctly. Which way to go really depends on the interpretation of the person reading the license. I'm not a member of the Debian ftp-master team so I cannot really predict which way they will go as the reject FAQ does not mention unclear licenses. https://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html -- bye, pabs https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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