Re: tomboy-ng package with non standard license.

[Tobias Frost <tobi@debian.org>]

Hi David,

I just responded to the ticket in github:

Let me briefly chime in… I was interacting on the debian-legal thread about
this topic:

	@kryslt it would be very helpful if you could confirm that your interpreation
	of you license also expliclitly allows modification and distribution. 

	Custom licenses are always problematic, because of the know reasons (wetted by
	layers*, compatiblities with other licenses, license proliferation…), so may I
	suggest that you look into some standard licensing and either change it towards
	or possible just dual-license it?  Looking at the license you have currently,
	may I suggest you look into BSD-3-clause?
	(https://choosealicense.com/licenses/bsd-3-clause-clear/) (If this is OK for
	you, I'd be very happy to provide an PR to change the license headers.)

	You write in your README that all files without notice are public domain.
	Please note that PublicDomain is not a thing world wide.  For example, here in
	Germany, a author _cannot_ legally waive its own copyright, so would you mind
	to change this sentence to "If there is none, the code is licensed under CC0."?
	(https://choosealicense.com/licenses/cc0-1.0/ ) It's the PublicDomain
	equivalent, but written to be legally ok worldwide.

	(There is a nice chart at https://choosealicense.com/appendix/ I find very
	helpful)

	* IANAL, but I think your liability clause is too short and "forgets" some
	  case… See the BSD-3

	Thanks for considering! And sorry for possibly annoying you. License stuff is
	unfortunatly boring, but required. We'd like to see your work in Debian through
	tomboy-ng, but the license could be a blocking point. I hope you can help
	untangling it…

	Cheers.  tobi (with his Debian Developer hat on)

Lets see if that helps.

On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 09:37:57AM +1000, David Bannon wrote:
> Hi Folks, time we resolved this question about tomboy-ng and its use of
> the KControls build time library.  Its now ten days since I wrote to TK,
> the kcontrols author, asking if he would consider a more liberal
> license. I have not had an answer and think we can assume I won't get one.
> 
> The known facts -
> 
> tomboy-ng needs the kcontrols source files at build time. Such src
> libraries normally target an IDE and are unsuited to standalone debian
> packaging. So a sunset of kcontrols needs to be shipped with the
> tomboy-ng SRC package.
> 
> kcontrols has a license that while not preventing changes or
> redistribution, it does not explicitly grant permission to do so.
> 
> TK has clearly, on the public record  stated that my proposed use of
> kcontrols is acceptable. This was in answer to a question that stated I
> would use a subset of kcontrols and distribute in a debian SRC package.
> https://github.com/kryslt/KControls/issues/27 - "It is acceptable, thank
> you for asking."
> 
> TK still maintains kcontrols but has made it clear he does not have the
> time to make changes he finds unnecessary.

> tomboy-ng could use an alternative to kcontrols but this would break its
> cross platform commitment. This would gravely affect existing users.
> 
> My question to the debian legal team is "Given TK's clear statement that
> the proposed use is acceptable, but noting the shortcomings in its
> license, would you recommend I abandon this project or not ?"

(You won't get an authoritive answer here, as this is ftp-masters realm)
IMHO the license is border line, and it would be much better if the rights
we care about are explicitly granted. 

-- 
tobi
 
> David
> 
> 
>