Re: Legal status of Audacity in releases newer than Bullseye
jorkanofaln@tutanota.com writes:
> To who it may concern
>
> As you know the audacity project has been recently acquired by musegroup. Since then there have been a series of changes impacting Audacity. One such change is that telemetry has been included in newer versions of audacity no the one currently in the Debian repository for Bullseye and Sid (version 2.4.2), and has a requirement which both violates the GPLv2 license, the GPLv3 license as well as the Debian Free Software Guidelines. There has been a fork, which removes the questionable code, which can be found here: https://github.com/cookiengineer/audacity. Here is the github issue thread explaining the license violation issue with regards to the privacy policy: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213 What is the plan going forward, after the release of Debian 11 (since version 2.4.2 is unaffected by the licensing isuse) in regards to Audacity in the Debian package repository? Should this GPL2 violation be reported, if so to what organization? How will it impact the audacity package in bullseye-backports, bookworm as well as newer versions?
>
> Looking forward towards your answers
>
> Regards
>
> Jorkano
Here is some additional details.
Two key issues with Muse Group's new privacy policy for Audacity are the
on by default telemetry and that Audacity can no longer be used for any
purpose contradicting freedom 0.
# On by default telemetry
On by default telemetry is being introduced to Audacity. The on by
default telemetry collects IP address information, system information
and Audacity version information.
<https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1225#discussioncomment-967178>
<https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1225#discussioncomment-966782>
<https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/>
# Freedom 0
Audacity can no longer be used for any purpose. Section 3 of the Muse
Group's new privacy policy for Audacity
<https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/> says:
> 3 Minors
>
> 1 The App we provide is not intended for individuals below the age
> of 13. If you are under 13 years old, please do not use the App.
This age restriction contradicts freedom 0.
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html>
> The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose
> (freedom 0).
This age restriction also contradicts Audacity's GPL version 2 license
<https://github.com/audacity/audacity/blob/master/LICENSE.txt> which
says:
> The act of running the Program is not restricted
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