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Bug#1004199: marked as done (rubberband-cli: BSD-4-clause GPL-incompatible (but is it really still 4-clause?))

Your message dated Sun, 23 Jan 2022 11:12:27 +0100
with message-id <Ye0qC/HzFtixGvde@ramacher.at>
and subject line Re: Bug#1004199: rubberband-cli: BSD-4-clause GPL-incompatible (but is it really still 4-clause?)
has caused the Debian Bug report #1004199,
regarding rubberband-cli: BSD-4-clause GPL-incompatible (but is it really still 4-clause?)
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
1004199: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1004199
Debian Bug Tracking System
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--- Begin Message --- 
Package: rubberband-cli
Version: 2.0.0-2
Severity: important

Hello and thanks for maintaining this interesting package.

By reading its [debian/copyright] file, I see that the majority of
the source is released under GPL-2+, but some part of the package is
under different licenses, most notably:

[...]
| Files: src/getopt/*
| Copyright: 2000, The NetBSD Foundation, Inc
|            1987-1994, The Regents of the University of California
| License: BSD-4-clause
[...]

This license includes the infamous "obnoxious advertising clause"
(OAC), which is well known to be incompatible with GPL-2 and GPL-3 .

[debian/copyright]: <https://tracker.debian.org/media/packages/r/rubberband/copyright-2.0.0-2>

Hence, it seems that the package is legally undistributable,
assuming that src/getopt/* gets linked with any part under GPL-2+ ...

This sounds as very bad news.

However, does the BSD-4-clause license really apply to src/getopt/* ?

The copyright holders seem to be

 * the Regents of the University of California, which have dropped
   the OAC back in 1999, as per their public [^statement]

[^statement]: use
  "wget ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.License.Change";
  to get a copy

 * and The NetBSD Foundation, Inc, which have dropped the OAC (along
   with the no-endorsement clause) back in 2008, as stated on the
   [website]

[website]: <https://www.netbsd.org/about/redistribution.html#why2clause>


As a consequence, I wonder whether src/getopt/* can already be considered
effectively relicensed under BSD-3-clause...

Please investigate with upstream and update the debian/copyright file,
once the situation is clarified.

Thanks for your time and dedication!

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
On 2022-01-22 18:30:01 +0100, Francesco Poli (wintermute) wrote:
> Package: rubberband-cli
> Version: 2.0.0-2
> Severity: important
> 
> Hello and thanks for maintaining this interesting package.
> 
> By reading its [debian/copyright] file, I see that the majority of
> the source is released under GPL-2+, but some part of the package is
> under different licenses, most notably:
> 
> [...]
> | Files: src/getopt/*
> | Copyright: 2000, The NetBSD Foundation, Inc
> |            1987-1994, The Regents of the University of California
> | License: BSD-4-clause
> [...]
> 
> This license includes the infamous "obnoxious advertising clause"
> (OAC), which is well known to be incompatible with GPL-2 and GPL-3 .
> 
> [debian/copyright]: <https://tracker.debian.org/media/packages/r/rubberband/copyright-2.0.0-2>
> 
> Hence, it seems that the package is legally undistributable,
> assuming that src/getopt/* gets linked with any part under GPL-2+ ...

The code is not used:

if system == 'windows'
  program_sources += [
    'src/getopt/getopt.c',
    'src/getopt/getopt_long.c'
  ]
endif

Closing as there is nothing to fix.

Cheers

> 
> This sounds as very bad news.
> 
> However, does the BSD-4-clause license really apply to src/getopt/* ?
> 
> The copyright holders seem to be
> 
>  * the Regents of the University of California, which have dropped
>    the OAC back in 1999, as per their public [^statement]
> 
> [^statement]: use
>   "wget ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.License.Change";
>   to get a copy
> 
>  * and The NetBSD Foundation, Inc, which have dropped the OAC (along
>    with the no-endorsement clause) back in 2008, as stated on the
>    [website]
> 
> [website]: <https://www.netbsd.org/about/redistribution.html#why2clause>
> 
> 
> As a consequence, I wonder whether src/getopt/* can already be considered
> effectively relicensed under BSD-3-clause...
> 
> Please investigate with upstream and update the debian/copyright file,
> once the situation is clarified.
> 
> Thanks for your time and dedication!
> 

-- 
Sebastian Ramacher

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