Bug#884228: debian-policy: please add OFL-1.1 to common licenses
On Fri, 29 Dec 2017 at 22:24:23 +0100, Markus Koschany wrote:
> Am 29.12.2017 um 00:06 schrieb Jonathan Nieder:
> > Using 'Files: *' when different files are under different licenses
> > sacrifices precision, but it doesn't sacrifice accuracy. You can say
> >
> > Files: *
> > License: GPL-2 and Permissive-License-1 and Permissive-License-2 and ...
> >
> > Or you can even write
> >
> > Files: *
> > License: Freeorion
>
> Ok I can see the misunderstanding now. The above statement would be
> incorrect for freeorion because it translates to:
>
> You are allowed to use the files under GPL-2 and Permissive-License-1
> and Permissive-License-2 and ...
>
> But this is not true. Not all files are dual/triple/-licensed. Actually
> no file is even dual-licensed.
I think you're confusing this with a disjunction (dual/multi-license),
which is "GPL-2 or Permissive-License-1 or ..." in copyright-format.
"License: GPL-2 and Permissive-License-1 and Permissive-License-2 ..."
means you can only redistribute the file(s) in question if
you simultaneously do everything GPL-2 requires, everything
Permissive-License-1 requires, everything Permissive-License-2 requires,
and so on. In the case of the GPL, in practice that collapses into
"everything GPL-2 requires", unless the file is a GPL violation due to
the other licenses being non-GPL-compatible - but my understanding is
that the ftp team still require us to quote all the licenses, even if
they have no practical effect.
There are a couple of real-world examples of the "and" syntax in
src:darkplaces, where permissively-licensed code was copied into a
GPL-2+ project, resulting in files that are partly GPL-2+ and partly
some permissive license.
> I had to split the game into four digestible pieces (which are in total
> 1.2 GB large). My original idea was to duplicate the copyright file for
> all three data packages but back then this proposal has been harshly
> rejected on debian-mentors (when I wasn't a DD yet) because the
> copyright file would have mentioned files which are not part of a
> specific source package.
For what it's worth, when I discussed splitting openarena-data with the
ftp team (and then uploaded the split parts through NEW), they didn't
object to the copyright files being identical, with each source package
listing some copyright holders and licenses that actually only exist
in the other source packages from the same group.
However, I can see that d-mentors wouldn't like that: people sponsoring
random packages (that they themselves aren't necessarily involved or
interested in) will tend to assume that this particular package doesn't
deserve to be a special case, because 95% of the time it doesn't. Making
pragmatic decisions like "this is not what I'd usually do, but in this
case it makes more sense" requires enough context to understand the
costs and benefits that apply.
smcv
Reply to: