Bug#597202: ITP: kstars-data-extra-tycho2 -- Contains the Tycho2 star catalog for centralized install, avoiding per-user install
Hi,
First of all, please first note there is an informal policy for Stars data
catalogues which is available in the 'stardata-common' package (more info at
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/stardata-common/). We already provide some
star data catalogues (Gliese and Yale which are both non-free) in Debian
and we should strive to follow the same rules for any star data catalogues
we provide.
> Actually kstars offer each user to download some data, from the net, which
> causes bandwith and disk waste (See #596007). I will package one of those
> datafiles (one of the catalogs) to avoid that, and I want to package the
> remaining afterwards.
If you are packaging datfile it would be best if they follow the policy above
so that other astronomy packages (stellarium, stardata, etc.) can use them.
This means using the original (unmodified) files and providing scripts/tools
(which probably the Kstars team has developed) to convert them into files
usable for other software.
> * Package name : kstars-data-extra-tycho2
> Version : 1.1r1
> Upstream Author : Akarsh Simha, Jason Harris <kstars-devel@kde.org>
The 'upstream authors' of the Tychos2 catalog are not some KDE developers
(with all my respect to their work). Please see
http://www.astro.ku.dk/~erik/Tycho-2/ From
http://www.astro.ku.dk/~erik/Tycho-2/Tenyears.eml the autors are E. Høg,
C. Fabricius, V.V. Makarov, S. Urban, T. Corbin, G. Wycoff, U. Bastian,
P. Schwekendiek, and A. Wicenec.
> * URL : http://edu.kde.org/kstars/downloads/tycho2_mag_12.5-1.1.tar.bz2
The URL for the upstream catalog is not correct. This is the URL for the
files distributed by KDE which are maybe *not* the original files.
> * License : GPL
This license is *not* the license the Tycho2 catalog was distributed with
10 years ago (8th february 2000). It might be worth clarifying with
Erik Høg, original author of the catalog from the Niels Bohr Institute
under which license this catalog can be distribued.
Please note that other catalogues distributed by international
organisations (ESA, NASA) have had a 'please do not modify these files'
strings attached and have thus fallen into non-free (see gliese and
yale catalogues).
> Programming Lang: N/A
> Description : Contains the Tycho2 star catalog for centralized install, avoiding per-user install
If the package provides the Tycho2 star data catalogue it should provide the
*original* catalogue as available in
http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/catalogs/tycho2.html and not a "pre-cooked" file
for kstars. If it provides a pre-cooked file for kstars then it should note
it.
As for the license, I do not agree with the license you set up for this
package. If you review http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/myqcat3?I/259/, the
Tychos star data catalogue files are certainly *not* GPL. There is no mention
to the license the catalog can be used with in the README file, and certainly
there is no mention to the GPL. As such, it can only be considered
'non-free'.
Actually, I believe that the fact that the catalog is not provided *within*
the kstars program is certainly because it is not considered free.
Please review the licensing status of the original data files before you make
an upload of this package to Debian.
If you are interested in astronomy packages, I encourage you to subscribe to
the stardata-common-devel mailing list to seek assistance on how to
(properly) package star data catalogues in Debian.
Regards
Javier
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