Bug#192748: Debian WWW Pages License is incompatible with the GNU GPL
On May 12, 2003 at 11:09AM +0200,
Gerfried Fuchs <alfie@ist.org> wrote:
> Our guidelines doesn't enforce being compatible with the GPL. There are
> quite some packages in main that are not compatible with the GPL.
Right. This is my wish, so I set Severity to "wishlist" already.
> > I hope that the Debian WWW Pages will be clearly free
>
> The Debian WWW Pages _are_ free.
The Open Publication License seems to have a problem. It is
similar to the GNU FDL.
In the debian-legal mailing list:
On May 1, 2003 at 11:00AM -0700,
Mark Rafn <dagon@dagon.net> wrote:
> > The Open Publication License (http://opencontent.org/openpub/)
> > v1.0 says:
> > | The publisher
> > | and author's names shall appear on all outer surfaces of the
> > | book. On all outer surfaces of the book the original
> > | publisher's name shall be as large as the title of the work and
> > | cited as possessive with respect to the title.
>
> This would likely not be accepted for software. There's currently some
> debate (heh) on whether documentation can be considered free with this
> kind of restriction and whether there is a category of things that are
> not software which Debian should distribute even if they're not free.
>
> My personal opinion is that this clause makes any work released under
> this license non-free, and Debian shouldn't distribute it.
On May 7, 2003 at 2:41AM -0500,
Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
> On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 11:00:41AM -0700, Mark Rafn wrote:
> > > | The publisher
> > > | and author's names shall appear on all outer surfaces of the
> > > | book. On all outer surfaces of the book the original
> > > | publisher's name shall be as large as the title of the work and
> > > | cited as possessive with respect to the title.
> Hm. I think have said in the past that the OPL was Free if neither of
> its license options were exercised. However the above quoted text from
> the license is not conditional, and is part of all instantiations of the
> OPL.
>
> I hereby retract any previous unequivocal statements I made about the
> OPL's DFSG-freeness when neither license option is exercised.
>
> I am not yet willing to make a new unequivocal statement to replace it.
> My thoughts on this issue will probably hitched to the GNU FDL Cover
> Texts issue, but I need more time to reflect on the subject.
--
Tatsuya Kinoshita
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