On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:49:39 +0200 Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo wrote: [...] > On Wednesday 30 June 2010 00:48:45 Francesco Poli wrote: > > > I packaged Aqsis recently: > > > http://packages.debian.org/source/unstable/aqsis > > > > Thank you for doing so: it looks like an interesting tool... > > Actually it was already packaged long ago, I'm just packaging the latest > version since the maintainer has been unattending it for years. This is even more appreciated: in many cases, adopting an (officially or de-facto) orphaned package may be more useful to Debian than packaging new software! At least, IMHO. > > > > I think the key questions here are: > > > > 0) does the plugin itself comply with the DFSG? > > It doesn't have any copyright line, other than: > > # This document is under CC-3.0 Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 > # http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ > # Attribution: There is no requirement to attribute the author. [...] > in RIBaqsis1.6.py Not a good start. Apart from the fact that I don't personally consider CC-by-sa-v3.0 acceptable for Debian main (but ftp-masters disagree, so this is another story...), CC-by-sa-v3.0 is not a recommendable license for interpretable scripts, and anyway, it doesn't look like the comment is talking about the licensing of the script (it seems to talk about a "document"). > > The author as far as I know is from Aqsis Team, everything is released under > GPL or LGPL. I think the Aqsis Team should clarify the licensing of those plugin scripts: who owns the copyright and which license was chosen is not clear to me. > > > 1) does the plugin require anything outside of main for compilation? > > It doesn't seem to need compilation, they're python scripts (or a variant > called "hython"), .bat and .sh scripts... [...] > > 2) does the plugin constitute a secondary feature of aqsis? > > > > I suppose the answer to question number 2 is affirmative, since you say > > that you can disable it, and that it's not that important... > > Sure, the project leader told me also that there would be no problem in > removing it... I personally think that, *if* the licensing is clarified and is found to comply with the DFSG, *then* a small collection of DFSG-free scripts, that (a) do not require anything outside of main during the package build and (b) add a non-core functionality related to a proprietary program may stay in a package distributed in main. At least, this is how I understand the Debian Policy. If anyone knows better, please correct me! Of course, the quickest and easiest solution, until the licensing is clarified, is dropping the scripts from the package... [...] > > Another question, before I forget. > > The debian/copyright file for aqsis > > http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/a/aqsis/aqsis_1.6.0-1.1/a > > qsis.copyright > > > > states: > > | Copyright for 'sdcBMP/d_sdcBMP.cpp' and 'sdcWin32/d_sdcWin32.cpp' under > > | 'tools/displays/' directory: > > | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > | --------- COPYRIGHT > > | > > | Copyright 2000 by Schroff Development Corporation, Shawnee-Mission, > > | Kansas, United States of America. All rights reserved. > > | > > | ********************************************************************* > > | ******* > > | > > | This Display Driver is distributed as "freeware". There are no > > | restrictions on its' usage. [...] > > I cannot see any permission to distribute and/or sell these two files > > (DFSG#1); also, I cannot see any permission to modify (DFSG#3). > > Hence, it seems to me that those two files fail to comply with the > > DFSG, and should consequently be removed from the package, if at all > > possible, or substituted by DFSG-free replacements. > > > > Or am I missing something? > > Well, that was already in the previous 1.2 version of Aqsis that has been in > Debian repositories for years, I didn't put much attention to it. I > understand "freeware" and "no restrictions on usage" and the rest of the > copyright as a generic/lazy way of saying that they don't care about what's > done with them (other than misrepresent them, etc). But you may know > better, since probably similar license issues arose in the past? The term "freeware" is ambiguous at best: different people may mean different things, when they use this word. Also, "usage" does not clearly include activities such as copying/distributing/modifying. The license for those files is at least very unclear. If those files may not be dropped without bad consequences, I think a re-licensing should be asked to the copyright owner(s), or, as I previously suggested, DFSG-free replacements should be searched for. [...] > <mafm> pgregory: also, what happens with the shaders? > <mafm> they're copyright of Pixar :S > > <pgregory> not much we can do about that, if we dont' ship them we're not > compliant. > > <mafm> but under which license are they? > > <pgregory> I don't think Pixar actually specify a license, if they do, I'm > not aware of it. > > <mafm> if they can't be distributed, in example, aren't you in possible > trouble? > <mafm> or they do intend to be distributed? > > <pgregory> they can be distributed, with the copyright intact. > > <mafm> hmm, no problem then > <mafm> copyrights should always be intact anyway :) > Wait, are you saying that a part of aqsis is copyrighted by Pixar and does not even have an explicit permission to redistribute (let alone sell, modify, and all the other important freedoms)? Or am I misinterpreting the conversation you quoted? -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/progs/scripts/pdebuild-hooks.html Need some pdebuild hook scripts? ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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