Re: License review: tarsnap

Simon Josefsson <[email protected]> Wed, 05 Feb 2025 09:30:01 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.legal
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Michael Lustfield <[email protected]> writes:

> On Tue, Feb 4, 2025 at 5:29 PM Simon Josefsson <[email protected]> wrote:
>> "Andrew M.A. Cater" <[email protected]> writes:
>> > On Tue, Feb 04, 2025 at 11:58:00PM +0100, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> > Packaging the software for Debian amounts to modification: minimal
>> > modification but modification anyway. That presumably means we
>> > can't distribute it at all, even in non-free.
>>
>> Thanks for your thoughts.
>>
>> Why would packaging software in Debian necessarily amount to
>> modification of it?
>
> This creates gray area, especially when you consider something like
> d/patches (or sed+d/rules). Adding the packaging directory is
> technically a modification of your source directory. You can try to
> keep it separate, but that's not how our build tools work and then
> you're getting into spirit of the law stuff.
>
> You can make a case for non-free, but then you'll definitely want to
> look into the packaging history of truecrypt. They actually included
> their own debian/ directory, making it a clear license violation to
> touch anything inside.

That's not the case here, as far as I can tell, and Truecrypt
maintainers were uncooperative to Debian 'non-free' inclusion which is
also unlike the situation for tarsnap.  What similarity do you see?

I don't understand the objection that 'non-free' works has to be
modifiable.  We have 'non-free' works that are not modifiable by Debian.
We even have ship binaries that cannot be modified.  As far as I
understand, doing so is exactly one of the purposes of the 'non-free'
section.

Compare the randomly picked PAML license of 'seq-gen' from non-free:

https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//non-free/s/seq-gen/seq-gen_1.3.4-2_copyright

There is no permission to distribute modified versions, only for copy
and use:

 The software package is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. In no
 event shall the author or his employer be held
 responsible for any damage resulting from the use of this software, including
 but not limited to the frustration that you may
 experience in using the package. The program package, including source codes,
 example data sets, executables, and this
 documentation, is distributed free of charge for academic use only. Permission
 is granted to copy and use programs in the
 package provided no fee is charged for it and provided that this copyright
 notice is not removed.

/Simon
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