[Pkg-crosswire-devel] sword-comm-mhc_1.6-1_amd64.changes REJECTED

[Roberto C. Sánchez]

Hi Thorsten,

The Sword modules are created using the process documented here:

https://crosswire.org/wiki/DevTools:Modules

The Matthew Henry Commentary upon which the Sword module is based is
located here:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc.html

The CCEL text appears to only be available in PDF and TXT formats.  The
CrossWire Wiki documents a process by which the source text is taken,
marked up, converted into the Sword module format, and then compressed.
The compression and module format conversion appear to be reversible.
However, I imagine that the markup process is done by hand and so that
is probably considered a creative work.  Given the process described in
the wiki it seems reasonable to infer that the process begins the Public
Domain TXT source and not any other format.

The module page for the Sword Modue itself is: 

http://crosswire.org/sword/modules/ModInfo.jsp?modName=MHC

I interpret the "Distribution License: Public Domain" on that page to
include the text->compressed module conversion process.  It seems to me
that taking the source in TXT format is explicitly permitted by CCEL and
that the Sword project then places the original along with its additions
into the Public Domain as well.

Would it be sufficient to document in README.source and/or copyright
more details regarding the process by which the module is created?  If
so, would what I described above be adequate or would something
different be necessary?

I suppose that there might be an argument for creating the package from
the original text with markup and then have the package build process
perform the module conversion and compression steps.  However, no other
Sword module in Debian does this and it appears that the Sword project's
preferred form of distribution is the compressed module form.

If you think that it would be better to have the modules build from a
text-based source instead of just taking the compressed modules directly
from the Sword project, let me know.  I can discuss with the team and we
can figure out the appropriate place from which to obtain the sources
and come up with a plan to convert all the existing Sword module
packages to be more suitable from a Debian policy perspective.

Regards,

-Roberto

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 10:00:10PM +0000, Thorsten Alteholz wrote:
> 
> Hi Roberto,
> 
> according to [1] only the .txt files are in the public domain:
>  You may use the plain-text version of any public domain book at the CCEL (files ending in .txt) in any way you please, including republishing it.
>  Other formats may not be copied without permission. You must contact us for permission to republish CCEL works or to use them commercially.
> 
> As your package does not contain any .txt file I am not sure that the 
> license meets the DFSG requirements.
> 
> Thanks!
>  Thorsten
> 
> [1] www.ccel.org/about/copyright.html
> 
> 
> 
> ===
> 
> Please feel free to respond to this email if you don't understand why
> your files were rejected, or if you upload new files which address our
> concerns.
> 

-- 
Roberto C. Sánchez