[Pkg-doc-linux-devel] Bug#335220: doc-linux-text: [NONFREE-DOC]
includes non-free documentation
Francesco Poli
frx at firenze.linux.it
Sat Oct 22 16:55:22 UTC 2005
Package: doc-linux-text
Version: 2005.04-1
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 2.2.1
According to the copyright file, some of the included documents
do not comply with the DFSG.
See below for details.
In order to solve these issues, upstream authors of relevant documents
should be got in touch with and asked for a license change.
In cases where this turns out to be impossible or unsuccessful, the
document should be removed from the package (or possibly moved into
an appropriate package for the non-free section).
See <http://release.debian.org/removing-non-free-documentation>
for further information about moving non-free docs out of main.
License issues in detail
------------------------
* Boot+Root+Raid+LILO, Root-RAID-HOWTO
License text is:
| This document is GNU copyleft by Michael Robinton
| [e-mail address].
|
| Permission to use, copy, distribute this document for any purpose is
| hereby granted, provided that the author's / editor's name and this
| notice appear in all copies and/or supporting documents; and that an
| unmodified version of this document is made freely available. This
| document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
| WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, either expressed or implied. While every effort
| has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information documented
| herein, the author / editor / maintainer assumes NO RESPONSIBILITY for
| any errors, or for any damages, direct or consequential, as a result
| of the use of the information documented herein.
This license is vague and lacks explicit permission to modify (and
distribute modified versions of) the document (fails DFSG#3).
Moreover the "unmodified version of this document is made freely
available" condition could be meant to forbid charging for distribution
(depending on how "freely available" is interpreted): can possibly
fail DFSG#1.
I suggest asking upstream to relicense under the GNU GPL (if he wants
a copyleft license, as it seems from the ill-phrased copyright
notice), or maybe under the Expat license
<http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt> (if he prefers a simple
permissive license).
* K7s5a-HOWTO
It's distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons ShareAlike 1.0
Licence (CC-sa-1.0) which does not comply with the DFSG.
See
<http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/04/msg00031.html>
<http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html>
for details on the issues that most debian-legal contributors see in
CC-by*-1.0 and with CC-*-2.0 licenses: several issues hold for
CC-sa-1.0, as well.
* Coffee
This is problematic and questionable, as it seems to use the Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike _summary_ as if it were the actual
_license_ !
But the summary is rather vague and unclear, from a legal standpoint,
A court could even rule that the Debian mirror network
doesn't even have the permission to distribute this document...
Clarification by upstream should be asked for: since upstream
seems to want a copyleft, I would suggest to persuade him to
relicense under the GNU GPL.
* DNS-HOWTO
License text is:
| (C)opyright 1995-2001 Nicolai Langfeldt, Jamie Norrish & Co. Do not
| modify without amending copyright, distribute freely but retain
| copyright message.
This lacks explicit permission to modify: it states "do not modify
without amending copyright" (probably a legal no-op), but it fails
to state that I _have_ permission to modify.
Current copyright laws default to no permission to modify in any
manner (fails DFSG#3).
"Distribute freely" seems to be more a command than a permission:
I'm not an English native speaker, but this doesn't sound like
English legalese...
It seems upstream like simple permissive licenses (assuming
I understand what they wanted to achieve, without actually
succeeding...).
I would suggest to ask them to relicense the document under
the Expat license <http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt>.
* Oracle-8-HOWTO, Reading-List-HOWTO, Wacom-USB-mini-HOWTO
License text is:
| You may use, disseminate, and reproduce this document freely, provided you:
|
| * do not omit or alter this copyright notice.
|
| * do not omit or alter the version number and date.
|
| * do not omit or alter the document's pointer to the current WWW version.
|
| * clearly mark any condensed, or altered versions as such.
|
| These restrictions are intended to protect potential readers from stale or
| mangled versions. If you think you have a good case for an exception, ask me.
This license lacks explicit permission to modify (fails DFSG#3).
Even if this permission is considered indirectly granted (I doubt it could),
the second and third restrictions seem controversial.
My suggestion is: try to persuade upstream to relicense under the
Expat license <http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt>.
* /many, many, many documents/
Many HOWTOs and documents are distributed under the GNU FDL license
(versions 1.1 and 1.2), which does not comply with the DFSG (even when
no unmodifiable&unremovable parts are included).
See
<http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html>
<http://people.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml>
for details on the issues that most debian-legal contributors see in
the GFDL license.
I suggest to try and persuade upstream authors to relicense under
the GNU GPL.
* German-HOWTO
License text is:
| Distribution and use of this document are allowed under the following
| restrictions: The name of the author must not be used to endorse or
| promote products based on the German Howto and modified versions must
| be clearly identified as such.
| Text, illustrations and programs in this Howto were crafted carefully.
| Nevertheless the chance of an error is always there. Because of the
| complexity and the frequent changes of computer systems, the author
| disclaims all warranties with regard to this document, including all
| implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a certain
| purpose; in no event shall the author be liable for any special,
| indirect or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting
| from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract,
| negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in connection
| with the use of this document.
|
| Short: use this Howto at your own risk.
This license lacks explicit permission to modify (fails DFSG#3).
Probably a simple ", with or without modification," before "are
allowed" would suffice to make the license DFSG-compliant, 'cause
it would then read:
: Distribution and use of this document, with or without modification,
: are allowed under the following restrictions: [...]
But the safest way to meet the DFSG is going with a common and
well-known license, such as the Expat
<http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt>.
* Installation-HOWTO
License text is:
| This document is copyright 1998 by Eric S. Raymond. You may use, disseminate,
| and reproduce it freely, provided you:
|
| * Do not omit or alter this copyright notice (you may translate it)
|
| * Do not omit or alter or omit the version number and date.
|
| * Do not omit or alter the document's pointer to the current WWW version.
|
| * Clearly mark any condensed, or altered versions as such.
|
| These restrictions are intended to protect potential readers from stale or
| mangled versions. If you think you have a good case for an exception, ask me.
Once again, this license lacks explicit permission to modify (fails DFSG#3).
Even if this permission is considered indirectly granted (I doubt it could),
the second and third restrictions seem controversial.
My suggestion is: try to persuade upstream to relicense under the
Expat license <http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt>.
* /many, many, many documents/
Many HOWTOs and documents are distributed under the default LDP
license (v2.0).
Currently there's no clear consensus among debian-legal contributors
that this license does not comply with the DFSG.
I am personally not happy about clause A.2:
| 2. The person making the modifications must be identified.
since I think it could (and will) be interpreted as a prohibition
to distribute anonymous modifications, but other people disagree.
See <http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/09/msg00503.html>
and the thread that followed, for further details.
* Oracle-7-HOWTO
License text is:
| Like all Linux HOWTO documents, this may be reproduced and distributed
| in whole or in part, in any medium, physical or electronic, so long as
| this copyright notice is retained on all copies.
|
| Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however the
| author would like to be notified of such distributions. You may
| translate this HOWTO into any language whatsoever provided that you
| leave this copyright statement and disclaimer intact, and that you
| append a notice stating who translated the document.
This license lacks explicit permission to modify (fails DFSG#3):
translations into any language is permitted, but not any other
form of modification.
Probably a simple "with or without modification, " before "in any
medium" would suffice to make the license DFSG-compliant, 'cause
it would then read:
: Like all Linux HOWTO documents, this may be reproduced and distributed
: in whole or in part, with or without modification, in any medium,
: physical or electronic, so long as this copyright notice is retained
: on all copies
But the safest way to meet the DFSG is going with a common and
well-known license, such as the Expat
<http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt>.
* NCD-X-Terminal
License text is:
| Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in
| part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this copyright
| notice is retained on all copies.
This license lacks explicit permission to modify (fails DFSG#3).
Probably a simple "with or without modification, " before "in any
medium" would suffice to make the license DFSG-compliant, 'cause
it would then read:
: Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in
: part, with or without modification, in any medium physical or electronic,
: as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies.
But the safest way to meet the DFSG is going with a common and
well-known license, such as the Expat
<http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt>.
* TT-XFree86
License text is:
| Download, copy and redistribute this text freely. If you do any
| changes, please submit them to me, and I will pass them to the LDP, of
| course, credit will be given.
|
| Copyright (c) 2001 by Bartek Kostrzewa
This lacks explicit permission to distribute modified versions:
upstream asks for modifications to be submitted to him (it's a kind
request, not a legally binding requirement), but fails to state that
I have permission to distribute modified versions.
Current copyright laws default to no permission to distribute
modifications (fails DFSG#3).
"Download, copy and redistribute this text freely" seems to be more
a command than a permission: I'm not an English native speaker, but
this doesn't sound like English legalese...
It seems upstream likes simple permissive licenses (assuming
I understand what he wanted to achieve, without actually
succeeding...).
I would suggest to ask him to relicense the document under
the Expat license <http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt>.
* TeTeX-HOWTO
License text is:
| The teTeX-HOWTO is copyright (C) 1997, 1998 by Robert Kiesling.
| Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
| manual provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice
| are preserved on all copies.
|
| Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
| manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that
| the sections entitled, ``Distribution,'' and, ``GNU General Public
| License,'' are included exactly as in the original, and provided that
| the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
| permission notice identical to this one.
|
| Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
| manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
| versions. except that the sections entitled, ``Distribution,'' and,
| ``GNU General Public License,'' may be included in a translation
| approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original
| English. Please refer to Section ``Distribution and Copyright'' for
| terms of copying.
This document includes some sort of invariant sections (that are
unmodifiable and unremovable, in a manner somewhat similar to the GFDL
ones, even if they grant minor exceptions for translations...).
This fails DFSG#3.
Please note that the second invariant section (``GNU General Public
License''), is the text of the GNU GPL license, but it's not
(one of) the license(s) the document may be distributed under.
Its inclusion as unmodifiable and unremovable section makes the
document non-free.
The first invariant section (``Distribution'') is instead a sort of
essay about teTeX's license or something.
I suggest trying to persuade upstream to relicense under the GNU GPL v2,
since he seems to want a copyleft license and clearly wants the GPLv2
text to accompany the document (if the document itself is licensed
under the GPLv2, any redistributor must accompany it with the GPLv2
text!).
Obviously section ``Distribution'' should be removed or made modifiable.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.31
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
-- no debconf information
More information about the Pkg-doc-linux-devel
mailing list