Thanks Linus, glad you like it. I am not aware that Debian restricts the content that programs can download or calculate. For example a regular web browser downloads copyrighted non-CC content all the time. And it shows you ads in order to finance its development. I would argue that our model is less intrusive, since the user is not disturbed or distracted at all.
But you are right, the package description could be more explicit (instead of just saying so in the man page). How about adding this text: "The videos downloaded and displayed by Electric Sheep are Creative Commons licensed (a mixture of CC-BY and CC-BY-NC). Some jobs rendered by the network may be for images or animations which are not sheep at all, and will not appear in the screen-saver. Some of these are used for commercial purposes in order to support the developers and servers that make the software." ? On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 7:03 AM, Linus Lüssing <[email protected]> wrote: > > Package: electricsheep > Version: 2.7~b12+svn20091224-1.1 > Severity: important > > Hi, > > Thanks for maintaining the electricsheep package in Debian. It works > great for me and I really love it. The idea behind it is great, > those animations are stunning! > > However I'm currently wondering whether there might be issues with > the legal status of electricsheep and the Debian guidelines, maybe making > it unsuitable for Debian main. As I'm not certain and not that familiar > with the Debian legal side, I'd be curious about your thoughts on this. > > What electricsheep currently does by default (correct me if I'm wrong): > * It downloads flam3 "genome" data and videos from a server. > * The machine generated flam3 data is CC-BY-NC, human generated flam3 data > is CC-BY licensed, the video files are all CC-BY-NC licensed > (according to http://electricsheep.org/reuse). > * Sometimes even non-CC, plainly copyrighted data is downloaded onto the > machine and rendered according to the manpage > ("Some jobs rendered by the network [...]") and the website. > > I'm wondering whether the following things are violations of Debian policies > (at least for Debian main): > * The downloaded, CC-BY-NC licensed data. > * The downloaded, plainly copyrighted data for the hidden extra > rendering jobs. > * The hiden extra rendering jobs in general. > * The missing license information for the downloaded flam3 and video files > (neither does the executable nor the Debian installation process > enforce/inform about the CC license) > * Movies (ak. sheep) rendered and uploaded by the user are CC-BY-NC and > attributed to "Scott Draves and the Electric Sheep" according to > http://electricsheep.org/reuse - without neither the executable nor the > Debian installation process ever asking for the user's consent to these > license terms for movies rendered by this user. > * The one-sided CC-BY-NC enforcement (i.e. Scott Draves can use any > electricsheep rendered by anyone for commercial purposes, but no one else > effectively can - I know, according to his forum posts on electricsheep.org > those sales are being used to keep electricsheep servers and development > running and I believe him, that he's making use of this advantage in the > best interest of the community and I definitely think he'd deserve an > advantage like that for all his work on this awesome project, but > unfortunately this process is again not transparent) > > > Let me know what you think, whether some of these points are valid or > not and what the implications for the electricsheep package in Debian > would be. If there are any valid issues making it non-compliant with > Debian main then I hope that we can sort these out as anything else > would be a loss for both the Debian and electricsheep project in my > opinion. > > > Cheers, Linus > > > -- System Information: > Debian Release: wheezy/sid > APT prefers unstable > APT policy: (500, 'unstable') > Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) > > Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores) > Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) > Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash > > Versions of packages electricsheep depends on: > ii curl 7.25.0-1 > ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.42 > ii flam3 3.0.1-2.1 > ii gconf2 3.2.3-4 > ii libatk1.0-0 2.4.0-2 > ii libavcodec53 5:0.10.2-0.2 > ii libavformat53 5:0.10.2-0.2 > ii libavutil51 5:0.10.2-0.2 > ii libc6 2.13-27 > ii libcairo2 1.12.0-2 > ii libexpat1 2.1.0~beta3-2 > ii libfontconfig1 2.8.0-3.1 > ii libfreetype6 2.4.9-1 > ii libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 2.26.0-2 > ii libglade2-0 1:2.6.4-1 > ii libglib2.0-0 2.32.0-3 > ii libgtk2.0-0 2.24.10-1 > ii libjpeg-progs 8d-1 > ii libpango1.0-0 1.30.0-1 > ii libxml2 2.7.8.dfsg-7 > ii mplayer 3:1.0~rc4+svn20120324-0.0 > ii xloadimage 4.1-17 > ii zlib1g 1:1.2.6.dfsg-2 > > electricsheep recommends no packages. > > electricsheep suggests no packages. > > -- no debconf information > > > -- www.ScottDraves.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
