Package: povray Version: 1:3.7.0~beta29-1 Severity: serious Justification: Policy 2.3
Today I found that POV-Ray 3.7 is packaged in experimental: http://packages.debian.org/experimental/povray It's also patched to disable the beta expiration: http://patch-tracker.debian.org/patch/series/view/povray/1:3.7.0~beta29-1/80_beta.diff This seems to violate the beta license in *every possible way*. POV-Ray 3.7 betas are released under the normal POV-Ray license (which is non-free according to DFSG) *plus four significant restrictions* not present in final releases: * NOTICE * * This file is part of a BETA-TEST version of POV-Ray version 3.7. It is not * final code. Use of this source file is governed by both the standard POV-Ray * licences referred to in the copyright header block above this notice, and the * following additional restrictions numbered 1 through 4 below: * * 1. This source file may not be re-distributed without the written permission * of Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd. * * 2. This notice may not be altered or removed. * * 3. Binaries generated from this source file by individuals for their own * personal use may not be re-distributed without the written permission * of Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd. Such personal-use binaries * are not required to have a timeout, and thus permission is granted in * these circumstances only to disable the timeout code contained within * the beta software. * * 4. Binaries generated from this source file for use within an organizational * unit (such as, but not limited to, a company or university) may not be * distributed beyond the local organizational unit in which they were made, * unless written permission is obtained from Persistence of Vision Raytracer * Pty. Ltd. Additionally, the timeout code implemented within the beta may * not be disabled or otherwise bypassed in any manner. (taken from one of the source files from the upstream source tarball) The Debian package is redistributing entire source code of POV-Ray 3.7, available through packages.debian.org website and "apt-get source -texperimental povray". This violates clause 1. The extra license restrictions for 3.7 betas are not mentioned in any file in /usr/share/doc/povray, which *I think* may violate clause 2. The Debian package has a patch disabling the beta timeout code, which is only allowed for personal use (according to clause 3), not for wider distribution. In addition, I don't think a Linux distribution counts as an "organizational unit" as mentioned in clause 4; therefore *Debian isn't allowed to redistribute 3.7 betas at all*. (If you don't agree with my reading of "organizational unit", the rest still stands, such that 3.7~beta on debian would have to be binary-only and keeping the expiration code unmodified.) As I was told in debian-legal: If the maintainer for the povray package requested and got a written permission from Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd to avoid any of the four restrictions, it has to be mentioned in the copyright file. Otherwise, the package should be removed from Debian until the final release of 3.7 is available under the usual terms of the POV-Ray license. -- System Information: Debian Release: squeeze/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 2.6.30-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=es_AR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=es_AR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-rc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
