Quoting Francesco Poli (2019-12-14 17:22:09) > On Sat, 14 Dec 2019 14:01:18 +0100 Baptiste BEAUPLAT wrote: > > > On 12/14/19 1:03 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > > > A rich collection of Free license fulltexts is relevant, not only > > > for our users to pick from (even on a lonely island) and copy into > > > new development project, but also as reference e.g. for testing > > > license checkers. > > > > > > What is _not_ helpful in my opinion, however, is yet another > > > manually curated selection of random license texts. What I see > > > generally useful is to package this: > > > https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML > > > > That looks like a great list to package. I'll need input on the > > repository license status from the legal team as it could be > > ambiguous > > I would be extremely cautious before including license texts as > content to be shipped by a Debian package. > > A number of license texts are not themselves licensed under DFSG-free > terms. > > And Debian promises to remain 100 % free, see [SC] #1. Any content of > a Debian package (in main) must be free according to the DFSG. > > [SC]: <https://www.debian.org/social_contract> > > License texts are usually [considered] the sole exception, but I think > the exception only applies when the license text is included in the > package *for the sole purpose* of documenting the legal terms under > which some part of the package is released. > I don't think the exception may also apply when the license text is > the *actual payload* of the package (for instance, a package shipping > the text for CC-by-nc-nd-v1.0, when nothing in the package itself is > released under that license). > > [considered]: <https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/06/msg00299.html>
That's an interesting view. Several packages now in Debian main contain license fulltexts without those licensing terms being applied at all to the project covered by that package. Examples: * licensecheck - includes license fulltexts in its testsuite * libsoftware-license-perl - purpose of project is to emit licenses I have several times discovered projects shipping with e.g. GPL-3 but nothing in the project was licensed under that license. I find it highly likely that there are plenty of such cases still in Debian - including ones where the "stray" license contain a non-modification clause (which I guess is the most likely non-Freeness in license fulltexts. Are all such packages in violation of DFSG? - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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