Sorry about the huge post everyone, but ...
I am having a bit of trouble communicating with some upstream
people about debian policy. They want to go in "main", but are not up on
the meanings and names of sections and so forth in debian. The package
is pdl, an extension to perl for number crunching. It has a chance of
developing into the best package of its kind. I'd like to see it succeed.
Unfortunately, I can't find the policy spelled out explicitly in
the Debian Policy Manual.
The license I am currently looking at is as free as GPL, except
that it prohibits printing the documentation in a book without permission.
As I said, I can't find this addressed anywhere in the debian docs. It
should probably be explicitly addressed. The motivation on the part of
the pdl authors is Tom Christianson's story of finding
"some book out there with a hacked-up version of this material
in it claiming to be written by someone else." I did a reasonably
careful scan of a concatenation of all of the copyrights,
(/usr/doc/*/copyright (but only packages installed on my system, which is
a bunch) ) . I couldn't find any packages in "main" with restrictions on
copying docs, other than sometimes the restriction against modifying or
misrepresenting or omitting authors' names. In particular, the license
from perltoot, makes restrictions of this kind. The file
/usr/perl/doc/copyright does not mention this, although perltoot is a
component of the "perl" package.
Christian Schwarz already opined that the pdl license is too
restrictive for main.
My questions are: where does pdl belong ? Where does perltoot
belong ? If perltoot stays in main, would a modification of the pdl
license to bring it in line with that of perltoot allow pdl to go into
main ?
My favorite solution would be for an authoritative board to make a
decision, because I have a meeting with my advisors at the end of the
week, and can't afford any more time !
Thanks for your patience....
The relevant excerpts from documents are reproduced below:
From http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
version 2.3.0.1, 21 October 1997 Copyright 1996,1997 Ian Jackson and
Christian Schwarz.
...
3.Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must
allow them to be distributed under the same terms
as the license of the original software.
4.Integrity of The Author's Source Code
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in
modified form only if the license allows the
distribution of ``patch files'' with the source code for the purpose
of modifying the program at build time. The
license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from
modified source code. The license may require
derived works to carry a different name or version number from the
original software. (This is a compromise. The
Debian group encourages all authors to not restrict any files, source
or binary, from being modified.)
...
>From "man perltoot"
24/Oct/97 perl 5.004, patch 04
I really hate to have to say this, but recent unpleasant
experiences have mandated its inclusion:
Copyright 1996 Tom Christiansen. All Rights Reserved.
...
permission is granted to
freely distribute verbatim copies of this document
provided that no modifications outside of formatting be
made, and that this notice remain intact. You are
permitted and encouraged to use its code and derivatives
thereof in your own source code for fun or for profit as
you see fit. But so help me, if in six months I find some
book out there with a hacked-up version of this material
in it claiming to be written by someone else, I'll tell
all the world that you're a jerk. Furthermore, your
lawyer will meet my lawyer (or O'Reilly's) over lunch to
arrange for you to receive your just deserts. Count on
it.
from "man pdl" (still on master in Incoming, destined for unstable
distribution)
Copyright (C) Karl Glazebrook ([EMAIL PROTECTED]),
Tuomas J. Lukka, ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Christian
Soeller ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 1997. Commercial
reproduction of this documentation in a different format
is forbidden.
G John Lapeyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Tucson,AZ http://www.physics.arizona.edu/~lapeyre
