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Consultation on license documents

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  Consultation on license documents 刘涛 <liut@nipc.org.cn> - 2023-03-17 14:20 +0100
    Re: Consultation on license documents Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2023-03-17 15:00 +0100
      Re: Consultation on license documents Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> - 2023-03-17 19:30 +0100
        Re: Re: Consultation on license documents 刘涛 <liut@nipc.org.cn> - 2023-03-18 04:30 +0100
          Re: Re: Consultation on license documents Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2023-03-18 08:50 +0100
          Re: Re: Consultation on license documents Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> - 2023-03-18 09:00 +0100
            Re: Re: Consultation on license documents <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2023-03-18 10:10 +0100
    Re: Consultation on license documents davidson <davidson@freevolt.org> - 2023-03-17 17:30 +0100

#13233 — Consultation on license documents

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Hello, I have the following questions to consult and look forward to your authoritative answers.
1. Must various software packages in the Debian community contain a license file "license.txt"? Without this file, how does the users know about the license usage of the package?
2. I found that each software package has a "Copyleft" document, and a lot of license information is also listed in this document. Therefore, I would like to ask, when the two documents "license.txt" and "Copyleft" exist in the software package at the same time, which one should the user take as the basis, and how to deal with the situation where the declared license information of the two documents is inconsistent, Which shall prevail?
3. If the software package only contains "Copyleft" documents, can users refer to the license information declared in this document?

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#13234

On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 09:05:21PM +0800, 刘涛 wrote:
> 1. Must various software packages in the Debian community contain a license file "license.txt"? Without this file, how does the users know about the license usage of the package?

Each package must contain a file named "copyright" which contains the
license(s) which apply to that package.

On an installed system, these are in the /usr/share/doc/PKGNAME/
directories:

unicorn:~$ ls /usr/share/doc/libc6
changelog.Debian.gz  copyright       NEWS.gz           README.hesiod.gz
changelog.gz         NEWS.Debian.gz  README.Debian.gz

> 2. I found that each software package has a "Copyleft" document, and a lot of license information is also listed in this document. Therefore, I would like to ask, when the two documents "license.txt" and "Copyleft" exist in the software package at the same time, which one should the user take as the basis, and how to deal with the situation where the declared license information of the two documents is inconsistent, Which shall prevail?

The term "copyleft" is used by GNU (specifically Richard Stallman, I
believe) to describe the GNU General Public License (GPL).  I've never
seen that term used in any other context.  It's certainly not the name
of any file present in Debian packages at large.

> 3. If the software package only contains "Copyleft" documents, can users refer to the license information declared in this document?

Again, the license(s) are in the "copyright" files, one per package.

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#13236

Greg Wooledge dijo [Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 09:36:26AM -0400]:
> > 2. I found that each software package has a "Copyleft" document,
> > and a lot of license information is also listed in this
> > document. Therefore, I would like to ask, when the two documents
> > "license.txt" and "Copyleft" exist in the software package at the
> > same time, which one should the user take as the basis, and how to
> > deal with the situation where the declared license information of
> > the two documents is inconsistent, Which shall prevail?
>
> The term "copyleft" is used by GNU (specifically Richard Stallman, I
> believe) to describe the GNU General Public License (GPL).  I've never
> seen that term used in any other context.  It's certainly not the name
> of any file present in Debian packages at large.

The term might have been _coined_ by Richard Stallman, but is quite
used throughout the Free Software communities. Any license which (as
the GPL does) requires all further distributions of derivatives of the
original work under the same terms (particularly for software,
including full sources and the right to modify them) are termed
copyleft in general; non-code licenses such as the Creative Commons
(share-alike variants) are also copyleft licenses.

> > 3. If the software package only contains "Copyleft" documents, can
> > users refer to the license information declared in this document?
>
> Again, the license(s) are in the "copyright" files, one per package.

Right. I would add to your initial explanation that, having a
/usr/share/doc/PKGNAME/copyright, having any other files installed as
part of a binary package with licensing details can be considered a
bug, and only /usr/share/doc/PKGNAME/copyright should be considered
authoritative in a Debian system.

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#13238

Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I originally wanted to say that every software package in Debian will have a "copyright" document, but the input method was mistakenly typed as copyleft. Because I found that every package in Debian will have a "copyright" document, but not every package has a "license.txt" document. So I want to confirm that we users want to know the license usage of the software package, which document should prevail. In addition, when the license information declared in the two documents is inconsistent, how should we deal with it, and which document shall prevail.

"Gunnar Wolf" <gwolf@debian.org>写道：
> Greg Wooledge dijo [Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 09:36:26AM -0400]:
> > > 2. I found that each software package has a "Copyleft" document,
> > > and a lot of license information is also listed in this
> > > document. Therefore, I would like to ask, when the two documents
> > > "license.txt" and "Copyleft" exist in the software package at the
> > > same time, which one should the user take as the basis, and how to
> > > deal with the situation where the declared license information of
> > > the two documents is inconsistent, Which shall prevail?
> >
> > The term "copyleft" is used by GNU (specifically Richard Stallman, I
> > believe) to describe the GNU General Public License (GPL).  I've never
> > seen that term used in any other context.  It's certainly not the name
> > of any file present in Debian packages at large.
> 
> The term might have been _coined_ by Richard Stallman, but is quite
> used throughout the Free Software communities. Any license which (as
> the GPL does) requires all further distributions of derivatives of the
> original work under the same terms (particularly for software,
> including full sources and the right to modify them) are termed
> copyleft in general; non-code licenses such as the Creative Commons
> (share-alike variants) are also copyleft licenses.
> 
> > > 3. If the software package only contains "Copyleft" documents, can
> > > users refer to the license information declared in this document?
> >
> > Again, the license(s) are in the "copyright" files, one per package.
> 
> Right. I would add to your initial explanation that, having a
> /usr/share/doc/PKGNAME/copyright, having any other files installed as
> part of a binary package with licensing details can be considered a
> bug, and only /usr/share/doc/PKGNAME/copyright should be considered
> authoritative in a Debian system.

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#13239

Quoting 刘涛 (2023-03-18 03:49:34)
> Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I originally wanted to say that every software package in Debian will have a "copyright" document, but the input method was mistakenly typed as copyleft. Because I found that every package in Debian will have a "copyright" document, but not every package has a "license.txt" document. So I want to confirm that we users want to know the license usage of the software package, which document should prevail. In addition, when the license information declared in the two documents is inconsistent, how should we deal with it, and which document shall prevail.

Some projects include a file intended to cover the whole project
(typically located in the root folder) containing only a general license
and nothing else (no copyright statements).
Such a file has no legal effect over other files from simply being
present in the project.  To have effect over other files the project
need to have its copyright holders *grant* a license.

Some projects include a file intended to cover the whole project
(typically located in the root folder) where someone claims to hold
copyright and state that they as copyright holder *grant* certain
license over all or some portion of the project.  This affects those
other files that the statement is about.  If multiple copyright claims
and/or multiple license granting statements, then only the licensing
granted by the copyright holder has effect - i.e. if same copyright
holder grants multiple licenses then possibly (depending on wording)
*either* of those licenses apply, free of choice for each user, but
since only a copyright holder has the right to grant a license, if
someone claims copyright over a whole project but parts of the project
in reality was relicensed from someone else then only that someone else
had the right to license their parts.

If unclear who owns what and/or who granted what, then beware that legal
rules are different from math and logic: In the end copyright and
licensing statements are *intents* and their legal effect is only
certain when tried in a courtroom (and even then may be tried again with
potentially different legal interpretation in another courtroom for same
or another legal jurisdiction).

Common rule of thumb is that the most narrow statements have effect.

So if you have a code project with a bunch of code files, and one file
LICENSE.txt containing the GPLv3 licensing text and nothing else, and
another file COPYING.txt that says the equivalent o "I, Jonas, claim
to be the owner of creative works within this code project, and I grant
anyone the rights to use and copy and modify what I control the rights
over, by the legal principles of the Apache-2.0 general public license"
then that project is licensed as Apache-2.0 and *not* as GPL-3.

But if that same project, in addition to those two text files, also
within each code file contains a statement that I, Jonas, am copyright
holder and grants the rights of BSD-3, then those files are licensed as
BSD-3.  If nothing else in the project is copyright-protectable, then 
the project is dual-licensed as *either* BSD-3 *or* Apache-2.0 (but
still as GPL-3 because that license only *exist* but nothing in the
project has been *granted* those rules that it represents).

If instead, in addition to my copyright claim and Apache-licensing of
the project as a whole, the copyright holder of each and every
copyright-protecable file within the project was someone else, then my
claim had no effect over those files, and in reality the project would
be licensed as BSD-3 (not as Apache-2.0).

Standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, so only use my input here as
inspiration but seek a lawyer if you want legal certainty.


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/
 * Sponsorship: https://ko-fi.com/drjones

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private

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#13240

[ Dropping the Cc: to debian-user@lists.debian.org - Please don't
  cross-post if you can avoid it! That is, please don't send the same
  mail to multiple mailing lists ]

刘涛 dijo [Sat, Mar 18, 2023 at 10:49:34AM +0800]:
> Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I originally wanted to say that every
> software package in Debian will have a "copyright" document, but the
> input method was mistakenly typed as copyleft. Because I found that
> every package in Debian will have a "copyright" document, but not
> every package has a "license.txt" document. So I want to confirm
> that we users want to know the license usage of the software
> package, which document should prevail. In addition, when the
> license information declared in the two documents is inconsistent,
> how should we deal with it, and which document shall prevail.

My first answer to this question was "/usr/share/doc/PKGNAME/copyright
is authoritative and should prevail", but on a second thought, I must
agree with Theodore Ts'o, who rightfully said:

    I am not a lawyer, and even if I were a lawyer, I am not *your*
    lawyer, so I am not in a position to give legal advice.  If you
    want an authoratative opinion, you will need to find a lawyer who
    is willing to give you formal legal advice, and they will very ask
    to be paid in order to give you that opinion.

So... There is no one-size-fits-all answer here.

But if you find a /usr/share/doc/PKGNAME/copyright document being
inconsistent with a license.txt file (or with any licensing header
included as part of any of the files, or whatever like that), please
file it as a high-severity bug!

Greetings,

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#13241

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On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 10:47:46PM -0600, Gunnar Wolf wrote:

[...]

> My first answer to this question was "/usr/share/doc/PKGNAME/copyright
> is authoritative [...]

> agree with Theodore Ts'o, who rightfully said:
> 
>     I am not a lawyer, and even if I were a lawyer, I am not *your*
>     lawyer [...]

> So... There is no one-size-fits-all answer here.

Starting with the little dirty detail that copyright legislation and
the ways it's applied varies wildly across the world.

Even Ted Ts'o's quote above is something you'll mostly hear in the US
context, since the kinds of legal hot waters you may find yourself by
posing as a lawyer, giving legal advise as a non-layer or advising a
non-customer will vary in temperature by country. The US seems to be
particularly hot in that area :-)

Cheers
-- 
t

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#13235

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On Fri, 17 Mar 2023 刘涛 wrote:

> Hello, I have the following questions to consult and look forward to
> your authoritative answers.
[OP's legal questions elided]

   Legal issues
   https://www.debian.org/legal/

   The mailing list for Debian legal matters is

     debian-legal@lists.debian.org

   To subscribe, send a message with the word "subscribe" as the
   subject to

     debian-legal-request@lists.debian.org

   or use the mailing list subscription web page:

     https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/

   The list is archived at the list archives [available at url above].

-- 
Ce qui est important est rarement urgent
et ce qui est urgent est rarement important
-- Dwight David Eisenhower

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