Bug #13050 “Build-depends on libhowl-dev, which will become non-...” : Bugs : gnome-vfs2 package : Ubuntu

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote on 2005-01-20:

#1

Jeff,

Above and beyond the issue of distributing code without proper license
notices, the APSL 2.0 is not, in the opinion of many (and AFAICT, according
to the consensus of the debian-legal mailing list), a free license under the
DFSG. Although there's been extensive discussion about *which* points of
the license are actually DFSG problems, the questionable clauses are
multiple:

- The copyright license is terminated if you attempt to defend your patent
  rights against Apple.
- The license requires you to publish any local modifications if you deploy
  public services based on the Covered Code, which discriminates against a
  field of endeavour.
- The license includes a choice of venue clause forcing all licensees to
  accept the jurisdiction of the Northern District of California, which is
  discriminatory against persons located outside this district by exposing
  them to unequal legal expense.

Again, while the question of which parts of the license (if any) fail the
DFSG is still somewhat open, the fact is that this license imposes a number
of restrictions on the licensee which are not present in more traditional
Free Software licenses. Now that it's known that this package is licensed
under the APSL and not under a BSD license, I believe it's best to remove
mdnsresponder from the archive until such a time as it's made available
under a different license or there's a clear consensus that the APSL 2.0 is
a DFSG-free license.

If you agree with this assessment but don't have time to clean the source
tree, let me know and I can take a look at doing this for you.

Thanks,
--
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, Matthew Garrett (mgarrett) wrote on 2005-01-20:

#2

Steve Langasek <email address hidden> wrote:

> - The copyright license is terminated if you attempt to defend your patent
> rights against Apple.

It should be emphasised that this is the case if you defend /any/ patent
rights against Apple. It's not limited to software patents, and it's not
limited to patents that you claim are infringed by that given piece of
software. I think this goes too far (but lean towards believing that
termination of patent rights wouldn't be an unreasonable thing for Apple
to do)

> - The license requires you to publish any local modifications if you deploy
> public services based on the Covered Code, which discriminates against a
> field of endeavour.

This clause aims to deal with what is seen by many as a flaw in
traditional copyleft licenses. I don't think it's a terribly convincing
argument in itself - it's no more actively discriminatory than the GPL
("discriminates against people who want to provide closed-source
software"), so the discussion is really whether we want to encourage or
discourage that sort of license.

> - The license includes a choice of venue clause forcing all licensees to
> accept the jurisdiction of the Northern District of California, which is
> discriminatory against persons located outside this district by exposing
> them to unequal legal expense.

But most licenses discriminate against people who don't speak English,
or don't have legal training, or...

Again, in itself, it's not seeking to discriminate. It's clearly not
equivilent to a clause that says "This software may not be used by
employees of arms manufacturers", which is the sort of thing that DFSG 5
was supposed to deal with.

But I agree with your summary. It's not entirely clear that the APSL
contravenes the DFSG, but it's also not entirely clear that it should be
considered a free software license. I think a firm conclusion is going
to have to wait until we actually have a project-wide discussion of how
the DFSG should be interpreted nowadays, especially in the face of
issues that weren't considered when they were written.
--
Matthew Garrett | <email address hidden>

Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:

> - The copyright license is terminated if you attempt to defend your patent
>   rights against Apple.

It should be emphasised that this is the case if you defend /any/ patent
rights against Apple. It's not limited to software patents, and it's not
limited to patents that you claim are infringed by that given piece of
software. I think this goes too far (but lean towards believing that
termination of patent rights wouldn't be an unreasonable thing for Apple
to do)

> - The license requires you to publish any local modifications if you deploy
>   public services based on the Covered Code, which discriminates against a
>   field of endeavour.

This clause aims to deal with what is seen by many as a flaw in
traditional copyleft licenses. I don't think it's a terribly convincing
argument in itself - it's no more actively discriminatory than the GPL
("discriminates against people who want to provide closed-source
software"), so the discussion is really whether we want to encourage or
discourage that sort of license.

> - The license includes a choice of venue clause forcing all licensees to
>   accept the jurisdiction of the Northern District of California, which is
>   discriminatory against persons located outside this district by exposing
>   them to unequal legal expense.

But most licenses discriminate against people who don't speak English,
or don't have legal training, or...

Again, in itself, it's not seeking to discriminate. It's clearly not
equivilent to a clause that says "This software may not be used by
employees of arms manufacturers", which is the sort of thing that DFSG 5
was supposed to deal with.

But I agree with your summary. It's not entirely clear that the APSL
contravenes the DFSG, but it's also not entirely clear that it should be
considered a free software license. I think a firm conclusion is going
to have to wait until we actually have a project-wide discussion of how
the DFSG should be interpreted nowadays, especially in the face of
issues that weren't considered when they were written.
-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, Marco d'Itri (md) wrote on 2005-01-20: Re: Bug#289856: mdnsresponder: Wrong license

#3

<email address hidden> wrote:

>Above and beyond the issue of distributing code without proper license
>notices, the APSL 2.0 is not, in the opinion of many (and AFAICT, according
>to the consensus of the debian-legal mailing list), a free license under the
Where "many" in this context should be read as "an handful of people on
the debian-legal mailing list who invented new rules which are not part
of the DFSG".

>Again, while the question of which parts of the license (if any) fail the
>DFSG is still somewhat open, the fact is that this license imposes a number
>of restrictions on the licensee which are not present in more traditional
>Free Software licenses. Now that it's known that this package is licensed
>under the APSL and not under a BSD license, I believe it's best to remove
>mdnsresponder from the archive until such a time as it's made available
>under a different license or there's a clear consensus that the APSL 2.0 is
>a DFSG-free license.
Do you suggest removing from the archive all packages whose licenses
impose uncommon restrictions or just this one?

--
ciao,
Marco

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, =?iso-8859-1?Q?Lo=EFc?= Minier (lool+debian) wrote on 2005-01-21:

#4

Marco d'Itri <email address hidden> - Fri, Jan 21, 2005:

> Do you suggest removing from the archive all packages whose licenses
> impose uncommon restrictions or just this one?

In this software the problem is two folds, some parts of the software
are clearly free, and some other parts are a fork of some code under
APSL 2. Which leaves two options: rewriting the non-free part, or
splitting in two packages, one for contrib and one for non-free.

I think some software was already built on the libs provided by this
package[1], so it is not trivial at all (indirect dependencies make
some packages depend on it via the shlibs mecanism).

Which makes me wonder whether APSL 2 is acceptable for non-free?

Regards,

[1]
bee% grep-available -FDepends libhowl -sPackage
Package: gnome-terminal
Package: gnome-gv
Package: nautilus-cd-burner
Package: libgnomeui-0
Package: galeon
Package: libhowl-dev
Package: howl-utils
Package: libgnomevfs2-common
Package: gnome-games
Package: epiphany-browser
Package: gnome-pilot
Package: gnome-session
Package: libgnomevfs2-0
Package: libgnomevfs2-dev
Package: totem-xine
--
Loïc Minier <email address hidden>
"Neutral President: I have no strong feelings one way or the other."

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, MJ Ray (mjr-dsl) wrote on 2005-01-21:

#5

Marco wrote:
> <email address hidden> wrote:
> > [...] the APSL 2.0 is not, in the opinion of many (and AFAICT, according
> >to the consensus of the debian-legal mailing list), a free license under the
> Where "many" in this context should be read as "an handful of people on
> the debian-legal mailing list who invented new rules which are not part
> of the DFSG".

Regardless of what you think about the other points, requiring
non-defence of your own patents seems not to follow DFSG 9. Although
I condemn software patents, I know they do exist in some places.

I suspect it really is "many" and not just debian-legal contributors.
Do you really want to argue that software under licences which try to
affect other pieces of unrelated software meets the DFSG?

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote on 2005-01-21:

#6

On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 09:58:21AM +0100, Loïc Minier wrote:
> Marco d'Itri <email address hidden> - Fri, Jan 21, 2005:

> > Do you suggest removing from the archive all packages whose licenses
> > impose uncommon restrictions or just this one?

> In this software the problem is two folds, some parts of the software
> are clearly free, and some other parts are a fork of some code under
> APSL 2. Which leaves two options: rewriting the non-free part, or
> splitting in two packages, one for contrib and one for non-free.

I don't really think it's acceptable to move half of gnome into contrib.
Fortunately, if the package dependencies of libhowl0 are accurate, this
shouldn't be required; mdnsresponder isn't a dependency of libhowl0, only a
recommends: which could in theory be weakened to a suggests:.

You indicated on IRC that the library functionality isn't very useful
without the mdnsresponder package. I think it isn't very useful to a lot of
users even *with* the mdnsresponder package, so I don't think we'd be lying
to ourselves by weakening this to a suggests:.

> I think some software was already built on the libs provided by this
> package[1], so it is not trivial at all (indirect dependencies make
> some packages depend on it via the shlibs mecanism).

> Which makes me wonder whether APSL 2 is acceptable for non-free?

The APSL 2.0 allows free redistribution, and allows us to make the
modifications necessary to maintain the package as long as we publish our
source (which we obviously will). This license would be fine in non-free.

Because the lib would need to stay in main instead of contrib, however, the
source package would still have to be split to allow this.

--
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, =?iso-8859-1?Q?Lo=EFc?= Minier (lool+debian) wrote on 2005-01-21:

#7

Steve Langasek <email address hidden> - Fri, Jan 21, 2005:

> I don't really think it's acceptable to move half of gnome into contrib.
> Fortunately, if the package dependencies of libhowl0 are accurate, this
> shouldn't be required; mdnsresponder isn't a dependency of libhowl0, only a
> recommends: which could in theory be weakened to a suggests:.

Err of course GNOME would have to rebuild gnomevfs and packages built
with the howl enabled gnomevfs.
I never meant to move GNOME in contrib!

> You indicated on IRC that the library functionality isn't very useful
> without the mdnsresponder package. I think it isn't very useful to a lot of
> users even *with* the mdnsresponder package, so I don't think we'd be lying
> to ourselves by weakening this to a suggests:.

I think howl is great and would really do some good to usability in
some programs. But sure, we lived without it in the past.

Bye,

--
Loïc Minier <email address hidden>

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, Jeff Waugh (jdub) wrote on 2005-01-30:

#8

> Above and beyond the issue of distributing code without proper license
> notices, the APSL 2.0 is not, in the opinion of many (and AFAICT,
> according to the consensus of the debian-legal mailing list), a free
> license under the DFSG.

Hi, my apologies for the late response.

After the original report came in, I had a moment of doubt, and went back to
check through the APSL 2.0. I came to pretty much the same conclusion (but I
do think there needs to be some kind of review of the DFSG and commonly used
new licenses, cf. Matthew's reply, yada yada).

Here's what I'm going to do about it:

* Propose that we remove howl from the archive in its entirety. It is not
the most beautiful implementation, and it does not have enormous buy-in
throughout the FOSS community so far (only 31 rdepends in sid atm).

* Talk to the Debian GNOME team about how much pain this will inflict on
them, offer to buy beer for them, etc.

* Make a public statement about howl's removal, in the hopes of inspiring
new, Free implementations to be finished (or written).

"When there's public debate and mass hysteria, that's when the patches
roll in." - Michael Meeks

Thanks,

- Jeff

--
linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australia http://linux.conf.au/

http://www.xach.com/debian-users-are-beatniks.html

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, Browaeys-alban (browaeys-alban) wrote on 2005-02-05:

#9

Hi sorry if i missed th point or came too late.

There are not much zeroconf implementations. Only two aims at
being free. The only alternative is :
http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/Avahi
The project is stalled for monthes.
http://groups.google.fr/groups?q=howl+apple+code&hl=fr&lr=&selm=cm02q7%24o4g%241%40FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw&rnum=1
Or are we talking about multi cast dns only ?

On the other side howl reused apple core (thus the licencing
issue). But the project will replace it as soon as possible.

Also what s wrong with howl implementation of zeroconf ? I agree
that zeroconf itself may not be the best design and is by now way
undorsed by a ieee.

When you are asking to remove howl to wait for a gpl
implementation i guess there is a misunderstanding. Howl is
developped to reimplement apple ASPL licenced version in GPL code.
My bet is if they did not reimplmented the last apple bits,

It is already usable under debian. libhowl is only required for
service to auto publish themselves. An administrator can publish
http, ftp, webdav service by hand even if the applications have
no howl code linked.
http://blog.subverted.net/index.php?p=362
On a network with mac os x services , those are available as is
too.
Then, there are only 31 rdepends but one of them is
gnome-vfs . Gnome 2.6.9 is already heavily using it, from IM applications to
music players, :
http://developer.gnome.org/news/summary/2004_July18-July24.html
http://elysium-project.sourceforge.net/epittance/
http://www.temme.net/sander/mod_zeroconf/
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/11/msg00862.html
From previously mentioned url:
http://groups.google.fr/groups?q=howl+apple+code&hl=fr&lr=&selm=cm02q7%24o4g%241%40FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw&rnum=1
kde is moving to howl too.

If you know of a better alternative, it may have been a good idea
to let gnome developpers know before they finished proting their
plateform to this library.
gnome 2.6.9 is already in experimental. It may be a hard work for
the gnome debian team to patch every upstream releases removing
the howl bits.

What i found this fall was :
- there is only a GPL zeroconf implementation maintained
  It still have apple code but only in the server which is not
  need by applications linking to the library
  This code will be replaced asap
- gnome 2.6.10 will/is using howl extensively

Regarding debians, apple core won't be rewritten before sarge,
there are no news about that since july.

Regards
Alban

Hi sorry if i missed th point or came too late.

There are not much zeroconf implementations. Only two aims at
being free. The only alternative is :
http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/Avahi
The project is stalled for monthes.
http://groups.google.fr/groups?q=howl+apple+code&hl=fr&lr=&selm=cm02q7%24o4g%241%40FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw&rnum=1
Or are we talking about multi cast dns only ?

On the other side howl reused apple core (thus the licencing
issue). But the project will replace it as soon as possible.

Also what s wrong with howl implementation of zeroconf ? I agree
that zeroconf itself may not be the best design and is by now way 
undorsed by a ieee.

When you are asking to remove howl to wait for a gpl
implementation i guess there is a misunderstanding. Howl is
developped to reimplement apple ASPL licenced version in GPL code.
My bet is if they did not reimplmented the last apple bits,

It is already usable under debian. libhowl is only required for
service to auto publish themselves. An administrator can publish
http, ftp, webdav service by hand even if the applications have
no howl code linked.
http://blog.subverted.net/index.php?p=362
On a network with mac os x services , those are available as is
too.
Then, there are only 31 rdepends but one of them is
gnome-vfs . Gnome 2.6.9 is already heavily using it, from IM applications to
music players, :
http://developer.gnome.org/news/summary/2004_July18-July24.html
http://elysium-project.sourceforge.net/epittance/
http://www.temme.net/sander/mod_zeroconf/
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/11/msg00862.html
From previously mentioned url:
http://groups.google.fr/groups?q=howl+apple+code&hl=fr&lr=&selm=cm02q7%24o4g%241%40FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw&rnum=1
kde is moving to howl too.

If you know of a better alternative, it may have been a good idea
to let gnome developpers know before they finished proting their
plateform to this library.
gnome 2.6.9 is already in experimental. It may be a hard work for
the gnome debian team to patch every upstream releases removing 
the howl bits.

What i found this fall was :
- there is only a GPL zeroconf implementation maintained
  It still have apple code but only in the server which is not
  need by applications linking to the library
  This code will be replaced asap
- gnome 2.6.10 will/is using howl extensively

Regarding debians, apple core won't be rewritten before sarge,
there are no news about that since july.

Regards
Alban

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, Jeff Waugh (jdub) wrote on 2005-02-05:

#10

> There are not much zeroconf implementations. Only two aims at
> being free. The only alternative is :
> http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/Avahi
> The project is stalled for monthes.

I am in regular contact with the developer, and tracking its progress.

> Also what s wrong with howl implementation of zeroconf ? I agree
> that zeroconf itself may not be the best design and is by now way
> undorsed by a ieee.

Howl is not a fantastic implementation (see nifd, mDNSResponder problems).

> When you are asking to remove howl to wait for a gpl implementation i
> guess there is a misunderstanding. Howl is developped to reimplement apple
> ASPL licenced version in GPL code. My bet is if they did not reimplmented
> the last apple bits,

Howl is not a GPL reimplementation of Apple's code. It was a direct copy of
early versions, modified to work interoperate with other systems, with a new
BSD-like client library. There was no intention of completely rewriting the
mDNSResponder.

> It is already usable under debian. libhowl is only required for
> service to auto publish themselves. An administrator can publish
> http, ftp, webdav service by hand even if the applications have
> no howl code linked.

It is the mDNSResponder license that is problematic, not the client library.

> If you know of a better alternative, it may have been a good idea to let
> gnome developpers know before they finished proting their plateform to
> this library. gnome 2.6.9 is already in experimental. It may be a hard
> work for the gnome debian team to patch every upstream releases removing
> the howl bits.

It won't be significantly difficult. I'm the GNOME release manager, in close
communication with upstream and the Debian and Ubuntu GNOME teams.

> - there is only a GPL zeroconf implementation maintained
> It still have apple code but only in the server which is not
> need by applications linking to the library
> This code will be replaced asap

There is no fully working GPL implementation. Howl is not GPL.

> - gnome 2.6.10 will/is using howl extensively

It is an optional dependency of gnome-vfs. It is not using Howl extensively.

- Jeff

--
linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australia http://linux.conf.au/

"The Vines are the latest pretenders to the thrown." - Vines review by
liv4now.com

> There are not much zeroconf implementations. Only two aims at
> being free. The only alternative is :
> http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/Avahi
> The project is stalled for monthes.

I am in regular contact with the developer, and tracking its progress.

> Also what s wrong with howl implementation of zeroconf ? I agree
> that zeroconf itself may not be the best design and is by now way 
> undorsed by a ieee.

Howl is not a fantastic implementation (see nifd, mDNSResponder problems).

> When you are asking to remove howl to wait for a gpl implementation i
> guess there is a misunderstanding. Howl is developped to reimplement apple
> ASPL licenced version in GPL code.  My bet is if they did not reimplmented
> the last apple bits,

Howl is not a GPL reimplementation of Apple's code. It was a direct copy of
early versions, modified to work interoperate with other systems, with a new
BSD-like client library. There was no intention of completely rewriting the
mDNSResponder.

> It is already usable under debian. libhowl is only required for
> service to auto publish themselves. An administrator can publish
> http, ftp, webdav service by hand even if the applications have
> no howl code linked.

It is the mDNSResponder license that is problematic, not the client library.

> If you know of a better alternative, it may have been a good idea to let
> gnome developpers know before they finished proting their plateform to
> this library.  gnome 2.6.9 is already in experimental. It may be a hard
> work for the gnome debian team to patch every upstream releases removing
> the howl bits.

It won't be significantly difficult. I'm the GNOME release manager, in close
communication with upstream and the Debian and Ubuntu GNOME teams.

> - there is only a GPL zeroconf implementation maintained
>   It still have apple code but only in the server which is not
>   need by applications linking to the library
>   This code will be replaced asap

There is no fully working GPL implementation. Howl is not GPL.

> - gnome 2.6.10 will/is using howl extensively

It is an optional dependency of gnome-vfs. It is not using Howl extensively.

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australia                http://linux.conf.au/
 
   "The Vines are the latest pretenders to the thrown." - Vines review by
                                liv4now.com

Revision history for this message

In Debian Bug tracker #295775, Jeroen van Wolffelaar (jeroenvw) wrote on 2005-02-18: Re: mdnsresponder: Wrong license

#11

clone 289856 -1 -2 -3
reassign -1 daapd
retitle -1 Build-depends on libhowl-dev, which will become non-free or removed
reassign -2 gnome-vfs2
retitle -2 Build-depends on libhowl-dev, which will become non-free or removed
reassign -3 supercollider
retitle -3 Build-depends on libhowl-dev, which will become non-free or removed
thanks

On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 01:30:53AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> Above and beyond the issue of distributing code without proper license
> notices, the APSL 2.0 is not, in the opinion of many (and AFAICT, according
> to the consensus of the debian-legal mailing list), a free license under the
> DFSG. Although there's been extensive discussion about *which* points of
> the license are actually DFSG problems, the questionable clauses are
> multiple.

So, the 'howl' source package, building the libhowl-dev package amongst
others, will either need to be removed, or moved to non-free. In either
of those two cases, the main packages build-depending on it should stop
doing so.

--Jeroen

--
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
<email address hidden>
http://jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl

Revision history for this message

Debian Bug Importer (debzilla) wrote on 2005-02-18:

#12

Automatically imported from Debian bug report #295775 http://bugs.debian.org/295775

Revision history for this message

Debian Bug Importer (debzilla) wrote on 2005-02-18:

#13

Message-Id: <email address hidden>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:20:33 +0100
From: Jakub Stachowski <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: mdnsresponder: Wrong license

Package: mdnsresponder
Version: 0.9.8-2
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 12.5

*** Please type your report below this line ***
copyright file installed along with mdnsresponder contains standard BSD
license. Hovewer:
1) COPYING file from original source states that portions of code are covered
by APSL 2.0. This is because howl package consists of forked Apple's
mDNSResponder (covered by APSL) and Porchdog's client library covered by BSD
2) mdnsresponder package contains almost only APSL2-licensed code. Therefore
installing BSD license into /usr/doc/mdnsresponder/copyright is completely
wrong.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (50, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.10-rc3eng
Locale: LANG=pl_PL, LC_CTYPE=pl_PL (charmap=ISO-8859-2) (ignored: LC_ALL set
to pl_PL)

Versions of packages mdnsresponder depends on:
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-20 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
an

-- no debconf information

Revision history for this message

Debian Bug Importer (debzilla) wrote on 2005-02-18:

#14

Message-ID: <email address hidden>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 01:30:53 -0800
From: Steve Langasek <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Cc: <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: mdnsresponder: Wrong license

--2Z2K0IlrPCVsbNpk
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Jeff,

Above and beyond the issue of distributing code without proper license
notices, the APSL 2.0 is not, in the opinion of many (and AFAICT, according
to the consensus of the debian-legal mailing list), a free license under the
DFSG. Although there's been extensive discussion about *which* points of
the license are actually DFSG problems, the questionable clauses are
multiple:

- The copyright license is terminated if you attempt to defend your patent
  rights against Apple.
- The license requires you to publish any local modifications if you deploy
  public services based on the Covered Code, which discriminates against a
  field of endeavour.
- The license includes a choice of venue clause forcing all licensees to
  accept the jurisdiction of the Northern District of California, which is
  discriminatory against persons located outside this district by exposing
  them to unequal legal expense.

Again, while the question of which parts of the license (if any) fail the
DFSG is still somewhat open, the fact is that this license imposes a number
of restrictions on the licensee which are not present in more traditional
Free Software licenses. Now that it's known that this package is licensed
under the APSL and not under a BSD license, I believe it's best to remove
mdnsresponder from the archive until such a time as it's made available
under a different license or there's a clear consensus that the APSL 2.0 is
a DFSG-free license.

If you agree with this assessment but don't have time to clean the source
tree, let me know and I can take a look at doing this for you.

Thanks,
--=20
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

--2Z2K0IlrPCVsbNpk
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: Digital signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFB73pKKN6ufymYLloRAiTkAJ9SLB2eX4mydrMP+BMZYi8CkZu+7QCfb5ML
aQDqtgMzhk3dRCqoRX+kYCg=
=ijdy
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--2Z2K0IlrPCVsbNpk--

Message-ID: <20050120093050.GF9785@mauritius.dodds.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 01:30:53 -0800
From: Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org>
To: 289856@bugs.debian.org
Cc: debian-legal@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: mdnsresponder: Wrong license

--2Z2K0IlrPCVsbNpk
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Jeff,

Above and beyond the issue of distributing code without proper license
notices, the APSL 2.0 is not, in the opinion of many (and AFAICT, according
to the consensus of the debian-legal mailing list), a free license under the
DFSG.  Although there's been extensive discussion about *which* points of
the license are actually DFSG problems, the questionable clauses are
multiple:

- The copyright license is terminated if you attempt to defend your patent
  rights against Apple.
- The license requires you to publish any local modifications if you deploy
  public services based on the Covered Code, which discriminates against a
  field of endeavour.
- The license includes a choice of venue clause forcing all licensees to
  accept the jurisdiction of the Northern District of California, which is
  discriminatory against persons located outside this district by exposing
  them to unequal legal expense.

Again, while the question of which parts of the license (if any) fail the
DFSG is still somewhat open, the fact is that this license imposes a number
of restrictions on the licensee which are not present in more traditional
Free Software licenses.  Now that it's known that this package is licensed
under the APSL and not under a BSD license, I believe it's best to remove
mdnsresponder from the archive until such a time as it's made available
under a different license or there's a clear consensus that the APSL 2.0 is
a DFSG-free license.

If you agree with this assessment but don't have time to clean the source
tree, let me know and I can take a look at doing this for you.

Thanks,
--=20
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

--2Z2K0IlrPCVsbNpk
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: Digital signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFB73pKKN6ufymYLloRAiTkAJ9SLB2eX4mydrMP+BMZYi8CkZu+7QCfb5ML
aQDqtgMzhk3dRCqoRX+kYCg=
=ijdy
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--2Z2K0IlrPCVsbNpk--

Revision history for this message

Debian Bug Importer (debzilla) wrote on 2005-02-18:

#15

Message-Id: <email address hidden>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 12:36:24 +0000
From: Matthew Garrett <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Cc: <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: mdnsresponder: Wrong license