Comments on: Debian DFSG being stupid and license-mixing http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/ Proudly bending beziers since 2006 Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:06:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: KLEPAS.ORG » Tango to be public domain? http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/#comment-41935 KLEPAS.ORG » Tango to be public domain? Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:32:07 +0000 http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/#comment-41935 [...] being redone to follow the Tango style guide, as the GNOME icon theme is licensed under the GPL. I experienced some of the licensing issues myself as I created icons for Bazaar’s graphical front-end application, Olive (bzr-gtk) last year. [...] […] being redone to follow the Tango style guide, as the GNOME icon theme is licensed under the GPL. I experienced some of the licensing issues myself as I created icons for Bazaar’s graphical front-end application, Olive (bzr-gtk) last year. […]

]]> By: Matt Palmer http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/#comment-36586 Matt Palmer Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:10:51 +0000 http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/#comment-36586 libervisco: The FSF says that the CC-BY-SA licence (2.0, anyway, which is the latest version they mention) is incompatible with the GPL and GFDL as well. As far as bureaucracy, well, it comes with the territory. I can't think of any organisations with the size and scope of Debian that are weighed down with less baggage. libervisco: The FSF says that the CC-BY-SA licence (2.0, anyway, which is the latest version they mention) is incompatible with the GPL and GFDL as well.

As far as bureaucracy, well, it comes with the territory. I can’t think of any organisations with the size and scope of Debian that are weighed down with less baggage.

]]> By: libervisco http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/#comment-36574 libervisco Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:30:03 +0000 http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/#comment-36574 To be honest I am kind of taking the Debian Project and its legal issues with a grain of salt. If I would be choosing between them and the FSF who I would trust more to define and interpret what Free Software is or isn't I would rather naturally align with the FSF. Debian sometimes just seems too bureaucratic for me, although I understand that, being such a complex and big distribution with a focus on having everything as free as possible in all possible cases (including ones we may not always anticipate) it may sometimes be necessary for them to be that way. Cheers To be honest I am kind of taking the Debian Project and its legal issues with a grain of salt. If I would be choosing between them and the FSF who I would trust more to define and interpret what Free Software is or isn’t I would rather naturally align with the FSF.

Debian sometimes just seems too bureaucratic for me, although I understand that, being such a complex and big distribution with a focus on having everything as free as possible in all possible cases (including ones we may not always anticipate) it may sometimes be necessary for them to be that way. Cheers

]]> By: Matt Palmer http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/#comment-36572 Matt Palmer Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:33:05 +0000 http://klepas.org/2007/08/22/debian-dfsg-being-stupid-and-license-mixing/#comment-36572 Can you provide the message from the Debian ftpmasters indicating that the combination of CC-BY-SA icons and GPL source code is considered non-free? There are a number of possible issues involved (CC licences before 3.0 weren't DFSG-free, CC-BY-SA isn't GPL-compatible, etc) but I can't see how the conclusion could be reached that a combination of CC-BY-SA and GPL, specifically, would be non-free but distributable. As far as the CC-BY-SA and GFDL goes, no, the two licences do not mean the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. The GFDL is a complex licence with some pretty hairy optional clauses, and is quite obviously tuned very tightly to the book publishing world. I'm not sure it would be possible to craft any sort of a "sharealike" licence which was GFDL compatible, and there's far more likelihood of derivation with images in a document than icons in a software package. Can you provide the message from the Debian ftpmasters indicating that the combination of CC-BY-SA icons and GPL source code is considered non-free? There are a number of possible issues involved (CC licences before 3.0 weren’t DFSG-free, CC-BY-SA isn’t GPL-compatible, etc) but I can’t see how the conclusion could be reached that a combination of CC-BY-SA and GPL, specifically, would be non-free but distributable.

As far as the CC-BY-SA and GFDL goes, no, the two licences do not mean the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. The GFDL is a complex licence with some pretty hairy optional clauses, and is quite obviously tuned very tightly to the book publishing world. I’m not sure it would be possible to craft any sort of a “sharealike” licence which was GFDL compatible, and there’s far more likelihood of derivation with images in a document than icons in a software package.

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