#1001274 scowl source has (probably outdated?) problematic license conditions

Package:
src:scowl
Source:
scowl
Submitter:
Gernot Hillier
Date:
2024-07-29 16:09:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1001274#5
Date:
2021-12-07 14:13:11 UTC
From:
To:
During licensing checks of the "scowl" sources, we identified two
problematic files. r/pos/README-orig as well as r/mwords/README. Both say:

[...]
This documentation, software and/or database was developed
and copyrighted by Grady Ward and is licensed, not sold, to
you on a non-exclusive, non-transferable basis. The documentation,
software and/or database and derivative works of this database
may not be copied in whole or part except for archival purposes
as provided by law.
[...]

The Debian copyright however cites from r/pos/README that "The MWords
package was explicitly placed in the public domain". To me at least,
it's unclear whether the both READMEs were considered and if yes, it
would really help to add some clarifying statements in copyright why the
licensing terms in the (old?) README files don't apply (any more?).

I also reported an upstream bug at
https://github.com/en-wl/wordlist/issues/333.
#1001274#8
Date:
2021-12-08 00:24:53 UTC
From:
To:
mwords and pos are both part of the Moby Words project, which Grady Ward
dedicated to the public domain (and also provided an equivalent license)
on June 1, 1996.

See
https://web.archive.org/web/20170930060409/http://icon.shef.ac.uk/Moby/
for more details (and the original source files).

They're present in the source, because that's how they are distributed
upstream, but the copyright file lists the actual licensing. [Maybe a
case to be made to clarify this in the upstream source, but I don't
think a Debian specific patch is warranted here.]
#1001274#13
Date:
2022-08-18 19:19:21 UTC
From:
To:
Wouldn’t this be a perfect example of something that could be placed in the comment field
of the copyright file?

https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/#comment-field[1]

I can see from the current copyright file that "The MWords package was explicitly placed in
the public domain”, although it isn’t necessarily clear from the copyright file that the files in
question are associated with the MWords project.

Perhaps it would be helpful to rework the copyright file to be DEP-5 compliant with the
linked format above.  If you are interested, I would be willing to create a DEP-5 compliant
version for your review.

--------
[1] https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/#comment-field
#1001274#18
Date:
2024-07-29 15:52:48 UTC
From:
To:
Note that upstream has recently merged a clarification:

https://github.com/en-wl/wordlist/commit/856b01cb7056f1e106cbbb0e0f70c5323d377d4c