Hi!

As you already know, the documents taken from the official Debian
website are not really copyrighted by SPI:
http://bugs.debian.org/388141

Moreover, those documents are licensed under the terms of the
Open Publication License, Draft v1.0 or later, and thus fail to comply
with the DFSG:
http://bugs.debian.org/238245
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/03/msg00226.html

This is a (two-fold) issue for the Debian website, and is
still unfixed, unfortunately.
But it is an even worse issue for the doc-debian package,
which is shipped in the main archive!

I am filing this bug report, in the hope that this problem
gets solved before wheezy is released.
Of course, this bug report is to be marked as blocked by #388141
and by #238245: those two bugs should be fixed first; after that,
the debian/copyright file of doc-debian should be updated accordingly.


Thanks for your great contributions to the Debian Project!

Hi,

Francesco Poli (wintermute) wrote:
[...]
[...]

Many parts of www.debian.org are already relicensed by now.  Maybe
this bug could be resolved by updating the copyright information and
calling it a day (update: no).

Here's a quick copyright survey.  Of course most of the details below
are only guesses.  Still to find:

 * Raul Miller's wishes for the part of the constitution he wrote
 * origins of debian-manifesto and source-unpack.txt
 * social contract license

Files: doc/bug-*
License: GPL-2
Origin: package debbugs

Files: doc/constitution.1.0.wml
History:
 Added to webwml under current filename by Manoj 2003-10-31.
 Added to webwml by Darren Benham, 1998-12-04, after ratification.
 Amended by Ian Jackson and Darren Benham, 1998-11 and 1998-10 (see -devel).
 From Ian Jackson's website (~ian/debian-organisation.html), 1998-09.
 v0.8 proposed by Ian 1998-05-28 (see -devel).
 v0.7 proposed by Ian 1998-04-27 (see -devel).
 v0.6.1 proposed by Ian 1998-04-07 (see -devel).
 v0.6 proposed by Ian 1998-04-06 (see -devel).
 v0.5.1 proposed by Ian 1998-04-03 (see -devel).
 v0.5 proposed by Ian 1998-04-02 (see -devel).
 v0.4 proposed by Ian 1998-03-26 (see -devel).
 v0.3 proposed by Ian 1998-03-20 (see -devel).
 v0.2 proposed by Ian 1998-03-19 (see -devel).
 initial version (v0.1) published by Ian 1998-03-19 (see -devel).
Copyright: 1998, Ian Jackson
License: Expat or GPL-2+
http://people.debian.org/~spaillard/website/relicensing/www-relicensing-ok

Files: doc/constitution.1.1.wml
History:
 Added to webwml under current filename 2003-10-31
 Condorcet/cloneproof SSD voting GR: 2003-06-22
 Wording: 2002-10-16 (see -vote) etc
 Full recommendation from voting methods committee: 2002-08-21 (see -vote).
 First recommendation from voting methods committee: 2002-02-11 (see -vote).
Copyright: 1998, Ian Jackson
           2002, Raul Miller
           2002, Manoj Srivasta
License: OPL?

Files: doc/constitution.1.2.wml
History:
 Added to webwml under current filename 2006-09-24
 Nontechnical policy maintenance GR: 2003-10-31
 Tightened wording: 2003-09-23 (on -vote)
 Protecting foundational documents: 2000-10-10 (on -vote)
 Wording, part 1: 2000-10-10 (on -vote)
Copyright: 1998, Ian Jackson
           2002, Raul Miller
           2002, 2003, Manoj Srivasta
License: OPL?

Files: doc/constitution.1.3.wml
History:
 Added to webwml under current filename 2008-02-21
 Assets handling GR: 2006-09-24
 Proposal: 2006-07-20 (on -vote)
 Drafting seems to have happened in the previous month.
Copyright: 1998, Ian Jackson
           2002, Raul Miller
           2002, 2003, 2006, Manoj Srivasta
License: OPL?

Files: doc/constitution.wml
History:
 Published copy reflecting DPL election GR: 2008-02-21
 Proposal: 2007-07-31 (on -vote)
Copyright: 1998, Ian Jackson
           2002, Raul Miller
           2002, 2003, 2006, Manoj Srivasta
           2007, Anthony Towns
License: OPL?

Files: doc/debian-manifesto doc/source-unpack.txt
History: ?
Copyright: ?
License: ?
Note: not on website

Files: doc/Makefile
History: ?
Copyright: ?
License: ?

Files: doc/social-contract.1.0.wml doc/social-contract.wml
History:
 Developed in private, as far as I can tell.  Only public
 signs of it are 1997-06-08 on debian-devel and the result on
 debian-announce, 1997-07-04.
 .
 Amended to clarify some points --- in particular avoiding
 unnecessary references to software --- around 2003-12-27
 (on -vote)
Copyright: 1997, Bruce Perens (?)
           2003, Branden Robinson (?)
           2003, Andrew Suffield (?)
License: OPL? CC-BY-2.5?

Hello Jonathan,

Thanks for the updated information. However, in the listing of
documents you indicate that some of the versions of the constitution
are still under the OPL license and, in addition, in doc-debian we
have provide additional  documentation (such as information about bug
handling, taken from http://www.debian.org/Bugs/) that seems to still
be OPL.

I would rather wait for the copyright notice in each of these pages to
change before I change debian/copyright and update the status. Right
now all of them point to the boilerplate page
http://www.debian.org/license which still mentions that OPL is the
current license for all the documents previous to January 25th, 2012.

Hopefully, when   #388141 is resolved for all documents we will be
able to update debian/copyright and close this bug too.

Regards

Javier

Hi Javier,

Javier Fernandez-Sanguino wrote:

Yes, if I understand correctly then Raul Miller's text on the voting
system used (including handling of supermajorities) was never
explicitly licensed under a DFSG-free license.  I do not see Raul on
the list of people being contacted for http://bugs.debian.org/388141
--- I am not even sure if he had an alioth account --- and meanwhile I
think it would be worthwhile to find his wishes to get the license of
this foundational document clear.

I might have not looked carefully enough, but from a quick glance,
that seemed to come from GPL-2 source (the documentation is maintained
with the rest of the debbugs codebase).

That's fine with me.  I mostly meant to give a summary for Francesco
of the current status of these documents.  I also agree with you that
the /licenses page online should be updated when their license status
is clear, not just doc-debian's copyright file.

Thanks for the quick feedback.
Jonathan

Hi Jonathan, hi Javier!
Thanks to you both for following up on this issue.
[...]

Well, even though the issue with doc-debian is definitely part of the
larger issue with the official Debian website (www.debian.org), I think
that solving the part that affects doc-debian (a package shipped in
Debian main, as I said!) should be carried on at a higher priority.

I think that the copyright holders for the documents shipped in
doc-debian should be tracked down and contacted, in order to ask
(persuade) them to agree to the re-licensing under the disjunction
"Expat or GPL-2+" (as is being done, I hope!, for the rest of
www.debian.org).
The collected "OK" answers should of course be contributed to the
www.debian.org re-licensing effort.

I hope this can be done in the short term.

Thanks a lot for taking this issue seriously!
Bye.

Control: tag -1 squeeze-ignore wheezy-ignore
Control: user release.debian.org@packages.debian.org
Control: usertag -1 wheezy-can-defer
This is not a blocker for the wheezy release.  Tagging as such.

Cheers,
Julien

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Hello,

Good morning,

We have gone through your samples from a partner and Here is our  Order
List. Please do bear in mind that we are very much in  need of this
order, quote your competitive prices.

Kindly send the Order confirmation.

Your early reply will be much appreciated.

Best Regards,

Maryanah Erwin.

PT FINDORA INTERNUSA

Jln Pahlawan 66 Kec. Arjawinangun

45162 CIREBON West-Java INDONESIA

tel : +62 231 357334

fax: +62 231 357260

email: marketing@findora.com

Hello,
is there any progress on this long-standing [bug] report?

[bug]: <https://bugs.debian.org/614497>

Bug [#238245] was closed a long time ago, with the Debian website
[license page] stating that new material (added since 25 January 2012)
is dual-licensed under the Expat license or the GNU GPL v2 or later.

[#238245]: <https://bugs.debian.org/238245>
[license page]: <https://www.debian.org/license>

However, older material is still under the non-free OPL, until the
corresponding copyright holders have been contacted and have agreed to
the relicensing...
Bug [#388141] is still open, is there any publicly visible status
report about the tracking of copyright holders and their OKs to the
relicensing?

[#388141]: <https://bugs.debian.org/388141>

Above all, what's the status, as far as the documents shipped in Debian
package doc-debian are concerned?

Please let me know, thanks for your time and dedication!

tags 614497 + trixie-ignore
thanks

Cc Francesco, since they've expressed interest.

In this release cycle too I don't have the time to do any significant work on
this long standing issue.

Maybe the big Debian website overhaul which is being worked on now will help
getting this going...

Bye,

Joost