[Debian-med-packaging] Please allow relicensing for older versions of two single files from PHYLIP

Tue Mar 18 13:44:48 UTC 2014

Hi again,

I hope I do not stress your patience to much but I'd like to come back
to my suggestion to express that the existing PHYLIP version could be
used under a DFSG free license of your choice.  Besides in seaview where
I would really like to upload the new seaview version into main Debian
rather than non-free I detected another issue with the unability to use
PHYLIP (the release version 3.695) in main:  We are currently working
hard to get the test suite of biopython running.  Currently we need to
exclude PHYLIP (since it is not in Debian main).  So if you have an
interest that PHYLIP is properly tested for those users who are
accessing it via biopython API the relicensing would be helpful as well.

To accomplish this a mail - for instance to this public list - where you
declare that PHYLIP 3.695 is relicensed under <free license of your
choice> would be sufficient.

Kind regards and thanks for your kind consideration

     Andreas.

On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 01:04:38PM +0100, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Hi Joe,
> 
> On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 03:50:24AM -0800, Joe Felsenstein wrote:
> > Thanks for the comments.  Your comments on
> > the Gnu guidelines has saved me from wasting
> > time looking for the Unicorn.
> 
> :-)
>  
> > > As far as I know all these hosting platforms are doing some kind of user
> > > management were the project leader can add / refuse new programmers.
> > > Considering the lot of projects which are trying to approach the very
> > > same as you describe above I think it is not a technical but rather a
> > > social problem which you are describing.  Since I learned that you can
> > > not fix a social problem by technical means I think that the answer
> > > above is rather:  Any of the platforms above are similarly good - it
> > > just depends how well you manage your project.
> > 
> > What I want to achieve is some control over look-and-feel,
> > and some veto over new "helpful" features that may not
> > be helpful (and may even not do correct analyses).
> 
> Regarding correctness I'd (strongly) recommend adding a test suite which
> needs to create a verified output when having a certain input.  In
> Debian we are keen on running it in our packages to verify the
> correctness of the build.
> 
> > Perhaps if
> > there is some way that I could have this control over releases
> > that are called PHYLIP while everyone else can fork all they
> > want but has to call it something else.  I am not sure that my
> > judgement is good enough to exercise it only by choice of who
> > gets added as a programmer.
> 
> As far as I know the Mozilla Public License should have such a feature.
>  
> > I regret that a change of license by July is very unlikely, as
> > that would have to coincide with release of a new (alpha
> > release) version 4.0 and there is still a lot of work to do on
> > that to even get to alpha release, and these days I have no
> > programmers working for me.
> 
> Well, as I said I'm not in the position to put pressure on you but may
> be it would be possible to issue a relicensed version 3.6 which would
> help us a lot.
> 
> > I may however be able to
> > get the license change done on the two programs required
> > by Seaview.
> 
> Depending from the answer of Manolo (seaview author) he might like to
> use also the 3.6 version of the files.
> 
> > By the way, the new 4.0 will have Java front ends for all the
> > programs (like Drawgram and Drawtree do in 3.695).  A
> > programmer working for me last year found a way to do
> > that which did not prevent the programs being used standalone
> > as well.
> 
> Good to know that the standalone programs wil remain working. :-)
> I hope these Java front ends are not using a lot of third party JARs
> which usually create some trouble for us packagers - but finally we
> try to manage this for the comfort of our users.
> 
> > I am not sure whether having Java code in the
> > release affects the Gnu/OS issue.
> 
> The language in itself is not the problem.  You can apply a free
> license to any language program.
> 
> > I know that Oracle makes
> > Java a bit less than open.
> 
> Just make sure the code will run in OpenJDK 7.
> 
> > I am wary about getting too
> > committed to Java when there may be unpleasant surprises
> > in the future, but at this point it was the only easy path to
> > a cross-platform GUI.
> > 
> > In general the future looks somewhat scary, with platforms
> > like Apple's iOS which do not allow programmers to do things
> > in a generic way, but insist you use their environment.
> > Programming itself may become impossible, leaving us just
> > making Apps by drag-and-drop.
> 
> We (as in Debian developers) will take our best to create attractive
> alternatives by the help of people using free licenses.  If it comes to
> biologists I doubt that you can easily install this amount of software
> listed here
> 
>    http://blends.debian.org/med/tasks/bio
> 
> with a single click (saying, yes, install the package med-bio).
> 
> Kind regards
> 
>       Andreas.
> 
> -- 
> http://fam-tille.de
> 
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