[Debian-med-packaging] Please help clarifying licensed (Was: python-dendropy_4.0.2-1_amd64.changes REJECTED)

[Jeet Sukumaran]

(1) The original DendroPy package was released under the GPL license. 
Later, at the request of some folks who wanted to use the code under a 
less restrictive license, we re-licensed it under BSD. The GPL 
boilerplate remains in some files. But this is an artifact/detritus. I 
agree this is confusing, and should be cleaned up. Will do so, but may 
not be able to get to it before next week.

(2) The test data files  have all been (a) sourced from public domain 
data, (b) obtained as part of example data bundled with other 
applications, and typically having been used in published analyses (c) 
generated using analysis programs from public domain data.

In the case of (a), the data is from GenBank, and thus in public domain. 
Where possible, we have maintained citation information for the original 
authors/work that generated the data.

In the case of (b), the original data is also available from the public 
domain. Where possible, we have maintained citation information for the 
original authors/work that generated the data.

In the case of (c), no program we have used places any restriction on 
their output. We maintain the generated text ("File generated by DnaSp 
... etc") to track provenance.

So, in all cases that I am aware of, the test data is public domain. We 
do not have any verbage to explicitly state this. Will adding such 
verbage be sufficient? I think this is a much simpler solution that 
splitting the test data files.

On 7/11/15 7:50 AM, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Hi Jeet,
>
> since we had quite productive discussion about DendroPy I think we could
> sort out the things quite quickly.  As you can see below the Debian
> ftpmaster found some files with license statements deriving from the
> main BSD-3-clause.  Before I mention these explicitly (which would be a
> valid solution for the mentioned concerns) I wonder whether these
> differences might be simply by accidence and you would rather intend to
> change the license at your side.
>
> Regarding the tests I have another suggestion.  When I did the upload
> that was rejected I introduced a data set I obtained via the following
> script:
>
>
> #!/bin/sh -e
> TAR=DendroPy-test-data.tar.xz
> rm -rf DendroPy ${TAR}
> git clone https://github.com/pranjalv123/DendroPy.git
> cd DendroPy
> tar --owner=root --group=root --mode=a+rX -caf ../${TAR} dendropy/test/data
> cd ..
> rm -rf DendroPy
>
>
> This was needed to run the unit tests which is usually a part of the
> Debian package build process.  For the moment I droped this data set and
> switched of the test.  I would like to suggest to provide a workaround
> for the case that the test data are missing.  Some kind of printing
>
> ===================================================================
> The unit tests can not be run without the test data tat are missing
> cuurently.  If you want to obtain these data you could use the
> following code:
>    < script above or something like that >
> ===================================================================
>
> IMHO this would be an advantage for all DendroPy users in general.
>
> In any case it would make sense to drop some explicit LICENSE file
> in the testdata directories to clarify the additional concern of
> Debian ftpmaster in case we might decide to add these data at some
> later point of time.
>
> Kind regards
>
>         Andreas.
>
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 10:00:15PM +0000, Thorsten Alteholz wrote:
>>
>> Hi Andreas,
>>
>> dendropy/test/__main__.py says something about a GPL-3+ license.
>> applications/sumtrees/sumtrees.py doesn't know what it is, but maybe also GPL-3+.
>> dendropy/utility/container.py wants to be partly licensed under Apache-2.
>>
>> 8MB testdata (with comments like: "File generated by DnaSP Ver. 4.00.3, from file: COII_Apes.nex")
>> and with no license information do not belong into the debian-directory ..
>>
>>    Thorsten
>>
>> ===
>>
>> Please feel free to respond to this email if you don't understand why
>> your files were rejected, or if you upload new files which address our
>> concerns.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Debian-med-packaging mailing list
>> Debian-med-packaging at lists.alioth.debian.org
>> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debian-med-packaging
>>
>

-- 



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