[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#987606: Please use a free license for blimps and sift

Mon Apr 26 16:16:06 BST 2021

Hi,

a really long time ago we were talking about licensing blimps and sift.
The package sift now received a bug report[1] which is somehow caused by
the non-free license.  I personally do not use blimps and sift and I do
not have any interest in maintaining non-free software (since it is
really hard to deal with such kind of bugs and other issues that prevent
using the full Debian infrastructure).  That's why I intend to orphan or
even remove blimps and sift from Debian except there will be a free
license in the next couple of months.

So I'd happily keep on working on the packages if you would be able to
put it under a free license.

Kind regards

      Andreas.

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/987606

On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 08:27:10AM +0100, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Dear Pauline,
> 
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 10:50:04AM +0800, Pauline Ng wrote:
> > I've asked Steve  Henikoff to check with FHCRC's Technology Transfer office
> > to see if we can change the license to GNU-GPL. (The latest version of SIFT
> > (SIFT 4 Genomes is a hybrid license of GNU-GPL and FHCRC), so this will
> > simplify things later. Please email me in 2 weeks time if you haven't heard
> > from me.
> 
> Thanks for the promising response and the coordination work you probably
> need to undergo for such a change.
>  
> > Also, because I wrote the SIFT algorithm, I'd like to benchmark and check
> > the code that debian-med packages. I think there are several version of
> > SIFT out there. What is the latest release version that you'd like to use?
> 
> Usually we are packaging the latest upstream release.  If you have good
> reasons for recommending a different release we would trust your insight
> what might be the best release for Debian.  Please do not consider us as
> the experts to decide about *your* code. ;-)  We simply try to distribute
> your prefered choice to your users in a most convenient form.
> 
> > Thanks,
> > Pauline
> 
> Thanks to you
> 
>        Andreas.
>  
> > On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 3:25 PM, Andreas Tille <andreas at an3as.eu> wrote:
> > 
> > > Dear Pauline,
> > >
> > > On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 09:59:14AM +0800, Pauline Ng wrote:
> > > > The Henikoffs and I received your email about regarding changing the
> > > > license of blimps and SIFT to GPL. We are willing to consider it if SIFT
> > > > can be easily distributed. Do you have a working version of SIFT on
> > > > debian?
> > >
> > > Currently version 4.0.3b is packaged and I know that this is not the
> > > latest released version.  One reason for this lag behind is the fact
> > > that SIFT remains in non-free which does not receive the apropriate care
> > > - thus the motivation for my mail to tackle the latest version if there
> > > would be a free license.
> > >
> > > > My old version of SIFT uses a very old version of blast and calls a
> > > binary
> > > > of blimps --I think the source code has been since lost.
> > >
> > > The Debian version of SIFT is linked against a separately packaged
> > > version of blimps 3.9.  I noticed that the downloadable tarball
> > > sift5.2.2.tar.gz contains a dir blimps/blimps with C sources (and even
> > > *.o files which should not be distributed inside a tarball).  I also see
> > > a dir blimps/bin which we would clean up from the tarball since we
> > > usually do not ship precompiled binaries in the source tarball.
> > >
> > > > If you can can confirm that SIFT works in debian, then Dr. Henikoff will
> > > > talk to the FHCRC tech transfer office to start the process.
> > >
> > > I can confirm that the Debian Med team got the old version of SIFT
> > > working and we will try or best to get also the latest version working.
> > > However, please make sure that the license change is not only for the
> > > purpose of distribution inside Debian but rather in general since a
> > > specific free Debian license is also considered as non-free by the
> > > Debian Free Software Guidelines.
> > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Pauline
> > >
> > > Thanks a lot for your fast response
> > >
> > >          Andreas.
> > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I'm writing you on behalf of the Debian Med team which is a group inside
> > > > Debian with the objective to make Debian the best distribution for
> > > biology
> > > > and medical care.  We try to package free software that is relevant in
> > > > these fields for main Debian.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > You might know that there are packages of blimps and sift for some time
> > > > which are not part of the official Debian distribution due to its license
> > > > which is considered non-free since it violates the Debian Free Software
> > > > Guidelines[1].  We would really make blimps and sift part of the official
> > > > Debian distribution which has several advantages for users as well even
> > > for
> > > > you as developers since the wider spreading of your code might lead to
> > > > enhancements that will be send to you.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > We would like you to reconsider the restriction under the following
> > > >
> > > > considerations:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >  - Did you earned a mentionable amount of money by selling mssstest
> > > >
> > > >    yourself?
> > > >
> > > >  - Do you consider that anybody else would earn a mentionable amount
> > > >
> > > >    of money by selling a freely licensed program?
> > > >
> > > >  - Would you agree that it is in the interest of mssstest code and
> > > >
> > > >    the users to have a free distribution inside Debian?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Please keep in mind that the restriction implies that the programs cannot
> > > > be included as part of a distribution that is sold (even if it's just to
> > > > compensate for the cost of the storage media).  Your intention is almost
> > > > certainly to prevent people to sell the program standalone.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > To our experience authors who used this kind of license (for instance Joe
> > > > Felsenstein as author of PHYLIP) did not considered this as a success.
> > > May
> > > > be you reconsider the license to choose some free license like GPL; BSD
> > > or
> > > > MPL - feel free to discuss this here on our mailing list.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > It would be great if you would simply drop the restriction and enable us
> > > to
> > > > integrate blimps and sift into Debian properly.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Kind regards
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >       Andreas.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > [1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > http://fam-tille.de
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://fam-tille.de
> > >
> 
> -- 
> http://fam-tille.de

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