geant4-data_11.0.0+ds-1_amd64.changes REJECTED

[Stephan Lachnit]

Hi Thorsten,

I'm not convinced this is the case.

>From 4.:
> [...] However, if you publish or distribute your modifications without
contemporaneously requiring users to enter into a separate written license
agreement, then you are deemed to have granted all Members and all
Copyright Holders of the Geant4 Collaboration a license to your
modifications [...]

If I modify and publish GPL licensed software, I also need to license these
changes under the GPL. If I read it right, the license is even less
restrictive than the GPL - I can publish patches under any license I want,
I just have to also license it under the Geant4 license to the copyright
holders of Geant4.

I have the say the part with the users reads super weird and I'm not sure
if I get it, but I think the idea is that if I publish my Geant4 code in a
working group (let's say in the ATLAS collaboration) and I *don't also*
want to license my changes under the Geant4 license, I need a written
agreement with all the users. This may work in a working group (which I
suspect is the intended target group), but as soon as I publish something
publicly, not everyone has a written agreement and thus the modifications
also need to be licensed under the Geant4 license.

I guess for Debian we can just ignore that part entirely and any
modifications by us are just automatically also distributed under the
Geant4 license (I can changr my Debian copyright to "Unlicense OR
geant4-software-license").

Again super weird, but I don't see how this is not DSFG compliant. I'm not
a lawyer though, so if you still disagree please let me know if the license
would allow an upload to non-free.

Thanks,
Stephan


On Sat, 8 Jan 2022, 03:10 Thorsten Alteholz, <
ftpmaster at ftp-master.debian.org> wrote:

>
> Hi Stephan,
>
> according to 4), in case I modify the software and want to distribute
> my patches under a different license, I need a written agreement with
> all users so that my patches don't fall under the default license.
>
> No, I don't think this package can be part of Debian main.
>
>   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.
>
>
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