[pkg-crosswire-devel] Bug#984526: sword-text-kjv: Package is non-free

[Bastian Germann]

Am 04.03.21 um 20:33 schrieb Teus Benschop:
> Here is an article on the copyright issues with regard to the KJV.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version#Copyright_status
> 
> It says, among many other things that "The Authorized Version is in the
> public domain in most of the world. However, in the United Kingdom, the
> right to print, publish and distribute it is a royal prerogative..."
> 
> It's a bit messy, it looks. Reading over it, I am not sure that the KJV is
> free to be distributed in Debian.

This was discussed in #338077 and found to be okay (because it is a 
Commonwealth problem only). This is not the problem here. It is the 
editions by CrossWire that are non-free.

> Earlier faults in history are continuing to harass us and limit the word of
> God somehow.
In the 17th century there was not even the concept of copyright. When 
copyright was invented, the English Crown retrospectively applied that 
concept to the KJV.