Bug#990368: Regarding SuperTuxKart in Debian main

[Markus Koschany]

Hello,

we have a dedicated bug report for this problem, please keep
990368 at bugs.debian.org in CC.


Am Freitag, dem 16.07.2021 um 14:34 +1000 schrieb GumballForAPenny:
> Hi all,
> 
> (I am a user and contributor of SuperTuxKart, not any staff member of 
> the project.)
> 
> It has recently come to our attention that SuperTuxKart is not FOSS, due 
> to inclusion of non-free mascots such as the BSD Daemon and Hexley, alog 
> with other minor issues.
> 
> To my understanding, all the code (stk-code) is valid FOSS, only few 
> official data assets are not. An STK Moderator 'benau' correctly claims 
> the game is never advertised as 'free' by the project, so at this point 
> in time it appears to me as if there will be no intent of removing or 
> replacing the infringing characters from the main data assets repo.
> 


> What would be the best way for Debian package management to handle the 
> supertuxkart* packages? The game can run without non-free assets.

The correct way would be to ask the copyright holders of said mascots to give
their permission to use them in supertuxkart freely. Apparently the
supertuxkart mascots are a derivative work but the BSD logos are copyright
protected to prevent other companies from misusing them. Debian can't "fix"
that problem, the upstream developers must contact the original copyright
holders and find a solution with them.

In the short term we could just replace the mascots with either a placeholder
image in the same size or we use an already existing mascot to replace them. A
skilled graphic designer could repaint one of the existing mascots in red, make
small adjustment to their facial expression or even create a completely new
daemon model. It just should not look like the original BSD daemon.

https://tracker.debian.org/media/packages/s/supertuxkart/copyright-1.2ds-2

The next step is to identify the correct licenses for all paragraphs in
debian/copyright marked with ???. It appears to me those files were either
created automatically and should be under the same license as supertuxkart
itself or they are also licensed under the CC license which covers most of the
artwork. Here I would appreciate it if someone could ask upstream for a
clarification and then we could update debian/copyright accordingly. In the
worst case we would remove those images as well and try to replace them.

Just moving supertuxkart to non-free would be incorrect because if those ???
files are not covered by any license, then we are not allowed to redistribute
them at all.

In short: Right now we need someone who replaces the non-free mascots with free
ones and who identifies the correct license terms for all those ??? files.

We are short of time though because we are already in full freeze for Debian
11. If this problem can't be fixed quickly then supertuxkart must be removed
from testing and it will not be part of Debian 11.


Regards,

Markus




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