Bug#741419: missing license in debian/copyright

Thorsten Alteholz alteholz at debian.org
Mon Mar 17 12:30:49 UTC 2014


Hi Markus,

On Sun, 16 Mar 2014, Markus Koschany wrote:
>> please add the missing licenses of:
>>  jdom-JDOM-2.0.5\contrib\src\resources\hamlet.xml
>
> The text was placed in the public domain hence it is not subject to any
> copyright and upstream is allowed to put this file under the same
> license as stated in upstream's LICENSE.txt. See also debian/copyright
> paragraph 1, Files: *, License: BSD-4 which makes this very clear.

no, a work in the public domain does not allow relicensing of the original 
work. Only derivative work may be licensed differently. So Jon Bosak, who 
created the SGML and XML version might have choosen a different license, 
but I don't see any evidence that upstream of the package created a 
derivative work.
Anyway the term "public domain" is only valid in certain contries. For 
example if the author lives in Germany, he can not abandon his rights and 
the term "public domain" just means that he retains all rights. So in this 
case the file would not be distributable by Debian. In order to avoid 
any pitfalls, this should be documented in debian/coypright.

>>  jdom-JDOM-2.0.5\core\package\META-INF\jdom-info.xml
>
> This file is also licensed under upstream's license. See again
> debian/copyright paragraph Files: *.

In this file I see a line:
  <license>BSD/Apache style, see LICENSE.txt</license>
I was confused by "BSD/Apache style", but you are right the correct 
license is in LICENSE.txt.

>>  jdom-JDOM-2.0.5\core\samples\*  (some of them)
>
> The same as above. LICENSE.txt applies to all files.

The files catalog.xml, catalog.xsl contain:
    A simple XML file from Elliotte Rusty Harold's talk at SD 2000 East
    http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/slides/sd2000east/xslt/
I don't see any evidence that upstream is allowed to change the license of 
the original work or that upstream created a derivative work. So upstreams 
license does not apply to these files.

>>  jdom-JDOM-2.0.5\maven\maven.pom
>
> The same as above.

This file contains the block:
<licenses>
   <license>
     <name>Similar to Apache License but with the acknowledgment clause removed</name>
     <url>https://raw.github.com/hunterhacker/jdom/master/LICENSE.txt</url>
     <distribution>repo</distribution>
     <comments xml:space="preserve"><![CDATA[
       @license@
     ]]></comments>
   </license>
</licenses>

This is rather misleading as nowadays the "Apache License" is Apache-2.0 
whereas upstream refers to Apache-1.1.

> I cannot find any mentions of "Apache license" in jdom2 and no reasons
> why this might be a policy violation.

It is mentioned in maven\maven.pom.

>                                       Please clarify your bug report
> since the severity is currently not appropriate. Telling upstream "that
> there is room for improvement" is severity "minor" at best.

The reason for the severity is not the "room for improvement". This was 
only meant as an additional comment.

I hope I could clarify things a bit and you now understand why I choose 
that severity.

   Thorsten



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