Bug#883731: audacious: Debian packaging has incorrect license

[Nicholas D Steeves]

On Fri, Dec 08, 2017 at 10:36:49AM -0500, John Lindgren wrote:
> Nicholas D Steeves wrote:
> 
> > Both BSD 3-clause and BSD 2-clause allow relicensing as GPL, thus so
> > long as the licensing terms are complied with correctly BSD code can
> > perpetually and unidirectionally flow to GPL projects.
> 
> Yes, I agree.  It's perfectly okay for the Debian package(s) to be
> distributed as GPL, *as long as* the original BSD license text is still
> retained.
> 
> > I'm also unsure whether the patch
> > that changes the user-visible bits and the out-of-date
> > debian/copyright outweigh the 2-clause license that wasn't stripped
> > from the headers of various files.
> 
> Speaking for myself as upstream project lead, I'm not worried about
> the legal status of already-built packages, but I would prefer that the
> upstream (BSD 2-clause) license remain user-visible in future Debian
> builds.  The simplest way to achieve this would be to remove
> use-system-licenses.patch and let the GUI again display
> /usr/share/audacious/COPYING as the upstream version does.

This will be easier to do.

> Alternatively, debian/copyright could be updated to include the full
> text of the upstream license, plus any Debian-specific bits (packaging
> copyrights, etc.), and the patch could be updated so that the GUI
> displays the installed version of that file instead (I think that would
> be /usr/share/doc/audacious/copyright?)

Thank you for your blessing on doing it this way.  If Debian was/is
relicensing as GPL in a non-reversible way then this the way it
would/might have to be done.

> Francesco Poli wrote:
> 
> > The Audacious upstream developers may be willing to help, by clarifying
> > any doubts upon request.
> 
> Yes, for sure.

Please see my question about a missing copyright holder; I paused my
review at this point, so there might be other examples.

> > If that is deemed to be needed or useful, it could be feasible to also
> > fix the debian/copyright file for audacious version 3.7.2 in a Debian
> > stable update (and possibly also address the same issue for
> > oldstable)... On the other hand, this extra effort could perhaps be
> > considered not worth doing.
> 
> For my part, I'm not worried about the stable+oldstable packages being
> fixed, only that the problem is resolved in a new unstable upload going
> forward.  I think that the other upstream developers would agree.

Whew, thank you, that makes things easier for everyone :-)

> Thank you both for the prompt reply and good discussion!

You're welcome!  Thank you for reaching out.

Sincerely,
Nicholas
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-multimedia-maintainers/attachments/20171210/c94476d7/attachment.sig>