On the license of python-debian for use as a library
Philippe Ombredanne
pombredanne at nexb.com
Tue Aug 13 19:33:36 BST 2019
And I made another mistake: Ben Finney <bignose at debian.org> is also a
copyright holder.
Ben: Sorry for missing you in the first pass.
You input is welcomed.
On Tue, Aug 13, 2019 at 4:32 PM Philippe Ombredanne
<pombredanne at nexb.com> wrote:
>
> A while back, I started a thread to discuss the license of
> python-debian on the now defunct pkg-python-debian-discuss list. [1]
>
> Back then, dann frazier, Enrico Zini, Reinhard Tartler and Stuart
> Prescott all replied they were OK with a license change.
> There are still quite a few copyright holders and contributors that I
> need to reach out to!
>
> I am trying to complete this now so here is my question:
>
> If you are a copyright holder in python-debian, would you agree to a
> relicensing such that it can be used as a library for projects using a
> permissive, non-GPL license?
>
>
> Background/original message
> =======================
> python-debian is the canonical library to handle debian files. It is
> GPL-licensed yet also used as a library by quite a few tools [2] that
> are not GPL-licensed but rather ISC, MIT, Apache and similar both at
> debian and elsewhere.
>
> Would the copyleft of python-debian flow to a tool or library that is
> calling and using python-debian as a library?
>
> If yes, could it make sense to consider some sorts of licensing update
> either for all these FOSS libraries or rather for python-debian proper
> such that the effective licensing of these tools may not be impacted?
>
> PS: I am maintaining origin and license code scanning tools written in
> Python [3] and I am considering to add a dependency on python-debian to
> export valid machine readable copyright files created from a scancode
> license and copyright file [4]. The licensed toolkit is Apache-licensed.
>
>
>
> And the TODO for me: these are the contributors that still need to be
> contacted.
>
> A. main contributors
> ===============
>
> The following individuals have not replied to the original email.
> Based on a gitstats run [5] they have contributed 10 lines of code or
> more, in order of decreasing contribution size:
>
> - John Wright <jsw at debian.org>
> - James Westby <jw+debian at jameswestby.net>
> - Stefano Zacchiroli <zack at debian.org>
> - Filippo Giunchedi <filippo at debian.org>
> - Colin Watson <cjwatson at canonical.com>
> - Adeodato Simó <dato at net.com.org.es>
> - Tshepang Lekhonkhobe <tshepang at gmail.com>
> - Ville Skyttä <ville.skytta at iki.fi>
> - Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer at jelmer.uk>
>
> I will reach out to them off list directly (asking them for an on-list
> reply). (See the table below in D. for the full list of contributors)
>
>
> B. dpkg contributors
> ====================
> In changelog.py we have this notice:
>
> # The parsing code is based on that from dpkg which is:
> # Copyright 1996 Ian Jackson
> # Copyright 2005 Frank Lichtenheld <frank at lichtenheld.de>
> # and licensed under the same license as above.
>
> I will be reaching out offlist to two:
> - Ian Jackson <ian at chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> - Frank Lichtenheld <frank at lichtenheld.de> or <djpig at debian.org>
>
> C. Other contributors
> =====================
> These other individuals have contributed a few lines either through a
> commit or a patch acknowledged in a commit message and/or a changelog
> entry. I do not think we need their OK for a license change. I can
> reach out to them too if you think this is important, but I am not
> planning to for now: if you are one of these, your ack on list would
> be much welcomed in any case!
>
> With an email attached to their name in the log or commit:
>
> - Ben Finney <bignose at debian.org>
> - Chris Lamb <lamby at debian.org>
> - Fathi Boudra <fabo at debian.org>
> - Florian Weimer <fw at deneb.enyo.de>
> - Gerhard Poul <gerhard.poul at gmail.com>
> - Guillem Jover <guillem at debian.org>
> - Jan Teske <jteske at posteo.net>
> - Jonny Lamb <jonnylamb at jonnylamb.com>
> - Julian Andres Klode <jak at debian.org>
> - Matthieu Caneill <matt at brokenwa.re>
> - Maximiliano Curia <maxy at debian.org>
> - Ole Streicher <ole at aip.de>
> - Philipp Hahn <hahn at univention.de>
> - Stefano Rivera <stefanor at debian.org>
> - Steve Kowalik <stevenk at debian.org>
>
> Without an email attached to their name:
>
> - Alexandre Fayolle
> - Barry Warsaw
> - Mika Eloranta
> - Muharem Hrnjadovic
> - Neil Williams
> - Piotr Ożarowski
> - Romain Francoise
> - Tilman Koschnick
>
> D. Main contributors
> ====================
>
> Here is a subset of the gitstats [5] output with the number of
> commits, added and removed lines:
>
> Author Commits (%) +lines -lines
> =======================================================
> Stuart Prescott 187 (31.75%) 33635 20383
> John Wright 120 (20.37%) 8434 4536
> James Westby 67 (11.38%) 5691 1633
> Stefano Zacchiroli 86 (14.60%) 5623 1952
> Filippo Giunchedi 24 (4.07%) 3203 2679
> Enrico Zini 24 (4.07%) 1103 377
> Colin Watson 34 (5.77%) 939 550
> Adeodato Simó 20 (3.40%) 162 170
> Reinhard Tartler 8 (1.36%) 113 25
> Tshepang Lekhonkhobe 1 (0.17%) 59 19
> Ville Skyttä 2 (0.34%) 36 36
> Jelmer Vernooij 2 (0.34%) 7 2
> Jelmer Vernooij 2 (0.34%) 4 3
> Stefano Rivera 1 (0.17%) 6 2
> Ole Streicher 1 (0.17%) 5 0
> Matthieu Caneill 1 (0.17%) 5 5
> Jan Teske 1 (0.17%) 4 10
> Ben Finney 3 (0.51%) 4 2
> Guillem Jover 2 (0.34%) 3 3
> Jonny Lamb 1 (0.17%) 1 0
>
>
> [1]: https://alioth-lists-archive.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-python-debian-discuss/2017-March/thread.html
>
> [2]: Some examples:
> https://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/decopy.git/ is ISC licensed
> https://github.com/xolox/python-deb-pkg-tools is MIT licensed
> https://github.com/jwodder/aptrepo is MIT licensed
> https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pet/pet3.git/ seems to be ISC licensed
> https://github.com/sassoftware/python-debpkgr is Apache licensed
>
> [3]: https://github.com/nexB/
> [4]: https://github.com/nexB/scancode-toolkit
> [5]: https://github.com/hoxu/gitstats
--
Cordially
Philippe Ombredanne
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