[arch-dev-public] steam in our repos?
Hi all, I just noticed that steam was put into the multilib repo. It's unfortunate that such questionable packages are brought into our repos without any discussion (similar case are the catalyst drivers). My concern is it's license here. We modify and redistribute steam here which is probably not allowed according to 1.B of steam's license. So unless I am wrong here or there is a written permission from Valve please remove this package asap. PS: It would be great if people would send a mail to this list before they add random packages; especially if they don't have a free license. Greetings, Pierre -- Pierre Schmitz, https://pierre-schmitz.com
On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 05:56:57AM +0100, Pierre Schmitz wrote:
Hi all,
I just noticed that steam was put into the multilib repo. It's unfortunate that such questionable packages are brought into our repos without any discussion (similar case are the catalyst drivers).
My concern is it's license here. We modify and redistribute steam here which is probably not allowed according to 1.B of steam's license. So unless I am wrong here or there is a written permission from Valve please remove this package asap.
PS: It would be great if people would send a mail to this list before they add random packages; especially if they don't have a free license.
Greetings,
Pierre
-- Pierre Schmitz, https://pierre-schmitz.com
I read through the entire license. It seemed ok to me but as I am not a lawyer I emailed them to request permission first to redistribute the package in community/multilib. Only after contacting 2 people at Valve, both of whom told me that it would be ok to package and distribute steam, did I move it into the repositores -- Daniel Wallace Archlinux Trusted User (gtmanfred) Georgia Institute of Technology
Am 15.11.2012 06:04, schrieb Daniel Wallace:
On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 05:56:57AM +0100, Pierre Schmitz wrote:
Hi all,
I just noticed that steam was put into the multilib repo. It's unfortunate that such questionable packages are brought into our repos without any discussion (similar case are the catalyst drivers).
My concern is it's license here. We modify and redistribute steam here which is probably not allowed according to 1.B of steam's license. So unless I am wrong here or there is a written permission from Valve please remove this package asap.
PS: It would be great if people would send a mail to this list before they add random packages; especially if they don't have a free license.
Greetings,
Pierre
-- Pierre Schmitz, https://pierre-schmitz.com
I read through the entire license. It seemed ok to me but as I am not a lawyer I emailed them to request permission first to redistribute the package in community/multilib.
Only after contacting 2 people at Valve, both of whom told me that it would be ok to package and distribute steam, did I move it into the repositores
This is fine by me then. Would still be good to discuss such matters beforehand in the future. Could you forward these mails to me so I can post them on the private list? I do believe you, but in worst case it'll be better if more than one person has access to such information. (afaik we handled packages for the nvidia driver and adobe flash in a similar way) Maybe we should ask if they would make their license more clear. E.g. I don't see how the following paragraph permits redistribution: "You may not, in whole or in part: copy, photocopy, reproduce, translate, reverse engineer (with the exception of specific circumstances where such act is permitted by law), derive source code, modify, disassemble, decompile, or create derivative works based on the Program; remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Program; or attempt in any manner to circumvent any security measures designed to control access to the Program." Greetings, Pierre -- Pierre Schmitz, https://pierre-schmitz.com
On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 06:23:02AM +0100, Pierre Schmitz wrote:
Am 15.11.2012 06:04, schrieb Daniel Wallace:
On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 05:56:57AM +0100, Pierre Schmitz wrote:
Hi all,
I just noticed that steam was put into the multilib repo. It's unfortunate that such questionable packages are brought into our repos without any discussion (similar case are the catalyst drivers).
My concern is it's license here. We modify and redistribute steam here which is probably not allowed according to 1.B of steam's license. So unless I am wrong here or there is a written permission from Valve please remove this package asap.
PS: It would be great if people would send a mail to this list before they add random packages; especially if they don't have a free license.
Greetings,
Pierre
-- Pierre Schmitz, https://pierre-schmitz.com
I read through the entire license. It seemed ok to me but as I am not a lawyer I emailed them to request permission first to redistribute the package in community/multilib.
Only after contacting 2 people at Valve, both of whom told me that it would be ok to package and distribute steam, did I move it into the repositores
This is fine by me then. Would still be good to discuss such matters beforehand in the future. Could you forward these mails to me so I can post them on the private list? I do believe you, but in worst case it'll be better if more than one person has access to such information. (afaik we handled packages for the nvidia driver and adobe flash in a similar way)
Maybe we should ask if they would make their license more clear. E.g. I don't see how the following paragraph permits redistribution:
"You may not, in whole or in part: copy, photocopy, reproduce, translate, reverse engineer (with the exception of specific circumstances where such act is permitted by law), derive source code, modify, disassemble, decompile, or create derivative works based on the Program; remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Program; or attempt in any manner to circumvent any security measures designed to control access to the Program."
Greetings,
Pierre
-- Pierre Schmitz, https://pierre-schmitz.com
email sent, I will keep that in mind in the future. -- Daniel Wallace Archlinux Trusted User (gtmanfred) Georgia Institute of Technology
[2012-11-15 00:04:43 -0500] Daniel Wallace:
I read through the entire license. It seemed ok to me but as I am not a lawyer I emailed them to request permission first to redistribute the package in community/multilib.
I am not a lawyer either but I understand sentences such as: "You may not, in whole or in part: copy, photocopy, reproduce, [...] the Program; [...] You may not [...] transfer reproductions of the Program to other parties in any way [...] without the prior written consent of Valve." Note that there is a huge difference between written and express consent (the latter is what I believe you have obtained by email). So as best as I understand we do not have legal right to distribute this program. -- Gaetan
Am 15.11.2012 06:27, schrieb Gaetan Bisson:
[2012-11-15 00:04:43 -0500] Daniel Wallace:
I read through the entire license. It seemed ok to me but as I am not a lawyer I emailed them to request permission first to redistribute the package in community/multilib.
I am not a lawyer either but I understand sentences such as:
"You may not, in whole or in part: copy, photocopy, reproduce, [...] the Program; [...] You may not [...] transfer reproductions of the Program to other parties in any way [...] without the prior written consent of Valve."
Note that there is a huge difference between written and express consent (the latter is what I believe you have obtained by email). So as best as I understand we do not have legal right to distribute this program.
After reading the mail you got from some engineer at Valve I have to agree with Gaetan. This mail is not enough and not specific at all. We would more need a written distribution license from their legal apartment. Their programmers might be OK with it, but that does not mean their lawyers wont sue us. And the current license seems pretty clear that copying and modifing is not allowed. To be clear: we need permissions to redistribute this steam package in a possible modified version (atm we alter some shell scripts). (e.g. we have a lengthy "Flash Distribution Agreement" document from Adobe which explicitly allows us (named Arch Linux) to distribute their Flash player.) Of course the most ideal solution would be a new genral license that would allo redistribution for everyone. Therefore I would suggest to remove the steam package for now. Of course I would be glad to be able to re-add it once Valve solves these licensing issues. But for now this seems to be too risky. It's also not worth it as this package is pretty useless to most people atm. (As we have now all the needed deps in the repos building from the AUR PKGBUILD is easy enough) Greetings, Pierre -- Pierre Schmitz, https://pierre-schmitz.com
participants (3)
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Daniel Wallace
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Gaetan Bisson
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Pierre Schmitz