There are widely varying methods for specifying the license of a public domain package in Arch Linux. We should standardise and use one of them. Some packages use - 'Public Domain' (unclutter, python-webpy) - 'PD' (ttf-mph-2b-damase) - I think some packages might also be using 'none'. I saw one package using 'custom:public' (shuffle)
Also, there is the question of whether we should have public domain declarations for each package in /usr/share/licenses or put a public domain declaration in /usr/share/licenses/common and refer to that.
Abhishek Dasgupta wrote:
There are widely varying methods for specifying the license of a public domain package in Arch Linux. We should standardise and use one of them. Some packages use
- 'Public Domain' (unclutter, python-webpy)
- 'PD' (ttf-mph-2b-damase)
- I think some packages might also be using 'none'. I saw one package using 'custom:public' (shuffle)
Also, there is the question of whether we should have public domain declarations for each package in /usr/share/licenses or put a public domain declaration in /usr/share/licenses/common and refer to that.
I think it should just be 'custom'. There is no single public domain license so they also should be included in /usr/share/license/$pkgname.
Allan
I am with Allan here.
+1 for 'custom'.
-- Hugo
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 13:02, Hugo Doriahugodoria@gmail.com wrote:
I am with Allan here. +1 for 'custom'.
+2
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Daenyth Blankdaenyth+arch@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 13:02, Hugo Doriahugodoria@gmail.com wrote:
I am with Allan here. +1 for 'custom'.
+2
I'd not agree here. Isn't public domain exactly the absence of a license? When something is public domain you have no obligations at all. Even citing the author's name isn't required. You can do what you want with a public domain work.
So I can't see why should we require to ship a different public domain declaration for each public domain package. I think something like 'none' or 'PD' without the obligation to install anything to /usr/share/licenses would be the best way to go here.
Best regards,
Paulo Matias
Agree... Think the same. The name explains itself. Public Domain should be public.
---
- °v° Marcelo Cavalcante Rocha / Kalib - /(_)\ Usuário Linux #407564 / Usuário Asterisk #1148 - ^ ^ GNU-Linux - Livre, Poderoso e Seguro - TUX-CE Member - www.tux-ce.org - Archlinux-br Developer Team - http://archlinux-br.org - http://www.marcelocavalcante.net
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 3:59 PM, Paulo Matias matias@archlinux-br.orgwrote:
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Daenyth Blank<daenyth+arch@gmail.comdaenyth%2Barch@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 13:02, Hugo Doriahugodoria@gmail.com wrote:
I am with Allan here. +1 for 'custom'.
+2
I'd not agree here. Isn't public domain exactly the absence of a license? When something is public domain you have no obligations at all. Even citing the author's name isn't required. You can do what you want with a public domain work.
So I can't see why should we require to ship a different public domain declaration for each public domain package. I think something like 'none' or 'PD' without the obligation to install anything to /usr/share/licenses would be the best way to go here.
Best regards,
Paulo Matias
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paulo Matiasmatias@archlinux-br.org wrote:
I'd not agree here. Isn't public domain exactly the absence of a license? When something is public domain you have no obligations at all. Even citing the author's name isn't required. You can do what you want with a public domain work.
So I can't see why should we require to ship a different public domain declaration for each public domain package. I think something like 'none' or 'PD' without the obligation to install anything to /usr/share/licenses would be the best way to go here.
This is very very not true. There is no such thing as "public domain". Any code I write, without otherwise noting it, is copyrighted to me in the US and copying of it is not allowed under standard copyright laws unless I explicitly say otherwise. That's the funny thing - copyright actually protects the original author _by default_. Even more to the point, there is no way to willfully give up implicit rules such as this across the globe.
Check out the FAQ here: http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Aaron Griffinaaronmgriffin@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paulo Matiasmatias@archlinux-br.org wrote:
I'd not agree here. Isn't public domain exactly the absence of a license? When something is public domain you have no obligations at all. Even citing the author's name isn't required. You can do what you want with a public domain work.
So I can't see why should we require to ship a different public domain declaration for each public domain package. I think something like 'none' or 'PD' without the obligation to install anything to /usr/share/licenses would be the best way to go here.
This is very very not true. There is no such thing as "public domain". Any code I write, without otherwise noting it, is copyrighted to me in the US and copying of it is not allowed under standard copyright laws unless I explicitly say otherwise. That's the funny thing - copyright actually protects the original author _by default_. Even more to the point, there is no way to willfully give up implicit rules such as this across the globe.
Check out the FAQ here: http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
More complete info on wikipedia, as always: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain#No_legal_restriction_on_use
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 4:06 PM, Aaron Griffinaaronmgriffin@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paulo Matiasmatias@archlinux-br.org wrote:
I'd not agree here. Isn't public domain exactly the absence of a license? When something is public domain you have no obligations at all. Even citing the author's name isn't required. You can do what you want with a public domain work.
So I can't see why should we require to ship a different public domain declaration for each public domain package. I think something like 'none' or 'PD' without the obligation to install anything to /usr/share/licenses would be the best way to go here.
This is very very not true. There is no such thing as "public domain". Any code I write, without otherwise noting it, is copyrighted to me in the US and copying of it is not allowed under standard copyright laws unless I explicitly say otherwise. That's the funny thing - copyright actually protects the original author _by default_. Even more to the point, there is no way to willfully give up implicit rules such as this across the globe.
Check out the FAQ here: http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
Hm, really I didn't expressed correctly what I meant when I said "absence of license". By that I meant the "absence of a document detailing what you can do and what you can't do" (because there are no imposed restrictions in the public domain work), not the "absence of a declaration saying the work is public domain".
Said that, by reading the FAQ link I agree that, as not all jurisdictions recognize public domain, including a /usr/share/licenses file is really a good practice if the software's author writes something like "If you are using SQLite in a jurisdiction that does not recognize the public domain, [...]" (example from the sqlite3 package). So the user may know which license to follow if her jurisdiction doesn't recognize the public domain.
But if the author wasn't cautious to write something like that, there is nothing else to do. If the author only puts a declaration "this work is in the public domain", all we would be able to do is to mark the package as public domain. There is no license at all involved in this case.
Best regards,
Paulo Matias
Aaron Griffin schrieb:
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paulo Matiasmatias@archlinux-br.org wrote:
I'd not agree here. Isn't public domain exactly the absence of a license? When something is public domain you have no obligations at all. Even citing the author's name isn't required. You can do what you want with a public domain work.
So I can't see why should we require to ship a different public domain declaration for each public domain package. I think something like 'none' or 'PD' without the obligation to install anything to /usr/share/licenses would be the best way to go here.
This is very very not true. There is no such thing as "public domain". Any code I write, without otherwise noting it, is copyrighted to me in the US and copying of it is not allowed under standard copyright laws unless I explicitly say otherwise. That's the funny thing - copyright actually protects the original author _by default_. Even more to the point, there is no way to willfully give up implicit rules such as this across the globe.
Check out the FAQ here: http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
Hello,
sorry for being so late in this discussion, but I had a short exchange of comments with the maintainer of the dataplot package. (see http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=27519) He suggested that a short explanation should be added to the packaging guidelines wiki concerning handling of programs declared as public domain.
What would be necessary for this? Do we have an agreement here?
BTW, in Germany, where a term like "public domain" does not exist, if you are the author of an article and give erveryone the permission to publish it, the publisher nevertheless has the duty to add your name as the author to the article and has to ask you if he may do so.
Regards Stefan
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