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On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 6:04 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote: |
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>>>>>> On Thu, 7 Sep 2017, Rich Freeman wrote: |
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> |
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> Don't you think there is a difference between downloading a package |
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> that has a known upstream and that is also carried by other distros, |
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> and downloading a license-less package from a random location on the |
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> internet? |
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Most upstreams do not do much checking about the ownership of their sources. |
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Gentoo certainly doesn't - we don't even require developers to submit a DCO. |
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Other projects like the Linux kernel require signing a DCO for each |
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commit, but do not do any checking beyond this. I have no doubt that |
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they would remove offending sources if they were contacted, but they |
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do not actively go out and confirm authorship. |
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> |
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>>> The package in question doesn't come with any license though, which |
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>>> means that only the copyright holder has the right to distribute |
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>>> it. So I believe that some extra care is justified, especially when |
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>>> the upstream location of the distfile has changed. |
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> |
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>> Why? We don't redistribute anything that is copyrighted. |
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> |
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> Users download the file, and I think that we are responsible to have |
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> only such SRC_URIs in our ebuilds from where they can obtain the |
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> package without being exposed to potential legal issues. |
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I'm not aware of any court rulings that have found downloading |
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something like this to be illegal. |
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> |
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>> Perhaps if we want to enforce a policy like this we should take the |
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>> time to actually write the policy down. As far as I can tell Gentoo |
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>> has no such policy currently. |
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> |
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> The old Games Ebuild Howto [1] has this: |
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> |
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> | LICENSE |
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> | |
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> | The license is an important point in your ebuild. It is also a |
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> | common place for making mistakes. Try to check the license on any |
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> | ebuild that you submit. Often times, the license will be in a |
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> | COPYING file, distributed in the package's tarball. If the license |
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> | is not readily apparent, try contacting the authors of the package |
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> | for clarification. [...] |
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> |
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> I propose to add the paragraph above to the devmanual's licenses |
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> section. |
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> |
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We already know there isn't a license for redistribution. This |
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doesn't speak about requiring us to ensure that those distributing our |
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source files have the rights to do so. It merely says to check the |
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license. We understand the license already. I don't see how this |
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paragraph pertains to this situation. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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