license convention for public domain packages

[Abhishek Dasgupta]

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

[Allan McRae-3]

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

[Hugo Doria]

I am with Allan here.

+1 for 'custom'.

-- Hugo

[Daenyth Blank]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 13:02, Hugo Doria<hugodoria@...> wrote:
> I am with Allan here.
> +1 for 'custom'.
+2

[Paulo Matias-2]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Daenyth Blank<daenyth+arch@...> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 13:02, Hugo Doria<hugodoria@...> 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

[Marcelo Cavalcante]

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@...>wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Daenyth Blank<daenyth+arch@...<daenyth%2Barch@...>>
> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 13:02, Hugo Doria<hugodoria@...> 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
>

[Aaron Griffin]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paulo Matias<matias@...> 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/

[Aaron Griffin]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Aaron Griffin<aaronmgriffin@...> wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paulo Matias<matias@...> 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

[Paulo Matias-2]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 4:06 PM, Aaron Griffin<aaronmgriffin@...> wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paulo Matias<matias@...> 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

[Stefan Husmann]

Aaron Griffin schrieb:

> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Paulo Matias<matias@...> 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