[PolyORB-users] Questions about licensing after close scrutiny by Debian

[Thomas Quinot]

* Ludovic Brenta, 2009-08-22 :

> "you" is "you", Thomas Quinot, and the other authors of PolyORB.  I had
> a choice between polyorb-users and polyorb-bugs, would you have
> preferred the latter?

OK so indeed polyorb-bugs would have been more approrpiate since it goes
to developers (not users) of PolyORB.

> > Please clarify what files you are talking about, and what "proper
> > licensing documentation" means in the context of your query.
> > code in PolyORB has been assigned to the Free Software Fundation, so 
> 
> I don't think this is true of the files specifically mentioned in the
> reviewer's email.  For those files whose copyright is assigned to the
> FSF, there is no problem.

So this is all about the OMG RTCORBA IDL files, nothing else, right?

These files are covered by the following license terms, which you can
check for yourself from http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?formal/05-01-04

  Subject to all of the terms and conditions below, the owners of the
  copyright in this specification hereby grant you a fully-paid
  up, non-exclusive, nontransferable, perpetual, worldwide license
  (without the right to sublicense), to use this specification to
  create and distribute software and special purpose specifications that
  are based upon this specification, and to use, copy, and
  distribute this specification as provided under the Copyright Act;
  provided that: (1) both the copyright notice identified above
  and this permission notice appear on any copies of this specification;
  (2) the use of the specifications is for informational
  purposes and will not be copied or posted on any network computer or
  broadcast in any media and will not be otherwise resold
  or transferred for commercial purposes; and (3) no modifications are
  made to this specification. This limited permission
  automatically terminates without notice if you breach any of these terms
  or conditions. Upon termination, you will destroy
  immediately any copies of the specifications in your possession or
  control.
  
Also note that a similar statement covers all other standard OMG IDL
files which are included in other CORBA implementations that are already
part of Debian (such as orbit or omniORB).

> > I do not understand this question from the reviewer. There is no notion
> > of "relicensing" PolyORB, all public distributions of PolyORB always
> > have been made under the GPL.
> 
> Even 1.0r and 1.1r?

Yes.

> >> Although I could not download the orig.tar.gz file of your package, I checked
> >> out the PolyORB Subversion sources and found files in ./testsuite/idls/test*
> >> with the following header:
> >
> > This part seems completely irrelevant, how can the Subversion repository
> > possibly matter? The reviewer really needs to review what is in your
> > package.
> 
> Debian wants traceability of copyright from the upstream author to the
> .orig.tar.gz file, to detect any accidental changes in licensing.

Again this is completely irrelevant unless you are distributing files
from the Subversion repository that aren't listed in MANIFEST.

> As I explained in response to Vadim, it is not so clear to me that they
> are redistributable.  The license to redistribute was granted to the
> OMG, not to AdaCore or to Debian, and there is no indication that the
> license it to be passed downstream to the recipients.

See above for complete license terms covering these files.

Thomas.

-- 
Thomas Quinot, Ph.D. ** quinot at adacore.com ** Senior Software Engineer
               AdaCore -- Paris, France -- New York, USA