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

[Ludovic Brenta]

Selon Thomas Quinot <quinot at adacore.com>:
[...]
> 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).

OK, since this license is very non-free these files cannot be distributed in
main; they have to go into a separate package in non-free or not be
distributed at all. I think we'll settle for not distributing them at all. 
I'll investigate orbit and omniORB to see what their orig.tar.gz contains;
thanks for the pointers.  If they contain these non-free files, I will of
course file release-critical bugs against them.

>> 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.

Thanks for this clarification.  Of course, you are aware that this license is
at odds with repeated blanket statements from AdaCore to the effect that
"everything on the libre site is GPL".  I encourage you (AdaCore) to audit
the files that you redistribute for licensing terms and to clarify these
terms to downstream recipients of the GNAT GPL Edition and users of the
public Subversion repository alike.

P.S. Whether the name of a particular file in the repository appears in
another particular file named MANIFEST is irrelevant to its licensing terms. 
Any file present on your public Subversion repository is, by definition of
the word "public", published. AdaCore is therefore responsible for obeying
the licensing terms of every single file.  Similarly, Debian is responsible
(and Debian Developers are personally responsible) for publishing files; that
is why we take copyright issues so seriously and why our due diligence
process is so thorough.  I'm sorry if I sound pedantic with all that but I
wouldn't be an Ada programmer if I weren't a perfectionist control freak :)

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.