license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

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jcfp
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license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by jcfp »

While attempting to package sabnzbd+ for Ubuntu, I noticed the following copyright and licensing related problems:

Main program:
  • file sabnzbd/utils/json.py is released under the LGPL, but no copy of the license is include in the sabnzbd+ 0.3.0 release, although doing so is a requirement of this license.
  • various python files are licensed under (modified) BSD licenses, but contain only a link to a website with the text of their licenses. Please consider adding a copy of the full license text found on those websites (BSD is pretty short) as a comment in these files. Not doing so might result in a situation where the license of these files can no longer be properly determined when websites change or go offline.
Templates:
Most of the template files for Plush and smpl are licensed under the CC-3.0 license, but not all of them are. Those parts under another licenses should be clearly identified as such, and have adequate licensing information, so that whoever downloads these releases knows their rights and obligations, and all the requirements of the various licenses are fulfilled. Note that many licenses require authors and (re)distributors to include a full copy of the license with the file(s) released under the terms of those licenses.

smpl interface templates:
  • in the README.txt file, the author is listed only by his/her nick name, without any contact information, and without a basic copyright statement.
  • interfaces/smpl/templates/static/MochiKit/Sortable.js refers to 'scriptaculous.js' for full license; however, no such file is present in the sabnzbd+ release. Some digging shows that file is apparently available from http://script.aculo.us under the MIT License. Please include the license in/with the file.
  • various files under interfaces/smpl/templates/static/PlotKit/ are licensed under 'the BSD license' with a link to http://www.liquidx.net/plotkit. Consider including a copy of said license with the template (for reasons previously given in the "Main program" section).
  • interfaces/smpl/templates/static/PlotKit/excanvas.js and interfaces/smpl/templates/static/excanvas.js are licensed under the Apache license, version 2.0; however, no copy of the license is provided, although that is specifically required by the license.
  • many files in interfaces/smpl/templates/static/MochiKit/ are dual-licensed under the MIT and AFL v2.1 licenses.
  • interfaces/smpl/templates/static/MochiKit/Style.js is (partly) copyright by yahoo and released under a BSD style license, for which only an url is given. Please include the license statement in or with the file instead.
Plush interface templates:
  • in the README.txt file, the authors are listed only by their nick names, without any contact information, and without a basic copyright statement.
  • various files under interfaces/Plush/templates/static/images/ appear to be taken from the Nuvola Icon theme, which is copyright 2003-2004 by David Vignoni and licensed under the LGPL, v2.1 or later. This is not clear, no licensing information is included, and there's also no way to distinguish between files that come from Nuvola and those that are your original work. Please fix and document as necessary.
  • various files under interfaces/Plush/templates/static/javascripts/ are dual-licensed under GPL and MIT license; however, no copy of the latter is provided in the release.
  • interfaces/Plush/templates/static/javascripts/plush.js is partly under LGPL, see above.

While I realize this list might look rather depressing, fixing these issues would benefit the sabznbd+ project by steering clear of possible legal problems, and also be helpful (and probably required) for getting this great program included in the repositories of various popular Linux distributions.
Last edited by Anonymous on January 13th, 2011, 12:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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switch
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by switch »

Thanks for going through this. I'll fix the smpl requirements and pass the others on to the respective developers.
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shypike
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by shypike »

The Plush and Smpl authors will fix their own license issues.

For the main program.
Your comment on JSON.PY is a bit odd, since this is the one module that does not have a license problem.
The source file itself is quite informative about its license and origins AND the LGPL-file is present, since SABnzbd itself is LGPL.
How many (identical) copies of LGPL does one need?

The other modules have indeed some info missing, I will repair this.

Thanks for your comments.
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jcfp
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by jcfp »

shypike wrote: Your comment on JSON.PY is a bit odd, since this is the one module that does not have a license problem.
The source file itself is quite informative about its license and origins AND the LGPL-file is present, since SABnzbd itself is LGPL.
How many (identical) copies of LGPL does one need?
??? :o Careful there; GPL != LGPL. Most of sabznbd+ is under the GPL, not the LGPL. LICENSE.txt contains a full copy of the GPL, version 2, and SABnzbd.py and many other python files display prominent headers stating they are licensed under the GPL, version 2 or later.

json.py however, according to the license header in the file itself, is released under the LGPL, version 2.1 or later. No copy of that license (for full text see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.txt) is currently provided in the release file, thus violating the terms of that license:
  1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's
complete source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that
you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an
appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact
all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any
warranty; and distribute a copy of this License along with the
Library
.

  You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy,
and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a
fee.

  2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Library or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Library, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
Of course, only one copy is needed; whether, and if so, how, you and the template authors choose to coordinate that effort, is not up to me. As long as the release contains at least one copy of whatever is necessary. ;D
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shypike
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by shypike »

Thanks for clarifying this.
There are just too many open source licenses.

I have added seperate statements of origin with full license info for each of the included modules.
The smpl and Plush templates now contain similar statements about their used resources.

All of this will be included in the 0.3.1 release, due this week.

I hope this settles the issue.
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jcfp
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by jcfp »

That makes two of us ;)

Indeed, many different licenses exists and to make things even worse, some are incompatible even though at first glance they seem to have very similar goals. But for now, having the above issues solved is (imho) a major step forward. Thanks (to all) for the good work, really looking forward to the 0.3.1 release!
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jcfp
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by jcfp »

switch, I think you missed interfaces/smpl/templates/static/MochiKit/Style.js (partly (c) yahoo under a bsd license, statement + url in the file, starting line 167, but no copy included); other than that, looks fixed to me.
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switch
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by switch »

I included the yahoo BSD license as a comment in Style.js in the trunk, however It doesn't look like it was copied into this release.

Will be fixed for 0.3.1 final.
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by jcfp »

:-*
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sander
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Re: license problems in sabznbd+ (0.3.0)

Post by sander »

jcfp wrote: While attempting to package sabnzbd+ for Ubuntu, I noticed the following copyright and licensing related problems:
Please note that a Ubuntu package is already available for review (and voting): http://revu.tauware.de/details.py?package=sabnzbdplus
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