Mailing List Archive

license change?
Hi folks,

The Debian package of conserver is in the non-free section. It appears
that this is because of the advertising clause of the license of the
Ohio State University copyright of parts of conserver.

It would be great to have conserver under FSF/OSI approved and DFSG
compatible licenses so that we could have conserver in Debian main.

Has the Ohio State University owned code been rewritten since 1998?

Is it possible that the Ohio State University would consider
relicensing their conserver code? I note that they have used BSD
licenses in other open source code they have released.

Is anyone willing to contact Ohio State University about this?

https://sources.debian.org/src/nfdump/1.6.17-1/bin/ft2nfdump.c/?hl=8#L8
https://sources.debian.org/src/argus-clients/1:3.0.8.2-3/include/argus/cflowd.h/?hl=2#L2
https://sources.debian.org/src/flow-tools/1:0.68-12.5/lib/ftmap.c/?hl=2#L2

--
bye,
pabs

https://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/
Re: license change? [ In reply to ]
Well, surprisingly, this did come up before, and the INSTALL file has my notes from back in 2003, apparently:

The Debian folks have conserver distributed with the package
names of conserver-client and conserver-server. They are in
the distribution "sid" and the "non-free" part (because the
Ohio State license doesn't explicitly allow for modification to
the code, even though it's totally implied and the intention of
the author - I've even got proof in email! Oh well, can't
blame the Debian folks for being cautious - they've been burned
before, apparently).

So, it’s more the lack of explicitly stating the code can be modified. And, as it says, I had (probably still have, somewhere) an email from the author clarifying, but I’m not sure how we’d be able to get the license officially updated. Many chunks of the original code are still there, so I don’t believe it can be ignored. I really think the phrasing was just an oversight (and decades of modified code being out there says something, though I doubt it means anything legally). Anyone even know who’d be responsible for this type of thing there?

Bryan

> On Jul 3, 2019, at 11:44 AM, Paul Wise via users <users@conserver.com> wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> The Debian package of conserver is in the non-free section. It appears
> that this is because of the advertising clause of the license of the
> Ohio State University copyright of parts of conserver.
>
> It would be great to have conserver under FSF/OSI approved and DFSG
> compatible licenses so that we could have conserver in Debian main.
>
> Has the Ohio State University owned code been rewritten since 1998?
>
> Is it possible that the Ohio State University would consider
> relicensing their conserver code? I note that they have used BSD
> licenses in other open source code they have released.
>
> Is anyone willing to contact Ohio State University about this?
>
> https://sources.debian.org/src/nfdump/1.6.17-1/bin/ft2nfdump.c/?hl=8#L8
> https://sources.debian.org/src/argus-clients/1:3.0.8.2-3/include/argus/cflowd.h/?hl=2#L2
> https://sources.debian.org/src/flow-tools/1:0.68-12.5/lib/ftmap.c/?hl=2#L2
>
> --
> bye,
> pabs
>
> https://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/
> _______________________________________________
> users mailing list
> users@conserver.com
> https://www.conserver.com/mailman/listinfo/users

_______________________________________________
users mailing list
users@conserver.com
https://www.conserver.com/mailman/listinfo/users
Re: license change? [ In reply to ]
On Thu, 2019-07-04 at 10:20 +0200, Bryan Stansell via users wrote:

> Well, surprisingly, this did come up before, and the INSTALL file has
> my notes from back in 2003, apparently:

Ah, I only looked at the LICENSE(S) files, woops.

> So, it’s more the lack of explicitly stating the code can be
> modified. And, as it says, I had (probably still have, somewhere) an
> email from the author clarifying, but I’m not sure how we’d be able
> to get the license officially updated. Many chunks of the original
> code are still there, so I don’t believe it can be ignored. I really
> think the phrasing was just an oversight (and decades of modified
> code being out there says something, though I doubt it means anything
> legally).

Debian generally accepts email clarifications, so just publishing that
and adding a note to the LICENSES file should be enough for Debian.

Of course getting a more explicit re-licensing would be better.

> Anyone even know who’d be responsible for this type of thing there?

I couldn't find any evidence of an Open Source Lab there and after a
bit of searching, the Technology Commercialization Office seems like
the closest thing to a copyright holder contact for the conserver code.

innovation@osu.edu
https://tco.osu.edu/

--
bye,
pabs

https://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/
Re: license change? [ In reply to ]
On Thu, 2019-07-04 at 10:20 +0200, Bryan Stansell via users wrote:

> So, it’s more the lack of explicitly stating the code can be
> modified.

Since then I talked to one of RedHat's lawyers and they mentioned that
they have dealt with this problem too and also concluded that these
licenses were intended to cover modification. The current wording of
the initial part of the BSD license reflects an attempt to correct an
earlier mistake (i.e. someone pointed out the error and Berkeley added
"with or without modification"). Also the anti-endorsement clause
implies a right to modify.

> And, as it says, I had (probably still have, somewhere) an email from
> the author clarifying

Adding that email to the package would be helpful to get conserver
moved from Debian non-free to Debian main.

> the INSTALL file has my notes from back in 2003, apparently

Would you mind moving the INSTALL notes to either the LICENSE file or a
README.license file? Publishing the email would also help.

--
bye,
pabs

https://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/