I am a volunteer working on gNewSense, a free ( as defined by the Free Software Foundation (FSF)) GNU/Linux distro where the next version (4) will be based on Debian Wheezy. We noticed that KDE has dependencies on the Artistic License 1.0 which the FSF does not regard as free or is at least ambiguous (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#NonFreeSoftwareLicenses) and they encourage use of the Artistic License 2.0 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses). Specifically we noticed in /kdenetwork-4.8.4/kopete/protocols/irc/ksparser.h (the kdenetwork package for Debian Wheezy) /* This file is part of the KDE project Copyright (C) 2001 Simon Hausmann <hausmann@kde.org> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License. */ Can the license be changed to "Artistic 2.0 License" instead of "Artistic License"?
Perhaps a better solution would be to relicense under (L)GPL v. 3.
Dennis, this relicencing depends on authors of that code. Anyway IRC plugin was not completely ported to KDE4 (yet!) and so is disabled at compile time. So for gNewSense I suggest you to drop IRC source code as quick fix.
I noticed all the other source code files in /kdenetwork-4.8.4/kopete/protocols/irc/ are licensed under GPL v.2 including ksparser.cpp. Seems incongruous that the implementation file is licensed differently than the header file, ksparser.h.
The code in question clearly does not comply with project licensing policy, https://community.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy Options include: * relicensing (of course) * removing the code (since it apparently unused)
IRC code is going to be rewritten (from scratch). So after that new IRC code should fix also this problem.
Except the code is non-compliant *now*, any objections to my removing it (since it's not used)?
On Thursday 12 May 2016 12:03:42 Rex Dieter via KDE Bugzilla wrote: > Except the code is non-compliant *now*, any objections to my removing it (since > it's not used)? It is not compliant not only now, but for longer time. If we are able to wait and deal with it for years, I think we can also another period of time... I do not want to break something... (Need to check how to modify build infrastructure, etc, ...) And also do want to invest time for code which will be replaced. Development time for Kopete can be used in better way. As I said, this problem will be resolved by rewriting IRC code.
I understand that, but the code is broken *now*. It is both non-compliant by policy and arguably not legally (freely) redisitributable. By not acting, it tarnishes both kde.org and downstream distributions as well. There is no wiggle room here, the code *must* be fixed asap. I'm offering to do the work to address this, if needed.
OK, I'm not a lawyer, but re-reading the artistic license text, I think downstreams are likely safe in the default case (my distribution) If this code is enabled (e.g. via -Dwith_IRC=ON), the combined work becomes no longer legally redistributable.
On Thursday 12 May 2016 12:19:18 Rex Dieter via KDE Bugzilla wrote: > I'm offering to do the work to address this, if needed. Ok, if you want to spend time on it, feel free to do. But please contact Harsh Shah (harshcrop). His GSoC project for Kopete is writing new IRC protocol. So please decide with him how and what to remote/modify to prevent merge conflicts, etc...
My "fix" is the simple course of removing the offending file, to bring this all into compliance.
I've e-mailed the copyright holders to ask if this can be relicenced. One other option would be to backport the .h file from the .cpp file which is probably quite do-able. Otherwise it needs to be removed so that kopete can continue to be distributed.
Copyright holders confirm it can be changed so committed that change
Thanks!
So what exactly was the change? Thanks
I don't see anything committed to kopete's git (since Apr 08) either. Did you maybe forget to push the changes or is it someone else's responsibility to commit the changes?
On Monday 16 May 2016 12:53:57 Rex Dieter via KDE Bugzilla wrote: > I don't see anything committed to kopete's git (since Apr 08) either. I do not see any patches on reviewboard, nor in kopete-devel mailing list... > Did you maybe forget to push the changes or is it someone else's responsibility > to commit the changes? I can commit changes, but first need to see patches (on reviewboard or ML).
sorry, pushed now
Thanks, for posterity, a link to the commit, https://quickgit.kde.org/?p=kopete.git&a=commit&h=5db7f93d05d61a043d62884820faefb57de7e28b
On Monday 16 May 2016 13:04:09 Jonathan Riddell via KDE Bugzilla wrote: > sorry, pushed now Ok, but you are missing BUG keyword in commit message... :-( That could allow us in future to map commit into bug.