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Submitted by SirGrant on Sun, 07/15/2012 - 16:49

[GFSD Issue] Source package db contains a non-free file

Project:Trisquel
Version:6.0
Component:License problems
Category:bug report
Priority:blocking
Assigned:Unassigned
Status:closed
Description

Summary: Source package db contains a non-free file under the artistic license

Versions Used:

Steps to reproduce:

  • Download the source code for package: Here
  • Unpack/untar the source code and navigate to: db-5.1.25/src/crypto/mersenne/mt19937db.c
  • License header states:

/* This library is free software under the Artistic license:       */
/* see the file COPYING distributed together with this code.       */
/* For the verification of the code, its output sequence file      */
/* mt19937int.out is attached (2001/4/2)                           */
References:

SirGrant:
Tue, 10/23/2012 - 21:07

Just checked the file in the new Ubuntu "Raring" pre-release version 5.1.29-5ubuntu2 and the issue still persists.

SirGrant:
Tue, 10/30/2012 - 18:49
Title:Source package db contains a non-free file» [GFSD Issue] Source package db contains a non-free file
samgee:
Thu, 12/27/2012 - 20:35

This issue is still open for gNewSense too. I never saw a reply to Rubén's email. Did he ever get one?

SirGrant:
Wed, 02/06/2013 - 19:25
Priority:critical» blocking
DNS:
Sat, 02/09/2013 - 23:48
Version:» 6.0
Status:active» patch (ready)

Looks like quidam just made helper scripts for this in last hour(s) :-)

quidam:
Mon, 02/11/2013 - 01:47
Status:patch (ready)» fixed

After consulting and reviewing how both Fedora and Debian legal teams deal with this cases, I got to the conclussion that the fact that the same program was published by the original authors under both GPL2+[1] and BSD[2] licenses after its release in the Berkeley DB package would be enough to add those licenses to the offending file. But also as it turns out, the response from the author stating "Thus, it is our pleasure to make a GNU GPL licensed version."[3], even in a private message to me, would be a good enough record of the added license.

The helper to change the license was commited here: http://devel.trisquel.info/gitweb/?p=package-helpers.git;a=commit;h=df48d40d3544088338759e8bea2e7f832a564d48

1 http://web.archive.org/web/20010806225716/http://www.math.keio.ac.jp/matumoto/mt19937int.c
2 http://web.archive.org/web/20130127064020/http://www.math.sci.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~m-mat/MT/MT2002/CODES/mt19937ar.c
3 https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2010-05/msg00000.html

For further info, this is the matching bug in Fedora:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?format=multiple&id=886838

quidam:
Mon, 02/25/2013 - 01:50
Status:fixed» closed

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.