From the description you have provided, I would assume yes with the
following assumptions:
1) By "Extract AmberTools" you mean repackage the orig tarball.
2) AmberTools consists entirely of open sourced files that have a
compatible license. Probably it does, but I would double check that no non-free files made their way into AmberTools.
(Plus of course that AmberTools does not Depend or Build-Depend on any non-free components whether third-party or from ambermd.org)
For reference, I did not check the upstream site.
Hello,
[...]
My question: Is it OK to extract AmberTools from Amber tarball and
package for Debian main?
[1] https://ambermd.org/AmberTools.php
[2] https://ambermd.org/GetAmber.php#ambertools
Best,
Andrius
Hi Niels,
Thanks for prompt reply.
On 2022-08-30 17:40, Niels Thykier wrote:
From the description you have provided, I would assume yes with the following assumptions:
1) By "Extract AmberTools" you mean repackage the orig tarball.
Yes, that is what I meant.
2) AmberTools consists entirely of open sourced files that have a
compatible license. Probably it does, but I would double check that
no non-free files made their way into AmberTools.
Absolutely.
(Plus of course that AmberTools does not Depend or Build-Depend on any non-free components whether third-party or from ambermd.org)
Right, this was implied.
For reference, I did not check the upstream site.
ACK.
Best,
Andrius
The easiest way to do the tarball cleaning is with Files-Excluded in the copyright file, uscan will involve something (mkorigtargz?) that uses it to repack. That's a technical answer to the technical side of the question.
On the "policy"/legal question of whether it's permissible to package the internal open source in this larger source for the Debian project, I have
no specific opinion but it sounds complicated. You might gauge upstream's feelings by asking if they can provide a tarball with just the open source parts. If not, even if your interpretation of the license situation is that you can package the inner code, it may not be worth it if it's fought by upstream.
Chipping in my 2 cents here...
That's not what the licenses, including GPL, usually say, no.On the "policy"/legal question of whether it's permissible to package
the internal open source in this larger source for the Debian project, I have no specific opinion but it sounds complicated. You might
I do. Remember the GPL's mantra: "Free as in speech". The software should be available for anyone,
without any obstacles in obtaining it. To me, it is clearly a violation of its own license.
Having to register to download software is not free software. It is open source. That is a difference.No.
On the "policy"/legal question of whether it's permissible to package
the internal open source in this larger source for the Debian project,
I have no specific opinion but it sounds complicated. You might
gauge upstream's feelings by asking if they can provide a tarball with
just the open source parts. If not, even if your interpretation of the license situation is that you can package the inner code, it may not
be worth it if it's fought by upstream. (E.g. they may see their more restrictive license as "additional terms" on top of the license in the
inner files, thus basically creating a non-open source license.) Of
course I am not a lawyer, just noting that it's much more pleasant to
package when upstream is cooperative or at least not hostile :)\
Granted, you might be able to download the part, safely cut it out[...]
of whatever proprietary software is around it, but the next
distribution (Redhat, Arch, FreeBSD) might run into the same
issue.
On Tue, Aug 30, 2022 at 12:00:39PM -0500, Ryan Pavlik wrote:
The easiest way to do the tarball cleaning is with Files-Excluded in the
copyright file, uscan will involve something (mkorigtargz?) that uses it to >> repack. That's a technical answer to the technical side of the question.
Even better, probably:
Files-Excluded: *
Files-Included: AmberTools
On the "policy"/legal question of whether it's permissible to package the
internal open source in this larger source for the Debian project, I have
no specific opinion but it sounds complicated. You might gauge upstream's
feelings by asking if they can provide a tarball with just the open source >> parts. If not, even if your interpretation of the license situation is that >> you can package the inner code, it may not be worth it if it's fought by
upstream.
Exactly.
It wouldn't be the first time that we package something that the
original developers never intended to, only to find ourself in some sort
of passive-agressive situation, with some sort of hostile upstream. At
which point, I would wholeheartedly recommend you don't even start...
Instead, if they are happy with you packaging this, they might just be
happy enough to extract AmberTools and distribute it in some nicer way
not requiring identification on a website…
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