Re: Bioconductor package flowPeaks license Artistic 1.0?

[zimoun]

Hi Tobias,

Thank you for the explanations. I agree, almost. ;-)

On Thu, 19 Dec 2019 at 18:18, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <address@hidden> wrote:

> Thank you for fighting for this package in Guix.  I hope upstream
> sees the light and Clarifies things.

The issue is that upstream has disappeared, as usual in scientific
software. Someone writes a piece of code then publishes a paper and
sometimes the requirement for publication is to be pushed in
mainstream collection of packages (Bioconductor in this case). But the
copyright holder does not maintain the code and instead write another
piece of code, try to publish a paper, etc.. Well the Reproducibility
of Science crisis.


> zimoun 写道：

> ‘Non-copyleft’ does not mean ‘non-free’.  All packages in Guix
> must be free.  The Artistic 1.0 licence is *not free*.[0]

It is not my point.

Artistic 1.0 is free and non-copyleft when applied to Perl. And it
does not make sense. A license is free or not, independently to what
it is applied to.


> I do understand your frustration & hacker instinct to ‘fix’ the
> problem in some clever way, but that's not how licences work.  The
> Artistic 1.0 story really ends here.

As I said, saying that Artistic 1.0 is non-free is really a flavour of taste.




> I'm not trying to demotivate you.  I just don't want you to waste
> your time & effort in this dead-end direction.  Bugging upstream
> until they respond is the only solution.

They will not, sadly.



> > Well, I have read both licenses and the Clarified one does not
> > appear
> > me clearer; they are both doomed!
>
> I hope you'll understand that I'm also not trying to be rude when
> I say (y)our personal opinions are entirely valid and absolutely
> irrelevant :-)

My point is: claiming that Clarified Artistic 1.0 is free and Artistic
1.0 is not is a flavour of taste.
What does it mean "free"? Well, it is defined by some GNU documents.
Then, someone reads this definition and sees if the license is
compliant with the definition. And there is an interpretation. That's
why GNU considers some license free and Debian not (or the contrary).

Well, I disagree to say Clarified Artistic 1.0 is free and Artistic
1.0 is not. They are both free or both non-free.


> The FSF's legal counsel has decided that the Clarified version
> does in fact ‘correct the vagueness of of the Artistic License
> 1.0’[2].

I understand. And I disagree. So I appeal. :-)


> > Other said, calling Artistic 1.0 non-free in this Bioconductor
> > case is
> > more a flavour of taste than a real legal issue.
>
> No, it's a very real legal issue.  :-(

Yes it is.
Because the main purpose of a license is to manage what happens in Court.



Well, I understand you are defending the official GNU position.
And currently Artisitic 1.0 will not be included in GNU Guix because
currently GNU claims that Artistic 1.0 is non-free.
I am fine with that. :-)
And I understand you block my hacky proposal of non-copyleft.
I am also fine with that. :-)

So I will appeal to FSF/GNU. ;-)


All the best,
simon