Re: localedata (non-)copyright policy from FSF

[Keld Simonsen <keld at keldix dot com>]

I have  copyrights on many of these locales, and I will contact a lawyer
to see that my copyrights are respected.

I think your way of trying to  resolve this issue is not adequate.
I have relesed my locales under GPL v2.
I am willing to proceed with updating the texts with a revised 
copyright clause.

I am aware of a number of other contributers, whuch would not see mildly
on the infringement of ther copyrights.


Best regards
Keld Simonsen

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 01:57:01PM -0800, Roland McGrath wrote:
> I got this from <license-internal@fsf.org> under
> 	Subject: [gnu.org #804286] GLIBC Locales Files 
> 
> I've refilled the paragraphs to be readable.
> My response is below the next divider line.
> 
> =====
> 
> Several free software projects have written to us recently about licensing
> issues regarding locales files in GLIBC. Currently, many of these files
> contain brief, contradictory, confusing and occasionally non-free licensing
> statements.
> 
> While the Free Software Foundation requires assignment on copyrightable
> contributions to GLIBC, we have never sought or received assignment from
> contributors on GLIBC locales files. This is because we had previously
> determined that such files were not subject to copyright protection.
> 
> Our counsel at the Software Freedom Law Center has also reviewed the
> situation, and determined that these files are not the sort of work that
> falls under copyright protection.
> 
> Given the problems involved in leaving these licensing statements in the
> files, as well as our longtime understanding that such files are not
> copyrightable, we want to undertake a project to remove these licensing
> statements from all GLIBC locales files. Given the time and effort put into
> creating these files, we wanted to give locales file creators a chance to
> give feedback before implementing this change. Debian has already
> undertaken a project to contact these creators to get them to update the
> licensing, and has had some success
> <http://www.helgefjell.de/debianitem.php?name=bug555168&language=en>. This
> bug explains a bit more background on the situation
> <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=555168> as well. Any help
> you could provide in tracking down current contact info for the
> contributors on those files would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Once we have the contact info, we are going to set about contacting the
> contributors to let them know that we want to update the licensing of these
> files to the following:
> 
>   "This file is a part of GLIBC and contains locale data.The Free
> Software Foundation does not claim any copyright interest in the locale
> data contained in this file. The foregoing does not affect the license of
> GLIBC as a whole. It does not exempt you from the conditions of the license
> if your use would otherwise be governed by that license."
> 
> While we work on that process, if any new locales files are created, please
> make sure to use this updated permission. Thank you so much for all the
> work you do, and please let me know if you have any questions, or if you
> have information that would be helpful in this process.
> 
> -- 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Donald R. Robertson, III, J.D.
> Copyright & Licensing Associate
> Free Software Foundation
> 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
> Boston, MA 02110, USA
> Phone +1-617-542-5942 
> Fax +1-617-542-2652
> 
> =====
> 
> In the current source tree, only four of the 300ish localedata files
> contain any formal copyright notice (i.e. contain the word
> "copyright" at all).  Three of those four all use the same license
> text (a simple X/BSD sort), and the fourth says only, "Distribution
> and use is free, also for commercial purposes."  Two other files
> say, "This file is under the GNU General Public License." but those
> have no actual copyright notices.  Many others say something short
> like: "Distribution and use is free, also for commercial purposes."
> 
> I don't know where your information "many of these files contain
> brief, contradictory, confusing and occasionally non-free licensing
> statements" came from.  It does not comport with the reality I see
> today.
> 
> >   "This file is a part of GLIBC and contains locale data.The Free
> > Software Foundation does not claim any copyright interest in the locale
> > data contained in this file. The foregoing does not affect the license
> > of GLIBC as a whole. It does not exempt you from the conditions of the
> > license if your use would otherwise be governed by that license."
> 
> No formal text we use says "GLIBC".  It all says, "the GNU C Library".
> If we were to add boilerplate text to the files, it would be in keeping
> with the standards for such text elsewhere in our sources, and look like:
> 
> % This file is part of the GNU C Library and contains locale data.
> % The Free Software Foundation does not claim any copyright interest
> % in the locale data contained in this file.  The foregoing does not
> % affect the license of the GNU C Library as a whole.  It does not
> % exempt you from the conditions of the license if your use would
> % otherwise be governed by that license.
> 
> (The % is the comment character in that source file format.)
> 
> You can peruse the current localedata source files at:
>   http://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=tree;f=localedata/locales;hb=HEAD
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Roland