[Trisquel-devel] Freedom issues in lame, cdrkit, SDL, foomatic-filters, freepascal, unzip

[Henry Jensen]

Hello,

a number of freedom bugs have been reported at the ConnochaetOS Bug
Report forum.

It seems that all this bugs exists in many (if not most) other free
distros as well, which is why report them here, too. I also didn't found
this issues at
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines

Personally I checked Parabola and Trisquel (couldn't locate BLAGs
source repo), but other free distros might very possible affected as
well.


lame
====
http://www.connochaetos.org/forum/topic.php?id=1494

In lame-3.98.4/frontend/portableio.c

    * This code may be used and freely distributed as long as it
includes
    * this copyright notice and the warranty information.

So it can be used and distributed, but says nothing about being able to
modify it.

Found in ConnochaetOS, Parabola and Trisquel


cdrkit
======
http://www.connochaetos.org/forum/topic.php?id=1493
found this note:


    By using a driver from an Apple CD and copying Apple software to
    your CD, you become liable to obey Apple Computer, Inc. Software
    License Agreements.

The file doc/genisoimage/README.hfs_boot appears to describe a process
where a driver is extracted from an Apple CD. That would be subject to
Apple's licensing terms, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the
package that says what they are. The free software community doesn't
typically look to Apple for pro-freedom activities, so I have my doubts
as to if it's free software or not.

This notice also appears in genisoimage/apple_driver.c and
apple_driver.8. 

So, README.hfs_boot describes a procedure how to obtain
non-free software, which is clearly not desirable. OTOH, as cdrkit
itsels is free software, and I am not sure if this is a case as
describe in the FSDG:

    It could explain how to access filesystems of the proprietary
    operating system, import settings from it, and so on. That would be
    helping people install a free system distribution on a machine which #
    already has proprietary software, which is good.

Found in ConnochaetOS, Parabola and Trisquel

SDL
===
http://www.connochaetos.org/forum/topic.php?id=1492

found the license below in src/video/fbcon/riva_mmio.h. The license grant includes only "use" of the software. It doesn't mention modification or redistribution.

Found it as well in Trisquel  and likely in Parabola (couldn't find the source on their site). 

foomatic-filters
================
http://www.connochaetos.org/forum/topic.php?id=1491

found this in in:

test/lsbfuncs.sh
shfuncs.sh
test/tcm.sh
test/tetapi.sh

    # All rights reserved. No part of this source code may be reproduced,
    # stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
    # means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
    # except as stated in the end-user licence agreement, without the prior
    # permission of the copyright owners.

This is clearly not free.

It depends on what the "end-user licence agreement" actually is. According to https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/lsb-discuss/2009-October/006190.html it refers to the Artistic License - question is - which version?

Found it in Trisquel as well. I suspect it is also in Parabola, but I couldn't locate the source package.


Freepascal (fpc)
================
http://www.connochaetos.org/forum/topic.php?id=1490
found the following in these two files:

fpcbuild-2.4.2/fpcsrc/packages/opengl/src/gl.pp
fpcbuild-2.4.2/fpcsrc/packages/opengl/src/glu.pp

    Quote
    ** Copyright 1996 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    ** All Rights Reserved.
    **
    ** This is UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE of Silicon Graphics, Inc.;
    ** the contents of this file may not be disclosed to third parties, copied or
    ** duplicated in any form, in whole or in part, without the prior written
    ** permission of Silicon Graphics, Inc.

I'm not sure how unpublished proprietary source code ended up in there, but it clearly isn't free.
Found in Parabola and Trisquel as well.