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Is the Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL-UK-3.0) DFSG-free ?

From Charles Plessy@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 28 02:10:01 2025

Hello everybody,

on a package update I have hit the Open Government License 3.0...

https://spdx.org/licenses/OGL-UK-3.0.html

I could not find works licensed under these terms via
codesearch.debian.net, and was not successful finding useful information
with search engines.

Does anybody know if it was already tried through the FTP team?

Have a nice day,

Charles

--
Charles Plessy Nagahama, Yomitan, Okinawa, Japan
Debian Med packaging team http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med Tooting from home https://framapiaf.org/@charles_plessy
- You do not have my permission to use this email to train an AI -

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From Soren Stoutner@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jan 27 21:09:53 2025

Copy: [email protected] (Charles Plessy)

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Charles,

On Monday, January 27, 2025 6:07:54 PM MST Charles Plessy wrote:

Hello everybody,

on a package update I have hit the Open Government License 3.0...

https://spdx.org/licenses/OGL-UK-3.0.html

I could not find works licensed under these terms via
codesearch.debian.net, and was not successful finding useful information
with search engines.

Does anybody know if it was already tried through the FTP team?

I have not previously heard of the OGLv3.0 license, but reading over it, the terms do not
appear to be a problem as long as what is being licensed does not belong to the list of
enumerated exceptions to which the license does not apply:

This licence does not cover:

personal data in the Information;
Information that has not been accessed by way of publication or disclosure under
information access legislation (including the Freedom of Information Acts for the UK and
Scotland) by or with the consent of the Information Provider;
departmental or public sector organisation logos, crests and the Royal Arms except where
they form an integral part of a document or dataset;
military insignia;
third party rights the Information Provider is not authorised to license;
other intellectual property rights, including patents, trade marks, and design rights; and
identity documents such as the British Passport

I would imagine it is unlikely that what you are packaging contains any of the above
information, but you should make a reasonable effort to assure it doesn’t before
submitting the package to the NEW queue.

Regarding the DFSG status of the license, the OGLv3.0 itself claims it can be relicensed as
CC-BY-4.0, which is DFSG-free.

"These terms are compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 and the
Open Data Commons Attribution License, both of which license copyright and database
rights. This means that when the Information is adapted and licensed under either of
those licences, you automatically satisfy the conditions of the OGL when you comply with
the other licence. The OGLv3.0 is Open Definition compliant."

--
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]

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<body>Charles,
 On Monday, January 27, 2025 6:07:54 PM MST Charles Plessy wrote:
> Hello everybody,
> > on a package update I have hit the Open Government License 3.0...
> > https://spdx.org/licenses/OGL-UK-3.0.html
<p st

From Charles Plessy@21:1/5 to All on Thu Jan 30 01:40:01 2025

Thanks Soren,

my main worry is that what we call the right to modify is expressed as:

you are free to adapt the information

and

any act which is restricted by copyright or database right [...] and
includes without limitation distributing, copying, adapting, modifying
as may be technically necessary to use in a different mode or format.

One possible interpretation may be:

If the data here, despite being factual and non-copyrightable, is
protected by a database right (because some people worked hard to put
all the numbers in the same table), then you do not have the right to
modify it except for changing the format. Which is not Free for Debian.

For instance, let's imaging there is a table with the UK population from
1500 to 2000, it may be not permitted to change the number for the year
1800 to 3,000,000,000. Which one can argue users do not need to do, but
again would not be compatible with the DFSG.

Am I worrying too much?

Have a nice day,

Charles

Le Mon, Jan 27, 2025 at 09:09:53PM -0700, Soren Stoutner a écrit :

Charles,

On Monday, January 27, 2025 6:07:54 PM MST Charles Plessy wrote:

Hello everybody,

on a package update I have hit the Open Government License 3.0...

https://spdx.org/licenses/OGL-UK-3.0.html

I could not find works licensed under these terms via codesearch.debian.net, and was not successful finding useful information with search engines.

Does anybody know if it was already tried through the FTP team?

I have not previously heard of the OGLv3.0 license, but reading over it, the terms do not
appear to be a problem as long as what is being licensed does not belong to the list of
enumerated exceptions to which the license does not apply:

This licence does not cover:

personal data in the Information;
Information that has not been accessed by way of publication or disclosure under
information access legislation (including the Freedom of Information Acts for the UK and
Scotland) by or with the consent of the Information Provider;
departmental or public sector organisation logos, crests and the Royal Arms except where
they form an integral part of a document or dataset;
military insignia;
third party rights the Information Provider is not authorised to license; other intellectual property rights, including patents, trade marks, and design rights; and
identity documents such as the British Passport

I would imagine it is unlikely that what you are packaging contains any of the above
information, but you should make a reasonable effort to assure it doesn’t before
submitting the package to the NEW queue.

Regarding the DFSG status of the license, the OGLv3.0 itself claims it can be relicensed as
CC-BY-4.0, which is DFSG-free.

"These terms are compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 and the
Open Data Commons Attribution License, both of which license copyright and database
rights. This means that when the Information is adapted and licensed under either of
those licences, you automatically satisfy the conditions of the OGL when you comply with
the other licence. The OGLv3.0 is Open Definition compliant."

--
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]

--
Charles Plessy Nagahama, Yomitan, Okinawa, Japan
Debian Med packaging team http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med Tooting from home https://framapiaf.org/@charles_plessy
- You do not have my permission to use this email to train an AI -

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From Sam Hartman@21:1/5 to All on Thu Jan 30 03:30:01 2025

"Charles" == Charles Plessy <[email protected]> writes:

Charles> For instance, let's imaging there is a table with the UK
Charles> population from 1500 to 2000, it may be not permitted to
Charles> change the number for the year 1800 to 3,000,000,000.
Charles> Which one can argue users do not need to do, but again
Charles> would not be compatible with the DFSG.

Charles> Am I worrying too much?

I don't think you need to imagine that.
Either the work you want to include in Debian has such a table or it
does not.
If it does not, we have no problems today.
If someone modifies the work in the future to include such a table, they
either need to relicense under a compatible license that clearly allows modification, grant an exception, or not include their modification in
Debian.

If the work you plan to include has such a table or something that is
covered by such a database right, then yeah, this license is kind of
dubious.

Yes, this means more work for the maintainer.
But there is no need to imagine when we can think about the specifics.

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Is the Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL-UK-3.0) DFSG-free ?

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