[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] Bug#691148: Bug#691148: Bug#691148: Bug#691148: Please package virtualbox 4.2.2

Felix Geyer fgeyer at debian.org
Fri Nov 23 14:55:25 UTC 2012


On 18.11.2012 18:55, Michael Meskes wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 04:28:01PM +0100, Felix Geyer wrote:
>> Removing the Open Watcom source files would be a GPL violation unless upstream
>> explicitly adds a license to the generated assembler files.
>
> IANAL but wouldn't the general license from the package kick in if there is no
> license mentioned in a source file?

The assembler file explicitly says that it's build from GPL code so the GPL rules
for distributing object code applies here. That means you need keep the source
code in the tarball.

>> It's pretty hard to believe that someone could write and maintain 15,000 lines
>> of assembler code without a single comment.
>
> But that's not the point. It's not about whether or not you believe them, it's
> about what the license dictates.

It's not really about licenses. I don't doubt that the VirtualBox BIOS is perfectly
fine GPLv2 code.
However the Debian Policy enforces additional restrictions such as everything
in main needs to be buildable from source with software from main.
I think it's a reason to not include software in Debian if we have strong doubts whether
upstream ships the real source code and that restricts how we can make modifications
to the software.

>> Sure, you can modify those assembler files but they are just a post-processed
>> compiler output. That means in practice you can't modify it in a meaningful
>> way.
>> In fact the files say "Auto Generated source file. Do not edit." ;-)
>
> Ok, for the sake of my argument let's assumed that line was removed. :)
>
>> For example we would be unable to cherry-pick a BIOS fix from trunk.
>
> Good point.
>
>> With the same argument you could declare every disassembled binary that is built
>> from high level language code as source code.
>
> True. I'm not saying it is, I just wonder whether our restriction makes sense.

The restriction makes sense because it ensures that you have the freedom to modify the
code and actually run the modified software.

Felix



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