Incomplete copyright information

[wiene]

In the context of packaging dnstwist for Debian I am trying to document the copyright information for the files included in your software. It seems to me that at least for the files inside the database directory proper copyright information is missing. Could you please add the following information for those files:

• the copyright year(s)
• the name of the author(s)/copyright holder(s)
• the licence
• the URL to the source of those files

For the file effective_tld_names.dat I've found information for the last two items but unless I overlooked something, the remaining information is missing.

[elceef]

For effective_tld_names.dat the copyright information is the following:

• 2007-2016
• Mozilla Foundation
• Mozilla Public License 2.0
• https://publicsuffix.org/list/public_suffix_list.dat

When it comes to GeoIP.dat it is difficult to provide since I bundled the file over 3 years ago. I downloaded this file from MaxMind web page, but since then it has changed and currently I can't find any information about the license or direct URL to the source of this file. The copyright information inside the file itself states the following: GEO-106FREE 20160907 Build 1 Copyright (c) 2016 MaxMind.

https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/legacy/downloadable/

[elceef]

I've been looking for copyright information for the GeoIP database and stumbled upon archived version of MaxMind web page containing information on GeoIP Legacy database which is used by dnstwist:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170309082319/http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/legacy/geolite/

According to the web page, GeoLite Legacy database used to be distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Since January 2019 it has been discontinued and GeoLite Legacy builds removed from MaxMind website. It's no longer available for download.

[wiene]

@elceef, many thanks for your investigations. They are very helpful. Still I have difficulties to follow you on two items:

For effective_tld_names.dat the copyright information is the following:

* 2007-2016

* Mozilla Foundation

Where did you get this information from? I cannot find corresponding notes in the linked file.

According to the web page, GeoLite Legacy database used to be distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Thus summarizing your information for the GeoIP.dat file, we end up with:

• Copyright: 2016, MaxMind, Inc.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Is that correct?

[elceef]

For effective_tld_names.dat the copyright information is the following:

* 2007-2016

* Mozilla Foundation

Where did you get this information from? I cannot find corresponding notes in the linked file.

https://publicsuffix.org/

Thus summarizing your information for the GeoIP.dat file, we end up with:

• Copyright: 2016, MaxMind, Inc.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Is that correct?

Correct.

[wiene]

For effective_tld_names.dat the copyright information is the following:

* 2007-2016

* Mozilla Foundation

Where did you get this information from? I cannot find corresponding notes in the linked file.

https://publicsuffix.org/

Did you take this information from the footer of the web page? If yes, does this notice only apply to the web page or also to the effective_tld_names.dat file?

[elceef]

I believe this applies to both since I consider effective_tld_names.dat integral part of the web page.

[wiene]

According to the publicsuffix web page:

The Public Suffix List is a cross-vendor initiative to provide an accurate list of domain name suffixes, maintained by the hard work of Mozilla volunteers and by submissions from registries, [...]

Assuming that the Mozilla Foundation is the copyright holder for the effective_tld_names.dat file, the above statement implies (according to my understanding) that those volunteers would have to transfer the copyright for their contributions to the Mozilla Foundation. I looked for hints supporting this assumption but what I found rather points to the opposite direction. I have not found anything directly related to the effective_tld_names.dat file but for at least one other file in the public suffix repository, a differing copyright holder is explicitly mentioned - see this file. It seems inconsistent to me that the copyright has been transferred to the Mozilla Foundation for file A and for file B, the copyright remains with the author.

[elceef]

I think you are looking into wrong repository. This one contains the suffix file and the publicsuffix.org web page. https://github.com/publicsuffix/publicsuffix.org

[wiene]

I only find web code in https://github.com/publicsuffix/publicsuffix.org. But maybe I overlooked something. Could you please point me to the location of the suffix file in this repository?

[elceef]

I mixed up repositories, my bad. The one containing the suffix file is in fact https://github.com/publicsuffix/list which is under Mozilla Public License 2.0. So to sum up, to my understanding, there are 350+ contributors (authors) to this repository already and Mozilla is merely the maintainer. Makes sense?

[wiene]

For the purpose of packaging dnstwist for Debian, I decided to remove the database directory from the dnstwist Debian package and instead use the files contained in this directory from the corresponding Debian packages.

[elceef]

The latest release is no longer shipped with built-in GeoIP and TLD database files. Hopefully this should make things easier.

[wiene]

I think this is the most elegant solution. Thanks!