freedesktop.org.xml file license

[hadess]

I've historically been the maintainer of shared-mime-info for around 15 years, and cmd/parser/freedesktop.org.xml looks like it's a copy of the database shipped with shared-mime-info, which is released under the GPL, with shared-mime-info's translators work merged in, and the GPL header removed.

The license that you're shipping mimemagic under (MIT) isn't compatible with shared-mime-info's.

There are a number of possibilities to fix this problem:

• change the mimemagic license to be GPL compatible
• parse the XML file that shared-mime-info ships at runtime, and don't ship it in a codebase with an incompatible license

Using a GPL file as a source makes your whole codebase a derived work, making it all GPL, so I think it's pretty important that this problem gets corrected before somebody uses it in a pure MIT codebase, or a closed-source application.

You will also need to re-add the GPL header to the shared-mime-info XML file as a matter of urgency.

[hadess]

Ping. Please reply with some information on how and when you intend to fix this problem.

[pombredanne]

@hadess pong you wrote:

I've historically been the maintainer of shared-mime-info for around 15 years, and cmd/parser/freedesktop.org.xml looks like it's a copy of the database shipped with shared-mime-info, which is released under the GPL, with shared-mime-info's translators work merged in, and the GPL header removed.

The license that you're shipping mimemagic under (MIT) isn't compatible with shared-mime-info's.

There are a number of possibilities to fix this problem:

* change the mimemagic license to be GPL compatible

* parse the XML file that shared-mime-info ships at runtime, and don't ship it in a codebase with an incompatible license

Using a GPL file as a source makes your whole codebase a derived work, making it all GPL, so I think it's pretty important that this problem gets corrected before somebody uses it in a pure MIT codebase, or a closed-source application.

You will also need to re-add the GPL header to the shared-mime-info XML file as a matter of urgency.

What about this https://github.com/pombredanne/mimemagic/commit/84325dd94d8a310c127732d730e15b0ee0be0e75 and these commits: https://github.com/pombredanne/mimemagic/commits/master

And which other GPL headers are you referencing? I could not find much in https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/uploads/6a226038bf42dae45a049a6b8e729abc/shared-mime-info-1.10.tar.xz beyond the GPL text (which I added back) and the whole original tarball(s) which I added also.

[pombredanne]

Since I am not sure this topic has been discussed by the shared-mime-info contributors and community, I created this ticket https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/issues/154

[hadess]

And which other GPL headers are you referencing?

This one: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/blob/master/data/freedesktop.org.xml.in#L63-79

I could not find much in https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/uploads/6a226038bf42dae45a049a6b8e729abc/shared-mime-info-1.10.tar.xz beyond the GPL text (which I added back) and the whole original tarball(s) which I added also.

You're right, the tools we used at the time (intltool) seemed to strip this information when released in tarballs. That's been fixed by a change of tools.

What about this pombredanne@84325dd and these commits: https://github.com/pombredanne/mimemagic/commits/master

Your combined work is now MIT + GPL (you can't relicense this GPL work under the MIT license that you're releasing the whole thing under), and you should use the proper license instead of just "GPL": https://github.com/pombredanne/mimemagic/commit/4c154fc0f9022e3c2658bcfc704a2ca71bea8a27#diff-b335630551682c19a781afebcf4d07bf978fb1f8ac04c6bf87428ed5106870f5R11

I'm guessing "licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later", not "GPL-licensed" is good enough.

And this needs changing too: https://github.com/pombredanne/mimemagic/blob/master/LICENSE

Since I am not sure this topic has been discussed by the shared-mime-info contributors and community, I created this ticket https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/issues/154

Why would it need to be discussed? Whether I own the full copyright, or a tiny portion, I'm still entitled to enforce that copyright.

[pombredanne]

Since I am not sure this topic has been discussed by the shared-mime-info contributors and community, I created this ticket https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/issues/154

For the record, the ticket above has been closed and locked from further commenting by @hadess so the open discussion will have to continue here and in https://gist.github.com/pombredanne/7d6b3689a1b796c9a509c83b6b87f274

[Pizzacus]

I'm guessing "licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later"

Wait wait wait, shared-mime-info is licensed under GPLv2 or later? Where does it say that any later version can be used?

[pombredanne]

I'm guessing "licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later"

Wait wait wait, shared-mime-info is licensed under GPLv2 or later? Where does it say that any later version can be used?

@Pizzacus I think that https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/blob/master/data/freedesktop.org.xml.in#L64 is what he refers to, but this is not carried in the redistributed XML in question here.

[Pizzacus]

That doesn't say "or any later version" .-.

GPL-licensed works can't be used under later versions if they don't specify they are licensed under "any later version". I couldn't find any notice of that in shared-mime-types, so I think it's only GPLv2, and not any later version...

But it is true that "licensed under the GPLv2 license" is better than "GPL-licensed"

[hadess]

GPL-licensed works can't be used under later versions if they don't specify they are licensed under "any later version". I couldn't find any notice of that in shared-mime-types, so I think it's only GPLv2, and not any later version...

You're right.

But it is true that "licensed under the GPLv2 license" is better than "GPL-licensed"

That'll do.

[pombredanne]

@hadess your wrote:

I'm guessing "licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later", not "GPL-licensed" is good enough. ... Why would it need to be discussed? Whether I own the full copyright, or a tiny portion, I'm still entitled to enforce that copyright.

You are making guesses in your demands in a serious and official legal action. A demand with guesses is not entirely clear to me (irrespective of whether your claims are valid or not as I cannot judge that), therefore things need to be discussed.

[hadess]

You are making guesses in your demands in a serious and official legal action. A demand with guesses is not entirely clear to me (irrespective of whether your claims are valid or not as I cannot judge that), therefore things need to be discussed.

Why does it need to be discussed in the upstream repository, when you're the one distributing said software under the wrong terms?

[pombredanne]

@hadess

Why does it need to be discussed in the upstream repository, when you're the one distributing said software under the wrong terms?

I guess one reason is that there may be other authors, contributors and maintainers of the https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info project and that they may need to be aware of this legal action brought by you?

I would like to get the take of the project listed maintainers at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/blob/66f85bac49626778e164600ce3a80bc1ae1b6604/MAINTAINERS on the topic:

• David Faure @dfaure-kdab
• Ville Skyttä @scop

Did you discuss this with them?

[ZanderBrown]

I mean the core issue here seems to be incompatibilities between MIT and GPL

Arguably GPL-2.0-only, GPL-2.0-or-later, GPL-3.0-only or GPL-3.0-or-later is completely irrelevant at this point: GPL is incompatible with MIT when used in this way

Given there isn't yet any serious legal action the exact version isn't overly important - You seem to be in violation of GPL and thus @hadess has the right to enforce their rights (irrespective of what other contributors may think)

[pombredanne]

@hadess in https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/issues/154#note_850132 you wrote:

Bastien Nocera @hadess · 49 minutes ago: I'm not going to discuss anything here, and I certainly don't need the express authorisation of other copyright holders to assert my own copyright.

I would appreciate if you can reopen https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/issues/154 so a healthy and open discussion can take place there too.

That said, I pushed more commits in https://github.com/pombredanne/mimemagic Please review in details and kindly provide some actionable feedback.

[pombredanne]

@ZanderBrown you wrote:

Given there isn't yet any serious legal action

An official DMCA takedown notice is a serious legal action.

[Pizzacus]

@ZanderBrown what do you mean by "GPL is incompatible with MIT when used in this way"?

If you mean that they can't distribute GPL files under a different license, then yeah that's fair. But if you mean they can't license their own work under MIT just because it's based on a GPL work, then I think that's not the case, they actually can.

[pombredanne]

@hadess FWIW there are some possible ambiguities about the license of the data file: if the GPL applies, which GPL version? See https://gist.github.com/pombredanne/7d6b3689a1b796c9a509c83b6b87f274#gistcomment-3676358

I need to know so we I address your demands properly.

[ZanderBrown]

An official DMCA takedown notice is a serious legal action.

IANAL but [citation needed], a notice is essentially just a specialised Cease and Desist - i.e. a threat of legal action if the content is not removed

@ZanderBrown what do you mean by "GPL is incompatible with MIT when used in this way"?

So GPL and MIT both provide various rights for both creator and user, but they don't provide the same rights

In the case of GPL any derived work must also be GPL, however MIT doesn't have this restriction: Code under MIT can be converted to closed source

If you where taking MIT code and using it in a GPL project then all is fine: You are adding additional rights/restrictions

However taking GPL (of any version) and converting to MIT removes rights - this can only be done with consent of the original authors, such as @hadess

An analogy: MIT is an unsigned 16bit integer GPL is (signed or unsigned) 32bit integer

You can always fit that MIT value in a GPL variable - the entire 0 → 65535 range fits fine

However putting a GPL value - especially if signed, but unsigned as well - in an MIT variable doesn't work: 0→2147483647 simply doesn't fit unless you have arranged for the value to be within the 0 → 65535 range MIT can handle (i.e. got consent)

if the GPL applies, which GPL version?

Respectfully: If you just smashed my window it doesn't matter much if it was single or double glazed

[pombredanne]

@ZanderBrown re:

Respectfully: If you just smashed my window it doesn't matter much if it was single or double glazed

You are making an assumption that there is the equivalent of a "smashed window" here. IMHO things are much less clear cut.

[fooishbar]

You are making an assumption that there is the equivalent of a "smashed window" here. IMHO things are much less clear cut.

I think the analogy is a good one. When you offer code under the MIT license, it is an unconditional gift: people are free to do what they like with it. When you offer code under the GPL license, it is not an unconditional gift: in return for being able to use the code, those using and distributing the code are subject to obligations to ensure that the code is only used in the service of open-source software, i.e. that the source code is always available, and any modifications are also available to the entire community under the same terms.

By whitewashing GPLed software as MIT, you are attempting to remove those obligations, against the explicit wishes of the people who originally donated their time and effort to create that software. Talking about 'smashed windows' is a little emotive, but pretty close to the reality.

[LeChasseur]

From a legal perspective there might be a misunderstanding here:

1. A computer program and a database are different types of copyrightable works (if protected at all). Hence, the licenses for the computer program and the database might be different (similar to fonts or images used together with a computer program).

2. GPL-2.0 (and GPL-3.0) provide for an obligation to license the copyright in modifications (derivative works respectively) under the GPL (respective version, or later if permitted). Accordingly, one has to license modifications of the database under the GPL but not the computer program using the database.

3. Databases are protected in the EU under the DIRECTIVE 96/9/EC (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31996L0009:EN:HTML) if either is true: (a) by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own intellectual creation or (b) there has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents to prevent extraction and/or re-utilization of the whole or of a substantial part, evaluated qualitatively and/or quantitatively, of the contents of that database. Please note that (a) is classical copyright protection and works in most countries. However, it requires a creative act. (b) is specific for the EU and does not apply if the person doing the "substantial investment" is based outside the EU.

Recital 23 of the Directive 96/9/EC provides as follows: "Whereas the term ‘database’ should not be taken to extend to computer programs used in the making or operation of a database, which are protected by Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs:"

[armijnhemel]

You are making an assumption that there is the equivalent of a "smashed window" here. IMHO things are much less clear cut.

I think the analogy is a good one. When you offer code under the MIT license, it is an unconditional gift: people are free to do what they like with it. When you offer code under the GPL license, it is not an unconditional gift: in return for being able to use the code, those using and distributing the code are subject to obligations to ensure that the code is only used in the service of open-source software, i.e. that the source code is always available, and any modifications are also available to the entire community under the same terms.

MIT is not an unconditional gift, you still need to provide the license text. It is a very simple condition, but still a condition.

By whitewashing GPLed software as MIT, you are attempting to remove those obligations, against the explicit wishes of the people who originally donated their time and effort to create that software. Talking about 'smashed windows' is a little emotive, but pretty close to the reality.

Except that this isn't software, it is data that is consumed by the MIT licensed program. There is no code as such in the XML, merely descriptions of data, a large part of which is copied from the IANA registry, format specifications or obtained by observing files.

The program can also work with a different XML file that is following the freedesktop.org shared MIME-info specification. Following the specification does not make the data file GPL automatically, despite what was claimed in the DMCA takedown notice. The freedesktop.org website is actually very explicit about this:

Anyone is free to use and implement the specifications on this site

There is no explicit requirement saying "and every file following the specification has to be under GPL".

The XML file that is currently shipped is not essential to the working of the program and the program would work fine with another one that uses the same structure. This means there is not a tight coupling between the program and the XML file.

[pombredanne]

For reference, @hadess just made a pending merge request to update the license notice at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/merge_requests/119

[cfergeau]

The XML file that is currently shipped is not essential to the working of the program and the program would work fine with another one that uses the same structure. This means there is not a tight coupling between the program and the XML file.

I'm quite sure https://github.com/zRedShift/mimemagic/blob/master/magicsigs.go , https://github.com/zRedShift/mimemagic/blob/master/mediatypes.go , ... were generated from shared-mime-info.xml using https://github.com/zRedShift/mimemagic/blob/master/cmd/parser/main.go mimemagic is not parsing the shared mime info database at runtime, it's transforming it into go files, and that licensing these as MIT. It does not need the XML file because it preprocessed/cached it in a different format.

[fooishbar]

A computer program and a database are different types of copyrightable works (if protected at all). Hence, the licenses for the computer program and the database might be different (similar to fonts or images used together with a computer program).

Yes, this is often referred to as the 'telephone book' standard, where simple lists of facts are not copyrightable, and copyright requires specific creative expression. The line on these is not clear cut, and I don't think either of us have sufficient legal competence to make a judgement that shared-mime-info is a list of facts with no creative expression (and hence not copyrightable).

[armijnhemel]

A computer program and a database are different types of copyrightable works (if protected at all). Hence, the licenses for the computer program and the database might be different (similar to fonts or images used together with a computer program).

Yes, this is often referred to as the 'telephone book' standard, where simple lists of facts are not copyrightable, and copyright requires specific creative expression. The line on these is not clear cut, and I don't think either of us have sufficient legal competence to make a judgement that shared-mime-info is a list of facts with no creative expression (and hence not copyrightable).

Well, @LeChasseur has ;-)

[pombredanne]

For reference https://github.com/zRedShift/mimemagic/pull/5 has this comment from @zRedShift

So I missed #4 due to some shenanigans with github email notifications, sorry about that.

so to clarify as to why there was a time of silence.

[LeChasseur]

A computer program and a database are different types of copyrightable works (if protected at all). Hence, the licenses for the computer program and the database might be different (similar to fonts or images used together with a computer program).

Yes, this is often referred to as the 'telephone book' standard, where simple lists of facts are not copyrightable, and copyright requires specific creative expression. The line on these is not clear cut, and I don't think either of us have sufficient legal competence to make a judgement that shared-mime-info is a list of facts with no creative expression (and hence not copyrightable).

I did not say that the database is not copyrightable (which would need further analysis). What I say is that the software processing the data and the database are separate works and therefore the Copyleft of the license for the database is not relevant for the software. This is pretty much clear.

[cfergeau]

One part of the discussion is embedding modified versions of the database in go source files licensed as mit

[pombredanne]

@hadess in https://github.com/zRedShift/mimemagic/issues/4#issue-813343414 you wrote:

You will also need to re-add the GPL header to the shared-mime-info XML file as a matter of urgency.

FWIW, there was no such thing and for the record and that at this stage both @zRedShift and me have added back the full original archives and created plenty extra GPL notices in both repos.

And in https://github.com/zRedShift/mimemagic/issues/4#issuecomment-804765635 you wrote this that I missed at first:

You're right, the tools we used at the time (intltool) seemed to strip this information when released in tarballs. That's been fixed by a change of tools.

Are you actually saying that this whole DMCA situation stems from a confusion of your own making by you stripping your own GPL notices? If I am not mistaken you handled the release 1.10 we are discussing here per https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/commit/111d3397ceb17df166ec316d86a68cf56e927f00

[hadess]

Are you actually saying that this whole DMCA situation stems from a confusion of your own making by you stripping your own GPL notices?

The fact that you (the original author and the other users of this library) completely disregarded the license by using the database as though it was MIT licensed, and the lack of response, is the reason for the DMCA takedown requests.

[fooishbar]

A file which is posted with no license information is not automatically licensed under MIT, and it does not give you permission to do what you like with it. Absent any particular license, you have no rights to it and cannot redistribute it. This is why MIT exists, to give an explicit license grant.

[pombredanne]

@hadess re:

... and the lack of response,

Did you ever attempt to even contact me? That would be news to me. The first I heard from this was the day before yesterday.

[hadess]

Did you ever attempt to even contact me? That would be news to me. The first I heard from this was the day before yesterday.

I didn't attempt to contact you. Yours was just one of the forks shipping the same code as the original here.

[pombredanne]

@fooishbar there has never any attempt to relicense anything GPL under MIT here.
At best there were some missing notice and license texts, and such notices are also missing upstream in the file in question. The texts and notices have added and/or created when missing here since. AFAIK there is no issue anymore. @hadess please confirm this.

That said, there are also missing and confusing notices upstream in shared-mime-info and issues about the actual accurate provenance and license of the mime data that were merged 18 years ago from various unknown locations from various unclear licenses beyond GPL and KDE and Gnome. The comments about this in https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/shared-mime-info/-/merge_requests/119 are rather surprising and casting as serious shadow on the shared-mime-info provenance and licensing clarity. One should start by having a clean place before pointing fingers IMHO.

Finally, I feel that @hadess using a DMCA takedown notice as an extremely aggressive and extremely rude way to resolve possible licensing issues between free and open source projects.

[ZanderBrown]

there has never any attempt to relicense anything GPL under MIT here.

Other than https://github.com/zRedShift/mimemagic/commit/e127c36a110e259e4d53436e6c5bad06259aaaf2 that is

[hadess]

Finally, I feel that @hadess using a DMCA takedown notice as an extremely aggressive and extremely rude way to resolve possible licensing issues between free and open source projects.

I wouldn't have used that tool if the original repository's owner had replied in time. You, of all people, should have also done your due diligence when forking that repository and, I'm assuming, using it. You've been bending over backwards to avoid having to do anything, even putting the license of the files you copied into question.

Change the top-level license of the project, and remove your disparaging comments about the upstream license from the README, and then we can start talking again.

[zRedShift]

@hadess I apologize for not noticing this issue in time, Github notifications for this project were disabled for this project on my end, and since no one @ mentioned me, the first time I saw this issue was when I came to investigate the sudden DMCA request.

I'm not informed on US/EU Copyright Law nor the intricacies of permissive/copyleft licenses and any mixing thereof, and it was certainty not my intention to redistribute a more restrictive work with a laxer license, this was just a hobby project I created 2.5 years ago, and haven't really been maintaining since.

In fact, the only reason freedesktop.org.xml was included in this repository in the first place was to demonstrate how the parser works, the various source code files in the root are generated from it. If required by the license, it can be removed without affecting this library.

The derived source code itself is another question entirely, as while it was intended for everyone to generate their own, using their own systems' databases, I imagine most people use these default definitions derived from the shared-mime-info 1.10. I'm not sure if it's a violation of GPLv2 so I will defer to someone with expertise in such things.

Yanking out these generated files and either trying to detect /usr/share/mime/packages/ and putting it into a //go:generate would probably affect windows users and would still insert all the parsed/generated definitions and signatures into the compiled executable. So while it would make this repo MIT licensed, the end result isn't much different.

But again, I'm not sure if the magic signature/offset/extension/etc. "facts" themselves are copyrightable and/or under GPLv2.

Changing the license to GPLv2 and yanking older versions(?) would probably break a lot of workflows, and wouldn't do much for the forks so I would like to avoid it if possible, even though I, myself, don't have a moral stance on the issue.

[pombredanne]

@hadess Since you want to get things taken down, your wish is my command. I therefore filtered the history of my fork and forced pushed removing what I hope is all and any shared-mime-info data and code that may have been generated from the data. The code no longer works but that's not a concern for me as I do not use it. This should ensure that your demands are satisfied. Please confirm that this is a proper outcome for you in https://github.com/pombredanne/mimemagic

[pombredanne]

@zRedShift I am really sorry for you that you had to suffer this bullying through this episode. FWIW, there is an excellent alternative types database at https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/ And a go parser at https://github.com/richardlehane/siegfried that you may be able to reuse to generate code from and avoid any future DMCA-mediated interactions with the shared-mime-info project maintainer. Also FWIW, at this stage if I were you I would not worry about breaking other's workflows.

[fooishbar]

The derived source code itself is another question entirely, as while it was intended for everyone to generate their own, using their own systems' databases, I imagine most people use these default definitions derived from the shared-mime-info 1.10. I'm not sure if it's a violation of GPLv2 so I will defer to someone with expertise in such things.

The transformation from XML to Go form does not obviate the licensing on the XML: it must be retained within the Go code as that is very clearly a derived work. To take a really dumb example, if you transpile the Linux kernel to webasm, the webasm is still GPLed; it doesn't lose its licensing. If that were possible, the GPL would have been routed around long ago by any number of people with a strong vested interest in doing so.

As you say, when this happens is an interesting point. To simplify things somewhat, the obligations of the GPL (and copyright/licensing generally) are invoked when distribution happens. There is prior art in pushing this obligation down to users (e.g. NVIDIA's kernel modules), who would then be responsible for ensuring that they are in compliance with these obligations.

@pombredanne Without having perfect insight into Bastien's mind, I would suggest that what he really wants is for the GPL licensing on the MIME data to be complied with. Taking the entire project down is one way, or an amicable relicensing is another way. Given the amount of pushback insisting that shared-mime-info isn't actually licensed under the GPL (untrue), or attempting to find various loopholes and workarounds to undermine the licensing - in other words, disrespecting the wishes and the legal terms that Bastien attached to the code that he created and donated to the open-source community - maybe taking the repos down completely is the only way. Which is a sad outcome for everyone. You might not personally like the GPL, or find its implications practically difficult to deal with, but attempting to circumvent its obligations is neither legally nor ethically sound.

[armijnhemel]

The derived source code itself is another question entirely, as while it was intended for everyone to generate their own, using their own systems' databases, I imagine most people use these default definitions derived from the shared-mime-info 1.10. I'm not sure if it's a violation of GPLv2 so I will defer to someone with expertise in such things.

The transformation from XML to Go form does not obviate the licensing on the XML: it must be retained within the Go code as that is very clearly a derived work. To take a really dumb example, if you transpile the Linux kernel to webasm, the webasm is still GPLed; it doesn't lose its licensing. If that were possible, the GPL would have been routed around long ago by any number of people with a strong vested interest in doing so.

It is not code. It is a database with facts. That is something completely else.

[fooishbar]

It is not code. It is a database with facts.

This is not established and agreed. If it were a pure list of facts, then the license would be totally irrelevant as copyright law would not apply. I am not qualified to make a definitive statement on this (I have spent a lot of time dealing with copyright and licensing issues in many contexts, but am not a qualified lawyer), however my first thought in looking at the XML structure is that it is a state machine which would be more naturally expressed in a language such as Lua.

Just because the format is XML does not mean it is an uncopyrightable list of facts; you can generate significant original creative expression in any file format.

[hadess]

Changing the license to GPLv2 and yanking older versions(?) would probably break a lot of workflows, and wouldn't do much for the forks so I would like to avoid it if possible, even though I, myself, don't have a moral stance on the issue.

I can't answer those questions for you I'm afraid. FWIW, this is what happened to a Ruby implementation that had the same problem mentioned in this issue: https://github.com/minad/mimemagic/issues/97

[dfaure]

The mime database is more than a "database of facts" (if that word means: trivial things that everyone knows). There is creative work in the magic rules, which have often been reverse-engineered from existing files with bad format documentation. There is creative work in the choices being made for inheritance, glob weighting, etc.

[nugend]

Can we get some actual lawyers in here? If DMCA is being used, then Feist applies and I it doesn't matter how much effort went into creating the database.

[fooishbar]

@nugend You're the one making the argument that something which has been understood by its authors and everyone who's distributed it (including projects who do put a lot of effort into vetting this kind of thing) to be uncopyrightable. If you believe it's the case that Feist applies and the status quo is wrong, it's up to you to put that argument persuasively, not on the authors to reject it.

[nugend]

I'm not a lawyer, so I can't provide legal advice, nor do I have standing, I'm just a curious bystander since legal threats have been made. If you've already consulted a lawyer regarding the copyright status of the database in question, an affadavit would be welcome for the edification of all. Otherwise, it's solely on @zRedShift to either counterfile the DMCA claim or not and up to him to seek legal advice regarding the same if he wants.

Also, I wasn't stating that it was or was not copyrightable. I was simply stating that effort is not the test used for the copyright-ability of a database.

[fooishbar]

shared-mime-info has been actively developed and shipped by both distributions and as part of products who do legal vetting of licenses for 19 years. In that time, I have never - until this thread - seen the argument advanced that it is uncopyrightable per Feist. Yet you are saying that after a couple of people who are not lawyers have suggested it might apply, the onus is suddenly on the copyright holder to engage a lawyer at their expense to rebut it?

This entire discussion is every bit as ethically dubious as it is legally dubious. The contributors to shared-mime-info specifically made an informed choice to license their work under the GPL. If you don't like the terms the work is licensed under, or you cannot comply with them - don't use it. It's that simple. Instead, the entire discussion in this issue and the other related ones has come from the attitude that complying with the legally-protected wishes of authors who donated their work to the open-source commons is hard, so they'll find ways to subvert and FUD that work, to make your life more convenient.

If you want to see how productive engagement around resolving licensing issues works, see jellybob/mimemagic#1, where it took like two hours for everyone to discuss the issues and figure out the least-bad solution. This issue is not that. It's the complete opposite. I can't even tell you how distasteful I find it that you are attempting to subvert the wishes of an open-source contributor to try and use their work in ways they have explicitly chosen not to permit.

Since there's no goodwill or productive intent, I'm unsubscribing from the issue, because it's insulting to spend my own unpaid time arguing with people who are trying to make an end-run around clearly-defined licensing terms for their own benefit, whilst trying to offload all the labour to the people who originally gifted the code into the open-source community.

Your legal options are clear. Good luck.

[dfaure]

... and I said creative choices, not effort.