libofx in Debian

[Thomas Bushnell BSG]

On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 15:52 +0100, Christian Stimming wrote:
> In fact, after thinking about it for a while, your idea with packaging  
> libofx without the OFX DTDs sounds even worse for me. I mean, the  
> whole point of libofx is processing OFX. Shipping it without that  
> feature is like shipping a lib-foo-print package without printing  
> functionality. Iff you decide to do this, you should at least rename  
> it into something like libofx-noofx or similar. But with the name  
> "libofx" you should package only something that can actually process  
> OFX data.

Well, the OFC DTD is still there.  That's perhaps not very important?

> I disagree. The distribution of libofx with its GPL source code and  
> these DTDs is perfectly fine. 

No.  The license does not permit the distribution of modified copies,
and the DTDs in libofx are (according to the changelog) modified
slightly.

And, the license only permits distribution in "conforming applications".
Not "mostly conforming applications", or "trying to be conforming
applications".  That permission thus only applies to programs which
actually implement the standard, completely, and without error.  Care to
bet the odds that libofx actually meets that high bar? :)

There is no GPL issue: if there were noxious permissions that permitted
the distribution, there wouldn't be a problem on the GPL side, because
the DTD is only a data file read at run time, and not really a part of
the program itself, perhaps in the way that a configuration file is
distinct from a program.  And since the copyright owner is Benoit, the
libofx developer, I'm sure he would not object to that interpretation.

But Debian cannot distribute the DTDs as they are: they do not permit
modified distribution, and they can only be used in conforming
applications.  Even if libofx were a perfectly conforming application,
free software is software which is not limited to a single application
use.  There needs to be permission to make and distribute modified
copies, for purposes other than just writing conforming applications.

Thomas