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 pombredanne@84325dd 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":
pombredanne@4c154fc#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.