[tex-live] ICC profiles for PDF/A compliance

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Ross, Peter, Karl,

first of all, I have to agree it is all very convoluted, and I am not an
expert, but here is what I understood and what I think was the timeline:

* at some point in the past all the icc profiles somehow shared the same
  license statement (or it wasn't made clear on profiles2.xalter
  This is probably when Peter included the _black_sealed one.

* Debian hat a lintian error about this being non-free, and I was stymed
  because the license statement was sufficiently free for me (including
  a renaming clause but that is fine).
  The reason for this is that in the license statement, as of now, there
  is no *explicite* clause stating that changes are allowed (a
  requirement for OSS).
  But it is stated that *altered* versions are to be renamed etc.

* I asked clarification from Debian ftp-masters and they agreed that the
  intention is that changes are allowed with the renaming restrictions,
  and thus the lintian error should be changed.

* Then it turned out that on different parts of the color.org page were
  different license statements, and after clarifications it turned out
  that the _black_sealed is non-free.

That brings me to Ross' analysis, with which I agree:
> So it would seem:
>      sRGB2014.icc    is free
>      sRGB_IEC61966-2-1_black_scaled.icc   is not free.

This is what I would say, too.

Checking with Debian, the sRGB2015.icc is in the package icc-profiles,
which is in non-free, and the license statement attributed to the file
is recorded as
	License: ICC
	 This profile is made available by the International Color Consortium,
	 and may be copied, distributed, embedded, made, used, and sold without
	 restriction. Altered versions of this profile shall have the original
	 identification and copyright information removed and shall not be
	 misrepresented as the original profile.
	Comment:
	 Apparently applies generally to color profiles with ICC listed as
	 copyright holder in the embedded Creator field, according to
	 <http://www.color.org/profiles2.xalter#license>.
So with the ftp-master decision I think it should actually moved into 
the icc-profile-free package. I will report there and see if I can move
somthing forward, but this is in fact unrelated to TeX Live!!!

Now a few more comments:

On Fri, 07 Sep 2018, Ross Moore wrote:
> OK. There is a single-line statement saying:   "not free"
> without any explanation of why Debian has determined this.

Because as you found, the _black_sealed has different license terms.

> It is not changed, so far as I’m aware;

Irrelevant. What is necessary is the permission to change ;-)

> If this is going to stop Debian from distributing TeXLive, then I suppose
> we should change the profile.

No no no. I have for now removed the file in the Debian package and
suggested the icc-profiles package to get it back, so no worry on the
Debian side.

Anyway, in all these discussion I normally *completely* ignore my Debian
hat and decide for TeX Live, the rest must be managed from Debian in
some way (I guess I'm a bit schizophrenic ;-)

> And what about the CMYK profile?      coated_FOGRA39L_argl.icc
> Has an objection to this ever been raised?

Not that I know.

> License: This profile is made available by ECI European Color Initiative, with permission of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, and may be used, embedded and exchanged without restriction. It may not be distributed, sold or altered without written permission of ECI European Color Initiative. Color Toolbox 17.0.0 - (c) Copyright 2015 Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. All Rights Reserved.

> So these would be classed as “not free” right?

Right, no way to have it in TeX Live.

> Is it reasonable for TeXLive to request permission to distribute

No, because we need software/files that follow the FSF guidelines, and
that means that any user of the files can use the obtained files freely
(not going into details here now), which wouldn't be achieved.

> from some of these places:  ECI, IDEAlliance, VIGC, … ?
> But if granted, would Debian be able to re-distribute?

No, out of the same reasons. And TeX Live also cannot use them.
The TeX Live DVDs are sold by Lehmann which would be in breach
of the copyright agreement.

> I hope the gs profiles are free. -k
> 
> Please clarify, and give a clear reason why you think there is a violation
> by including these files.

The question is always whether there is a clear license statement
allowing for free and unrestricted redistribution within the FSF
guilelines.

All the best

Norbert

--
PREINING Norbert                               http://www.preining.info
Accelia Inc.     +    JAIST     +    TeX Live     +    Debian Developer
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