Peter Gutmann's paper licensing info missing

[Till Ulen]

Binary package hint: secure-delete

The secure-delete package version 3.1-3 contains a file 'usenix6-gutmann.doc' which is the text of a paper by Peter Gutmann entitled 'Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory'. (Despite the .doc extension, it is a text file).

The debian/copyright file for that package does not include the copyright and licensing information for Gutmann's paper. The paper also lacks any explicit copyright or license statement, neither in the packaged version nor in the copy on the author's website at <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html>.

Therefore, the paper is non-free. Actually, we don't even have the permission to redistribute it.

Similar issue occured with older versions of the wipe package. The upstream used to include a copy of the same Gutmann's work, and Debian maintainer removed it from the .orig.tar.gz file for the lack of licensing information.

There are two ways to resolve this bug:

1. To obtain a permission from Peter Gutmann to redistribute his paper under a free license. By 'free' I mean a license that satisfies both Debian Free Software Guidelines and Ubuntu licensing policy for universe. Ensuring that the license is DFSG-compatible is important to allow Debian to distribute the paper under the same license that we got, thus keeping Debian and Ubuntu in sync.

2. To cease redistribution of the paper and remove it from the .orig.tar.gz file.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Have you also reported this bug to Debian? Thanks in advance.

[Till Ulen (tillulen)]

Yes, it's now linked to the Debian BTS.

[Albert Damen (albrt)]

This bug has been fixed in Hardy:

secure-delete (3.1-4) unstable; urgency=low

  * Fixed licensing info (closes: #428102)
  * Fixed handling of nostrip build option (closes: #438009)

 -- Robert Lemmen <email address hidden> Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:21:17 +0200