[needs-packaging] package heyu needed for X10 home automation support

[grytpype]

Requests adding heyu to Ubuntu to add X10 functionality.

Right now the only X10 package in the distro is bottlerocket, which is very old and only works with old CM17A "Firecracker" control modules. Heyu is needed to support newer X10 hardware.

Not GPLed but released under a free-ish "Heyu License."

http://heyu.tanj.com/

[Ansgar Burchardt (aburch)]

From the license:

    This software is licensed free of charge for non-commercial distribution
    and for personal and internal business use only. Inclusion of this
    software or any part thereof in a commercial product is prohibited
    without the prior written permission of the author.

In my opinion this does violate (at least) two requirements for inclusion in Ubuntu (main or restricted)[1]:

    * Must allow redistribution. Your right to sell or give away the software alone, or as part of an aggregate software distribution
    * Must not discriminate against persons, groups or against fields of endeavour. The license of software included in Ubuntu can not discriminate against anyone or any group of users and cannot restrict users from using the software for a particular field of endeavour - a business for example. Thus we will not distribute software that is licensed "freely for non-commercial use".

I have marked the bug as invalid for this reason. Feel free to change back if you object.

[1] http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/licensing

[ethana2 (ethana2)]

Does the heyu community know that their odd license makes their software completely worthless to Ubuntu users?
Should I just sell my X-10 equipment now? If it's never going to Just Work, I don't know that I want to mess with it.

[grytpype (bcorsello-deactivatedaccount)]

@ethana2, feel free to contact the developer and ask:

http://heyu.tanj.com/heyu_credits.html

[Karl Ostmo (kostmo)]

I have found some posts regarding licensing on the heyu mailing list.

Someone who wrote a commercial iPhone app which depended on a redistributed version of heyu was confronted:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/heyu_users/message/2319

Here is an inquiry from an individual who wished to host an RPM of the package:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/heyu_users/message/2486

These responses don't bode well for inclusion in Ubuntu.
I have filed Bug 340888 against a program that at least has support for the CM11A.

[Nathan Willis (n8)]

Don't know if anyone is still monitoring this, but I can clarify something about the license: Heyu's source code predates the GPL by several years, and the original author (and copyright holder) of the code dropped out of sight in 1986. Thus the project _cannot_ relicense itself unless someone tracks him down, or, if he is no longer living, whoever inherited his copyrights.

It is a highly uncommon situation, but the project is aware of the license compatibility issues. They are just trying to respect the original author's wishes.

[Sérgio Faria (sergio91pt)]

Can this be considered for multiverse? I can't find info about the procedure for multiverse/debian non-free.
According to http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=185031 (googled 2002 bug report) this could have been moved to debian non-free but the maintainer orphaned the package..
I also found https://github.com/lamby/pkg-heyu on my search, dunno if the author intends to push it to Debian or not. For the record I'm interested in packaging this in the near future (as I have to read those lengthy wiki's first) if no one is..

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

*** This is an automated message ***

This bug is tagged needs-packaging which identifies it as a request for a new package in Ubuntu. As a part of the managing needs-packaging bug reports specification, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/Specs/NeedsPackagingBugs, all needs-packaging bug reports have Wishlist importance. Subsequently, I'm setting this bug's status to Wishlist.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Nathan Willis (n8)]

UPDATE: The Heyu code has been relicensed under GPLv3. New maintainers have verified that all of the original (missing or un-locate-able) author's pre-GPL-era code has been rewritten or removed, and they obtained consent for the relicense action from the subsequent maintainers (or, in one case, from the legal executor of his estate). That means that there is no longer a license conflict.

Details are in this thread on the Heyu mailing list: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/heyu_users/message/6630

[Jacky Alciné (jackyalcine)]

So this is going to be packaged? Maybe a Launchpad project, a PPA and some recipes would be in order for this. :)