Hi Pirate Praveen,

On  Sa 29 Mär 2025 09:34:49 CET, Pirate Praveen wrote:

Package: fusiondirectory
Severity: important

Follow up for https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1016029 (this bug is archived, but I think my comments should be recorded somewhere)

On Mon, 25 Jul 2022 16:05:53 +0200 Mike Gabriel <mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de> wrote:
Package: ftp.debian.org
Severity: normal

The fusiondirectory src:package has been maintained by myself and
upstream in the past. As fusiondirectory does not come with a build
system, we implemented the build system in debian/*.install in the past.

Upstream has recently chosen to hide their debian/* packaging from the public
and chosen to make the DEB packaging an asset. From now on you can only
receive latest DEB packages of fusiondirectory via a subscription.

They do provide new versions from their public repositories without subscription, but they don't provide source packages, only binary .deb packages [1].

Actually, they cannot withhold the packaging files, as it would violate the terms of GPL 2.0 - debian packaging is a derivative work of fusion directory, which is under GPL 2.0. They can do that only if they hold copyright to the whole codebase or get permission from every single copyright holder. Since they forked Gosa, it is unlikely they rewrote the code or took permission from all external contributors.

I have asked them to publish the source packages as they are required to do it under GPL as they won't be able distribute the code from external contributors without following GPL [2].

Any copyright holder / contributor can enforce this.

Mike, they are violating your copyright for debian/* files at least.

I don't think we should let them get away with clear GPL violation this easily (just removing the package).

I am aware of the potential copyright infringement, however, iirc, I mostly cherry-picked packaging changes from their upstream DEB packaging. On the other hand, they started off from packaging work by GONICUS GmbH (Cajus Pollmeier) and myself as found in the gosa DEB packaging.

However, I must admit I am to no extent interested in FusionDirectory anymore. Upgrades broke the installation I had regularly (i.e. too often), because required LDAP changes (expected by the new FD version) were not handled gracefully as part of their update procedure but all LDAP changes required I had to apply myself. That said, these days I totally disrecommend running/using FusionDirectory.

Instead, I currently invest my time in improving GOsa² on the upstream side and as an Open Source project. GONICUS currently is step-by-step-adding PHP composer support to their plugins + the core, so there is activity again in GOsa² upstream. In fact, we (GONICUS and my company) have quite a big customer who is running a deployment of recent GOsa² successfully as their IDM (many thousand users on it).

Sorry, but for me personally, hunting FD developers for close-sourcing my few lines of DEB packaging with lawyers is not something I am willing to invest time in.

Greets,
Mike


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mike gabriel aka sunweaver (Debian Developer)
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