NGC catalog in Fedora/RHEL software
by Mattia Verga
Hi,
I'm having a discussion on the Legal mailing list about the usage of
databases like the Saguaro Astronomy Club catalog [2] or Dr. Wolfgang
Steinicke NGC database [2].
For example Kstars uses the SAC catalog as source for its NGC database.
From the SOURCES.readme file in kstars sources [3]:
> SAC Catalog
> ===========
>
> Part of our NGC/IC data is obtained from the Saguaro Astronomy Club
> catalog, compiled by Steve Coe.
>
> While the website seemed to indicate that the catalog is only
> available for non-commercial use (and hence incompatible with KStars),
> Akarsh Simha received a correspondence with Steve Coe, who is the
> Copyright holder of the catalog.
>
> Here are the relevant sections of the email exchange:
>
> ----------
>
> From: Steve Coe <stevecoe(a)cloudynights.com>
> To: Akarsh Simha <akarshsimha(a)gmail.com>
> Date: 18th Dec 2008
>
> Snippet:
>
>
> Akarsh;
>
> I have no problem with you using the SAC data for the Kstars program.
> It was released with the rules that it is not sold as a seperate item.
The opinion on the Legal mailing list [4] is such sources are not
compatible with Fedora/RHEL:
From Tom Callaway reply:
> Any license with a commercial use restriction is non-free. Material
> under such a license must not be distributed in Fedora, either in source
> or binary RPM.
I think Skychart also uses SAC catalog for building its NGC database. If
such sources are incompatible what choices we have to fix that? I don't
find any other reliable and updated sources for NGC objects data and
even if there is one I don't think all the developers will change their
code only because Fedora doesn't like it. In Kstars case they also had
the permission from SAC to use their data.
So are the only choices to remove NGC catalogs from packages (with a
major loss in usability) or to retire packages from Fedora/EPEL?
Mattia
[1] http://www.saguaroastro.org/content/downloads.htm
[2] http://www.klima-luft.de/steinicke/ngcic/ngcic_e.htm
[3] https://github.com/KDE/kstars/tree/master/kstars/data
[4]
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.o...
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