License question about sf2 soundfont in Tuxguitar

[Helmar Gerloni]

Hello legal team,

I am trying to update the Tuxguitar package from version 1.2 to 1.5.6.

The new version includes the soundfont "Magic Sound Font v2.0". While Tuxguitar is licensed under LGPL-2.1+, the license of the soundfont file (MagicSFver2.sf2) is not 100% clear.

The issue was discussed in

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=819332
https://sourceforge.net/p/tuxguitar/support-requests/13/

In the SF ticket, the Tuxguitar author states that the author of the soundfont, Dennis, "allowed us redistribute the soundfont with tuxguitar".
I tried to email Dennis to ask about the license of the soundfont, but did not receive a reply.

The soundfont file can also be downloaded as "free soundfont" in the "Community Audio" collection on archive.org:

https://archive.org/details/opensource_audio?query=free-soundfonts-sf2-2019-04
https://archive.org/download/free-soundfonts-sf2-2019-04/MagicSFver2.sf2

There are already a few other sf2 soundfonts in Debian. sf2 files can be edited with open source soundfont editors like Polyphone, so the format should not be a problem.

Do you think it is possible to add the file MagicSFver2.sf2 to the Debian package, maybe under LGPL-2.1+, like the Tuxguitar sources? Or maybe as "public domain"?

Regards, Helmar.

[Tobias Frost]

Disclaimer: IANAL.
I don't think neither of the two is appropiate:
- That the upstream author allowed tuxguitar to distribute does not mean it is LGPL.
- You cannot claim it is "Public Domain" [2] without the consent of the author, and
the link you pasted [1] says that the author "wants some credits", and a Public Domain
licenses would allow me to drop those credits.

The "Dennis allowed us redistribute the soundfont with tuxguitar" [1] could be
a tuxguitar specific license, and only to *distribute*. Unclear if it would
apply to us so, but would still be non-free.

The "But he never mentioned anything about license" [1] part, could be even a
"all rights reservered." otherwise.

I would drop the file and ship without if Dennis is not answering.


[1] https://sourceforge.net/p/tuxguitar/support-requests/13/
[2] Public Domain has other problems too, especiall outside of the USA.
For example, in my country, I could not place my work in "public domain",
as my country does not allow me to surrender my own copyright. (any
expression of me doing so would just be void). The closest I can get is by
using something like CC0.

--
tobi

[Helmar Gerloni]

> https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2023/01/msg00005.html
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2023/01/msg00097.html
Roberto, Tobias, thanks for your answers.

I have removed MagicSFver2.sf2 from the package and added a note to README.Debian.
The new package now depends on fluid-soundfont-gm, see
https://mentors.debian.net/package/tuxguitar/

The package builds and runs on amd64 and in Qemu for arm64. It looks pretty good to me now.
Maybe someone can take a look and upload it?
If there is anything more I can do, just let me know.

[tony mancill]

Hello Helmar,

I am reviewing the updated package now and will either sponsor an upload
if everything looks good or provide feedback.

Thank you!
tony

[tony mancill]

The update looks great! I have updated debian/copyright to document
the files that are licensed under a license other than the LGPL, but
otherwise everything looks good. I will upload today.

For the time-being, I will push the updated sources and tag to the
current java-team repo [1], but we may want adjust that before the
bullseye release since the package is no longer team-maintained.

Thank you for your work on this!
tony

[1] https://salsa.debian.org/java-team/tuxguitar