legal August 2007

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

19 participants
20 discussions

License tag status - 2007/08/29
by Todd Zullinger 06 Sep '07

06 Sep '07

Sometime over the past few days the status of license tags crossed the 50% mark. Current status: 47.03% of spec files (2204 out of 4686) have invalid licenses (as of Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:26:29 +0000) Attached are lists grouped by owner and package. I have a few questions after poking through these lists. There are multiple versions of the GFDL license (currently it's at 1.2 on the FSF site). However, the Licensing page doesn't mention any versions. Several packages (21 to be precise), use GFDL+ as part of the license tag. This is flagged as incorrect in the current report (and by rpmlint). But should it be? If for some reason a package ends up using GDFL 1.1 without any "or later version" statement, shouldn't that be respected? Several perl packages (including perl itself) use the license tag: (GPL+ or Artistic) and (GPLv2+ or Artistic) This isn't being parsed correctly by the regex used in rpmlint (which I've stolen and used in the check-licenses script). The regex is: '\s(?:and|or)\s|[()]' Does anyone have suggestions for improving this regex so it won't fail to parse the above license tag and others like it? -- Todd OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception. -- Groucho Marx

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XANO mincho's font license
by Akira TAGOH 02 Sep '07

02 Sep '07

Hi, There are a Japanese TrueType font, called XANO mincho though, I'm not sure if that license is comfortable for us to include into Fedora. So it would be appreciated if someone can review it before going to proceed the package review. TIA, -- Akira TAGOH Copyright (c) 2003 Hitachi, Ltd. and TypeBank Co., Ltd. Copyright (c) 2003 UCHIDA Akira Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the fonts accompanying this license ("Fonts") and associated documentation files (the "Font Software"), to reproduce and distribute the Font Software, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Font Software, and to permit persons to whom the Font Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies of one or more of the Font Software typefaces. The Font Software may be sold as part of a larger software package but no copy of one or more of the Font Software typefaces may be sold by itself. The end-user documentation included with the derived work, if any, must include the following acknowledgment: This product is derived by using the right to use "Hitachi-Mincho 32x32-dot weight 3 Font" possessed by Hitachi, Ltd. and TypeBank Co., Ltd. Alternately, this acknowledgment may appear in the Font Software itself, if and wherever such third-party acknowledgments normally appear. THE FONT SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT, PATENT, TRADEMARK, OR OTHER RIGHT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE FONT SOFTWARE OR FROM OTHER DEALINGS IN THE FONT SOFTWARE.

2 4

OpenPBS license
by Garrick Staples 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

The license for TORQUE is under the OpenPBS license and isn't in the Fedora list of approved licenses, so I am sending it to you for review. The license text is attached. Note that only points 3-6 must be met as the others have expired in 2001. points 3 and 4 are met because none required notices have been removed. point 5 is met by, at least, the Addendum at the bottom of the file.

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Licensing questions
by Joe Orton 30 Aug '07

30 Aug '07

I've got four licensing questions after reviewing all my packages: 1. perl-Newt: "This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself." - it is correct to simply list "License: GPL or Artistic", when this is the only licensing information given? 2. mod_auth_mysql: inaccurate copyright attribution. This package carries ASL 1.1 copyright notices verbatim, including the "Copyright (c) 1995 The Apache Group.", when no copyright assignment to the "Apache Group" has ever taken place. Does that matter? 3. mod_authz_ldap: a convoluted one this; the source files contain the text header: ** Read the files README and mod_authz_ldap.html for instructions on ** configuring the module. Details of the license can be found in the ** HTML documentation. ** ** (c) 2000 Dr. Andreas Mueller ...the HTML docs contain the text: This module is distributed under the terms of the Apache License, please check the LICENSE file in your apache distribution or the COPYING file of the mod_authz_ldap distribution for the exact terms of the license. In particular, the following disclaimer applies: [standard Apache-style warranty disclaimer block] ...and the COPYING file contains the GPLv2 (!). Any guesses on how to intepret that? 4. subversion: source files all reference following URL with GPLv2+-style "or later version" qualifier: http://subversion.tigris.org/license-1.html which is ASL 1.1 with the names changed, and clauses 4 and 5 are changed in the nature of what exactly they restrict. I don't think it's appropriate to simply list this as "ASL 1.1"? Regards, joe

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ClearSilver Licensing Question
by Jeffrey Ollie 29 Aug '07

29 Aug '07

ClearSilver is licensed under the "Neotonic ClearSilver Software License"[1]. This license is not mentioned in the licensing page[2]. The license claims to be derived from the Apache Software License v1.1 but I'm not familiar enough with that license to know if anything significant was changed. The initial review request[3] didn't appear to deal directly with the question of the license. Is this license OK? [1] http://www.clearsilver.net/license.hdf [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing [3] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=174529

3 2

Good Licenses list omits OSL 1.1
by Roland McGrath 28 Aug '07

28 Aug '07

sparse uses OSL 1.1, which is not in the list on the wiki. OSL 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 are on the list. I've appended the license file from sparse below. I'm assuming that "OSL 1.1" is the right short name for the License: tag. Thanks, Roland The 'sparse' C parser front-end library is copyrighted by Transmeta Corp and other authors and licensed under the "Open Software License v1.1" as obtained from www.opensource.org (and included here-in for easy reference) (that license itself is copyrighted by Larry Rosen). Note that the "Original Work" that this license covers is only the front-end library itself, ie the code required to parse the source file and annotate the resulting parse tree with the semantic meaning (aka "types") of the sources. Thus just the act of linking this library into another program (aka "back-end") does NOT in itself make that back-end be considered a derivative work of this Original Work. However, any modifications, callbacks or other functionality that is added and run either directly or indirectly by the front-end are to be considered derived works of this library, and as such fall under the requirements of this license. Linus Torvalds Santa Clara, CA April 15th, 2003 [ This copy of the license is the flat-text version of original, available in its full glory at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/osl.php please refer to there for the authorative and slightly more pretty-printed version ] ------ The Open Software License v. 1.1 This Open Software License (the "License") applies to any original work of authorship (the "Original Work") whose owner (the "Licensor") has placed the following notice immediately following the copyright notice for the Original Work: Licensed under the Open Software License version 1.1 1) Grant of Copyright License. Licensor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, non-sublicenseable license to do the following: a) to reproduce the Original Work in copies; b) to prepare derivative works ("Derivative Works") based upon the Original Work; c) to distribute copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute shall be licensed under the Open Software License; d) to perform the Original Work publicly; and e) to display the Original Work publicly. 2) Grant of Patent License. Licensor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, non-sublicenseable license, under patent claims owned or controlled by the Licensor that are embodied in the Original Work as furnished by the Licensor ("Licensed Claims") to make, use, sell and offer for sale the Original Work. Licensor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, non-sublicenseable license under the Licensed Claims to make, use, sell and offer for sale Derivative Works. 3) Grant of Source Code License. The term "Source Code" means the preferred form of the Original Work for making modifications to it and all available documentation describing how to modify the Original Work. Licensor hereby agrees to provide a machine-readable copy of the Source Code of the Original Work along with each copy of the Original Work that Licensor distributes. Licensor reserves the right to satisfy this obligation by placing a machine-readable copy of the Source Code in an information repository reasonably calculated to permit inexpensive and convenient access by You for as long as Licensor continues to distribute the Original Work, and by publishing the address of that information repository in a notice immediately following the copyright notice that applies to the Original Work. 4) Exclusions From License Grant. Nothing in this License shall be deemed to grant any rights to trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets or any other intellectual property of Licensor except as expressly stated herein. No patent license is granted to make, use, sell or offer to sell embodiments of any patent claims other than the Licensed Claims defined in Section 2. No right is granted to the trademarks of Licensor even if such marks are included in the Original Work. Nothing in this License shall be interpreted to prohibit Licensor from licensing under different terms from this License any Original Work that Licensor otherwise would have a right to license. 5) External Deployment. The term "External Deployment" means the use or distribution of the Original Work or Derivative Works in any way such that the Original Work or Derivative Works may be used by anyone other than You, whether the Original Work or Derivative Works are distributed to those persons or made available as an application intended for use over a computer network. As an express condition for the grants of license hereunder, You agree that any External Deployment by You of a Derivative Work shall be deemed a distribution and shall be licensed to all under the terms of this License, as prescribed in section 1(c) herein. 6) Attribution Rights. You must retain, in the Source Code of any Derivative Works that You create, all copyright, patent or trademark notices from the Source Code of the Original Work, as well as any notices of licensing and any descriptive text identified therein as an "Attribution Notice." You must cause the Source Code for any Derivative Works that You create to carry a prominent Attribution Notice reasonably calculated to inform recipients that You have modified the Original Work. 7) Warranty and Disclaimer of Warranty. Licensor warrants that the copyright in and to the Original Work is owned by the Licensor or that the Original Work is distributed by Licensor under a valid current license from the copyright owner. Except as expressly stated in the immediately proceeding sentence, the Original Work is provided under this License on an "AS IS" BASIS and WITHOUT WARRANTY, either express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY OF THE ORIGINAL WORK IS WITH YOU. This DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY constitutes an essential part of this License. No license to Original Work is granted hereunder except under this disclaimer. 8) Limitation of Liability. Under no circumstances and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, shall the Licensor be liable to any person for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a result of this License or the use of the Original Work including, without limitation, damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses. This limitation of liability shall not apply to liability for death or personal injury resulting from Licensor's negligence to the extent applicable law prohibits such limitation. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so this exclusion and limitation may not apply to You. 9) Acceptance and Termination. If You distribute copies of the Original Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to obtain the express and volitional assent of recipients to the terms of this License. Nothing else but this License (or another written agreement between Licensor and You) grants You permission to create Derivative Works based upon the Original Work or to exercise any of the rights granted in Sections 1 herein, and any attempt to do so except under the terms of this License (or another written agreement between Licensor and You) is expressly prohibited by U.S. copyright law, the equivalent laws of other countries, and by international treaty. Therefore, by exercising any of the rights granted to You in Sections 1 herein, You indicate Your acceptance of this License and all of its terms and conditions. This License shall terminate immediately and you may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License upon Your failure to honor the proviso in Section 1(c) herein. 10) Mutual Termination for Patent Action. This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License if You file a lawsuit in any court alleging that any OSI Certified open source software that is licensed under any license containing this "Mutual Termination for Patent Action" clause infringes any patent claims that are essential to use that software. 11) Jurisdiction, Venue and Governing Law. Any action or suit relating to this License may be brought only in the courts of a jurisdiction wherein the Licensor resides or in which Licensor conducts its primary business, and under the laws of that jurisdiction excluding its conflict-of-law provisions. The application of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is expressly excluded. Any use of the Original Work outside the scope of this License or after its termination shall be subject to the requirements and penalties of the U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. å¤ 101 et seq., the equivalent laws of other countries, and international treaty. This section shall survive the termination of this License. 12) Attorneys Fees. In any action to enforce the terms of this License or seeking damages relating thereto, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover its costs and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable attorneys' fees and costs incurred in connection with such action, including any appeal of such action. This section shall survive the termination of this License. 13) Miscellaneous. This License represents the complete agreement concerning the subject matter hereof. If any provision of this License is held to be unenforceable, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable. 14) Definition of "You" in This License. "You" throughout this License, whether in upper or lower case, means an individual or a legal entity exercising rights under, and complying with all of the terms of, this License. For legal entities, "You" includes any entity that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with you. For purposes of this definition, "control" means (i) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (ii) ownership of fifty percent (50%) or more of the outstanding shares, or (iii) beneficial ownership of such entity. 15) Right to Use. You may use the Original Work in all ways not otherwise restricted or conditioned by this License or by law, and Licensor promises not to interfere with or be responsible for such uses by You. This license is Copyright (C) 2002 Lawrence E. Rosen. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to copy and distribute this license without modification. This license may not be modified without the express written permission of its copyright owner.

2 1

Arphic License
by Jens-Ulrik Petersen 27 Aug '07

27 Aug '07

Hi, Could you please have a look at the attached license used by the Chinese Truetype fonts included in fonts-chinese? (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/CJKUnifonts) Thanks, Jens ARPHIC PUBLIC LICENSE Copyright (C) 1999 Arphic Technology Co., Ltd. 11Fl. No.168, Yung Chi Rd., Taipei, 110 Taiwan All rights reserved except as specified below. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is forbidden. Preamble The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the ARPHIC PUBLIC LICENSE specifically permits and encourages you to use this software, provided that you give the recipients all the rights that we gave you and make sure they can get the modifications of this software. Legal Terms 0. Definitions: Throughout this License, "Font" means the TrueType fonts "AR PL Mingti2L Big5", "AR PL KaitiM Big5" (BIG-5 character set) and "AR PL SungtiL GB", "AR PL KaitiM GB" (GB character set) which are originally distributed by Arphic, and the derivatives of those fonts created through any modification including modifying glyph, reordering glyph, converting format, changing font name, or adding/deleting some characters in/from glyph table. "PL" means "Public License". "Copyright Holder" means whoever is named in the copyright or copyrights for the Font. "You" means the licensee, or person copying, redistributing or modifying the Font. "Freely Available" means that you have the freedom to copy or modify the Font as well as redistribute copies of the Font under the same conditions you received, not price. If you wish, you can charge for this service. 1. Copying & Distribution You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of this Font in any medium, without restriction, provided that you retain this license file (ARPHICPL.TXT) unaltered in all copies. 2. Modification You may otherwise modify your copy of this Font in any way, including modifying glyph, reordering glyph, converting format, changing font name, or adding/deleting some characters in/from glyph table, and copy and distribute such modifications under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that the following conditions are met: a) You must insert a prominent notice in each modified file stating how and when you changed that file. b) You must make such modifications Freely Available as a whole to all third parties under the terms of this License, such as by offering access to copy the modifications from a designated place, or distributing the modifications on a medium customarily used for software interchange. c) If the modified fonts normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the Font under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Font, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. Therefore, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Font with the Font on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License. 3. Condition Subsequent You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Font except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Font will automatically retroactively void your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License will keep their licenses valid so long as such parties remain in full compliance. 4. Acceptance You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Font. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by copying, modifying, sublicensing or distributing the Font, you indicate your acceptance of this License and all its terms and conditions. 5. Automatic Receipt Each time you redistribute the Font, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Font subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License. 6. Contradiction If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Font at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Font by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Font. If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances. 7. NO WARRANTY BECAUSE THE FONT IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE FONT, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE FONT "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE FONT IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE FONT PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. 8. DAMAGES WAIVER UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING, IN NO EVENT WILL ANY COPYRIGHTT HOLDERS, OR OTHER PARTIES WHO MAY COPY, MODIFY OR REDISTRIBUTE THE FONT AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE FONT (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDERS OR OTHER PARTIES HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

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Creative Commons Liblicense
by Rahul Sundaram 25 Aug '07

25 Aug '07

Hi http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Liblicense Maybe this is the kind of framework we could extend or reuse for building the license metadata checking tools for Fedora. If it was generic enough others might find this very useful. Rahul

1 0

pam_passwdqc license
by Tomas Mraz 22 Aug '07

22 Aug '07

The attached file contains the license of pam_passwdqc. What should I put to the license tag of the package? -- Tomas Mraz No matter how far down the wrong road you've gone, turn back. Turkish proverb

2 1

Is CMU Sphinx license an "MIT-style" license?
by David Malcolm 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

[please CC me in replies; am not on mailing list] I'm packaging up CMU Sphinx, and wanted confirmation that this license was OK for Fedora: http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/html/LICENSE It appears to me to be yet another MIT-style license as per: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/MIT Is this correct? Should I enter "MIT" in the License field of the specfiles? Thanks Dave

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