legal January 2008

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

5 participants
7 discussions

MeepZor Consulting Public Licence (MCPL) - good or bad?
by Robert Scheck 24 Apr '08

24 Apr '08

Good evening, is the MeepZor Consulting Public Licence (MCPL) a good or a bad license? License is here http://meepzor.com/packages/autoresponder/LICENCE.txt - suggestions? Greetings, Robert

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Falcon Programming Language license
by Giancarlo Niccolai 25 Mar '08

25 Mar '08

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello, I have submitted the Falcon package for review and inclusion at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=428603 I will clear the rpmlint report later today. The Falcon Programming Language is released under FPLL: this is mainly an Apache2 license modified to extend the openness of the license to the embedding application and to the scripts. Here I am submitting the license to fedora-legal for approval. When I wrote the language, I searched around for a suitable license, mainly looking at other programming languages as Python and Ruby. I found there was too many gray areas about using the scripting languge as a scripting engine in foreign applications, and also the byproduct of the system (precompiled scripts) was left in a "undeclared state" which I didn't like. Even the script themselves, which are written in a certain language on which the copyright-copyleft extends, are often left in an undeclared state by those licenses. As I wanted more clarity and more explicit freedom for my users, I wrote the FPLL thinking at the apllication writers and at the applications embedding falcon as a scripting engine. Of all the open source licenses I checked, APACHE 2 was giving the guarantees I wanted both to Falcon and to their users, just it didn't cover "embedding" and "scripts"; so I used it and just extended it to scripts and embedding applications. I have started the OSI registration process, in the sense that I have asked for a legal advice of an accredited lawyer in my country, and I am waiting its relation to submit it to OSI. The license commentary (my intention) is here: http://www.falconpl.org/?page_id=license_comment and the text of the license is here: http://www.falconpl.org/?page_id=license I include the text of the two documents here below: Dear Reader, First of all, thanks for considering using The Falcon Language for Your job, or to embed it into Your application, or to use it for any other reason. The Falcon Programming Language License explains what You are allowed to do with Falcon and what You are supposed (and allowed) not to do. Since the legal jargon may be cryptic, You are provided here with a little resume of the License. It is important that You read and accept the License, as this resume hasn't any legal valence, and is provided only for the reason to express clarifications and examples that cannot find their place in the formal document. The License grants You the rights to use the Source code of Falcon and its various components in any way; You can study it, You can copy it, You can modify it, and You can even sell it, but You can't change the license under which it is distributed: even if You sell it, You have to provide the customers with the source code of Falcon and to grant them the same rights You have on it. The License also grants Your copyrights and intellectual rights for any modification or addition You may want to apply to Falcon. In case or addition and modifications, the License binds You to provide the user with the information that the original program, that is Falcon, was modified by You and what are the changes or the additions that You applied. Also, even if You can freely distribute, or even charge a fee, for Your derived work, You MUST apply the Falcon Programming Language License to Your modifications, and distribute them under the same terms. In other words, Your modifications, if made public, must be provided or available in source code. The license also grants You the right to embed Falcon in any application. Here You are granted the right to pick the terms and licenses You prefer, and to distribute Your embedding application without providing its source code. Even if significant portions of Falcon are in line functions, and even if You decide to statically link Falcon in Your application, this doesn't make it a "Derivative Work" of it: Your Embedding application is free to embed Falcon "as is" as it wish, without any requirements in terms of source distribution. You can also modify Falcon for Your specific needs and THEN embed Your modified version; the modified version of Falcon is under Falcon License, and must be made available in source code (or be proposed as a Contribution to the Falcon Committee), but Your Embedding application can still be distributed under Your preferred terms. The License has only a requirement that is demanded on Your Embedding application: You HAVE to state somewhere (in a place that CAN possibly be seen by the average user) that You are embedding Falcon and the reason for that. In example, You may state "ProgramX uses the Falcon Programming Language to automatize the Gamma procedure". About the scripts, which are more or less what a scripting language is for, You are granted the right to apply the license You prefer. As Falcon is also a script "compiler", You may even retain from distributing the script sources, and apply closed-source license to Your script-based application or to the scripts that are embedded in Your embedding application. However, if You don't distribute the script sources, You are again required to state somewhere in Your documentation or where the user can read it that You are using "Falcon", and more or less why You are doing it. For a pure Falcon application, You can just state "This application is written in Falcon". In example, if You use Falcon to drive a web site, and You don't want Your site visitors to ever see Your scripts, You have to put somewhere a reading like "Powered with Falcon"; doesn't have to be a n-inch banner on Your home page, You may also have just a small reading in a secondary page. What You cannot do is to claim that any thing You learnt from Falcon is Yours: especially, You are forbidden to patent any element that is found in Falcon. Another thing that You can't do is to sell a Falcon based product as if it were "completely" Yours, forgetting to cite, even in a very small reading, the fact that Falcon is in. Finally, a thing that the License prevents You from doing is to put the blame for failures on Falcon: the product is provided as-is, without any warranty. It's up to You to test if it is suitable to solve Your problems, and if a Falcon based application can be sold and granted as "working" to Your customers. If that application breaks, whether there's a problem with Falcon or not, You can't issue any claim on the Falcon contributors. Be kind on the Open Source Community: they have already made a lot for You even if You don't know them (and even if they don't know You). Best regards, Giancarlo Niccolai Falcon Programming Language License Version 1.0, February 2005 http://www.falconpl.org/?page_id=license TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE, REPRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION 1. *Definitions*. * "License" shall mean the terms and conditions for use, reproduction, and distribution as defined by Sections 1 through 9 of this document. * "Licensor" shall mean the copyright owner or entity authorized by the copyright owner that is granting the License. * "Legal Entity" shall mean the union of the acting entity and all other entities that control, are controlled by, or are under common control with that entity. For the 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. * "You" (or "Your") shall mean an individual or Legal Entity exercising permissions granted by this License. * "Source" form shall mean the preferred form for making modifications, including but not limited to software source code and example code. * "Object" form shall mean any form resulting from mechanical transformation or translation of a Source form, including but not limited to compiled object code, generated documentation, and conversions to other media types. * "Work" shall mean the work of authorship, whether in Source or Object form, made available under the License, as indicated by a copyright notice that is included in or attached to the work (an example is provided in the Appendix below). * "Derivative Works" shall mean any work, whether in Source or Object form, that is based on (or derived from) the Work and for which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship. For the purposes of this License, Derivative Works shall not include works that remain separable from, or merely link (or bind by name) to the interfaces of, the Work and Derivative Works thereof. * "Embedding Works" shall mean any work, whether in Source or Object form, that links (or binds by name) to the interface of the Work and Derivative Works. * "Scripts" shall mean any work, weather in Source or Object form, that is expressed through the grammar rules which are known by the Work. * "Users" shall mean any person that uses, directly or indirectly, all or any of the Work, the Derivative Works, the Embedding Works or the Scripts. * "Contribution" shall mean any work of authorship, including the original version of the Work and any modifications or additions to that Work or Derivative Works thereof, that is intentionally submitted to Licensor for inclusion in the Work by the copyright owner or by an individual or Legal Entity authorized to submit on behalf of the copyright owner. For the purposes of this definition, "submitted" means any form of electronic, verbal, or written communication sent to the Licensor or its representatives, including but not limited to communication on electronic mailing lists, source code control systems, and issue tracking systems that are managed by, or on behalf of, the Licensor for the purpose of discussing and improving the Work, but excluding communication that is conspicuously marked or otherwise designated in writing by the copyright owner as "Not a Contribution." * "Contributor" shall mean Licensor and any individual or Legal Entity on behalf of whom a Contribution has been received by Licensor and subsequently incorporated within the Work. 2. *Grant of Copyright License*. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, prepare Embedding Works, prepare Scripts, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form. 3. *Grant of Patent License*. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. 4. *Redistribution of Work and Derivative Works*. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You meet the following conditions: 1. You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License; and 2. You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files; and 3. You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works; and 4. You must state in the Source Form and in the documentation of any Derivative Work the fact that such work is a derivation of the Work, and include a copy of the Work in its Source form or provide directions on how to obtain a copy of the Work in its Source form; and 5. The Derivative Works are distributed under the terms of this License, or under terms that do not cause infringement of this License. 5. *Distribution of Embedding Works and Scripts*. You may produce and distribute any Embedding Work or Scripts thereof in any medium, in Source or Object form, provided You meet the following conditions: 1. The Embedding Works and Scripts are distributed under the term of this License, or the application of another License is explicitly stated in the documentation of the Embedding Works and Scripts or included in the Source form of the Embedding Works and Scripts; and 2. The Embedding Works carry a prominent notice in their documentation, or when not applicable, in any place that the Users are exposed to, about the fact that the Work is embedded, along with a general statement about the task that the Work is performing in the Embedding Works; and 3. If the Source form of Embedding Works is distributed or made available to the Users in any medium and by any means, the portions of the Source form that causes the Work to be embedded must carry a prominent notice about this fact, along with a general statement about the task that the Work is performing in the Embedded Works; and 4. If the Source form of Scripts is not distributed nor made available by any mean to the Users, a prominent notice about the fact that the Scripts have been written in the Language must be presented in a place which the Users are exposed to. 6. *Submission of Contributions*. Unless You explicitly state otherwise, any Contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the Work by You to the Licensor shall be under the terms and conditions of this License, without any additional terms or conditions. Notwithstanding the above, nothing herein shall supersede or modify the terms of any separate license agreement You may have executed with Licensor regarding such Contributions. 7. *Trademarks*. This License does not grant permission to use the trade names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file. 8. *Disclaimer of Warranty*. Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, Licensor provides the Work (and each Contributor provides its Contributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You are solely responsible for determining the appropriateness of using or redistributing the Work and assume any risks associated with Your exercise of permissions under this License. 9. *Limitation of Liability*. In no event and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall any Contributor be liable to You for damages, including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a result of this License or out of the use or inability to use the Work (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses), even if such Contributor has been advised of the possibility of such damages. 10. *Accepting Warranty or Additional Liability*. While redistributing the Work or Derivative Works thereof, You may choose to offer, and charge a fee for, acceptance of support, warranty, indemnity, or other liability obligations and/or rights consistent with this License. However, in accepting such obligations, You may act only on Your own behalf and on Your sole responsibility, not on behalf of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason of Your accepting any such warranty or additional liability. *END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS * ** -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHkdKp5nwsoBIDC4YRAvNbAJ9VYOfQKtEF24VjWNMJp3xgR2WrewCghWFn kF85IrTEteSzxHLmGlHQHGQ= =SMTx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Sendmail license
by Paul Howarth 25 Mar '08

25 Mar '08

The sendmail license (http://www.sendmail.org/ftp/LICENSE) is not currently listed in the "Good licenses" list, nor is it listed on the FSF "list of licenses" page. However, sendmail *is* listed in the FSF directory of free software (http://directory.fsf.org/sendmail.html). Please can the sendmail license be added to the good licenses list? Cheers, Paul.

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Question: Licensing of xmltramp.py
by David Malcolm 18 Jan '08

18 Jan '08

See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=378531 "Review Request: python-xmltramp - xmltramp is a pythonic API for working with XML" The payload is a single file: http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/xmltramp/xmltramp-2.17.py which has this text: __copyright__ = "(C) 2003-2006 Aaron Swartz. GNU GPL 2." Re comment #2 of the review: "this package should include License text or file. Ask upstream to release either tarball containing this script and license or ask them to put license text in that script. It seemed simplest to add an appropriate header text to the script, so I emailed the upstream author requesting he do this (with proposed patches; message attached). I've not heard back. Is this a blocker for inclusion of this code in Fedora, or is the "GNU GPL 2" text in the script good enough as is? Thanks Dave Malcolm

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Pkg naming question "vixie-cron-ng" vs. 3-clause BSD license
by Nils Philippsen 09 Jan '08

09 Jan '08

Hi, Im currently reviewing the "vixie-cron-ng" package (#428007) which is an enhanced vixie-cron (which is licensed "MIT and BSD") we forked. I'm a bit unsure if naming the fork that way is allowed in the light of the 3rd BSD clause: * 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software * without specific prior written permission. The problem I see is that "vixie" is the name of Paul Vixie, the main contributor and I could imagine that this would be seen as endorsing or promoting "the product" with his name. Comments? Thanks, Nils -- Nils Philippsen / Red Hat / nphilipp(a)redhat.com "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- B. Franklin, 1759 PGP fingerprint: C4A8 9474 5C4C ADE3 2B8F 656D 47D8 9B65 6951 3011

2 1

Legal Problem: md5 implementation
by Tom Callaway 02 Jan '08

02 Jan '08

Some of Fedora's packages are using an MD5 implementation which is under a GPLv2/v3 incompatible license, specifically, the RSA implementation which is under BSD with advertising. You can look at this code here: http://www.tux.org/pub/security/md5/md5.c http://www.tux.org/pub/security/md5/md5.h We've identified packages which are possibly using this implementation, and all maintainers are on CC. Please take a moment to look at your packages and check to see if this md5 implementation is used. GeoIP abiword cinepaint cook dietlibc dclib fedora-ds-base gammu gnome-pilot-conduits gnumeric htdig inn isdn4k-utils libosip libosip2 mail-notification mysql ser ssmtp wv xdelta If your package is on this list, please email me back and let me know once you've checked the md5 implementation. If it is the RSA implementation, we're going to need to replace it (coreutils has a GPL compatible implementation that should be a drop in). If your package is not under GPL or LGPL, then there is no problem, and you can just email me and let me know that. Thanks in advance, ~spot

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clamav and unrar
by Tom Callaway 01 Jan '08

01 Jan '08

Enrico, The clamav code needs to be cleaned of the unrar sources. Normally, it would be permissable to ship sources with a bad license (and just disable that functionality), but the unrar license does not permit this. It says: 5. Installing and using the UnRAR utility signifies acceptance of these terms and conditions of the license. 6. If you don't agree with terms of the license you must remove UnRAR files from your storage devices and cease to use the utility. Since this license applies equally to the source as to the binary, we have to interpret the installation of the source as an acceptance of these terms. Fedora doesn't accept these terms (they're awful, and poorly worded), so we need to hold to clause 6 and remove the files. Please take care of this as soon as possible, and ensure that we're using a clean tarball for all active Fedora branches. Thanks, ~spot

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