legal December 2009

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

27 participants
21 discussions

Re: [Fedora-legal-list] CAcert.org license
by Tom Callaway 12 Feb '16

12 Feb '16

On Tue, 2008-12-09 at 23:03 +0100, Matthias Saou wrote: > > >>>>> "TC" == Tom \"spot\" Callaway <Tom> writes: > > > > TC> Given that it does not give permission for us to redistribute (the > > TC> cornerstone requirement for Content licenses), this license is not > > TC> acceptable for Fedora. > > > > I guess I'm glad I looked before approving the package, but I have to > > wonder: Do the cacert folks actually want anyone to use their > > certificates? I mean, this prevents basically everyone from using > > them, because they can't come with the OS or the browser. > > Personally, the more I read the document, the more I'm confused. > > "You may NOT distribute certificates or root keys under this > licence"... does this mean we can distribute under a different license? Well, sortof. The wording here is strange because you can get a different license from the CA issuer. We can't just pick a license, but the CA issuer might be willing to give us a different one. > Would it be worth getting in contact with CAcert.org in order to try > and have them allow us to redistribute the root certs under conditions > which are acceptable to the Fedora Project? Probably, yes. :) ~spot

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Please define "effective license" (for the love of consistency)
by Orcan Ogetbil 19 Jul '10

19 Jul '10

1) I came across another review with the same license question. The source files have one of the GPLv2, GPLv2+ and LGPLv2+ headers each. They get compiled and produce 1 final binary executable. None of the headers (or other source code files) go to the final RPM. What goes to the license tag of the package? Ref: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=537325#c4 2) Hypothetical question (although happens rather frequently): What if there was a -devel subpackage and .h files with different licenses ended up in this -devel subpackage? Orcan

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Trusster Open Source License
by Shakthi Kannan 07 Jul '10

07 Jul '10

Hi, Could you please clarify if the Trusster [1] Open Source License is an acceptable Free/Open Source Software License for the Fedora project. The Teal [2] project uses this license: === BEGIN === Trusster Open Source License version 1.0a (TRUST) copyright (c) 2006 Mike Mintz and Robert Ekendahl. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for this software and any accompanying software that uses this software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available in a timely fashion for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and must be freely redistributable under reasonable and no more restrictive conditions. For an executable file, complete source code means the source code for all modules it contains. It does not include source code for modules or files that typically accompany the major components of the operating system on which the executable file runs. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY MIKE MINTZ AND ROBERT EKENDAHL ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL MIKE MINTZ AND ROBERT EKENDAHL OR ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. === END === Thanks! SK [1] Trustter. http://www.trusster.com [2] Teal. A Verification Utility and Connection Library. http://www.trusster.com/products/teal/ -- Shakthi Kannan http://www.shakthimaan.com

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java-gnome: GPLv2 with a classpath exception like statement
by Alexander Boström 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

Hello, I'd like to ask someone to have a look at the license for java-gnome, the GNOME Java bindings: http://research.operationaldynamics.com/bzr/java-gnome/mainline/LICENCE I'm hoping it can be added to the acceptable licenses list. Presumably after that happens I can put "License: GPLv2 with exceptions" in the corresponding spec file. Is it wrong to fall back to "License: GPLv2" in the meantime? I'd like to have the exception though to hopefully make it GPLv3 compatible. Thanks! /abo

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TAPR Open Hardware License
by Shakthi Kannan 23 Dec '09

23 Dec '09

Hi, I would like to know if TAPR Open Hardware License is an acceptable license for Fedora: http://www.tapr.org/ohl.html Please clarify. Thanks! SK -- Shakthi Kannan http://www.shakthimaan.com

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Creating a trusted sha256sum.exe binary for verifying *-CHECKSUM files on Windows
by Todd Zullinger 23 Dec '09

23 Dec '09

Greetings, Some of you might be aware that the instructions for verifying our *-CHECKSUM files on Windows have been broken since we moved to SHA256. Previously, we linked users to a sha1sum.exe built by the GnuPG project¹. With SHA256, we don't have that ability. There is an open bug to provide a sha256sum.exe which we can point to for Windows who don't have any other tools to verify SHA256 checksums². Packages are ready and referenced in bug 527060³. The idea is to build these packages in koji, though not for inclusion in any Fedora release (as the packages are mostly a bit of a hack to build a small subset of coreutils for Windows). What I'm wondering about is what do we need to do in order to ensure GPL compliance here? Knowing that will help me move this forward with the folks on the infrastructure team. We discussed this a bit on the infrastructure list⁴ a month back, though the discussion got off on a few tangents. I'd like to revive it and I think that having some insight from the legal team will help. Bruno Wolff III had some interesting questions regarding GPL compliance and MingW binaries at the end of the infra-list thread⁵. Thanks for any help and guidance! ¹ http://docs.fedoraproject.org/readme-burning-isos/en_US/sn-validating-files… ² https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=527060 ³ https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=527060#c14 ⁴ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-November/msg… ⁵ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-infrastructure-list/2009-November/msg… -- Todd OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs. -- P.J. O'Rourke

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Fedora content downstream at Wikipedia
by Karsten Wade 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

I'm considering the idea[1] of taking (part of) this canonical page: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Red_Hat_contributions ... and maintaining it downstream at, e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_software_contributions On the face of it, the source content is the same license as Wikipedia. Maintaining the Wikipedia page as a downstream is as simple as copy + paste, then watch the canonical page and update the downstream page as appropriate. But there is an additional clause in contributing content to Wikipedia, that it be contributed under the GFDL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright#Contributors.27_rights_and… If you contribute text directly to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public for reuse under CC-BY-SA and GFDL (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). If I were the copyright holder for the Fedora content in question, I would just accept that. However, the [[Red Hat contributions]] page on the Fedora wiki is definitely an aggregate work.[2] Interestingly, it appears the vast majority of the contributions are from Red Hat employees. If copyright holder permission is required or preferred, we could obtain it and put a notice on the page that future contributions are going to be relicensed at Wikipedia under ... the GFDL specifically? Yeah, specifics make more sense. How to handle all this? Thanks - Karsten [1] Not being sure about the cultural stance of being @redhat.com and doing this, I've requested help on the subject here: http://iquaid.org/2009/12/14/how-can-we-share-some-love-about-red-hat-with-… [2] Full history for this page on this wiki: https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Hat_contributions&limit=500… There is a copyright history that goes back to the previous wiki. We can obtain that list, if needed. :) -- name: Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Gardener team: Red Hat Community Architecture uri: http://quaid.fedorapeople.org gpg: AD0E0C41

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Legal aspects of fedora based appliances
by Fabian Deutsch 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

Hello. Fedora contains various tools for appliance creation. AFAIK it is intended that Fedora shall be used as a base for various appliances ISVs or OEMs want to create. But there is there some legal-guide which summarizes the legal aspects of Fedora based appliances e.g. when I want to distribute a Fedora AOS with some proprietary software? (As some kind of media-center). Greetings fabian

2 4

Spin commercial license
by Jerry James 11 Dec '09

11 Dec '09

Is this license acceptable for Fedora (assuming a copy is provided with the package, as required by the license)? http://www.spinroot.com/spin/spin_license.html Thank you, -- Jerry James http://www.jamezone.org/

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Re: Fwd: Forking libtar and licensing it as LGPL
by Tom Callaway 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

On 12/09/2009 09:17 AM, Huzaifa Sidhpurwala wrote: > Hi All, > I maintain the libtar package for some time now. However it seems that the upstream author is no longer responding to any patch requests and is also no longer interesting in maintaining the package any more. > I have therefore forked the code and call it libtar-ng. > The libtar library is licensed in MIT like license, The license file can be found at: > http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/?p=libtar-ng.git;a=blob;f=COPYRIGHT;h=2471e… > > Now the question is have is: > 1. Can i fork this code? Yes. > 2. If i fork it, do i have to license my forked code as MIT (original license), or can i make it LGPL? You can make it LGPL, the sublicensing permission from MIT permits this. > 3. When i fork it, do i have to retain the header (license and author detail) for each file (code) or can i replace it with my own. Yes, you need to retain the previous copyright information (for each file). You'll need to change the header to reflect the new LGPL license as well as the old MIT license. Here's how you should do it: /* * Copyright (c) 2009 Huzaifa Sidhpurwala <huzaifas(a)redhat.com> * * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. * * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU * Lesser General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public * License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA * 02110-1301 USA * * This file incorporates work covered by the following copyright and * permission notice: * * Copyright (c) 1998-2003 University of Illinois Board of Trustees * Copyright (c) 1998-2003 Mark D. Roth * All rights reserved. * * Developed by: Campus Information Technologies and Educational * Services, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign * * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person * obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation * files (the ``Software''), to deal with the Software without * restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, * modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies * of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is * furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: * * * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimers. * * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimers in * the documentation and/or other materials provided with the * distribution. * * * Neither the names of Campus Information Technologies and * Educational Services, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, * nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or * promote products derived from this Software without specific * prior written permission. * * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, * EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF * MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND * NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE CONTRIBUTORS OR COPYRIGHT * HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, * WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER * DEALINGS WITH THE SOFTWARE. */ Don't forget to include COPYING with a copy of the LGPLv2 in plaintext! > 4. If i retain the header in the code files, can i add my name to it? Yes, in fact, you should do this as soon as you have made a copyrightable change to the codebase. Hope this helps, ~spot

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legal December 2009