legal March 2022

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

15 participants
9 discussions

FIGlet fonts
by Lyes Saadi 25 Jul '22

25 Jul '22

Hello Legal, I'm bringing back a discussion from 2012[1]: Figlet fonts! Indeed, I am trying to package python-pyfiglet[2] as a dependency for other packages. But, after the review, it came up that a lot of weird fonts were included. At the time, I didn't know anything about the discussion, and decided to abort everything. Recently though, a developer contacted me through the bug report, and proposed to help on the issue. He triaged the fonts and separated them depending on whether they were Open-Source or not, and we were thus able to create a clean package with none of the problematic fonts in it. In that discussion[3], emerged the fact that a discussion over this already happened ([1]), but it seems that either no consensus was reached, or that such consensus was lost to time as I wasn't able to find any conversation on figlet either on legal or devel mailing lists archives. And, it seems that the issue was just simply avoided since figlet ended up removing the problematic fonts anyway. But, upstream would like to keep the problematic fonts if possible in Fedora. And so, I would like to ask Legal to either give me the answer, if it actually was a settled matter, or to reach a consensus on Figlet fonts. To resume the situation (as I understand it, I am not a lawyer, obviously): In the US, fonts glyphs are not copyright-able as it is considered insufficiently creative. For the same reason, Bitmap fonts (fonts defined pixel by pixel) are also not copyright-able, as they are only considered as data which represents glyphs. But, Vector fonts (fonts defined using drawing instructions and code), is, on the other hand, copyright-able because it is defined through a software code. Then, we come to Figlet fonts. For those not aware of what Figlet fonts, they are also known as ASCII fonts: __ __ ____ __ ____ / / / /__ / / /___ / / ___ ____ _____ _/ / / / /_/ / _ \/ / / __ \ / / / _ \/ __ `/ __ `/ / / / __ / __/ / / /_/ / / /___/ __/ /_/ / /_/ / /_/ /_/ /_/\___/_/_/\____( ) /_____/\___/\__, /\__,_/_(_) |/ /____/ The issue with those is that no ruling (as far as I know) ever concerned that type of font in US Court. Though, one argument would be that Figlet fonts are similar to Bitmap fonts, as they only contain data about glyphs, and do not, in the same way as Vector fonts do, contain code giving to the computer drawing instructions for the fonts. As such Figlet fonts are not modular, or extensible, they just contain raw data about a font. But still, all this is speculation, and, as I said, I am not a lawyer, so I don't have any slight idea if such a defense would hold in court. I hope to have resumed the situation clearly enough and that I didn't make any mistake. Greetings, Lyes Saadi [1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=820642 [2]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1876108 [3]: https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/issues/89 PS: Can we remove the FE-legal blocker from the review request now that all the fonts have been sorted out?

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Draft attempt to define Fedora license categories
by Richard Fontana 24 Jul '22

24 Jul '22

Greetings, As part of some ongoing efforts to improve information relating to Fedora licensing and licensing policy, we want to provide better documentation around the various license approval categories for Fedora, as currently set forth here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main but which probably will live in the future on docs.fedoraproject.org. Here's a rough draft which I wanted to publish here for review. Feedback/criticisms/suggestions welcome. Side note: This preserves Tom Callaway's historical usage of "good" to mean "Fedora-approved", but I have mixed feelings about this terminology. 1. Licenses for Code “Code” means software code, any other functional material whose principal purpose is to control or facilitate the building of packages, such as an RPM spec file, and other kinds of material that the Fedora Council has classified as "code" rather than "content", but does not include font files. [Comment: This annoyingly and confusingly does not line up with definitions in the FPCA, but Fedora should get rid of the FPCA anyway] A license for code is “good” if the Fedora Project determines that the license is a free/libre//open source license. [Not sure if it's helpful to add the following:] In making this determination, Fedora historically relied primarily on the Free Software Definition as maintained and interpreted by the Free Software Foundation, but out of necessity Fedora passed judgment on many licenses never addressed by the FSF and, in the process, built up an informal body of interpretation and policymaking (admittedly, mostly undocumented) that went far beyond what the FSF had done. Fedora has also sometimes considered the decisions of other community Linux distributions and other important efforts to define and apply FLOSS norms, most notably the OSI’s Open Source Definition. In a small number of cases, Fedora has disagreed with decisions of the FSF and OSI regarding whether particular licenses are FLOSS. 2. Licenses for Documentation Any license that is good for code is also good for documentation. In addition, Fedora may designate a license as good for documentation if (a) the license meets the standards for good licenses for code, (b) the license is designed primarily for technical documentation or otherwise has a history of substantial use in free software communities for documentation, and (c) the license is not commonly or normally used for code. [Comment: this feels unsatisfactory to me, for multiple reasons, but I think it does accurately represent the historical Fedora policy.] 3. Licenses for Content “Content” means any material that is not code, documentation, fonts or binary firmware. Any license that is good for code is also good for content. In addition, Fedora may designate a license as good for content if it restricts or prohibits modification but otherwise meets the standards for good licenses for code. 4. Licenses for Fonts Any license that is good for code is also good for fonts. In addition, Fedora may designate a license as good for fonts if it contains a nominal prohibition on resale or distribution in isolation but otherwise meets the standards for good licenses for code. 5. Licenses for Binary Firmware Some applications, drivers, and hardware require binary-only firmware to boot Fedora or function properly. Fedora permits inclusion of these files if they meet certain requirements [currently set forth at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Binary_Firmware but the non-license part of this needs to move somewhere else ]. Any license that is good for code is also good for binary firmware. In addition, Fedora may designate a particular firmware license as good for firmware if the terms in the license that would not be acceptable in a good code license are limited to the following: * Requirements that the firmware be redistributed only as incorporated in the redistributor's product (or as a maintenance update for existing end users of the redistributor's product), possibly limited further to those products of the redistributor that support or contain the hardware associated with the licensed firmware * Requirements that the redistributor to pass on or impose conditions on users that are no more restrictive than those authorized by Fedora itself with respect to firmware licenses * Prohibitions on modification, reverse engineering, disassembly or decompilation * Requirements that use be in conjunction with the hardware associated with the firmware license Richard

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mininet license
by Iñaki Ucar 06 Apr '22

06 Apr '22

Hi, Is this license [1] acceptable for Fedora and what would be the appropriate identifier for the License field? It seems to me some sort of BSD, and in fact the authors themselves identify it as such in the setup.py file [2], but I'd like to be sure. [1] https://github.com/mininet/mininet/blob/master/LICENSE [2] https://github.com/mininet/mininet/blob/master/setup.py -- Iñaki Úcar

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Brainpool Curves in Fedora (openssl, libgcrypt, gnupg)
by Timothée Ravier 06 Apr '22

06 Apr '22

Hi everyone, The ECC Brainpool Curves [1][2] are currently not available in Fedora as according to this BZ [3], this needs Fedora Legal approval. Could someone from the legal team take a look to see if there are any blockers regarding Brainpool Curves inclusion in Fedora? Thanks! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic-curve_cryptography#Implementation [2] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5639 [3] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1413618

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Re: How to make a Pagure Pull Request and How it is licensed by default for contributors outside of 'packagers' group ?
by Miro Hrončok 23 Mar '22

23 Mar '22

On 23. 03. 22 9:35, Vít Ondruch wrote: >> >> I understand your answer as that: >> it is irrelevant whether the contributor specified the license (e.g. >> text "I submit this under GPL-2.0 license" in the pull request >> comment) > > > If somebody states license of the contribution, then it has to be respected. > Otherwise it is assumed that the contribution has similar licensing conditions > as the target project. If that's the case, can we please stop enforcing the signed-off-by thing in Fedora projects (such as various Fedora projects on Pagure or Bodhi on GitHub)? -- Miro Hrončok -- Phone: +420777974800 IRC: mhroncok

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How to make a Pagure Pull Request and How it is licensed by default for contributors outside of 'packagers' group ?
by Michal Schorm 22 Mar '22

22 Mar '22

Hello, I'm trying to answer this question: "Under which license are the contributions done to Fedora Project, unless license is specified - and how make this clear to the contributors (or whether we make this clear enough)". The answer is _probably_ FPCA [1]. But I've run into practical questions of how contributions can be made to the Fedora Project in the first place. Let's start with contributions to Fedora Linux. -- The first Google result for "Fedora pull request" query points to [2]. On the first glance it looks fine, but it has two major issues. 1/ The instructions won't work and are holey 2/ It is a page under a "Fedora CI" project. 1/ Nowadays, we have a way for contributors outside of the 'packager' group to make pull requests. It is a git push via HTTPS [3]. Neither [2] nor [3] describes that you need to have a FAS account first, since without it you can't log in the pagure to fork a project (otherwise there's nowhere you can push to). I wanted to propose an update, but ... 2/ ... this leads to a belief that such an important piece of documentation should be probably placed outside of the "Fedora CI" project, as it can be generalized to any project. What could be this better location for a new documentation page to which other pieces of documentation would point to? And this HTTPS workflow leads back to my original question - since FAS users outside of 'packager' group AFAIK don't need to sign FPCA [1], but can contribute a code - under which license or agreement it is contributed ? If it is FPCA - are such contributors aware ? 3/ Are there any other ways to contribute to either Fedora Linux or the Fedora Project, which face the similar issue ? [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Fedora_Project_Contributor_Agreement [2] https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/ci/pull-requests/ [3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/HTTPS-commits -- Michal Schorm Software Engineer Core Services - Databases Team Red Hat --

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good/bad v. approved/not-approved
by Jilayne Lovejoy 08 Mar '22

08 Mar '22

Hi all, As has been mentioned here prior, Richard and I are having a look at the Licensing part of the Wiki with an eye towards any updates and improvements, as well as moving that to the Fedora Docs (along with David C's work on the database for the license info). Recently Richard posted here regarding an attempt to better define the Fedora license categories in terms of what constitutes a "good" license. He referenced the use of the terminology of "good" and "bad" to indicate whether a license is approved for use in Fedora or not. I wanted to raise that separately b/c as we go through the documentation, how to best explain things in the clearest way comes up. It'd be helpful to hear people's views on this. Historically - "good" has meant the license is approved for use in Fedora; "bad" has meant the license is not approved for use in Fedora; and then there are also three nuanced categories related to fonts, documentation, and content which mean that certain licenses are only approved for use in that context, but not otherwise approved. How do people feel about the use of "good", "good-for-fonts", "bad", etc to describe these categories? Would simply using "approved", "approved-for-fonts", "not-approved", etc. be easier to understand? I'll throw in my opinion here, since I'm asking for that of others: I'm kind of mixed on this. I always thought the good/bad indicator was kind of nice in it's informality. However, now that I'm looking more closely at documentation, sometimes the use of good and bad can end up reading oddly. Practically speaking, I think use of "approved" and "not-approved" might end up being easier to understand. Good/bad also also has a greater connotation of judgement versus simply "approved" - which implies more closely that it must be approved for something. So, I guess I'd lean towards simply using "approved" and "not-approved". Given that "good" and "bad" are historical for the Fedora licensing documentation - what are your thoughts on this? Jilayne

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GFDL invariant sections question
by Jilayne Lovejoy 03 Mar '22

03 Mar '22

Hi all, Fedora lists the GNU Free Documentation License as "good" for documentation. the GFDL has this concept of "invariant sections" which can be declared or not in the license header. If this is used, then it creates some restrictions for those sections and there are some other specific obligations in the license. (I'm not going to try to explain this here, but if you are interested, this is probably a better summary than trying to actually parse the text of the license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-howto-opt.en.html) Does any one know if GFDL is approved for Fedora regardless of if the invariant section is triggered? Thanks, Jilayne

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Re: Package Licensing - Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) License
by Justin Zobel 01 Mar '22

01 Mar '22

Ahh OK. Well, it would make sense to have a combined list. Hopefully, someone on the Fedora side can give me the all OK to include the package based on RHEL's inclusion policy. And I just realised I hit reply instead of reply-all on the email again. On Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 8:55 AM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote: > In theory, the Fedora list is the RHEL list, but some time ago Red Hat > started supplementing it internally with another "list" (or compiled > information) resulting from review of results of certain scanning > tools on RHEL package source code. That "list" is not currently public > information. Our current plan is to essentially merge the two license > approval efforts so that there is one single public list of approved > and unapproved licenses. But it will take some time to undertake the > various steps for getting there. > > Richard > > On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 5:14 PM Justin Zobel <justin.zobel(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > Thank you Richard. Is there an "Accepted Licenses" page for RHEL? > > > > On Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 4:40 AM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> > wrote: > >> > >> On Mon, Feb 14, 2022 at 9:52 PM Justin Zobel <justin.zobel(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > >> > > >> > Thank you for these insights. Are you able to provide a link to the > RHEL review of ODbL for the Fedora license team to refer to in their review > process? > >> > >> Unfortunately in this case there really isn't anything to link to > >> apart from a snarky comment by me about how lengthy the license is :-) > >> > >> Richard > >> > >> > >> > >> > > >> > On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 11:52 AM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> > wrote: > >> >> > >> >> On Mon, Feb 14, 2022 at 6:49 PM Justin Zobel <justin.zobel(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > >> >> > > >> >> > Hi Team, > >> >> > > >> >> > I've just begun packaging for Fedora and of course, I happen to > choose one with a license that needs querying. > >> >> > > >> >> > The Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) is for database > usage in the kpublictransport KDE library. It is used for access to > OpenStreetMap via the KTrip application designed to aid users in navigating > via public transport. > >> >> > > >> >> > From the OpenStreetMap Copyright page on their website: > >> >> > OpenStreetMap® is open data, licensed under the Open Data Commons > Open Database License (ODbL) by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF). > >> >> > > >> >> > Open Database License: https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ > >> >> > Open Street Map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright > >> >> > KDE Source Repository: > https://invent.kde.org/libraries/kpublictransport/ > >> >> > Fedora Source Repository: > https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/kpublictransport/ > >> >> > > >> >> > I would like to know if this license is acceptable to Fedora. > >> >> > >> >> This is somewhat interesting as it is the first case I can think of > >> >> where a license that Red Hat has specifically reviewed internally for > >> >> inclusion in Red Hat Enterprise Linux has at a later time come up for > >> >> a decision in Fedora. > >> >> > >> >> We actually approved ODBL for RHEL last year, and I think if we had > >> >> our contemplated merging of RHEL license review and Fedora license > >> >> review in place, it would just end up on the "good" list, but given > >> >> that the new process is not yet established it would probably be a > >> >> good idea to do another review now that it has come up for Fedora. > >> >> > >> >> Richard > >> >> > >> > > > -- > >

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legal March 2022