I was looking at a package which contains license text identical to: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/MIT#Old_Style_with_legal_disclaimer_... (the review is https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=452321)
The package maintainer and upstream contend this is BSD, not MIT. Personally I think the license tag is for Fedora's use, and so there shouldn't be any harm in just using MIT as the licensing page indicates. Still, I figured it would be good to double-check.
- J<
On 08/20/2009 02:12 PM, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
I was looking at a package which contains license text identical to: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/MIT#Old_Style_with_legal_disclaimer_... (the review is https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=452321)
The package maintainer and upstream contend this is BSD, not MIT. Personally I think the license tag is for Fedora's use, and so there shouldn't be any harm in just using MIT as the licensing page indicates. Still, I figured it would be good to double-check.
Upstream is wrong. Please tag it as MIT.
The BSD license (as written by the Regents of the University of California) is notably different. It is occasionally confusing because occasionally, in recent years, works coming out of California Universities (thus, copyright held by the Regents of the University of California) have used the MIT license.
~spot
"TC" == Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com writes:
TC> Upstream is wrong. Please tag it as MIT.
I believe in that case that the license tag on the postgresql package is also incorrect:
grep License *spec
License: BSD
cat postgresql-8.4.0/COPYRIGHT
PostgreSQL Database Management System (formerly known as Postgres, then as Postgres95)
Portions Copyright (c) 1996-2009, PostgreSQL Global Development Group
Portions Copyright (c) 1994, The Regents of the University of California
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose, without fee, and without a written agreement is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph and the following two paragraphs appear in all copies.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HAS NO OBLIGATIONS TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.
- J<
On 08/20/2009 02:36 PM, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
"TC" == Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com writes:
TC> Upstream is wrong. Please tag it as MIT.
I believe in that case that the license tag on the postgresql package is also incorrect:
Yeah, that is definitely MIT rather than BSD, even though the PostgreSQL folks think it is BSD.
There seems to be quite a bit of confusion around BSD vs MIT, and while they have the same general license compatibility with respect to things like GPL, they are not the same license.
I've fixed Postgresql's tag in CVS, there should be no need to push updates for it simply to fix this tag, but any future updates should retain the fixed license tag.
~spot
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Jason L Tibbitts III -
Tom Callaway