Hi there,
I was searching to find more information about the Fair License and found out it was mentioned here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
The entry in the fedora wiki says it's FSF free, GPLv2 compliant, GPLv3 compliant but I can't find any source for that (e.g. in FSF or GNU website like https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html ). There's an article in wikipedia but it's missing any citation towards these claims. The license is in the list of approved OSI licenses as one can see http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical but that doesn't say much in regards to the 3 claims.
The closest thing I could find is the fact that in an OSI board meeting the WTFPL was considered redundant to the Fair License http://opensource.org/minutes20090304 FSF considers WTFPL a free software and GPL-compatible license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#WTFPL
Personally, after reading the license, I don't think that the claims are wrong but I'm not an expert and determining the status of a license through the status of another license being used as a proxy could be risky.
Are there any reliable sources towards these claims? Is there a reasoning on why they are mentioned in the fedora wiki article (and if so I'd be interested to know what the reasoning is) or does it require more research before stating these claims?
Kind Regards, Vassilis Palassopoulos
Hi,
I'd like to add that I found that OSI considers the Fair License to be redundant of the New BSD License (also known as 3-clause BSD License or Modified BSD License or Revised BSD License). http://opensource.org/proliferation-report http://opensource.org/minutes20060712
FSF states that the Modified BSD License is free software and GPL-compatible https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ModifiedBSD
Kind Regards, Vassilis Palassopoulos
* Vassilis Palassopoulos:
The entry in the fedora wiki says it's FSF free, GPLv2 compliant, GPLv3 compliant but I can't find any source for that (e.g. in FSF or GNU website like https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html ).
Maybe it's covered by this item?
Florian Weimer wrote:
Maybe it's covered by this item?
I don't think the claims are covered by this because although it suggests that informal licenses are generally free software and GPL compatible, it does mention that there could be problems due to the wording or the legal system of the country. So it is possible for an informal license (in our case Fair License) to seem free software (to the untrained eye) but actually be non-free due to poor wording.
Because that paragraph doesn't specifically state anything certain about informal licenses we can't derive anything certain about the Fair License.
As a counter example FSF does specifically state that WTFPL (v2) is free software and GPL compatible (although it is an informal license): https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#WTFPL
Fun fact: OSI mentions Fair License in the list of open source licenses but not WTFPL (because they considered it being redundant of the Fair License (as Fair was already a simple enough license) and because some considered it being inconsistent http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:iis:634:200902 )
On 11/19/2014 05:27 PM, Vassilis Palassopoulos wrote:
Hi there,
I was searching to find more information about the Fair License and found out it was mentioned here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
The entry in the fedora wiki says it's FSF free, GPLv2 compliant, GPLv3 compliant but I can't find any source for that (e.g. in FSF or GNU website like https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html ). There's an article in wikipedia but it's missing any citation towards these claims. The license is in the list of approved OSI licenses as one can see http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical but that doesn't say much in regards to the 3 claims.
For some of the licenses, we cleared them through the FSF and they confirmed Free (and GPL compatibility), but chose not to update their list. More recently, we have worked with Red Hat Legal to determine Free/GPL compatibility (via Richard Fontana, who is perhaps the most qualified human to make those judgement calls), deferring to the FSF in cases where it was not obviously clear.
I don't remember which road we went down with for the Fair license. Too long ago.
If you don't trust our call on the "Free" status of a license, you're welcome to run it via the FSF. :)
~tom
== Fedora Legal
Thank you a lot for the reply.
In either case (FSF confirming it or Richard Fontana making a judgement call) the source is reliable as the license has been reviewed by experts in the field.
Kind Regards, Vassilis Palassopoulos
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Florian Weimer -
Tom Callaway -
Vassilis Palassopoulos