On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 08:29:56AM -0400, Jaroslav Skarvada wrote:

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On 07/18/2014 01:57 PM, Jaroslav Skarvada wrote:

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Hi,

I am trying to package axmail for Fedora. It's released under GPLv2+, but in the sources [1] there is file with the following text:

/* * Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California. * All rights reserved. * * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted * provided that this notice is preserved and that due credit is given * to the University of California at Berkeley. The name of the University * may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this * software without specific prior written permission. This software * is provided ``as is'' without express or implied warranty. */

It seems a BSD Three Clause Variant even if referential year (1980) is too distant. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:BSD?rd=Licensing/BSD#BSD_Three_Clau...

Clarify with upstream.

The code was taken from the mailx-5.3b. I can confirm the text is there, I mirrored the source for reference at [1]. Currently there is no more info regarding this from the axmail upstream. I also opened ticket for bundling exception [2]. Any ideas about the license?

I believe this is one of the oldest forms of the BSD license, predating the versions that became known as the 4-clause and 3-clause BSD license. Note that it differs from the old BSD license appearing here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses#Previous_license which is said to date from 1988 in 4.3BSD-Tahoe. This license here might be slightly older or slightly less old (I do not think it can be from 1980 despite the year in the copyright notice).

There's an argument that it's not a free software license (therefore not acceptable for Fedora) because it merely grants rights of 'redistribution' and 'use' and does not say, as the later versions of the BSD license do, 'with or without modification'.

However, I think it's reasonable to assume that the 'with or without modification' was intended, and that the later inclusion of 'with or without modification' was an effort to clarify that intent. The age of the license is relevant here (cf. the leniency with which we've treated some of the old licenses in TeXLive).

So I think this should be classified as a free, GPL-compatible license. I don't think the request for 'due credit' raises a GPL compatibility concern (I don't think it can be said that the 'deletion' of the advertising clause by Berkeley has any relevance to this proto-BSD license).

- RF