For many years now, the gap package has bundled 3 sets of data files describing mathematical structures (groups). I am working on updating the Fedora package to the latest release, version 4.10.0. In this version, those 3 sets of data files have been split out into separately distributed entities, with their own home pages and release schedules. They all grew new license terms, too. I am worried about the license on one of them, transgrp (see https://www.gap-system.org/Packages/transgrp.html). It reads:
This library containing data and access functions, its parts are licensed in different ways.
- In the belief that mathematical truth is universal and not owned or licenseable, the mathematical content can only be acknowledged: Groups of degree up to 15 are as described in Conway/Hulpke/McKay (LMS. Journal Comp. Math, Vol 1.) and the sources quoted therein. Groups of degree up to 30 were determined by Hulpke (J.Symb.Comp). Groups of degree 32 were determined by Cannon and Holt (Exp.Math.). Groups of degree 33-47 were determined by Holt.
- The actual way of storing the groups and associated data, and the arrangement of the groups, is licensed under the artistic license 2.0:
https://opensource.org/licenses/Artistic-2.0
If you distribute software that claims to use or include the GAP transitive groups library it must include the actual data lists verbatim.
- The functions accessing the data files are licensed under GPL2 and under GPL3.
I would call this license "Artistic 2.0 and (GPLv2 or GPLv3)", except that I am worried about the sentence that begins "If you distribute software...". That sentence refers to the data files. There is no code in them, just formal descriptions of mathematical structures. Is that sentence a problem?
Thank you,
Gotta love fun academic wording. I think this is what they mean.
If software claims to use or include the GAP transitive groups library, you cannot modify the datasets. If you modify the datasets, you can no longer claim that software to be using or including the GAP transitive groups library.
Can you reach out to that upstream and confirm this interpretation? If that is correct, there is no issue with us including the library. This is equivalent (albeit confusingly worded) to clauses in other FOSS licenses which restrict use of trademarks in modified works.
I suspect my interpretation is correct, because of their wording around "claims to use or include", but if they intend for this to be a more general restriction on modification if their software is incorporated into other applications or software compilations (e.g. Fedora), that would make it non-free.
~tom
On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 10:31 AM Jerry James loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
For many years now, the gap package has bundled 3 sets of data files describing mathematical structures (groups). I am working on updating the Fedora package to the latest release, version 4.10.0. In this version, those 3 sets of data files have been split out into separately distributed entities, with their own home pages and release schedules. They all grew new license terms, too. I am worried about the license on one of them, transgrp (see https://www.gap-system.org/Packages/transgrp.html). It reads:
This library containing data and access functions, its parts are licensed in different ways.
- In the belief that mathematical truth is universal and not owned or licenseable, the mathematical content can only be acknowledged: Groups of degree up to 15 are as described in Conway/Hulpke/McKay (LMS. Journal Comp. Math, Vol 1.) and the sources quoted therein. Groups of degree up to 30 were determined by Hulpke (J.Symb.Comp).
Groups of degree 32 were determined by Cannon and Holt (Exp.Math.). Groups of degree 33-47 were determined by Holt.
The actual way of storing the groups and associated data, and the arrangement of the groups, is licensed under the artistic license 2.0:
https://opensource.org/licenses/Artistic-2.0
If you distribute software that claims to use or include the GAP
transitive groups library it must include the actual data lists verbatim.
- The functions accessing the data files are licensed under GPL2 and under GPL3.
I would call this license "Artistic 2.0 and (GPLv2 or GPLv3)", except that I am worried about the sentence that begins "If you distribute software...". That sentence refers to the data files. There is no code in them, just formal descriptions of mathematical structures. Is that sentence a problem?
Thank you,
Jerry James http://www.jamezone.org/ _______________________________________________ legal mailing list -- legal@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://getfedora.org/code-of-conduct.html List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org
On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 8:42 AM Tom Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
Gotta love fun academic wording. I think this is what they mean.
That seems like a plausible interpretation.
Can you reach out to that upstream and confirm this interpretation? If that is correct, there is no issue with us including the library. This is equivalent (albeit confusingly worded) to clauses in other FOSS licenses which restrict use of trademarks in modified works.
I suspect my interpretation is correct, because of their wording around "claims to use or include", but if they intend for this to be a more general restriction on modification if their software is incorporated into other applications or software compilations (e.g. Fedora), that would make it non-free.
I have sent a query upstream. I will report back when I get a reply. Thank you, Tom!
On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 8:59 AM Jerry James loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
I have sent a query upstream. I will report back when I get a reply.
I used your wording, Tom, to ask if this was the intended meaning:
"If software claims to use or include the GAP transitive groups library, you cannot modify the datasets. If you modify the datasets, you can no longer claim that software to be using or including the GAP transitive groups library.”
Upstream replied:
Yes. You may compress (if lossless) but you may not devise a different storage format, renumber points, rearrange groups, rename files, reformat the lines, etc. (I do not care about changing CRLF or character encoding.)
I hope this does not cause problems for packagers, as (I think) after all you take the existing files.
I am taking the "Yes" to mean that we are good to go. Regards,
Ugh. If they had stopped at Yes, we'd be fine, but this additional information makes it seem like they do not permit modification of the dataset at all, outside of compression, CRLF, or character encoding.
Can you ask them this, so that we don't have ambiguity here?
Do you grant permission to modify the datasets within the GAP transitive group library (as permitted by the Artistic 2.0 License)? We do not have any immediate need to do this, but a library without the permission to modify is not considered a Free Software component. You can require that modified versions do not refer to themselves by the name given to the unmodified original work, this would not make the library non-Free Software.
If they need to talk to me, I'm happy to engage.
~tom
On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 12:31 PM Jerry James loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 8:59 AM Jerry James loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
I have sent a query upstream. I will report back when I get a reply.
I used your wording, Tom, to ask if this was the intended meaning:
"If software claims to use or include the GAP transitive groups library, you cannot modify the datasets. If you modify the datasets, you can no longer claim that software to be using or including the GAP transitive groups library.”
Upstream replied:
Yes. You may compress (if lossless) but you may not devise a different storage format, renumber points, rearrange groups, rename files, reformat the lines, etc. (I do not care about changing CRLF or character encoding.)
I hope this does not cause problems for packagers, as (I think) after all you take the existing files.
I am taking the "Yes" to mean that we are good to go. Regards,
Jerry James http://www.jamezone.org/
Did you ever get a follow-up answer from them?
~tom
On Thu, Jan 24, 2019, 1:41 PM Tom Callaway <tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
Ugh. If they had stopped at Yes, we'd be fine, but this additional information makes it seem like they do not permit modification of the dataset at all, outside of compression, CRLF, or character encoding.
Can you ask them this, so that we don't have ambiguity here?
Do you grant permission to modify the datasets within the GAP transitive group library (as permitted by the Artistic 2.0 License)? We do not have any immediate need to do this, but a library without the permission to modify is not considered a Free Software component. You can require that modified versions do not refer to themselves by the name given to the unmodified original work, this would not make the library non-Free Software.
If they need to talk to me, I'm happy to engage.
~tom
On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 12:31 PM Jerry James loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 8:59 AM Jerry James loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
I have sent a query upstream. I will report back when I get a reply.
I used your wording, Tom, to ask if this was the intended meaning:
"If software claims to use or include the GAP transitive groups library, you cannot modify the datasets. If you modify the datasets, you can no longer claim that software to be using or including the GAP transitive groups library.”
Upstream replied:
Yes. You may compress (if lossless) but you may not devise a different storage format, renumber points, rearrange groups, rename files, reformat the lines, etc. (I do not care about changing CRLF or character encoding.)
I hope this does not cause problems for packagers, as (I think) after all you take the existing files.
I am taking the "Yes" to mean that we are good to go. Regards,
Jerry James http://www.jamezone.org/
On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 7:54 AM Tom Callaway tcallawa@redhat.com wrote:
Did you ever get a follow-up answer from them?
Yes, I did. I'm terribly sorry for the delay. Other events overtook me. Upstream's answer is:
Yes, of course. That is the reason for moving to the artistic license.
What I am licensing is not the mathematical data itself (which i consider as unlicensable, as it is “truth”), but only the way how this data is packed. Anyone may modify this data and distribute it, as long as it does not claim to be the GAP transitive groups library. (The modified library may claim to be compatible with the GAP library, but then it is the modifiers duty to resolve this.)
That sounds to me like upstream is okay with the naming restriction you suggested. I would be happier if upstream would simply strike the confusing sentence from the license file, but I suppose this will have to do.
On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 8:53 PM Jerry James loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, I did. I'm terribly sorry for the delay. Other events overtook me. Upstream's answer is:
Yes, of course. That is the reason for moving to the artistic license.
What I am licensing is not the mathematical data itself (which i consider as unlicensable, as it is “truth”), but only the way how this data is packed. Anyone may modify this data and distribute it, as long as it does not claim to be the GAP transitive groups library. (The modified library may claim to be compatible with the GAP library, but then it is the modifiers duty to resolve this.)
That sounds to me like upstream is okay with the naming restriction you suggested. I would be happier if upstream would simply strike the confusing sentence from the license file, but I suppose this will have to do.
Are we okay to proceed with the transgrp review? Thank you,
Yes. Their answer makes it clear they do not intend to restrict modification in a way that would make it non free.
~tom
On Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 10:46 PM Jerry James <loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 8:53 PM Jerry James loganjerry@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, I did. I'm terribly sorry for the delay. Other events overtook me. Upstream's answer is:
Yes, of course. That is the reason for moving to the artistic license.
What I am licensing is not the mathematical data itself (which i consider as unlicensable, as it is “truth”), but only the way how this data is packed. Anyone may modify this data and distribute it, as long as it does not claim to be the GAP transitive groups library. (The modified library may claim to be compatible with the GAP library, but then it is the modifiers duty to resolve this.)
That sounds to me like upstream is okay with the naming restriction you suggested. I would be happier if upstream would simply strike the confusing sentence from the license file, but I suppose this will have to do.
Are we okay to proceed with the transgrp review? Thank you,
Jerry James http://www.jamezone.org/
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Jerry James -
Tom Callaway