On Wed, 2010-03-24 at 14:50 +0100, Martin Gieseking wrote:

It's a known bug that already has been fixed: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/fedora-packager-0.4.2-1.fc12

Thanks. Also the first time i could give karma :)

Léon

2010/5/25 Martin Gieseking martin.gieseking@uos.de

Hi,

I need some enlightenment about multiple license scenarios of packages. Until now, I thought packagers should mention all distinct licenses in a spec files's License field that are part of a tarball. Thus, if some files are licensed under GPLv2+ and some under BSD, we get "GPLv2+ and BSD". That's how I read the guidelines (e.g.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/LicensingGuidelines#Multiple_Licens... )

However, during a review (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=594943#c16) it was stated that sources with compatible licenses like LGPLv2+ and BSD may be merged to LGPLv2+. I can't believe that, but might of course be wrong since I'm not a legal expert. Could anybody shed some light on this?

Regards, Martin --

The package under reivew is actually Mixed Source Licensing Scenario rather than Multiple license scenarios.

Chen Lei

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 04:48:59PM +0200, Martin Gieseking wrote:

Am 25.05.2010 16:27, schrieb Chen Lei:

...

The package under reivew is actually Mixed Source Licensing Scenario rather than Multiple license scenarios.

Nonetheless, even in the guideline about mixed source licensing scenarios I can't find anything about omitting one of the licenses in the License field. In the given example, all licenses are mentioned rather than merged. I'd understand that (GPLv2+) + (GPLv3+) = GPLv3+, but (LGPLv2+) + (BSD) = LGPLv2+ seems strange to me. Why omit BSD and not LGPLv2+ then?

Having sources under multiple licenses is tricky. The packager needs to look at the licenses of the sources, see how they combine to make one or more end products, and then add the appropriate licenses. For instance:

foo.c (GPLv2+) ----\ bar.c (LGPLv2+) ---+---> /usr/bin/foobarbaz (GPLv2+) baz.c (BSD) ------/

In this example we have three source files with three compatible licenses leading to a single program. That binary program that we distribute to end users is licensed GPLv2+ since we can't separate out each of the individual foo.c, bar.c, and baz.c files to use their functionality separately. Another example:

foo.c (GPLv2+) ----+----> /usr/bin/foobar (GPLv2+) bar.c (BSD) ------< baz.c (BSD) -------+----> /usr/bin/bazbar (?)

Here, we have three source files under two different licenses. The end result is two separate programs. One of those (foobar) contains GPLv2+ code and therefore it will be GPLv2+ just like the previous example.

bazbar is trickier. It does not contain any GPLv2+ code so it is possible that it is BSD licensed. However, you'd want to check if the upstream package's author makes any claims about this (they may feel that everything in the tarball is licensed GPLv2+ as part of a complete work) and in ambiguous cases, may want to run it by legal.

-Toshio

On 05/25/2010 04:18 PM, Martin Gieseking wrote:

Hi,

I need some enlightenment about multiple license scenarios of packages. Until now, I thought packagers should mention all distinct licenses in a spec files's License field that are part of a tarball. Thus, if some files are licensed under GPLv2+ and some under BSD, we get "GPLv2+ and BSD". That's how I read the guidelines (e.g. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/LicensingGuidelines#Multiple_Licens...)

However, during a review (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=594943#c16) it was stated that sources with compatible licenses like LGPLv2+ and BSD may be merged to LGPLv2+.

This is correct.

In such cases, the LGPL acts as an "umbrella". I.e. the "package as a whole" is covered by the LGPL, while individual files are still licensed by their individual licenses.

I can't believe that,

Due to the liberal nature of BSD licenses, such cases are very common.

Most prominent example for such a case is glibc. As a whole "it's GPL'ed", but it contains files being covered my much more liberal licenses.

Ralf