legal September 2010

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

15 participants
10 discussions

Re: [Fedora-legal-list] CAcert.org license
by Tom Callaway 12 Feb '16

12 Feb '16

On Tue, 2008-12-09 at 23:03 +0100, Matthias Saou wrote: > > >>>>> "TC" == Tom \"spot\" Callaway <Tom> writes: > > > > TC> Given that it does not give permission for us to redistribute (the > > TC> cornerstone requirement for Content licenses), this license is not > > TC> acceptable for Fedora. > > > > I guess I'm glad I looked before approving the package, but I have to > > wonder: Do the cacert folks actually want anyone to use their > > certificates? I mean, this prevents basically everyone from using > > them, because they can't come with the OS or the browser. > > Personally, the more I read the document, the more I'm confused. > > "You may NOT distribute certificates or root keys under this > licence"... does this mean we can distribute under a different license? Well, sortof. The wording here is strange because you can get a different license from the CA issuer. We can't just pick a license, but the CA issuer might be willing to give us a different one. > Would it be worth getting in contact with CAcert.org in order to try > and have them allow us to redistribute the root certs under conditions > which are acceptable to the Fedora Project? Probably, yes. :) ~spot

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Kojo licensing
by Michel Alexandre Salim 30 Sep '10

30 Sep '10

This would seem like a really nice addition to our repository, alas, it'd appear that upstream's current license is invalid (GPLv3, but code is based on Netbeans which is CDDL/GPLv2) http://www.kogics.net/sf:kojo -- Michel ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michel Alexandre Salim <salimma(a)fedoraproject.org> Date: Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:54 PM Subject: Licensing query To: feedback(a)kogics.net Hi, I'm looking at Kojo with interest -- having been a teaching assistant for several years, and a fan of both the original LOGO language and functional programming, it seems like a really useful pedagogical tool. I do have some concern about the license Kojo is made available under, however. As far as I can tell, Netbeans is dual-licensed under CDDL and GPLv2 *without* the "or any later version" provision. Kojo cannot be using Netbeans under the CDDL license, as it is GPL-incompatible (ref: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html) Yet it also cannot be using Netbeans under GPLv2, and itself be licensed under GPLv3, because both are incompatible with each other! >From the same link: > Please note that GPLv2 is, by itself, not compatible with GPLv3. However, most software released under GPLv2 allows you to use the terms of later > versions of the GPL as well. Would be great if this licensing issue can be clarified. Switching to CDDL, or to GPLv2+ (i.e. with the " or any later version" provision), or dual-licensing under both, would seem to offer the best outcome. We at Fedora also have a legal team that would be more than happy to help resolve licensing issues, as we'd like to package as much interesting FLOSS software as possible; see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main for more information. Thanks, -- Michel Alexandre Salim Fedora Project Contributor: http://fedoraproject.org/ Email: salimma(a)fedoraproject.org | GPG key ID: 78884778 Jabber: hircus(a)jabber.ccc.de | IRC: hircus(a)irc.freenode.net () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments

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Crafty chess program license
by Lukas Zapletal 23 Sep '10

23 Sep '10

Hello, can you please help me with the following license text from Crafty chess program? I think its BSD-like or MIT-like license. I would like to create Fedora package for it. Its very nice and strong chess engine. It should be ok (its distributed with Debian) but I would like to have official explicit confirmation. I do not know which "license string" should I put in the RPM spec file. Thank you. The license can be found in the source distribution in the file main.c. http://www.craftychess.com/ ftp://ftp.cis.uab.edu/pub/hyatt/source/crafty-23.3.zip * Crafty, copyright 1996-2010 by Robert M. Hyatt, Ph.D., Associate Professor * * of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham. * * * * Crafty is a team project consisting of the following members. These are * * the people involved in the continuing development of this program, there * * are no particular members responsible for any specific aspect of Crafty. * * * * Michael Byrne, Pen Argyle, PA. * * Robert Hyatt, University of Alabama at Birmingham. * * Tracy Riegle, Hershey, PA. * * Peter Skinner, Edmonton, AB Canada. * * Ted Langreck . * * * * All rights reserved. No part of this program may be reproduced in any * * form or by any means, for other than your personal use, without the * * express written permission of the authors. This program may not be used * * in whole, nor in part, to enter any computer chess competition without * * written permission from the authors. Such permission will include the * * requirement that the program be entered under the name "Crafty" so that * * the program's ancestry will be known. * * * * Copies of the source must contain the original copyright notice intact. * * * * Any changes made to this software must also be made public to comply with * * the original intent of this software distribution project. These * * restrictions apply whether the distribution is being done for free or as * * part or all of a commercial product. The authors retain sole ownership * * and copyright on this program except for 'personal use' explained below. * * * * Personal use includes any use you make of the program yourself, either by * * playing games with it yourself, or allowing others to play it on your * * machine, and requires that if others use the program, it must be clearly * * identified as "Crafty" to anyone playing it (on a chess server as one * * example). Personal use does not allow anyone to enter this into a chess * * tournament where other program authors are invited to participate. IE you * * can do your own local tournament, with Crafty + other programs, since this * * is for your personal enjoyment. But you may not enter Crafty into an * * event where it will be in competition with other programs/programmers * * without permission as stated previously. * -- S pozdravem / Best regards Lukas Zapletal

4 3

contributor agreements and a wiki mistake
by Karsten Wade 22 Sep '10

22 Sep '10

I was trying to point at the new project contributor agreement (FPCA), can mainly find Richard's article on the topic[0] and the draft[1]. So I was going to ask what the status was, then I read this ... https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Licenses#The_Contributor_License_Agree… The purpose of the Contributor License Agreement (CLA) is to establish copyright control under Red Hat, Inc. on behalf of the Fedora Project. By having a single entity hold copyright: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It goes on to summarize several points that sound inaccurate to me (I'm not sure our CLA allows us to relicense, I believe we sub-license, and it's a bit sketchy and not worth cheering about IMHO; second point seems sketchy, I don't see how the CLA stops someone from suing anyone, it just makes Red Hat a big target; third point seems accurate but a bit rough.) Regardless, the first paragraph is wildly inaccurate with both the CLA and the intention of the Fedora Project, not even to mention the intention of Red Hat. Is this something that needs correcting? Can someone with editing auth do it? Not sure how long that sentence has been there[1], but it may explain why people think Fedora and Red Hat are trying to get copyright assignment. cheers - Karsten [1] It looks like it came with the import from the MoinMoin wiki in May 2008; this diff shows the import on the left and the last revision on the right, and there has been no change to the section in question: https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Legal%3ALicenses&diff=137252&ol… -- name: Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Community Gardener team: Red Hat Community Architecture uri: http://TheOpenSourceWay.org/wiki gpg: AD0E0C41

4 6

License question
by Orion Poplawski 22 Sep '10

22 Sep '10

Spot - could you comment on this? https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=636250 Source files have the following preamble: HotEqn is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; HotEqn is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. The gpl.txt file included in the package is of version 3 of the license, but the preamble doesn't state a version. Is this okay? -- Orion Poplawski Technical Manager 303-415-9701 x222 NWRA/CoRA Division FAX: 303-415-9702 3380 Mitchell Lane orion(a)cora.nwra.com Boulder, CO 80301 http://www.cora.nwra.com

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Verification request of a BSD-like license
by Robin Lee 18 Sep '10

18 Sep '10

The license is mostly BSD-like, but a sample of it is not found in https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/BSD . The forth clause seems a bit different from other variants and a like sentence can be found in GPL. Robin

2 1

License Agreement translatable or not?
by Noriko Mizumoto 18 Sep '10

18 Sep '10

Hi Legal team During the test case, someone asks me the translation for License Agreement, which can be seen first time booting the computer after installation. I am assuming that it would be '1.1 License Agreements""of [1]. I vaguely remember that this should not be translated, but not sure. Is this translatable? [1]:http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Licenses Thank you noriko

2 1

Fwd: URGENT Registration Notice For fedoraproject
by Stephen John Smoogen 17 Sep '10

17 Sep '10

Sounds like poaching ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Dong <mark.dong(a)dis-nic.net.cn> Date: 2010/9/15 Subject: URGENT Registration Notice For fedoraproject To: (It's very urgent, Please transfer this email to your CEO or appropriate person, Thanks) Dear CEO/Principal, This is Mark Dong ---Senior Consultant of domain name registration and solution center in china. have something to confirm with you. We formally received an application on September 15, 2010, one company which self-styled "Euboy Company" were applying to register "fedoraproject" as Network Brand and following domain names: "fedoraproject.co.in fedoraproject.com.hk fedoraproject.com.tw fedoraproject.hk fedoraproject.in fedoraproject.tw " After our initial checking, we found the name were similar to your company's, so we need to check with you whether your company has authorized that company to register these names. If you authorized this, we will finish the registration at once. If you did not authorize, please let us know within 7 workdays, so that we will handle this issue better. Out of the time limit we will unconditionally finish the registration for "Euboy Company". Best Regards, Mark Dong Tel: +86-551-5223-174 Fax: +86-551-5223-175 Address:Room205,Block12,Youth Community(West),Ningguo Road Baohe District,HeFei,China <http://www.dis-nic.org/> -- Stephen J Smoogen. “The core skill of innovators is error recovery, not failure avoidance.” Randy Nelson, President of Pixar University. "We have a strategic plan. It's called doing things."" — Herb Kelleher, founder Southwest Airlines

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Question about TET "Artistic" license
by Rich Megginson 08 Sep '10

08 Sep '10

We are evaluating The Test Environment Toolkit (aka TET), the open source version, for possible inclusion into Fedora. http://tetworks.opengroup.org/ The open source version has this license http://tetworks.opengroup.org/tetdownloads/artistic.txt Is this license ok?

2 1

Blurb for requesting upstreams to add license texts
by Ville Skyttä 01 Sep '10

01 Sep '10

Hello, https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/LicensingGuidelines#License_Text Per these guidelines, packagers should ask upstreams to include license texts in tarballs in case they're not included. I think it would be useful to have a document blurb targeted at upstreams that would document why this is necessary, how does it benefit them, and how to include the texts in case they have doubts or questions. Packagers could then just give a link to that already when requesting addition of the license texts. Could someone add such a thing to wiki, along with packager instructions how to use it/how to ask upstreams to include the license text?

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legal September 2010