legal December 2011

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

11 participants
9 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

4 6

IDEA patent expiration?
by Orcan Ogetbil 13 Jan '12

13 Jan '12

Hi all, We explicitly exclude the "International Data Encryption Algorithm" (IDEA) in a few Fedora packages (bouncycastle, opengpg, ?) due to its patent issues. Recently it occurred to me that this patent [1] may actually have been expired by now. There is some debate in the wikipedia's discussion page about this topic [2]. From what I understand, the general perception is that the US patent expired in May 2011. Could you please check this? When is it possible to have the IDEA in Fedora? Thanks, Orcan [1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2F… [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Data_Encryption_Algorithm

2 4

Chrome and VB?
by Christopher Svanefalk 20 Dec '11

20 Dec '11

Dear all, I have been surprised that - despite their prominence - projects like VirtualBox and Chrome (the open source version, built directly from Chromium) have not been packaged for Fedora. I might be interested in doing this, and just wanted to know if there are any legal hurdles to it being done, in case that is the reason it has not been done yet? Best, Christopher

4 4

Is OpenCascade license now acceptable?
by Onyeibo Oku 16 Dec '11

16 Dec '11

Greetings its been more than a year since FreeCAD was rejected on the basis of a non-compliant license on one of its components, particularly OpenCascade. (see review for bug #459125 -> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459125) That review concluded with version 6.3 of the OpenCascade license. The license has seen two modifications since then and is now at 6.5 (see http://www.opencascade.org/getocc/license/) Is this license now acceptable? Regards Onyeibo

2 1

A change in Fedora's policy regarding Public Domain
by Tom Callaway 14 Dec '11

14 Dec '11

In consultation with Red Hat Legal and the Fedora Board, I have implemented a chance to Fedora's policy regarding software marked as being in the Public Domain. The new policy is as follows: ***** Works which are clearly marked as being in the Public Domain, and for which no evidence is known to contradict this statement, are treated in Fedora as being in the Public Domain, on the grounds that the intentions of the original creator are reflected by such a use, even if due to regional issues, it may not have been possible for the original creator to fully abandon all of their their copyrights on the work and place it fully into the Public Domain. If you believe that a work in Fedora which is marked as being in the Public Domain is actually available under a copyright license, please inform us of this fact with details, and we will immediately investigate the claim. ***** The wiki home for this new policy is here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:LicensingGuidelines#Public_Domain This policy is effective immediately. If you have had a package rejected by Fedora because it was in the Public Domain and we were unable to determine the validity of the Public Domain declaration, the declaration was deemed to be incomplete, or there were jurisdictional issues with the declaration, please feel free to open new package reviews or contact legal(a)fedoraproject.org to lift any FE-Legal blocks. If you have questions about this change in policy, feel free to email me directly or send a mail to the Fedora Legal mailing list <legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org> (note: it is moderated and gets a metric ton of spam, so I probably won't see it if you're not subscribed). Thanks, ~tom == Fedora Project

1 0

possibly MIT license
by Marcela Mašláňová 13 Dec '11

13 Dec '11

Hello list, I'm trying package perl-Wx-Scintilla, which has lot of problems. But at the moment I'd like to solve license. The main package is licensed "same as Perl". Two files are under wxWindows, which is the same as wxWidgets license. But there is also directory under some kind of MIT. <license> License for Scintilla and SciTE Copyright 1998-2003 by Neil Hodgson <neilh(a)scintilla.org> All Rights Reserved Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. NEIL HODGSON DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL NEIL HODGSON BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. </license> Could you clarify it this is MIT and if I can mark it as package under "(GPL+ or Artistic) and wxWidgets and MIT" ? Best regards, Marcela Mašláňová BaseOS team Brno

2 1

are copyright headers for all source files required?
by Rex Dieter 12 Dec '11

12 Dec '11

In other words, say there are a small number of source files in a packaged (tarball) work that lack any or clear copyright header, should that be considered a review blocker? IANAL and being a generally pragmatic fellow, I'd hoped that we could generally give upstreams the benefit of the doubt, for lack of any contrary evidence. Fwiw, yes, I have a concrete case in mind here, https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=749885 and yes, I've asked upstream for clarification (without reply so far). I'd also hoped not to have a pkg review blocked semi-indefinitely on something like this though. What say you? -- rex

2 1

SuperLU license
by Shakthi Kannan 08 Dec '11

08 Dec '11

Hi, I am trying to package SuperLU for Fedora. Can you please let me know if the following is a BSD license? http://crd-legacy.lbl.gov/~xiaoye/SuperLU/License.txt Thanks! SK -- Shakthi Kannan http://www.shakthimaan.com

2 1

RubyGems licensing while move to Ruby 1.9.3
by Vít Ondruch 02 Dec '11

02 Dec '11

Hi, I am preparing Ruby 1.9.3 for Fedora 17 and I came to interesting license question. Ruby was always double licensed, i.e. Ruby and GPLv2. However, Ruby 1.9.3 is going to be licensed under Ruby and BSD license. The interesting part is, that there is certain amount of gems, which are "distributed under the same conditions as ruby". For example rubygem-POpen4, rubygem-thin, rubygem-cairo. Does that apply that the gems are going to be licensed with the same version of Ruby in distribution? Or if they distribute the LICENSE file of Ruby 1.8.7, where is specified that the license is same as Ruby, which means GPLv2 or Ruby is this enough? Is it necessary to clarify the license with every upstream due to this change? Vit

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legal December 2011