legal November 2012

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

16 participants
15 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

SOFA software license
by Sergio Pascual 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Hello, I'm interested in packaging a library called SOFA, created by the IAU (International Astronomy Union). Sadly, they have created their license for the software, described here: http://www.iausofa.org/tandc.html I would like to know if this license is valid for Fedora Regards, Sergio -- Sergio Pascual http://guaix.fis.ucm.es/~spr +34 91 394 5018 Departamento de Astrofísica -- Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain)

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SciTech MGL Public License Version 1.0
by Mikolaj Izdebski 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Hello, The nasm package includes a scitech.mac file with the following header: ;* The contents of this file are subject to the SciTech MGL Public ;* License Version 1.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file ;* except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of ;* the License at http://www.scitechsoft.com/mgl-license.txt ;* ;* Software distributed under the License is distributed on an ;* "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or ;* implied. See the License for the specific language governing ;* rights and limitations under the License. The link referring to the license is dead (because SciTech Software, Inc. was acquired by Alt Richmond, Inc.), but the copy of the license apparently can be found at: http://ftp.lanet.lv/ftp/mirror/x2ftp/msdos/programming/scitech/license.txt In my opinion this is a free software license. I would like to ask you to officially approve it (assign it a tag and include it on the licensing page). Thank you, Mikolaj Izdebski

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Zotero trademark issue
by Ankur Sinha 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Hi folks, I was looking at various bibliography managers that we could include in Fedora to help researchers. Zotero[1] looks like a good one. However, it appears to have some trademark issues outlined in the thread here[2]. I found a ticket with legal here[3]. Is Zotero fit for fedora then? :) [1] http://www.zotero.org/download/ [2] http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2012-April/166582.html [3]https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-legal/ticket/16 -- Thanks, Warm regards, Ankur: "FranciscoD" Please only print if necessary. Looking to contribute to Fedora? Look here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Join_SIG http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ankursinha http://dodoincfedora.wordpress.com/

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'New' licenses
by Jaromir Capik 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Hello. During the PkgWrangler reviews I found some files with the following statements which aren't mentioned on the Fedora Licensing page and I'd like to ask you to add new entries for them. 1.) FSF-configure / FSF-unlimited / FSF-configure-unlimited a.) # Copyright (C) 1992-1996, 1998-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc. # # # This configure script is free software; the Free Software Foundation # gives unlimited permission to copy, distribute and modify it. b.) # Copyright 1996-2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. # # # This file is free software; the Free Software Foundation gives # unlimited permission to copy and/or distribute it, with or without # modifications, as long as this notice is preserved. 2.) The "Verbatim" License The text can be found here http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/licenses.html#verbatim Please, let me know. Thanks, Jaromir. -- Jaromir Capik Red Hat Czech, s.r.o. Software Engineer / BaseOS Email: jcapik(a)redhat.com Web: www.cz.redhat.com Red Hat Czech s.r.o., Purkynova 99/71, 612 45, Brno, Czech Republic IC: 27690016

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Choosing appropriate copyright and licences for ICC profiles
by Richard Hughes 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

In the shared-color-profiles project upstream we take some trivial well-known data e.g. "2.2 D65 0.6400 0.3300 0.297361 0.2100 0.7100 0.627355 0.1500 0.0600 0.075285" and then create a binary ICC profile with some added metadata. The binary file can then be embedded into jpeg documents or used standalone in programs like Krita and GIMP. The added metadata are things like a profile description (which is optionally translated) and what space it's supposed to represent e.g. sRGB. The colorspace co-ordinates are in the public domain, and so I'm wondering what copyright and licence to choose for the resulting binary blob. The binary file is actually created on koji/brew and so I'm not sure if Public Domain is the right thing to use as I'm aware that some countries can't do this. Is CC0 a safer/saner choice? Logically the profile copyright string should be "No copyright" and the licence "Public Domain" to match the source but treating law logically isn't always a good idea. :) Can anyone advise what to put in the profile header. Thanks. Richard Hughes.

2 1

man-pages-* license tags
by Jens-Ulrik Petersen 28 Nov '12

28 Nov '12

Hi, I was looking at the license tags of man-pages translations: $ repoquery --qf "%{name}: %{license}" man-pages-\* man-pages: GPLv2+ and GPL+ and BSD and MIT and Copyright only and IEEE man-pages-cs: GFDL and GPL+ man-pages-de: GPL+ man-pages-es: IEEE man-pages-es-extra: IEEE man-pages-fr: GPL+ man-pages-it: IEEE man-pages-ja: Freely redistributable without restriction man-pages-ko: Copyright only man-pages-pl: GPL+ man-pages-ru: BSD and GPL+ and MIT and GFDL man-pages-zh-CN: GFDL and started wondering about the License inheritance from man-pages. It seems to me since they are largely derived from the man-pages package that the license tag for them should be very similar to or the same as the license tag of the main man-pages package. Or is it more subtle? I actually jumped in and fixed -fr, -es and -it already, but I thought I better check here first before filing bugs to spam all the other man-pages-* owners. Jens

2 1

License question
by Jitka Plesníková 27 Nov '12

27 Nov '12

Hello, I'm reviewing perl-Tk, which is under "GPL+ or Artistic" license. However, the part of the code is under the University of California. It looks like BSD for me, but none Fedora examples matches. What is the proper License: tag to use in the RPM? Thanks, Jitka -- This software is copyrighted by the Regents of the University of California, Sun Microsystems, Inc., and other parties. The following terms apply to all files associated with the software unless explicitly disclaimed in individual files. The authors hereby grant permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and license this software and its documentation for any purpose, provided that existing copyright notices are retained in all copies and that this notice is included verbatim in any distributions. No written agreement, license, or royalty fee is required for any of the authorized uses. Modifications to this software may be copyrighted by their authors and need not follow the licensing terms described here, provided that the new terms are clearly indicated on the first page of each file where they apply. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR DISTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, ITS DOCUMENTATION, OR ANY DERIVATIVES THEREOF, EVEN IF THE AUTHORS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS. GOVERNMENT USE: If you are acquiring this software on behalf of the U.S. government, the Government shall have only "Restricted Rights" in the software and related documentation as defined in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FARs) in Clause 52.227.19 (c) (2). If you are acquiring the software on behalf of the Department of Defense, the software shall be classified as "Commercial Computer Software" and the Government shall have only "Restricted Rights" as defined in Clause 252.227-7013 (c) (1) of DFARs. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the authors grant the U.S. Government and others acting in its behalf permission to use and distribute the software in accordance with the terms specified in this license.

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Re: [Fedora-legal-list] License clarification dxflib
by Volker Fröhlich 27 Nov '12

27 Nov '12

Dear Andrew! Thank you for your prompt response. The problem is, the paragraph in question circumscribes the terms of the GPL and it fails to do it properly. That's what's causing the problem. Besides that, the term "Open Source Edition" is not clarified, as far as I could see. If the license stated in this file does not apply, can you please remove it from the tarball and just include a copy of the FSF license instead? Regards, Volker Fröhlich On Wed, 2012-10-31 at 20:36 +0100, Andrew Mustun wrote: > Hello, > > The dxflib Open Source Edition is licensed under the terms of the > GPL v2 without anything to add or remove from that. > > The paragraph below is meant to clarify what GPL / Open Source > means. If your application is released under the GPL v2, the > commercial license contained in file dxflib_commercial_license.txt > simply does not apply at all for you. > > Regards, > Andrew Mustun > > On 10/31/12 8:24 PM, Volker Froehlich wrote: > > Dear RibbonSoft! > > > > I'm a packager with the Fedora GNU/Linux distribution. I'm packaging > > SAGA GIS (https://sourceforge.net/projects/saga-gis/) which uses > > dxflib. > > > > I read that the "Open Source Edition" of dxflib was licensed under the > > terms of GPL version 2. While this is clearly stated in the headers of > > the source code, the file dxflib_commercial_license.txt causes us > > headache. > > > > """ > > NOTE: dxflib Open Source Edition is licensed under the terms of the > > GPL and not under this Agreement. If Licensee has, at any time, > > developed all (or any portions of) the Application(s) using RibbonSoft's > > publicly licensed dxflib Open Source Edition, Licensee must comply > > with RibbonSoft's requirements and license such Application(s) > > (or any portions derived there from) under the terms of the Free > > Software Foundation's GNU General Public License version 2 (the "GPL") a > > copy of which is located at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC1 > > (i.e., any Product(s) and/or parts, components, portions thereof > > developed using GPL licensed software, including dxflib Open Source > > Edition, must be licensed under the terms of the GPL, and the GPL-based > > source code must be made available upon request). > > """ > > > > Tom Callaway of Red Hat found this statement was not in line with the > > GPL and therefore non-free: > > > > http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/legal/2011-October/001734.html > > > > It'd be great if we could work this out together. A clear license > > situation would allow to include dxflib in Fedora and other > > distributions that care about software freedom. > > > > Sincerely, > > > > Volker Fröhlich > > > > >

2 2

AFPL license
by Bastien Nocera 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

Heya, The libmusicbrainz5 package in Fedora uses sources for the musicbrainz.org project, and contains the xmlParser.cpp and xmlParser.h files which say: * Copyright (c) 2002, Business-Insight * <a href="http://www.Business-Insight.com">Business-Insight</a> * All rights reserved. * See the file "AFPL-license.txt" about the licensing terms Apart from the fact that the license file is missing (Christophe, can you go and tell upstream about this?), it seems that this refers to the Aladdin Free Public License: http://www.artifex.com/downloads/doc/Public.htm This license isn't in the list at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing And I don't know whether it is a free license, and whether it is compatible with the LGPLv2+ which the rest of the sources are under. If the license ends up being problematic, I will have to replace the library's functionality in a couple of packages. Cheers PS: Please CC: me as I am not subscribed to the list

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legal November 2012