legal August 2016

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

7 participants
7 discussions

Henry Spencer's license
by Petr Šabata 06 Mar '23

06 Mar '23

Dear legal, While checking the contents of our `perl' package, I noticed the following: (...) /* NOTE: this is derived from Henry Spencer's regexp code, and should not * confused with the original package (see point 3 below). Thanks, Henry! */ /* Additional note: this code is very heavily munged from Henry's version * in places. In some spots I've traded clarity for efficiency, so don't * blame Henry for some of the lack of readability. */ /* The names of the functions have been changed from regcomp and * regexec to pregcomp and pregexec in order to avoid conflicts * with the POSIX routines of the same names. */ (...) * pregcomp and pregexec -- regsub and regerror are not used in perl * * Copyright (c) 1986 by University of Toronto. * Written by Henry Spencer. Not derived from licensed software. * * Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any * purpose on any computer system, and to redistribute it freely, * subject to the following restrictions: * * 1. The author is not responsible for the consequences of use of * this software, no matter how awful, even if they arise * from defects in it. * * 2. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented, either * by explicit claim or by omission. * * 3. Altered versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not * be misrepresented as being the original software. * **** Alterations to Henry's code are... **** **** Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, **** 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 **** by Larry Wall and others **** **** You may distribute under the terms of either the GNU General Public **** License or the Artistic License, as specified in the README file. (...) You can see the whole file here: https://metacpan.org/source/SHAY/perl-5.20.1/regexec.c I looked but couldn't find any common name for this license of Henry's. Is it on our list? Is it free? What name should I use in the License tag? Thank you, Petr

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Licensing question re: assembly include file from Texas Instruments
by Ben Rosser 31 Aug '16

31 Aug '16

Hello legal@, I have a question about a copyright header on a file that looks dubious to me, but I wanted to get an opinion from here. https://github.com/alberthdev/spasm-ng/blob/master/inc/ti83plus.inc is the file in question; it's an z80 assembly include written for the TI-83+, a graphing calculator made by Texas Instruments. The file was originally written by TI and made freely available, but it includes the following copyright notice: ;====================================================================== ; Include File for the TI-83 Plus ; Last Updated 11/09/2001 ; ; Copyright (c) 1999, 2001 Texas Instruments: The Licensed Materials are ; copyrighted by TI. LICENSEE agrees that it will ; not delete the copyright notice, trademarks or ; protective notices from any copy made by LICENSEE. ; ; Warranty: TI does not warrant that the Licensed Materials will ; be free from errors or will meet your specific requirements. ; The Licensed Materials are made available "AS IS" to LICENSEE. ; ; Limitations: TI MAKES NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION, EITHER EXPRESS ; OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED ; WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ; REGARDING THE LICENSED MATERIALS. IN NO EVENT SHALL ; TI OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL ; OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF USE OR DATA, ; OR INTERRUPTION OF BUSINESS, WHETHER THE ALLEGED DAMAGES ARE ; LABELED IN TORT, CONTRACT OR INDEMNITY. ; The calculator hacking community has since modified this file, and redistributes it in a lot of projects (many of which are open source). However, as best as I can tell, this copyright statement does not explicitly grant the right to redistribute this file. My thinking then is that Fedora cannot ship it. But I'd be interested in getting a second opinion. This is redistributed by spasm-ng (a z80 assembler), which I'm in the process of packaging; but due to this licensing question, I've elected *not* to ship the file. (The rest of spasm-ng is GPLv2; it's just this include file that is dubious). The package is perfectly functional without it, since, as I said, most authors include this as part of their projects anyway. Thanks in advance, Ben Rosser

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Re: OCB blockcipher mode - is it allowed?
by Igor Gnatenko 28 Aug '16

28 Aug '16

On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 2:56 AM, Christopher <ctubbsii(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote: > On Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 6:16 PM Igor Gnatenko <ignatenko(a)redhat.com> wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> I have some questions about OCB[0] and it's usage in Fedora. >> >> I wanted to package pycryptodome[1] and found that they implement OCB >> in their code. From my POV (completely without any legal knowledge) it >> seems that it's not completely free[2] as it's not allowed for >> military use. It seems to be allowed without any restrictions only for >> OpenSSL. >> >> What do you think? Looks like now we have mosh[3] packaged and it >> includes OCB (so if it's not acceptable, it most probably should be >> removed). >> >> >> [0] http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/ >> [1] https://pycryptodome.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ >> [2] http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/license.htm >> [3] https://mosh.org >> -- >> -Igor Gnatenko >> > > I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that OCB is available to be implemented > under 4 different license options: > 1. Any open source software licensed under an approved license by OSI or > public domain. > 2. General license for non-military use. > 3. OpenSSL-specific use. > 4. Special license from the patent owner. > > Only option 2 has the non-military restriction, and anything in Fedora would > almost certainly fall under 1 or 3. So, I can't imagine there'd be a problem > using the OCB patent in Fedora software. I'm actually not even sure why > option 3 even exists, since it seems to be a subset of option 1. Regardless, > it doesn't look like the non-military restriction of option 2 would apply if > option 1 is used. Unfortunately I don't know how licenses applies, so if program is licensed under OSI-approved license then 2nd license doesn't apply anymore? > > -- > devel mailing list > devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org > -- -Igor Gnatenko

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OCB blockcipher mode - is it allowed?
by Igor Gnatenko 27 Aug '16

27 Aug '16

Hi, I have some questions about OCB[0] and it's usage in Fedora. I wanted to package pycryptodome[1] and found that they implement OCB in their code. From my POV (completely without any legal knowledge) it seems that it's not completely free[2] as it's not allowed for military use. It seems to be allowed without any restrictions only for OpenSSL. What do you think? Looks like now we have mosh[3] packaged and it includes OCB (so if it's not acceptable, it most probably should be removed). [0] http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/ [1] https://pycryptodome.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ [2] http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/ocb/license.htm [3] https://mosh.org -- -Igor Gnatenko

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Tumbolia Public License
by Miro Hrončok 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

Tumbolia Public License Copyright 2013, Paul Davis <paul.joseph.davis(a)gmail.com> Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved. TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION 0. opan saurce LOL === End of license text, my e-mail continues === So I've found this license in [1] and was wondering whether this is OK or not. As I see it, the first part after the copyright notice is basically MIT/ISC-ish, however the TERMS AND CONDITIONS part kind of adds another layer of complexity by saying something that I guess (legally speaking) cannot be done, because it does not mean anything (even if you read it as "be open source"). They have it in Debian [2]. Ideas? Thanks [1] https://github.com/davisp/ghp-import/blob/master/LICENSE [2] http://sourcesdev.debian.net/copyright/license/ghp-import/0.4.1-1/ -- Miro Hrončok -- Phone: +420777974800 IRC: mhroncok

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Re: Switching to SPDX in license tags redux
by Paul Madick (AM) 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

On behalf of the SPDX organization of volunteers, thank you for considering replacing the existing Fedora license tags with SPDX short license identifiers. A couple of potentially helpful links for your consideration, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LUJuzGKC5K2yYuAg8S-2VYbS2dmg_4IlFdp… shows a mapping of the Fedora good license list to the SPDX license list and http://wiki.spdx.org/view/Legal_Team/Fedora-comparison provides some history regarding the SPDX legal team's adoption of the Fedora licenses. As always we remain an open project and would welcome any volunteers from the Fedora project interested in improving interactions between the Fedora and SPDX projects http://spdx.org/participate. If you are interested in learning about how other organizations are using SPDX (the spec, the license list, etc.), please join the monthly general calls http://wiki.spdx.org/view/General_Meeting or mailing list http://lists.spdx.org/mailman/listinfo/spdx Paul Madick SPDX Legal Team co-lead This email and all contents are subject to the following disclaimer: "http://www.dimensiondata.com/emaildisclaimer"

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Question about licensing my own code
by Jason L Tibbitts III 16 Aug '16

16 Aug '16

In ome of the code I have written I've included the following notice: " Authorship and License ---------------------- All of this code was originally written by Jason Tibbitts <tibbs(a)math.uh.edu> and has been donated to the public domain. If you require a statement of license, please consider this work to be licensed as "CC0 Universal", any version you choose. " Obviously I really don't want to be concerned with copyright issues on this code. Could someone comment on whether this is a reasonable way to accomplish that, and if it is, which License: tag Fedora would use for this code? I have always understood the point behind CC0, but until recently I hadn't actually read it and was saddened to find that it took so much boilerplate just to say I want to release copyright. - J<

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legal August 2016