Hi all,
With the update to the regex-syntax crate package that I'm building right now, the license will change from "MIT OR Apache-2.0" to "(MIT OR Apache-2.0) AND Unicode-DFS-2016".
The project includes code that is derived from Unicode data files, and it already shipped a license text for the Unicode-DFS-2016 license for this reason - but the SPDX license string in upstream crate metadata doesn't reflect this fact. It also appears that the inclusion of the additional license file was made after the package was initially reviewed for Fedora, and as a result, previous versions of this package didn't include the Unicode license in its License tag.
I have also opened an upstream discussion about this, since I believe that the upstream license specifier is wrong (i.e. missing " ... AND Unicode-DFS-2016"), but upstream developers don't appear convinced (even though similar changes were already made in equivalent cases for other Rust projects): https://github.com/rust-lang/regex/discussions/933
This change will probably have at least some "ripple effect" across Rust packages in Fedora once they are rebuilt against this new version, since basically everything depends on the "regex" crate (which depends on regex-syntax), either directly, or indirectly.
I'm pretty sure that this package now has the the correct license tag (i.e. project has two parts: first part is dual-licensed "MIT OR Apache-2.0", second part is derived from Unicode data and is licensed "Unicode-DFS-2016", so the license tag should reflect *both* parts), but if I am wrong about this, please get my attention, so I can revert this change in a timely manner.
Fabio
On Tue, Dec 13, 2022 at 1:55 AM Fabio Valentini decathorpe@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
With the update to the regex-syntax crate package that I'm building right now, the license will change from "MIT OR Apache-2.0" to "(MIT OR Apache-2.0) AND Unicode-DFS-2016".
The project includes code that is derived from Unicode data files, and it already shipped a license text for the Unicode-DFS-2016 license for this reason - but the SPDX license string in upstream crate metadata doesn't reflect this fact. It also appears that the inclusion of the additional license file was made after the package was initially reviewed for Fedora, and as a result, previous versions of this package didn't include the Unicode license in its License tag.
I have also opened an upstream discussion about this, since I believe that the upstream license specifier is wrong (i.e. missing " ... AND Unicode-DFS-2016"), but upstream developers don't appear convinced (even though similar changes were already made in equivalent cases for other Rust projects): https://github.com/rust-lang/regex/discussions/933
This change will probably have at least some "ripple effect" across Rust packages in Fedora once they are rebuilt against this new version, since basically everything depends on the "regex" crate (which depends on regex-syntax), either directly, or indirectly.
I'm pretty sure that this package now has the the correct license tag (i.e. project has two parts: first part is dual-licensed "MIT OR Apache-2.0", second part is derived from Unicode data and is licensed "Unicode-DFS-2016", so the license tag should reflect *both* parts), but if I am wrong about this, please get my attention, so I can revert this change in a timely manner.
Somebody asked the Rust Foundation to clarify the equivalent case as it applies to the Rust compiler and standard library itself: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/98116#issuecomment-1359471815
As far as I understand it, their legal counsel's conclusion is that crates must include the license *text* for the Unicode license, but not to include the SPDX license identifier for it in crate metadata. To me, this seems like "cheating" - why include the license text, but not include the license in metadata?
As far as I understand, it's also in contradiction with what Red Hat legal asks Fedora packagers to do for our redistributables (RPM packages vs. Rust libraries) - which is to list all applicable licenses in the package metadata.
Applying two separate legal standards to Rust libraries in upstream projects vs. Fedora packages would be extremely tedious, as we generally rely on upstream license metadata (SPDX expression) to be correct, and automatically use upstream SPDX license expressions verbatim for RPM packages' License tags in Fedora (unless the upstream license metadata is believed to be "wrong", in which case manual intervention is required).
Fabio
On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 2:47 PM Fabio Valentini decathorpe@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Dec 13, 2022 at 1:55 AM Fabio Valentini decathorpe@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
With the update to the regex-syntax crate package that I'm building right now, the license will change from "MIT OR Apache-2.0" to "(MIT OR Apache-2.0) AND Unicode-DFS-2016".
The project includes code that is derived from Unicode data files, and it already shipped a license text for the Unicode-DFS-2016 license for this reason - but the SPDX license string in upstream crate metadata doesn't reflect this fact. It also appears that the inclusion of the additional license file was made after the package was initially reviewed for Fedora, and as a result, previous versions of this package didn't include the Unicode license in its License tag.
I have also opened an upstream discussion about this, since I believe that the upstream license specifier is wrong (i.e. missing " ... AND Unicode-DFS-2016"), but upstream developers don't appear convinced (even though similar changes were already made in equivalent cases for other Rust projects): https://github.com/rust-lang/regex/discussions/933
This change will probably have at least some "ripple effect" across Rust packages in Fedora once they are rebuilt against this new version, since basically everything depends on the "regex" crate (which depends on regex-syntax), either directly, or indirectly.
I'm pretty sure that this package now has the the correct license tag (i.e. project has two parts: first part is dual-licensed "MIT OR Apache-2.0", second part is derived from Unicode data and is licensed "Unicode-DFS-2016", so the license tag should reflect *both* parts), but if I am wrong about this, please get my attention, so I can revert this change in a timely manner.
The only reason why you might be "wrong" is if it should be concluded that the Unicode license doesn't really apply to *anything* here. I'm reluctant to reach that conclusion in this case, but I feel it ought to be mentioned. This is ultimately Unicode's fault for attempting to impose its view of intellectual property on the rest of the world. :)
Somebody asked the Rust Foundation to clarify the equivalent case as it applies to the Rust compiler and standard library itself: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/98116#issuecomment-1359471815
As far as I understand it, their legal counsel's conclusion is that crates must include the license *text* for the Unicode license, but not to include the SPDX license identifier for it in crate metadata. To me, this seems like "cheating" - why include the license text, but not include the license in metadata?
I mean, the Rust Foundation counsel isn't wrong. This "hide some of the licenses" tendency in FOSS is a pretty deeply rooted cultural practice. There's a form of it in Fedora, which we're trying to move beyond.
As far as I understand, it's also in contradiction with what Red Hat legal asks Fedora packagers to do for our redistributables (RPM packages vs. Rust libraries) - which is to list all applicable licenses in the package metadata.
They are definitely different standards for license metadata, but the standards are non-uniform across all the various project, packaging and distribution communities.
Applying two separate legal standards to Rust libraries in upstream projects vs. Fedora packages would be extremely tedious, as we generally rely on upstream license metadata (SPDX expression) to be correct, and automatically use upstream SPDX license expressions verbatim for RPM packages' License tags in Fedora (unless the upstream license metadata is believed to be "wrong", in which case manual intervention is required).
I have some thoughts relating to this because I've recently been looking at the licensing and license metadata of a large number of Rust crates (for something having nothing to do with Fedora or Fedora-derived packages). In general, FOSS license metadata is not great quality, in my opinion. Again, there's a culture of "hide some of the licenses" for (and this is what's most annoying) generally non-well-articulated reasons, but also there's been a tradition of using license symbols to have highly imprecise meanings. That is partly what has motivated these recent changes in Fedora: we are trying to do something to improve the situation. I think my attitude used to be that this was an unimportant problem because license metadata was unimportant, but I don't think that is tenable anymore.
In the *Rust* case, things are typically not so bad, because these Rust projects are typically so small and simple and are fairly young (my non-technical impression), and there also is apparently a sort of license monoculture that dominates Rust project development (e.g. I found one GPL crate out of about 200 or so in what I was looking at). So they don't have the complexity (both structurally and license-wise) seen in some of the relatively old Fedora packages, particularly of projects written in C and so forth.
I looked at your package, and what surprised me is that you patched the Cargo.toml file to "correct" the upstream license metadata, given that the upstream project has rejected the change.
I guess partly why I have made those remarks on Rust is that while I see how it is tedious to deal with two different standards of license metadata, it really isn't *that* bad in the Rust case (most of the time). If the tediousness is because you can't just take the upstream metadata, assume it must be correct, and just automate the populating of the RPM metadata ... well, think about what the Fedora package maintainers of things like krb5 or Webkit2GTK will have to deal with. Even in the Rust case, assuming the upstream metadata is accurate seems unjustified, given the standard of accuracy Fedora is striving for. It's more like, you can reasonably assume it's accurate enough in most cases that you don't have to examine things too deeply or critically, and you can certainly rely on the upstream metadata as a good starting point.
I guess there is also an argument that it is inefficient to carry downstream license metadata patches that result from the existence of different license metadata systems. This argument seems like it can only make sense if it looks like the two systems are both based on the same symbolic system, which is arguably true for Rust and Fedora since both communities are attempting to use SPDX identifiers. I'm sympathetic to this, but it is essentially saying "if Rust projects hide some of the licenses, Fedora should do so too". Which doesn't feel quite right to me.
Richard
Thanks for your response!
On Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 4:46 AM Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
The only reason why you might be "wrong" is if it should be concluded that the Unicode license doesn't really apply to *anything* here. I'm reluctant to reach that conclusion in this case, but I feel it ought to be mentioned. This is ultimately Unicode's fault for attempting to impose its view of intellectual property on the rest of the world. :)
That was my impression as well, but I don't feel qualified to say whether it matters or not. The only thing I *do* know is that the library ships code derived from Unicode data, which is clearly covered by Unicode-DFS-2016, and this code is enabled in the default configuration.
(snip)
I have some thoughts relating to this because I've recently been looking at the licensing and license metadata of a large number of Rust crates (for something having nothing to do with Fedora or Fedora-derived packages). In general, FOSS license metadata is not great quality, in my opinion. Again, there's a culture of "hide some of the licenses" for (and this is what's most annoying) generally non-well-articulated reasons, but also there's been a tradition of using license symbols to have highly imprecise meanings. That is partly what has motivated these recent changes in Fedora: we are trying to do something to improve the situation. I think my attitude used to be that this was an unimportant problem because license metadata was unimportant, but I don't think that is tenable anymore.
In the *Rust* case, things are typically not so bad, because these Rust projects are typically so small and simple and are fairly young (my non-technical impression), and there also is apparently a sort of license monoculture that dominates Rust project development (e.g. I found one GPL crate out of about 200 or so in what I was looking at). So they don't have the complexity (both structurally and license-wise) seen in some of the relatively old Fedora packages, particularly of projects written in C and so forth.
True. I hope things don't get more complicated over time, because they are already painful to deal with in some cases ...
I looked at your package, and what surprised me is that you patched the Cargo.toml file to "correct" the upstream license metadata, given that the upstream project has rejected the change.
The downstream patch to the crate metadata is only there because we use crate metadata to automatically collect licenses of dependencies for statically linked binaries. I.e. the crate metadata should reflect the license of the Fedora package, otherwise the method to collect licenses of dependencies would be wrong.
I guess partly why I have made those remarks on Rust is that while I see how it is tedious to deal with two different standards of license metadata, it really isn't *that* bad in the Rust case (most of the time). If the tediousness is because you can't just take the upstream metadata, assume it must be correct, and just automate the populating of the RPM metadata ... well, think about what the Fedora package maintainers of things like krb5 or Webkit2GTK will have to deal with. Even in the Rust case, assuming the upstream metadata is accurate seems unjustified, given the standard of accuracy Fedora is striving for. It's more like, you can reasonably assume it's accurate enough in most cases that you don't have to examine things too deeply or critically, and you can certainly rely on the upstream metadata as a good starting point.
True. It's just in this case that it was fairly obvious that something is "weird", because there are files for all three license texts (MIT and Apache-2.0 and Unicode-DFS-2016) in the library sources, but only two of them are reflected in the crate metadata.
I guess there is also an argument that it is inefficient to carry downstream license metadata patches that result from the existence of different license metadata systems. This argument seems like it can only make sense if it looks like the two systems are both based on the same symbolic system, which is arguably true for Rust and Fedora since both communities are attempting to use SPDX identifiers. I'm sympathetic to this, but it is essentially saying "if Rust projects hide some of the licenses, Fedora should do so too". Which doesn't feel quite right to me.
Right ... I don't think "let's just sweep this under the rug" is a good strategy here ... which is why I decided to use the "correct" license for the Fedora package.
Fabio
On Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 1:43 PM Fabio Valentini decathorpe@gmail.com wrote:
I looked at your package, and what surprised me is that you patched the Cargo.toml file to "correct" the upstream license metadata, given that the upstream project has rejected the change.
The downstream patch to the crate metadata is only there because we use crate metadata to automatically collect licenses of dependencies for statically linked binaries. I.e. the crate metadata should reflect the license of the Fedora package, otherwise the method to collect licenses of dependencies would be wrong.
Ah, now I understand!
Richard
-
Fabio Valentini -
Richard Fontana