license for plpa
by Steve Traylen
Hi,
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=530230
has been blocked on FE-Legal for sometime.
It looks "fine" bsd'ish but has a lot of extra text.
In fact as mentioned in the review this code is already in Fedora
as a private library elsewhere but that can be followed up
after a yes or no on plpa in its own right,
Thanks
Steve
--
Steve Traylen
14 years, 5 months
ChemDoodle Web Components license
by Gianluca Sforna
Hi,
I'm having a look at packaging ChemDoodle Web Components, a Javascript
set of classes to manage chemical structures in web pages.
Now, the license is GPLv3+ but they have an additional exception detailed in:
http://web.chemdoodle.com/installation.php#license
"""
As a special exception to the GPL, any HTML file which merely makes
function calls to this code, and for that purpose includes it by
reference, shall be deemed a separate work for copyright law purposes.
If you modify this code, you may extend this exception to your version
of the code, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to
do so, delete this exception statement from your version.
This means that your websites do NOT need to be released under GPL
even if you call the ChemDoodle Web Components library.
"""
Now the questions:
1. Isn't that exception just redundant? I can't really see how an HTML
could ever be considered a derivative work of some javascript code
2. in case it is really relevant, what should be put in the License
filed of the spec file?
TIA
G.
--
Gianluca Sforna
http://morefedora.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gianlucasforna
14 years, 5 months
SystemC OSCI License and Fedora is an Non-Profit org
by Chitlesh GOORAH
Hello there,
I bring this SystemC's legal discussion alive again as I believe it
would be a very big asset for FEL.
SystemC was refused to under fedora collection due to a licensing
issue. Tom Callaway went to talk with OSCI's lawyer with some
recommendations, but in vain. I'm in discussions with the OSCI board
as well to seek a tradeoff. However OSCI board tells me it is on the
trademark item that Tom and OSCI board failed to find a tradeoff.
But isn't Fedora logos and trademarks suffers the same issue ? Perhaps
also Firefox/Mozilla.
I'm reading Tom Callaway's recommendations on the change needed in the
licence. I think Fedora is NOT a Commercial Distributor and is NOT
dealing a commercial offering. So as a non-profit organization
we/fedora don't require the need for a chance in license, right ?
Kind regards,
Chitlesh Goorah
Tom Callaway's recommendations:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is specifically commenting on the current version 3.0 of the
SystemC license.
http://www.systemc.org/about/org_docs/license/
The most significant problem is section 2.7, concerning trademarks. I
would suggest both of the following:
(a) Eliminating 2.7 in its entirety. Trademark issues are dealt with
adequately in section 2.5. However, another (redundant) possibility is
to replace the existing 2.7 in its entirety with one sentence:
This Agreement grants no permission to use the marks or logos of OSCI.
(b) Sever Exhibit D completely from the license.
There are other issues that might not rise to the level of
non-free-ness but have been pointed out by the FSF as being
problematic (and in some cases clarification of meaning or purpose
would lead to the conclusion that the clauses in question make the
license non-free). The following suggestions would address these:
(a) Eliminate the following:
PLEASE READ THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE CLICKING ON THE
"ACCEPT" BUTTON, AS BY CLICKING ON THE "ACCEPT" BUTTON YOU ACKNOWLEDGE
THAT YOU HAVE READ, UNDERSTOOD AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THIS LICENSE
AGREEMENT AND ALL OF ITS TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
(Note that there's other language that deals with acceptance below this
language.)
(b) In section 2.6, replace the term "proprietary notices" with "legal
notices".
(c) Replace section 5 with the following:
Any Recipient which Distributes any Contribution and/or OSCI Release
in a commercial offering (a "Commercial Distributor") may accept
certain responsibilities with respect to end users, business
partners and the like. While this license is intended to facilitate
the commercial use of Contributions and OSCI Releases, a Commercial
Distributor should do so in a manner which does not create
potential liability for the Contributors. Therefore, each
Commercial Distributor hereby agrees to defend and indemnify every
Contributor ("Indemnified Contributor") against any losses,
damages and costs (collectively "Losses") arising from claims,
lawsuits and other legal actions brought by a third party against the
Indemnified Contributor to the extent they directly result from the
acts or omissions of such Commercial Distributor in connection with
the terms and conditions under which the Commercial Distributor offered
such Contributions and OSCI releases in a commercial product
offering. The obligations in this Section 5 do not apply to any
claims or Losses relating to any actual or alleged intellectual
property infringement. In order to qualify, an Indemnified
Contributor must: a) promptly notify the Commercial
Distributor in writing of such claim, and b) allow the
Commercial Distributor to control, and cooperate with the Commercial
Distributor in, the defense and any related settlement negotiations.
The Indemnified Contributor may participate in the defense of any such
claim at its own expense.
For example, a Recipient might include a Contribution in a commercial
product offering, Product X. That Contributor is then a Commercial
Distributor. If that Commercial Distributor then makes performance
claims, or offers warranties, support or indemnity related to
Product X, those performance claims, offers and other terms
are such Commercial Distributor's responsibility
alone. Under this Section 5, the Commercial Distributor would have to
defend claims against the Contributors directly arising out of those
performance claims, offers, and other terms, and if a court requires
any Contributor to pay any damages as a result, the Commercial
Distributor must pay those damages.
Alternatively, and preferably, eliminate section 5 altogether.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kind regards,
Chitlesh
14 years, 5 months
Does the AGPL impose packaging requirements?
by Jason L Tibbitts III
Does Fedora as a distro need to package AGPL (v3, if it matters)
software in any specific way to meet the requirements of the license?
Or do we simply provide a package (and src.rpm) and leave it up to the
person installing the software to make sure they comply?
- J<
14 years, 5 months
Combining copyrights on Erlang source files
by Jason L Tibbitts III
A question occurred to me after doing a review recently about whether
Erlang source is compiled and linked together like C source or whether
the source files remain separate like, say, Python. The issue is an
Erlang package where some source files are LGPLv3+ but one is GPLv2+. I
took the safe route and assumed that the final result is GPLv3+, but
unfortunately I don't quite know enough about either Erlang or the
actual legal threshold at which the sources are considered to be
commingled. When I look at the compiled application, it looks as if
each of the .erl files gets turned into a .beam file, and those files
look to be kept separate in the final package.
The ticket, with a package you can build, is at
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=502991
- J<
14 years, 5 months
Hopefully simple GPL licensing question re Netomata
by David Nalley
So I started looking at packaging Netomata (
http://www.netomata.com/products/ncg ) and came across something that
raises a flag. The author is also at a conference with me this week,
so I figured the face time would be a good time to request a change if
something is required.
The question I have, is does the 'All Rights Reserved' in each source
file conflict with the GPLv3 that they claim the package is released
under, and is it a problem wrt Packaging Guidelines.
In the header of each source file appears:
# $Id: ncg 335 2009-04-13 22:40:31Z brent $
# Copyright (C) 2008, 2009 Netomata, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
# Please review accompanying 'LICENSE' file or
# http://www.netomata.com/docs/licenses/ncg for important notices,
# disclaimers, and license terms.
There is no mention of GPLv$ in the source itself.
LICENSE contains:
Netomata Config Generator (NCG) License
=======================================
Copyright (C) 2008, 2009 Netomata, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Netomata Config Generator (NCG) is free software: you can redistribute
it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
version 3, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
Netomata Config Generator (NCG) is distributed in the hope that it
will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND (without even
the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE), either express or implied, unless required by applicable
law or agreed to in writing. See the GNU General Public License,
version 3, for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License,
version 3, along with Netomata Config Generator (NCG), in the file
named "COPYING". If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt>.
For any other questions or comments, please contact us at:
Netomata, Inc.
2601C Blanding Ave., #327
Alameda, CA 94501
USA
Web http://www.netomata.com/
Phone +1 510 355 0123
Fax +1 510 355 0134
Email license(a)netomata.com
and of course 'COPYING' is contained in source and has GPLv3 in it.
14 years, 5 months
XSkat license
by Christian Krause
Hi,
I'd like to package the card game "xskat": (
http://www.xskat.de/xskat.html ) which is distributed under the
following license:
-------------------------------------------------------------
This program is free software; you can redistribute it freely.
Use it at your own risk; there is NO WARRANTY.
Redistribution of modified versions is permitted
provided that the following conditions are met:
1. All copyright & permission notices are preserved.
2.a) Only changes required for packaging or porting are made.
or
2.b) It is clearly stated who last changed the program.
The program is renamed or
the version number is of the form x.y.z,
where x.y is the version of the original program
and z is an arbitrary suffix.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Both Debian and Mandriva are shipping it, so it looks like that for them
the license is acceptable. ;-)
Is this license acceptable for Fedora too and if yes, what should I put
in RPM's License tag?
Do we have to handle the version in the rpm package differently or can
we assume that our regular NVR is sufficient to fulfill 2.b?
Best regards,
Christian
14 years, 5 months