legal August 2014

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

5 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

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winetricks
by T.C. Hollingsworth 01 Aug '15

01 Aug '15

winetricks [1] is free software, but I was originally under the impression that it was ineligible for inclusion in Fedora because it is used primarily to download and install non-free software. (That is not it's only function, though--it also does some registry hacks and can manage multiple WINEPREFIXes.) However, some members of the community disagree [2] and say that it might be eligible for Fedora, so we'd like confirmation one way or the other. Thanks! -T.C. [1] http://winetricks.org/ [2] https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1992#c40

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UROnode licensing question
by Jaroslav Skarvada 28 Nov '14

28 Nov '14

Hi, I wanted to package UROnode, it seemed to be GPLv2+ licensed amateur radio software (mirror [1]), but I came across the following weird text in the package (in addition to the GPLv2 text): > URONode is free to use around the globe with the exception of: > anywhere in or by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts > anywhere in or by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania > > Because of their tactics, any of my software is not to be used in these two > states. Your cooperation is appreciated.. > > - N1URO can be such package included in Fedora? thanks & regards Jaroslav [1] http://fedorapeople.org/~jskarvad/uronode-2.1.tar.gz

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Is MSR-LA considered as free?
by Christopher Meng 17 Sep '14

17 Sep '14

Hi, I'm packaging z3 prover[1] from Microsfot Research and its license is MSR-LA[2]. As I never hear of that before, I'd like to request help from list to see if it's acceptable for Fedora packaging. Thanks. [1]---http://z3.codeplex.com/ [2]---http://z3.codeplex.com/license -- Yours sincerely, Christopher Meng http://cicku.me

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Ambiguous license stated by upstream
by Eduardo A. Mayorga 04 Sep '14

04 Sep '14

Hi, I came into this issue while I was reviewing python-gitapi[1] in BZ. The author does not include a license file in the sources, and even worse, one can read this in the README[2] file: <snip> License Copyright (c) Fredrik Håård Do whatever you want, don't blame me. You may also use this software as licensed under the MIT or BSD licenses, or the more permissive license below: Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so: THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. </snip> This looks like a MIT variant. The packager patched the package adding a MIT license copy. I'm not sure what to do about this. I added FE-Legal as blocking bug to the package review ticket. I hope you can give me some guidance. Thanks, Eduardo [1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1129902 [2] https://bitbucket.org/haard/gitapi/raw/ba6a152901d5772454c90a3d779d461db8ae… -- http://about.me/mayorgatellez

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Linking of GPL-only and GPL-incompatible libraries
by Florian Weimer 25 Aug '14

25 Aug '14

What's Fedora's stance on linking GPL-only libraries into the same process as a library which is considered GPL-incompatible (such as 4-clause BSD) if this linking happens rather indirectly? We currently link psql against both libreadline and libcrypto/libssl (OpenSSL), so if that is okay, more indirect linking should be acceptable as well. However, I'm not sure I'd appreciate that if I were a GPL-only library author who chose that license deliberately (perhaps even with a desire to sell alternative licensing), and some intermediate libraries makes my work available under a more permissive license, only wrapped in a different programming interface. -- Florian Weimer / Red Hat Product Security Team

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License field: linked libraries considered?
by Jerry James 13 Aug '14

13 Aug '14

I maintain a package whose sources are mostly MIT (with a couple of files under a BSD license, and one under the Boost license). Upstream just wrote to tell me that the License field on the package is wrong, because it contains binaries that are linked with glpk, which is GPLv3. They argue that the binary package should therefore carry a "GPLv3" license tag, unless I elect to build it without glpk support (which is optional), in which case the current License tag of "MIT and BSD and Boost" would be correct. Is that true? Do we consider library licenses when filling in the License tag of a package? It would be even worse than that, really, some kind of transitive closure of all licenses on dependencies of all depths, where some licenses "taint" the consuming package's license and some don't. I do not see an answer to this question on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:LicensingGuidelines. Thanks for any clarification. -- Jerry James http://www.jamezone.org/

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License tag for the minimal BSD license
by Florian Weimer 07 Aug '14

07 Aug '14

What's the appropriate license tag for this license? Copyright … Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. It's the ISC license minus the disclaimer. Is it still appropriate to use "ISC"? BTW, I noticed that Licensing:Main on the wiki has a dead link for the ISC license. The new URL seems to be: http://www.isc.org/downloads/software-support-policy/isc-license/ -- Florian Weimer / Red Hat Product Security

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Python license: broken link
by Jerry James 06 Aug '14

06 Aug '14

The Python license link on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing points to http://www.python.org/2.0.1/license.html, which returns a 404. Perhaps one of these URLs would be a suitable replacement: https://docs.python.org/2/license.html https://docs.python.org/3/license.html Regards, -- Jerry James http://www.jamezone.org/

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legal August 2014