Wouldn't the term "Some Rights Reserved" work in its place? It still looks official (which is why I assume it is there), and  I know the Creative Commons Project loves that wording.

Justin "threethirty" O'Brien
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SPAM] Fedora-legal-list Digest, Vol 29, Issue 3
From: fedora-legal-list-request@redhat.com
Date: Wed, November 04, 2009 12:00 pm
To: fedora-legal-list@redhat.com

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Today's Topics:

1. Hopefully simple GPL licensing question re Netomata (David Nalley)
2. Re: Hopefully simple GPL licensing question re Netomata
(Tom "spot" Callaway)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 16:25:01 -0500
From: David Nalley <david@gnsa.us>
Subject: [Fedora-legal-list] Hopefully simple GPL licensing question
re Netomata
To: fedora-legal-list@redhat.com
Message-ID:
<d6e6dfeb0911031325h57863675r59ddf5ebe233406d@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

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@netomata.com


and of course 'COPYING' is contained in source and has GPLv3 in it.



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:42:22 -0500
From: "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Hopefully simple GPL licensing
question re Netomata
To: David Nalley <david@gnsa.us>
Cc: fedora-legal-list@redhat.com
Message-ID: <4AF0A3BE.7080609@redhat.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On 11/03/2009 04:25 PM, David Nalley wrote:
> 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.

Well, they really should drop the "All Rights Reserved", it is no longer
necessary (see: http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/All_rights_reserved).

It is a potential source of confusion, since the GPL grants some rights
to the user which are normally only available to the copyright holder.

However, strictly speaking, it is not a problem for Fedora in this case,
since the "all rights reserved", just means that the copyright holder
hasn't waived those rights (and the GPLv3 doesn't actually waive any
rights). It's a balancing act though, which is why I'd strongly
recommend that they drop the "All Rights Reserved" wording to eliminate
all confusion.

~spot



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