Hello!
I'm packaging rust-statrs in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1993498 and while reviewing it Fabio (in CC) noticed it includes some NIST datasets under data/nist that don't seem to have a clear attribution. You can see them here: https://github.com/statrs-dev/statrs/tree/master/data/nist
After some spelunking, I found these come from one of the NIST SRD datasets: https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/strd/univ/backgroundinfo.html
That page doesn't have a clear license either, but more spelunking reveals https://www.nist.gov/open/copyright-fair-use-and-licensing-statements-srd-da... which is getting closer. Specifically, I'm pretty sure these fall under the "Standard Reference Data (SRD)" license stated there, which says:
--- The Standard Reference Data Act, 15 U.S.C. § 290e, empowers the Secretary of Commerce to secure copyright on behalf of the United States in Standard Reference Data (SRD) prepared by NIST. SRD data products should include the following statement:
Copyright protection on this compilation of data has been secured by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce on behalf of the United States in the United States and all countries that are parties to the Universal Copyright Convention, pursuant to Section 290(e) of Title 15 of the United States Code.
NIST Standard Reference Data (SRD); ©Copyright [©YEAR] by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on behalf of the United States of America. All rights reserved. ---
To my untrained eye, this looks like a fairly standard copyright attribution thing and should be ok to redistribute and package in Fedora, but I'd like an official blessing as I don't see this license listed on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main . Thanks!
Cheers Davide
On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 17:16 +0000, Davide Cavalca wrote:
NIST Standard Reference Data (SRD); ©Copyright [©YEAR] by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on behalf of the United States of America. All rights reserved.
To my untrained eye, this looks like a fairly standard copyright attribution thing and should be ok to redistribute and package in Fedora, but I'd like an official blessing as I don't see this license listed on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
The phrase "all rights reserved" indicates that no permission has been granted for anyone to make copies. On the surface, we should not redistribute this content.
I am surprised, though, that publicly-funded work would be restricted. Perhaps one of our attorneys could comment?
-Bryan
On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 12:28 -0500, Bryan Sutula wrote:
On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 17:16 +0000, Davide Cavalca wrote:
NIST Standard Reference Data (SRD); ©Copyright [©YEAR] by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on behalf of the United States of America. All rights reserved.
To my untrained eye, this looks like a fairly standard copyright attribution thing and should be ok to redistribute and package in Fedora, but I'd like an official blessing as I don't see this license listed on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
The phrase "all rights reserved" indicates that no permission has been granted for anyone to make copies. On the surface, we should not redistribute this content.
I am surprised, though, that publicly-funded work would be restricted. Perhaps one of our attorneys could comment?
So I'm definitely not an expert, but my understanding is that "All rights reserved" is just a copyright affirmation phrase, it doesn't actually restrict/impact redistribution in itself. If you look at https://github.com/search?q=%22All+rights+reserved%22 it's all over the place, even in projects under permissive licenses.
Cheers Davide
On Fri, 2021-08-27 at 16:45 +0000, Davide Cavalca wrote:
On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 12:28 -0500, Bryan Sutula wrote:
On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 17:16 +0000, Davide Cavalca wrote:
NIST Standard Reference Data (SRD); ©Copyright [©YEAR] by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on behalf of the United States of America. All rights reserved.
To my untrained eye, this looks like a fairly standard copyright attribution thing and should be ok to redistribute and package in Fedora, but I'd like an official blessing as I don't see this license listed on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
The phrase "all rights reserved" indicates that no permission has been granted for anyone to make copies. On the surface, we should not redistribute this content.
I am surprised, though, that publicly-funded work would be restricted. Perhaps one of our attorneys could comment?
So I'm definitely not an expert, but my understanding is that "All rights reserved" is just a copyright affirmation phrase, it doesn't actually restrict/impact redistribution in itself. If you look at https://github.com/search?q=%22All+rights+reserved%22 it's all over the place, even in projects under permissive licenses.
<distraction> This Wikipedia article[1] does a good job explaining the "All rights reserved". You are correct that it no longer has actual significance beyond the reminder that this is copyrighted content. Thanks for making me look this up and learn something today. </distraction>
Given that the gov't has claimed a copyright and has (apparently) not provided any permission to make copies, the default is that no such permission exists and it should not be copied. That's the nature of "copyright". I think we still need to find permission to make copies (which would be in the form of an actual license stating that we are allowed to do so), or failing that, perhaps an attorney might be able to comment on whether there is some blanket permission for publicly- funded content.
-Bryan
https://www.nist.gov/srd/public-law https://www.nist.gov/open/copyright-fair-use-and-licensing-statements-srd-da...
IANAL, but it seems like they make it rather clear that they don't want it included in Fedora, but you can email them at "data@nist.gov" and ask.
~spot
On Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 6:53 PM Bryan Sutula bsutula@redhat.com wrote:
On Fri, 2021-08-27 at 16:45 +0000, Davide Cavalca wrote:
On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 12:28 -0500, Bryan Sutula wrote:
On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 17:16 +0000, Davide Cavalca wrote:
NIST Standard Reference Data (SRD); ©Copyright [©YEAR] by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on behalf of the United States of America. All rights reserved.
To my untrained eye, this looks like a fairly standard copyright attribution thing and should be ok to redistribute and package in Fedora, but I'd like an official blessing as I don't see this license listed on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
The phrase "all rights reserved" indicates that no permission has been granted for anyone to make copies. On the surface, we should not redistribute this content.
I am surprised, though, that publicly-funded work would be restricted. Perhaps one of our attorneys could comment?
So I'm definitely not an expert, but my understanding is that "All rights reserved" is just a copyright affirmation phrase, it doesn't actually restrict/impact redistribution in itself. If you look at https://github.com/search?q=%22All+rights+reserved%22 it's all over the place, even in projects under permissive licenses.
<distraction> This Wikipedia article[1] does a good job explaining the "All rights reserved". You are correct that it no longer has actual significance beyond the reminder that this is copyrighted content. Thanks for making me look this up and learn something today. </distraction>
Given that the gov't has claimed a copyright and has (apparently) not provided any permission to make copies, the default is that no such permission exists and it should not be copied. That's the nature of "copyright". I think we still need to find permission to make copies (which would be in the form of an actual license stating that we are allowed to do so), or failing that, perhaps an attorney might be able to comment on whether there is some blanket permission for publicly- funded content.
-Bryan
legal mailing list -- legal@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
On Mon, 2021-08-30 at 09:58 -0400, Tom Callaway wrote:
https://www.nist.gov/srd/public-law https://www.nist.gov/open/copyright-fair-use-and-licensing-statements-srd-da...
IANAL, but it seems like they make it rather clear that they don't want it included in Fedora, but you can email them at "data@nist.gov" and ask.
Thank you. In the meantime, given that these seem to be only used by the test suite in the package, I'll remove them in %prep and disable the corresponding tests to unblock things.
Cheers Davide
-
Bryan Sutula -
Davide Cavalca -
Tom Callaway