Recent Purge of Content "per Fedora Legal"

[Christopher Antila]

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Hi:

I'm just wondering what's going on with the recent purge of content "per 
Fedora Legal." Why is this happening now? Who is provoking it? Why are there 
no entries in the Revision History? What exactly are you trying to remove? 
(Because I don't think you're getting all of it in the Musicians' Guide).

I'm in favour of following guidelines from Fedora Legal, but I don't 
understand why three-year-old documents are being revised without notice, 
explanation, or obvious record, either for guide owners or the community at 
large.


Thanks,
Christopher.
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[Nick Bebout]

The short version of my answer is that we can not refer in any way to rpmfusion and
apparently spot just now realized that the F14 musicians guide and software management
guides did and he wanted it gone ASAP.

I will send more info this afternoon when I get off work at $dayjob.

Sent from my iPhone

>  On Jan 23, 2014, at 0:01, Christopher Antila
> <crantila(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  
>  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>  Hash: SHA512
>  
>  Hi:
>  
>  I'm just wondering what's going on with the recent purge of content "per 
>  Fedora Legal." Why is this happening now? Who is provoking it? Why are there 
>  no entries in the Revision History? What exactly are you trying to remove? 
>  (Because I don't think you're getting all of it in the Musicians' Guide).
>  
>  I'm in favour of following guidelines from Fedora Legal, but I don't 
>  understand why three-year-old documents are being revised without notice, 
>  explanation, or obvious record, either for guide owners or the community at 
>  large.
>  
>  
>  Thanks,
>  Christopher.
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>

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 05:10:14AM -0600, Nick Bebout wrote:
>  The short version of my answer is that we can not refer in any way
> to
>  rpmfusion and apparently spot just now realized that the F14 musicians
>  guide and software management guides did and he wanted it gone ASAP.
>   
Yeah -- because Red Hat can be sued for Contributory Infringement in the
United States, any wording around rpmfusion (and other sources of
patent-encumbered code if references to those exist.) needs to be vetted by
Fedora Legal (spot.  who presumably sends the text to the Red Hat lawyers to
decide if it's okay or not.)   Unreviewed text can get us into legal
trouble.

This is fallout from the fedora advisory board discussion about whether the
new Application Installer can point users at non-free applications.  As part
of that, someone searched our websites to find if we were already pointing
users at non-free applications.  They found this content and pointed it out
to spot who had to remove it to protect us legally.

If you have more questions it's probably best to ask spot as he has more
experience with the legal situation from discussing these issues with the
lawyers for years.

-Toshio


>  I will send more info this afternoon when I get off work at $dayjob.
>  
>  Sent from my iPhone
>  
>  > On Jan 23, 2014, at 0:01, Christopher Antila <crantila(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
> wrote:
>  > 
>  > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>  > Hash: SHA512
>  > 
>  > Hi:
>  > 
>  > I'm just wondering what's going on with the recent purge of content
> "per 
>  > Fedora Legal." Why is this happening now? Who is provoking it? Why are there 
>  > no entries in the Revision History? What exactly are you trying to remove? 
>  > (Because I don't think you're getting all of it in the Musicians'
> Guide).
>  > 
>  > I'm in favour of following guidelines from Fedora Legal, but I don't 
>  > understand why three-year-old documents are being revised without notice, 
>  > explanation, or obvious record, either for guide owners or the community at 
>  > large.
>  > 
>  > 
>  > Thanks,
>  > Christopher.
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>  > 
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[John J. McDonough]

On Thu, 2014-01-23 at 01:01 -0500, Christopher Antila wrote:
>  Hi:
>  
>  I'm just wondering what's going on with the recent purge of content "per 
>  Fedora Legal." Why is this happening now?  
I can't say for sure, but lately the patent trolls have been loosing
some of the more direct cases, so they seem to be making cases that are
more and more strained.

Consider: Joe Blow writes some cool code, doesn't want to go through all
the details of making sure it isn't unencumbered, puts it on rpmfusion.
Some troll notices some bit of code that he can patent, these days
pretty much any chunk of code can get a patent from the clueless PTO.
Joe Blow probably never even realizes that someone patented his code.
Troll probably puts the code in some "product" to have a case, but this
is a minor cost compared to the reward.  Let's say troll puts a price of
$100 on his code, maybe nobody buys it, but that doesn't matter.

Now troll wants to find someone to sue.  Joe Blow has no money, but
Fedora pointed people to the "illegal" code, Red Hat has money so guess
who gets sued.  There have been a fair number of recent cases where the
victim of the suit is merely someone who linked to the site containing
the offending code.  The DMCA makes this a pretty winnable approach.

Troll can then claim that all or most Fedora users would have bought his
code except that Fedora directed people to the "pirated" code.  Damages
could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars for losses to this bogus
product.

I don't know that is what is behind it, but if I were a Red Hat lawyer
it is the sort of thing I'd loose sleep over.

--McD