legal July 2008

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

20 participants
18 discussions

NVIDIA license
by Mamoru Tasaka 25 Aug '08

25 Aug '08

Hello, all: Now I am trying to review rsssserver (bug 450409). First I checked the license issue of this package, then I found some of the codes are licensed under the below: /*********************************************************************NVMH1**** File: nv_algebra.h Copyright (C) 1999, 2002 NVIDIA Corporation This file is provided without support, instruction, or implied warranty of any kind. NVIDIA makes no guarantee of its fitness for a particular purpose and is not liable under any circumstances for any damages or loss whatsoever arising from the use or inability to use this file or items derived from it. Comments: ******************************************************************************/ Is this license allowed for Fedora? (if so, is this GPLv2 compatible?) Regards, Mamoru

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Open CASCADE Technology Public License
by Dan Horák 01 Aug '08

01 Aug '08

Hi, can you give me "Fedora acceptability statement" for the Open CASCADE Technology Public License available at http://www.opencascade.org/occ/license/ ? Thanks Dan PS: first copy of this mail is moderator's queue since Friday -- Fedora and Red Hat package maintainer

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fedora license
by John 30 Jul '08

30 Jul '08

Dear All, I am looking at developing an application based on FEDORA - which will run from a bootable USB under FEDORA. The application will probably be written in in C or C++ (gcc) and use gtk libraries or use TCL/TK . I then want to distribute the application with a PC commercially ie to sell multiple PCs all with FEDORA on them and all of them running my application. I do not want to contravene any licensing restrictions - but quite honestly the licensing constraints for FEDORA are beyond my mental capabilities. If a license is needed for every machine sold what will the license cost ? Rgds, John Lever

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Translated license?
by Paul W. Frields 29 Jul '08

29 Jul '08

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLegalIssues#aka_the_.22We_Are_Not_Lawy… The only priority 1 item shown is a very old Docs question regarding licensing and translation. The resource cost of repeatedly translating, checking, and maintaining a license in this way seems prohibitive. We ask whether translators can/should *start* on this effort, but do we really want to go down that road at all? If we're not going to carry it through to completion, is this item still relevant? -- Paul W. Frields gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://paul.frields.org/ - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

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Re: unifont in Fedora
by Qianqian Fang 28 Jul '08

28 Jul '08

hi Paul My understanding to Fedora's CLA is that you are not assigning the full copyright to Redhat, rather, you ONLY allow them to "to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute your Contribution and such derivative works; ..." In another word, if you define your software license as GPLv2, Redhat can only create derivative work from your software, therefore, they can only be GPLv2. Redhat can not own the full copyright and revoke your original license of your software. The only word I am not clear is "sublicense", although it does not sound like "re-license" or "dual-license". I CCed Fedora legal mailing list, and hope someone can provide a more definite answer to your concerns. Qianqian Paul Hardy wrote: > Qianqian, > > I signed up for a Fedora account to submit my work. I then found that > I had to sign a CLA (Contributor License Agreement) before my work > could be submitted to the Fedora project. The CLA requires you to > assign a non-exclusive copyright to Red Hat. If Red Hat has a > copyright to my work, they can circumvent the GPL. For example, they > can make proprietary changes to anything I send them, then have > exclusive rights to change their modified work for profit, denying me > and anyone else access to their proprietary changes. > > I therefore do not want to sign the CLA, so I am not going to put > unifont into Fedora myself. > > However, please feel free to enter unifont into Fedora if you want. > That way you're entering my work without my signing away a copyright > (thereby giving Red Hat the power to circumvent the GPL). > > If you don't want to put unifont into Fedora yourself, I'll let other > people in Fedora who emailed me about this know so one of them can if > they want. I had already told a few (with you CCed on the email) that > I would be bringing the font into Fedora. > > Let me know what you want to do one way or another: either put unifont > into Fedora yourself, or let me know you aren't going to do it so I > can email the other people who asked about getting the font into > Fedora. > > Thanks! > > > Paul > > > >

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please remove me from mailing list
by John 27 Jul '08

27 Jul '08

Can you remove me from the list please. Rgds, John Lever

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Re: [Fedora-olpc-list] introduction and a question
by Walter Bender 25 Jul '08

25 Jul '08

> There was questions raised on licensing at > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WishList#OLPC_Wishlist > > Perhaps you can talk to Spot (cc'ed) and get it clarified? > > Rahul I've included below the correspondence between VPRI and Debian in regard the license question. regards. -walter ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kim Rose <kim.rose(a)vpri.org> Date: Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 8:26 AM Subject: Fwd: Squeak images/relicensing To: Walter Bender <walter.bender(a)gmail.com> Cc: Bert Freudenberg <bert(a)freudenbergs.de> Hi, Walter - Here is a copy of my message to Jose. -- Kim Begin forwarded message: > From: Kim Rose <kim.rose(a)vpri.org> > Date: April 4, 2008 9:18:11 AM PDT > To: José L. Redrejo Rodríguez <jredrejo(a)edu.juntaextremadura.net> > Cc: Bert Freudenberg <bert(a)freudenbergs.de>, Yoshiki Ohshima <yoshiki(a)vpri.org>, Craig Latta <craig(a)netjam.org>, Kim Rose <kim(a)vpri.org> > Subject: Squeak images/relicensing > > Hi, Jose - > > I hope you and your family are all doing well. > > I have seen the recent exchange of email between you and others regarding the relicensing effort of Squeak to the MIT License. I can see you are mostly up to date with what is going on. However, as Bert has requested I wanted to write to you directly and confirm Bert's most recent responses. > > > ----------- > Jose: > >> >> Can you confirm me that the code that has not been relicensed has been >> removed from the olpc image? >> > > Bert: > > No. But VPRI as the original authors take responsibility for the earlier contributions made under the Squeak License. VPRI made every justifiable effort to contact the contributors. Not a single contributor was against relicensing, so it is safe to assume that even those that could not be reached would be happy to see their code continue to be used. They submitted it for official inclusion in Squeak, after all. So who would argue that, if not the contributors themselves? > > ---------- > > As Bert says VPRI spearheaded an effort to contact *every* contributor to the Squeak code base. We did not receive a single negative response and have a notebook with 100s of signed re-licensing agreements. We also put out several "speak now or forever hold your peace" group emails indicating the relicensing was taking effect and should anyone object to relicensing their code to let us know. > > Our attitude is the code IS now relicensed under the MIT license. Should, a contributor, at any time, write to VPRI and request their code be taken out of the code base, we would comply. > > Please do not let this interfere with or hold up your efforts. > > Thanks again and best regards, > Kim > >

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Re: [Fedora-olpc-list] introduction and a question
by Rahul Sundaram 24 Jul '08

24 Jul '08

Walter Bender wrote: > I'm Walter Bender, one of the founders of Sugar Labs > (http://sugarlabs.org) I'm excited that there Fedora community is > rallying around OLPC and consequently Sugar. > > My question is in regards to packaging Squeak/Etoys for Fedora. > believe that there has been an open ticket regarding this for quite > some time (it is on the Package Maintainers Wishlist under OLPC, but > would be of more general applicability as well). Any advice as to how > to move things forward? There was questions raised on licensing at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WishList#OLPC_Wishlist Perhaps you can talk to Spot (cc'ed) and get it clarified? Rahul

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NPO in the Fedora Project
by Fabian Affolter 23 Jul '08

23 Jul '08

Hi all, We have a NPO [1][2] in the 'ambassadors' group. According to the CLA there is no problem that the contributor is a legal entity. And inside FAmSCo we didn't see any obstacles when an "ambassadors" consist of many humans. I just want to make sure that we aren't running into legal problems in the future because we don't know if the person who sign the CLA in the name of the NPO or NGO is authorized to do that. For instance, Fedora EMEA e. V. have a point in the statutes that administer the signing power. Kind regards, Fabian [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Lankanet [2] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/user/view/lankanet Kind regards, Fabian -- Fingerprint: 2F6C 930F D3C4 7E38 6AFA 4EB4 E23C D2DD 36A4 397F Fedora always leads and never follows.

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Thrift Software License Compatible With Fedora?
by Devan Goodwin 20 Jul '08

20 Jul '08

Greetings, was wondering if this license is suitable for inclusion in Fedora and if so, what I should state it's license as in the spec file. Thanks, Devan Thrift Software License Copyright (c) 2006- Facebook, Inc. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person or organization obtaining a copy of the software and accompanying documentation covered by this license (the "Software") to use, reproduce, display, distribute, execute, and transmit the Software, and to prepare derivative works of the Software, and to permit third-parties to whom the Software is furnished to do so, all subject to the following: The copyright notices in the Software and this entire statement, including the above license grant, this restriction and the following disclaimer, must be included in all copies of the Software, in whole or in part, and all derivative works of the Software, unless such copies or derivative works are solely in the form of machine-executable object code generated by a source language processor. 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, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR ANYONE DISTRIBUTING THE SOFTWARE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. -- Devan Goodwin <dgoodwin(a)dangerouslyinc.com> http://dgoodwin.dangerouslyinc.com

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WOL - wide open license - compatibility with Fedora
by Development discussions related to Fedora 19 Jul '08

19 Jul '08

Couldn't see any discussion of WOL previously, so here goes: A particular source file (smbPitchShift.[Ch]) within the rakarrack [1] sources is licensed under WOL: ===== The Wide Open License (WOL) * * Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this software and its * documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that * the above copyright notice and this license appear in all source copies. * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF * ANY KIND. See http://www.dspguru.com/wol.htm ===== Is this compatible with Fedora ? What would be the License field if the whole package was licensed this way ? In this case, the source archive has: - [GPLv3] COPYING (overall copying file). - [GPLv2] header (no or later version) in most source/header files. - [GPL+] 3x files {GPL, no version mentioned, see COPYING}. - WOL 1x file/header What would be the required license, or will a need to query upstream for their licensing intentions {each module tends to have differing authors} ? DaveT. [1]: http://rakarrack.sourceforge.net/

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Open CASCADE Technology Public License
by Dan Horák 18 Jul '08

18 Jul '08

Hi, can you give me "Fedora acceptability statement" for the Open CASCADE Technology Public License available at http://www.opencascade.org/occ/license/ ? Thanks Dan -- Fedora and Red Hat package maintainer

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license questions for user apps
by John 16 Jul '08

16 Jul '08

Dear All, I am looking at developing an application based on FEDORA - which will run from a bootable USB under FEDORA. The application will probably be written in in C or C++ (gcc) and use gtk libraries or use TCL/TK . I may use REALBASIC which if I buy from them does not include license costs for the applications generated and does not include libraries with any licensing costs on them. I then want to distribute the application with a PC commercially ie to sell multiple PCs all with FEDORA on them and all of them running my application. I do not want to contravene any licensing restrictions - but quite honestly the licensing constraints for FEDORA are beyond my mental capabilities. If a license is needed for every machine sold with my application on it what will the license cost for the FEDORA component and any other component ? Rgds, John Lever

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LGPLv2 and v2.1 for fonts?
by Matt Domsch 15 Jul '08

15 Jul '08

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=454128 requests review of a set of 4 fonts. 3 are licensed LGPLv2, one LGPLv2.1. These are not listed at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal_considerations_for_fonts therefore I request clarification. Thanks, Matt -- Matt Domsch Linux Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux

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Fedora Live! on PC Magazine DVD
by PC Magazine - DVD Staff 15 Jul '08

15 Jul '08

Hello, we would like to include FEDORA Live (CD Iso) on PC Magazine Italia cover mount DVD-ROM (paid circulation of 45,000 copies). Is it possible? We need an explicit written permission (with a simple e-mail) from you in order to distribute your software in our country. Your software will be downloaded from your web site and published as is in our DVD-ROM without any modification. We'll include in the DVD Html interface your web site address and all the files of the original distribution. Please note that our DVD-ROM is a gift for our readers, it include many other freeware, shareware and open source software and it is not sold neither distributed without the magazine. Best regards. ==================== PC Magazine Italia DVD staff www.pcmagazine.it dvd(a)pcmagazine.it ACACIA Edizioni Srl Via Copernico, 3 20082 Binasco (MI) ITALY - EU www.acaciaedizioni.com ==================== LEGAL NOTICE This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information. You may not disclose to any third party any portion of the message (whether paraphrased or not) or any information contained in the message without explicit written permission from the author of the message. Furthermore, unless you are the intended addressee (or authorized to receive for the addressee), you may not use or reproduce any portion of the message.

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Ekushey Bengali fonts
by Paul W. Frields 15 Jul '08

15 Jul '08

https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure/ticket/648 I'm not sure who (if anyone) has been alerted about this request for us to host some Bengali fonts which apparently have some uncertain origins, despite their licensing. (See ticket URL above for details.) This situation's probably not critical, because there's nothing being hosted by Fedora yet AFAICT, but it would be nice to respond to the requestor(s) in the ticket. -- Paul W. Frields gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://paul.frields.org/ - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

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Is license of cleanfeed right?
by Roman Rakus 07 Jul '08

07 Jul '08

LICENSE This software may be distributed freely, provided it is intact (including all the files from the original archive). You may modify it, and you may distribute your modified version, provided the original work is credited to the appropriate authors, and your work is credited to you (don't make changes and pass them off as my work), and that you aren't charging for it. Is it ok? "That last sentence may or may not cause this to become non-free :("

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Seeking approval for use of LLGPL license
by Anthony Green 07 Jul '08

07 Jul '08

Many Free Software libraries and programs written in Lisp are licensed under the terms of the "Lisp Library General Public License", or LLGPL. It is essentially the LLGPL with a preamble that modifies it to make it more compatible with Lisp technology. See http://www.cliki.net/LLGPL and http://opensource.franz.com/preamble.html . I've included the text of the preamble below. I am seeking approval to use the LLGPL for Fedora packages. I already have one package that is approved, pending resolution of this question: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=427411 Thank you, Anthony Green *Preamble to the Gnu Lesser General Public License * Copyright (c) 2000 Franz Incorporated, Berkeley, CA 94704 The concept of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html> ("LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html>") has been adopted to govern the use and distribution of above-mentioned application. However, the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html> uses terminology that is more appropriate for a program written in C than one written in Lisp. Nevertheless, the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html> can still be applied to a Lisp program if certain clarifications are made. This document details those clarifications. Accordingly, the license for the open-source Lisp applications consists of this document plus the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html>. Wherever there is a conflict between this document and the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html>, this document takes precedence over the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html>. A "Library" in Lisp is a collection of Lisp functions, data and foreign modules. The form of the Library can be Lisp source code (for processing by an interpreter) or object code (usually the result of compilation of source code or built with some other mechanisms). Foreign modules are object code in a form that can be linked into a Lisp executable. When we speak of functions we do so in the most general way to include, in addition, methods and unnamed functions. Lisp "data" is also a general term that includes the data structures resulting from defining Lisp classes. A Lisp application may include the same set of Lisp objects as does a Library, but this does not mean that the application is necessarily a "work based on the Library" it contains. The Library consists of everything in the distribution file set before any modifications are made to the files. If any of the functions or classes in the Library are redefined in other files, then those redefinitions ARE considered a work based on the Library. If additional methods are added to generic functions in the Library, those additional methods are NOT considered a work based on the Library. If Library classes are subclassed, these subclasses are NOT considered a work based on the Library. If the Library is modified to explicitly call other functions that are neither part of Lisp itself nor an available add-on module to Lisp, then the functions called by the modified Library ARE considered a work based on the Library. The goal is to ensure that the Library will compile and run without getting undefined function errors. It is permitted to add proprietary source code to the Library, but it must be done in a way such that the Library will still run without that proprietary code present. Section 5 of the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html> distinguishes between the case of a library being dynamically linked at runtime and one being statically linked at build time. Section 5 of the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html> states that the former results in an executable that is a "work that uses the Library." Section 5 of the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html> states that the latter results in one that is a "derivative of the Library", which is therefore covered by the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html>. Since Lisp only offers one choice, which is to link the Library into an executable at build time, we declare that, for the purpose applying the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html> to the Library, an executable that results from linking a "work that uses the Library" with the Library is considered a "work that uses the Library" and is therefore NOT covered by the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html>. Because of this declaration, section 6 of LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html> is not applicable to the Library. However, in connection with each distribution of this executable, you must also deliver, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the LGPL <http://opensource.franz.com/license.html>, the source code of Library (or your derivative thereof) that is incorporated into this executable.

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