legal February 2009

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

19 participants
27 discussions

Re: [Fedora-legal-list] GPC License
by Tom Callaway 26 Feb '09

26 Feb '09

On 2009-02-25 at 17:57:01 -0500, Eric Moret <eric.moret(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Thank you for a quick reply. I have already created a request on the fedora > artwork design service page for replacement of icons and resources: > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/DesignService#Paint.NET_icon_replace… > > Despite the pdn license page and upon further inspection I was not able to > locate the source code of GPC anywhere in the source of the package. Off > course I might have overlooked it. Here is the current SRPM: The problem is that because the license says that Paint.NET includes it, you're going to need to find it and pull every bit of it out (or get the GPC copyright holders to permit its use under the terms of a free license). ~spot

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GPC License
by Eric Moret 25 Feb '09

25 Feb '09

I would like to package Paint.NET for Fedora. It seems this application includes the source code of the GPC project which is licensed under its own terms. Could you please let me know if this license would be acceptable for inclusion in Fedora? Thank you, __ Eric

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Paint-mono license
by Andrea Musuruane 22 Feb '09

22 Feb '09

Hi, someone has updated Paint-mono entry in the Wishlist with the following comment: "Cannot be included since Paint is partly licensed under a non-commercial license". This is the paint-mono license: http://code.google.com/p/paint-mono/source/browse/trunk/src/Resources/Files… I think that the offending part is: * The Paint.NET logo and icon artwork are Copyright (C) Rick Brewster. They are covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license which is detailed here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ . Permission is granted to use the logo and icon artwork in ways that discuss or promote Paint.NET (e.g. blog and news posts about Paint.NET, "Made with Paint.NET" watermarks or insets). Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs is a BAD license for content: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#Bad_Licenses_3 But if the problem is only the logo and the icon, cannot they be replaced? Bye, Andrea.

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lwjgl
by Farkas Levente 20 Feb '09

20 Feb '09

hi, i'd like to know that lwjgl is ok for fedora: http://www.lwjgl.org/license.php thanks in advance. yours. -- Levente "Si vis pacem para bellum!"

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The Iran Question
by Roozbeh Pournader 20 Feb '09

20 Feb '09

On 18 Feb 2009, wrote: > We have a contributor from Iran. This is no news. Fedora has had quite a few contributors from Iran before. We have had Iranian package maintainers, bug reporters, code contributors, translators, ambassadors, etc already. They have been Iranian citizens, some living in (and contributing from) Iran, some living in the west (Canada, US, etc). > It is obvious to me that we can not directly provide him support [...] What makes it obvious? Are you thinking of any specific law? There are various United States laws restricting some kinds of business with "foreigners", but all of them detailed exceptions for this and that. > The first question in my mind is: what type of liability exists for us > to have 'members' of Fedora in such countries. I don't think we need to be extra careful with contributors from Iran, or any other countries, unless we talk about specific laws. Please don't let the media carry you away. Lots of Iran-related stuff I've encountered in the free software world are just based on FUD. So unless there is a specific law mentioned, one shouldn't don't worry. > The example I am > thinking of is if he as an individual downloads Fedora isos and > distributes them at an event in Iran, is there risk to us because he > is a member of the Fedora Project. That has already happened before quite a few times. I have personally downloaded such ISOs, burnt them to CDs, and distributed them in events in Iran when I lived there. I was an Iranian living in Iran, and the Iranian laws did not forbid me or my sponsors to do that, as far as I could tell (and we had lawyers look into it too). > Perhaps a better question is: What is he forbidden from doing. Whatever the Iranian laws forbids him to do. He is under Iranian jurisdiction. Tell him to talk to an Iranian lawyer. That's what I did. Roozbeh, One of the "Iranians" >:)

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The Iran Question
by David Nalley 19 Feb '09

19 Feb '09

Ohh legal-type ones: We have a contributor from Iran (and I imagine that you are already engaged on the trademark issue for a proposed website). This gentleman has recently been sponsored as an Ambassador and recently asked the question about what he can do within Iran. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2009-February/msg00… I responded and told him that I had been pondering this question but had no answers and would appeal to those who are more qualified to answer. It is obvious to me that we can not directly provide him support however I think his questions are valid, and there have been recent conversations about other countries in similar situations such as Cuba. The first question in my mind is: what type of liability exists for us to have 'members' of Fedora in such countries. The example I am thinking of is if he as an individual downloads Fedora isos and distributes them at an event in Iran, is there risk to us because he is a member of the Fedora Project. Perhaps a better question is: What is he forbidden from doing. Given the recent list traffic regarding Cuba and now Iran, perhaps codifying such restrictions would be beneficial. If such a page already exists, please feel free to ignore my question and just point me there, but my friend Google yielded little other than this blog post from Greg a year ago: http://gregdek.livejournal.com/23007.html Another question - supposing some level of involvement is acceptable, and that Fedora EMEA e.V. is not subject to such restrictions (it's my belief that EU countries have no such law regarding Iran, but whether that's a belief grounded in reality might be a different matter) could Fedora EMEA support activities in $forbidden_places? I know RH Legal is trying to wrap it's head around the entire non-profit organization stuff at the moment, so perhaps we can also get this answered in the process. Thanks David Nalley

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ISO-HTML DTD license
by Ville Skyttä 18 Feb '09

18 Feb '09

Hello, The w3c-markup-validator package contains a copy of the "ISO-HTML" DTD in /usr/share/sgml/w3c-markup-validator/ISO-HTML/15445.dtd which contains: [...] Copyright (C) 2000, IETF, W3C (MIT, Inria, Keio), ISO/IEC. All Rights Reserved. Permission to copy in any form is granted for use with validating and conforming systems and applications as defined in ISO/IEC 15445:2000, provided this copyright notice is included with all copies. [...] Is the "for use with ..." part a problem wrt. inclusion in Fedora? The definitions of validating and conforming systems are documented at http://purl.org/NET/ISO+IEC.15445/15445.html If it is a problem, is evicting the file from binary packages enough, or should it be removed from inside source rpms too?

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Re: [Fedora-legal-list] xBill legal opinion required
by Tom Callaway 17 Feb '09

17 Feb '09

On 2009-02-16 at 14:42:30 -0500, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)redhat.com> wrote: > Tom "spot" Callaway wrote: >> On 2008-12-26 at 5:50:31 -0500, "Andrea Musuruane" <musuruan(a)gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> Hi all, >>> I'd like to now if xBill is suitable for inclusion in Fedora: >>> >>> http://www.xbill.org/ >>> >>> License, as stated in the man entry, is GPL (no version specified). >>> >>> My concerns regard the use of various logos in the game. >>> >>> Also note that this game has been packaged until 2001 in Red Hat. >> >> Red Hat Legal says this is not acceptable. > > Is it because of the artwork? We can get it replaced. Well, the issue is that the game is clearly disparaging Microsoft and its marks. I'm not sure any amount of "artwork" replacement will overcome that. ~spot

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W3C logo and icon usage
by Ville Skyttä 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

Hello, There are some packages that contain W3C logos and icons which are not under the W3C software license, but are covered by other licenses. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/trademark-license http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/logo-usage-20000308.html http://validator.w3.org/docs/help.html#icon At least the "W3C Icon" and a bunch of "W3C Validator Logos" are included in some packages. There are some constraints on these icons/logos that I think might make them problematic for inclusion Fedora: 1) No modification permitted (OTOH I believe it's the same thing with Mozilla's logos in firefox, thunderbird etc). 2) The "W3C Valid $foo" logos may only be used on pages that pass validation, and they have some other usage restrictions wrt. where they can/must link to etc. What does this mean for packages including these icons? Are they ok as is, undistributable, ok if icons removed from binary packages and software/docs modified to link to online icons on W3C sites instead of shipped copies, ok with icons removed also from source tarballs in the source rpm, something else? Affected packages include at least w3c-markup-validator (icons both in source and binary rpms), xhtml1-dtds and html401-dtds (some icons in source rpms, but not in binaries). An entry in the license list for this wouldn't hurt.

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is BSD with adverting?
by Robert Marcano 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

Greetings, can anyone help me identify this license?, I am not sure if tag it as BSD with adventising because it says "The end-user documentation" Sequence Library License This license applies to all portions of the Sequence library, which are not externally-maintained libraries (e.g. junit or jsch). ==================================================================== Copyright (c) 2000-2008 SyntEvo GmbH, Ainring, GERMANY. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 3. The end-user documentation included with the redistribution, if any, must include the following acknowledgment: "This product includes software developed by SyntEvo GmbH, Ainring, GERMANY." Alternately, this acknowledgment may appear in the software itself, if and wherever such third-party acknowledgments normally appear. 4. The hosted project names must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior written permission. For written permission, please contact info(a)syntevo.com. 5. Neither the name of SyntEvo GmbH nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL SyntEvo GmbH OR HIS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. ==================================================================== -- Robert Marcano

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legal February 2009