legal February 2010

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

25 participants
30 discussions

Re: [Fedora-legal-list] "Must-read" licenses and their ethical implications. Possible workarounds.
by Christopher Svanefalk 11 Feb '10

11 Feb '10

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 [FORWARDED: I noticed my reply to richard didnt get sent to the list, so im sending it here also] Richard, thanks for your reply! It was helpful, but I think you missunderstood me - my primary concern was the ethical aspect, not only the legal one in this question. I provided some comments below. >This is a very interesting issue, about which much could be said. >Actually, clauses similar to this one are not uncommon in FOSS >licenses, though they differ in details and degree of >annoyingness. They are invariably fossils from proprietary >commercial I went over a lot of the licenses on the Fedora licensing page, from what I can see (and contrary to what I believed at first), clauses like this actually seem pretty uncommon. I have only seen it, if I remember right, in two really small licenses for bundled software in OpenOffice and a portion of OpenSolaris (think it was gPhoto). >software licensing culture where they originated as (arguably >quixotic) efforts to establish contractual assent. I myself would >say >that, in theory, as a matter of caution, users should 'pre- >screen', >but we cannot deny that, in typical FOSS distribution contexts, no >one >generally does this, and it is usually impractical to do so. Exactly! And it is this issue I was concerned about. Note that I was not primarily thinking about the LEGAL consequence here - my general understanding regarding FOSS licenses are that they are very mild - the chance that you will get into a harmful contract-relationship with a licensor via an OSI-certified license seems so miniscule that it could be disregarded alltogether, and therefore there is no real need or obligation to read the license if you are just an end-user (whereas, off course, programmers who want to create derivative works should be checking up on the terms). My real concern, therefore, was the ethical aspect - you basically HAVE to read and understand the license in order to even USE the software...this is not the case with any other popular FOSS license I know (GPL, ASL, BSD...), and I think it is unacceptable, due to the group of people who will be shut out from using the software because they feel they cannot fulfill this requirement. People should have peace of mind dowloading packages, knowing that they have no obligations towards the licensor/author apart from what is customary in FOSS-licenses. If this was only a semi-important license, then this problem in itself would not be so big. The problem is that this license has nestled its way into important packages like OpenJDK (via the old JDK) and OpenOffice.org. Man, I wonder if it is not even in the Firefox codebase. > >I would say that the W3C type of clause is generally assumed >within >FOSS culture to have no interesting legal meaning and to be purely >ceremonial. I believe this explains why, for example, the W3C >license >is considered by the FSF to be not only free but GPL-compatible, >despite the existence of the clause. However, any such clause has >to >be examined carefully; if it appears to be a real enforceable >condition on the grant of rights, or if the licensor acts in such >a >way as to suggest that this is the licensor's view, we might well >classify the license as non-free; indeed we may have done so in >some >past decisions. I have addressed a mail to W3C (last friday I think, no answer as of yet) that might give an answer to if that is their intention. I might post the reply to this list when I get it. >> this, but does not combining code under a GPL-compatible license >> with code under the GPL cause the combined work to fall under >the >> GPL? >Often, yes. >> If this is the case, does that mean that any terms of the GPL- >> compatible license (such as the W3C) can be ignored after such >> combination? >No, not usually, in the sense that the terms generally are assumed >to >persist and burden users of the GPL-licensed larger work >downstream. This is the whole assumption behind GPL compatibility >theory. I understood this after researching GPL-compatibility after I posted this mail...I think it is very unfortunate. It is maybe not doable, but it is a shame that any licenses being "devoured" by the GPL cannot simply be turned into copyright-acknowledgements in the main-GPL license of the combined work, and the whole work be "purely" only under the GPL (for example, John writes a parser under the BSD, Doey writes a compiler under the MIT, Sue incorporates them both into her GPLed IDE. Both the BSD and MIT licenses dissapear, but instead copyright acknowledgements for each component are incorporated into the GPL covering the whole work, so any end user never has to worry about the terms of anything but the GPL). >> 3) Ban any >> licenses that would fall into this category (possible, since for >now >> the only license of this type I know off is the W3C). > >No, for the reason stated above; we generally don't take such >clauses >seriously. What if the W3C (in this particular case) were to say that they really mean it? >Richard Fontana >Red Hat, Inc. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Charset: UTF8 Note: This signature can be verified at https://www.hushtools.com/verify Version: Hush 3.0 wpwEAQMCAAYFAkt0WW8ACgkQQJM2U8zwlkYsmgP+JOUBZHkqvvjYn2nM6PLlGeqv3ZW4 579Ofavq4ubo7hbpVi5iQbPDZLNrLCF+7OyrkdFsgoztE8iJmn2SQ6HM8poc9NCJR+wO adoWM9cyhVaeGNbPqyvmNdxZVuoCtXUCP3jcPTPK+roGJNO3Pcg7p9XJFhd6vDk5Cb9/ qsad5Xo= =EaKB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Modding for personal use
by Christopher Svanefalk 11 Feb '10

11 Feb '10

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ok, thanks! :) On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:41:44 -0100 "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa(a)redhat.com> wrote: >On 02/11/2010 08:47 AM, Christopher Svanefalk wrote: >> Hello all, >> >> I would like to hack some (maybe all) of the system scripts in >> Fedora (such as Init), but the changes will primarily be for my >> personal use for now (you know, just making my system tick >> differently). Does the obligations of the GPL (or other >applicable >> license - but I am guessing all the code originating with Red >Hat >> is GPL and/or LGPL?) apply to me in this case? > >Christopher, > >The licensing terms of the code included in Fedora would apply to >you. > >However, it is noteworthy that the GPL does not require that you >make >your changes public, if you do not distribute your changes. > >Quoting from: >http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0- >faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic > >Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be >posted to >the public? > > The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. >You >are free to make modifications and use them privately, without >ever >releasing them. This applies to organizations (including >companies), >too; an organization can make a modified version and use it >internally >without ever releasing it outside the organization. > > But if you release the modified version to the public in some >way, >the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to >the >program's users, under the GPL. > > Thus, the GPL gives permission to release the modified program >in >certain ways, and not in other ways; but the decision of whether >to >release it is up to you. > >Hope that helps, > >~spot -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Charset: UTF8 Note: This signature can be verified at https://www.hushtools.com/verify Version: Hush 3.0 wpwEAQMCAAYFAkt0WSAACgkQQJM2U8zwlkZq6gP9GS+66NgUjHdAeDgaS4PuPGADQ5t9 zEZrcjVIneDZ9xNO31Mqlr+64yc+kecY/d9EboI/XaPhiPcdE2AnxJSfY/eyxaYD3gEU 1OT6kLSRcomjvGRe2ujiBjTY28bCcNgQHRbxnowTmOWBgqWGDmXYaZaVUwi/QlR9Q3lk a9J31O0= =pQk3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Modding for personal use
by Christopher Svanefalk 11 Feb '10

11 Feb '10

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello all, I would like to hack some (maybe all) of the system scripts in Fedora (such as Init), but the changes will primarily be for my personal use for now (you know, just making my system tick differently). Does the obligations of the GPL (or other applicable license - but I am guessing all the code originating with Red Hat is GPL and/or LGPL?) apply to me in this case? Thanks! Christopher Svanefalk -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Charset: UTF8 Note: This signature can be verified at https://www.hushtools.com/verify Version: Hush 3.0 wpwEAQMCAAYFAkt0CoQACgkQQJM2U8zwlkb7SAP7BxIQ6OzSqmdXauarkCISywYiXYt2 mwmYbRHgsctH249MFzRe6zE0j7ADlb63kXpSE7tadKvmrA167FKNinIm/JVImRp0wZN/ d59fzI+EcstUVfH/d0TD4cW20vKl0qNIadYnrX+ZwinxnYztXoy4dIuovhg37YaFWJq2 ZSynwbs= =nMtg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Modified QPL licensing for files in Frama-C
by Alan Dunn 10 Feb '10

10 Feb '10

Some of the files distributed in Frama-C are under a modified form of the QPL: https://www.openproofs.org/packages/frama-c/Q_MODIFIED_LICENSE which needed, in my mind, some clarification from upstream, which you can find here: http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/pipermail/frama-c-discuss/2010-January/001755.… I wasn't quite sure whether a licensing modification of this form required legal review, but I thought it would be better to be safe and ask. - Alan

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Vague permissions on Mah Jong game
by Göran Uddeborg 10 Feb '10

10 Feb '10

I'm considering to package a Mah Jong game called mj (http://mahjong.julianbradfield.org/) (It's the real game, not the solitaire thing often called Mah Jong.) It's mostly GPLv2+, but there is one exception concerning the pixmaps for the tiles. This is the relevant part of the tiles-v1/README file: Most of tile pixmaps in this directory derive from the pixmaps distributed with the old xmahjongg solitaire game. The tiles were originally black and white, produced by Mark A. Holm, subject to a "non-profit only" licence. The coloured versions were produced by Eddie Kohler, and in so far as they are different works (a debatable point, I think), are distributed under the Gnu General Public License Version 2 or later, which may be found in the file GPL. I would assume that a "non-profit only license" is not ok for Fedora. But I couldn't find it explicitly stated in the FAQ or elsewhere, so I thought I'd check. And how would we treat the third paragraph. If it is "debatable" if the tiles are GPL or "non-profit only"? Is the uncertainty enough to exclude it, or how are such cases handled?

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"AGPLv3 with exceptions"
by Jeroen van Meeuwen 10 Feb '10

10 Feb '10

Hi, I logged bug #563308[1] arguing that the RPM License: header "AGPLv3 with exceptions" wasn't accepted by rpmlint, and Ville Skytta mentioned that the Licensing page[2] on the fedoraproject.org wiki was authoritative for rpmlint. Following the Discussion topic[3] on that very same page, I hereby submit for your consideration the inclusion of RPM License header "AGPLv3 with exceptions". I understand that in this case, it's not as straightforward as with some of the other license, so I guess it's good to discuss here. The License: header we speak about here has been accepted in the case of Zarafa[4] package. Thank you in advance, Kind regards, Jeroen van Meeuwen -kanarip [1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=563308 [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing [3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#Discussion_of_Licensing [4] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=498194

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"Must-read" licenses and their ethical implications. Possible workarounds.
by Christopher Svanefalk 08 Feb '10

08 Feb '10

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 [NOTE: IANAL or thoroughly versed in contract law and software licensing. Thus, if I have made any wrong assumptions here, they were done in good faith, and I appreciate any corrections. Please also note that if anything here is percieved to be "flaming" in any sense, I truly did not mean it to be so - my goal is to help contributing to both Fedora - my OS of choice - and FOSS at large.] Hello all, Forgive me if the header (and indeed this whole mail is a tad long, but I would like to address an issue which is very important to me personally, and which I believe must be dealt with in the interest of keeping FOSS truly free for everyone to use. The problem - ----------- At least one OSI-certified license today (the "W3 Software Notice and License") contains a provision like this: "By using this software in any way, you acknowledge that you have READ, UNDERSTOOD, and will comply with this license". In other words, the license seems to put a moral burden on the end- user to both read and understand the license in order to be granted any rigths to even use (let alone modify and distribute) the software it covers. There may be other licenses that have "lighter" provisions of the same type (such as "you understand that you may not remove or alter any copyright notices" and the like) in their text, and I will include those here for the sake of discussion, as falling into the same category. I believe restrictions like this are contrary to the spirit of FOSS. As the FSF definition says: "The freedom to run the program means the freedom for ANY KIND of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html, emphasis added) Licenses like this do not grant this freedom to everyone - it expressly grants it only (at least in the ethical sense) to people who can affirm that they have read and understood whatever the license requires them to read and understand. What this could mean in practice might be that end-users might have to pre-screen the licenses (including any third-party licenses) for packages they install, just to make sure they comply with the ethical side of these restrictions. Needless to say, that would put a large and impractical burden on the end-user, which I believe land us in a situation where we are no better off then in a proprietary environment, which (in my view) is unacceptable for any FOSS project. Possible workarounds - -------------------- I believe the perfect situation is ABSOLUTE freedom to run the software, without any extraordinary legal obligations toward the licensor, as is granted expressly by the GPLv2 ("There are no restrictions on running this software"). Again, legal or moral pre-reqs like this on free software excludes people who for any reason are not able to fulfill them (take into account that the license might only be available in english, or contain complex legal language, and you see the difficulty this will pose for most people who are not english-speaking lawyers). I believe it is possible to get around this problem, in fact, it may already be solved. Here are some suggestions: 1) Compile against GPL2+ code - Now I am not sure about this, but does not combining code under a GPL-compatible license with code under the GPL cause the combined work to fall under the GPL? If this is the case, does that mean that any terms of the GPL- compatible license (such as the W3C) can be ignored after such combination? In that case, the situation would be solved for packages that are combinations of the W3C licensed code and GPL code. 2) Display any "must-read" terms in the package manager - Hack the package manager to popup a shrink-wrap window where the user has to affirm they have read and understood what the license requires. I admit this is an awful, ugly solution. 3) Ban any licenses that would fall into this category (possible, since for now the only license of this type I know off is the W3C). 4) Petition license authors to provide global waivers that remove these provisions from the licenses (possible if it came from the community, perhaps not an individual). I appreciate any feedback on this issue, and of course I am personally willing to put in a lot of work to contribute to a solution of it. With kind regards, Christopher Svanefalk, Student, Computer Science, Univ. of Gothenburg. PS. the link to this mailing list at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#Discussion_of_Licensing points to the old archive at redhat.com, not the new list server at https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/legal DS. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Charset: UTF8 Version: Hush 3.0 Note: This signature can be verified at https://www.hushtools.com/verify wpwEAQMCAAYFAktvur0ACgkQQJM2U8zwlkYc3gQAhZp13/At9a2XKFodaYGhUBg2E0vC V1ErFnJYGHcuieZ21puYj7Ws2uj/4Iu4zimnUvjx6tlyNXgyI2BpMW1NpyuG5eu2k+IP f1Qn+yy4m8F7Ow6150/reNBegLsKZo3idOT/2dhJqeiOzOzt3BXVew5JE+uCPMckwcMX KDUlGpA= =1ee0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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PHP PEAR channel definition license
by Jon Stanley 08 Feb '10

08 Feb '10

I'm running into an interesting problem with PHP PEAR channel definition licensing. All that this really is is an XML file that defines where to get the channel, etc, similar to a yum repo definition. The problem is that there is no copyright specified for this file. Looking at other review requests, it looks like either the license field was pulled out of thin air with no explanation, or they used the license of the PHP modules distributed by the channel. This approach seems wrong to me, as there could obviously be modules covered by several different licenses. At a more basic level, is such a file a even a copyrightable work? I don't believe so, because it contains no creative expression whatsoever - it's just metadata

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Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Frontier Artistic License
by threethirty 04 Feb '10

04 Feb '10

On Thu, 2010-02-04 at 12:00 +0000, legal-request(a)lists.fedoraproject.org wrote: > Send legal mailing list submissions to > legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/legal > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > legal-request(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > legal-owner(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of legal digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Frontier Artistic License (Steve Grubb) > 2. Re: Frontier Artistic License (Richard Fontana) > 3. Re: Frontier Artistic License (Steve Grubb) > 4. Re: Frontier Artistic License (Richard Fontana) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 11:28:39 -0500 > From: Steve Grubb <sgrubb(a)redhat.com> > Subject: [Fedora-legal-list] Frontier Artistic License > To: legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > Message-ID: <201002031128.39713.sgrubb(a)redhat.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Hello, > > We were doing a license review of the aide package and found that its shipping > a file that is released under the Frontier Artistic License: > > http://www.spinwardstars.com/frontier/fal.html > > Is this license acceptable to Fedora? (I couldn't find mention of it on the > Licensing wiki page.) Aide is a GPLv2+ application in case you need to know > that as well. > > Thanks, > -Steve > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 11:44:51 -0500 > From: Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> > Subject: Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Frontier Artistic License > To: Steve Grubb <sgrubb(a)redhat.com> > Cc: legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > Message-ID: <20100203164451.GA9107(a)redhat.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 11:28:39AM -0500, Steve Grubb wrote: > > Hello, > > > > We were doing a license review of the aide package and found that its shipping > > a file that is released under the Frontier Artistic License: > > > > http://www.spinwardstars.com/frontier/fal.html > > > > Is this license acceptable to Fedora? (I couldn't find mention of it on the > > Licensing wiki page.) > > No, I discussed this with Spot in a different context a year ago, and > the conclusion was that the Frontier Artistic License was not > acceptable for Fedora, given the non-acceptability of the Artistic > License 1.0. > > - RF > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 13:53:44 -0500 > From: Steve Grubb <sgrubb(a)redhat.com> > Subject: Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Frontier Artistic License > To: Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> > Cc: legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > Message-ID: <201002031353.44953.sgrubb(a)redhat.com> > Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > On Wednesday 03 February 2010 11:44:51 am Richard Fontana wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 11:28:39AM -0500, Steve Grubb wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > > > We were doing a license review of the aide package and found that its > > > shipping a file that is released under the Frontier Artistic License: > > > > > > http://www.spinwardstars.com/frontier/fal.html > > > > > > Is this license acceptable to Fedora? (I couldn't find mention of it on > > > the Licensing wiki page.) > > > > No, I discussed this with Spot in a different context a year ago, and > > the conclusion was that the Frontier Artistic License was not > > acceptable for Fedora, given the non-acceptability of the Artistic > > License 1.0. > > OK, all linux distributions are shipping this package. I found that Debian had > discussed this too and they accepted it. So, if we object to it, then I need > to do some work upstream to fix this. What should I tell them is the basis for > us not allowing it when other accept it? I'm not opposed to your > recommendation, I just want to be able to state out position, that's all. > > Thanks, > -Steve > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 17:31:32 -0500 > From: Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> > Subject: Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Frontier Artistic License > To: Steve Grubb <sgrubb(a)redhat.com> > Cc: legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > Message-ID: <20100203223132.GB9973(a)redhat.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 01:53:44PM -0500, Steve Grubb wrote: > > On Wednesday 03 February 2010 11:44:51 am Richard Fontana wrote: > > > On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 11:28:39AM -0500, Steve Grubb wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > > > > > We were doing a license review of the aide package and found that its > > > > shipping a file that is released under the Frontier Artistic License: > > > > > > > > http://www.spinwardstars.com/frontier/fal.html > > > > > > > > Is this license acceptable to Fedora? (I couldn't find mention of it on > > > > the Licensing wiki page.) > > > > > > No, I discussed this with Spot in a different context a year ago, and > > > the conclusion was that the Frontier Artistic License was not > > > acceptable for Fedora, given the non-acceptability of the Artistic > > > License 1.0. > > > > OK, all linux distributions are shipping this package. I found that Debian had > > discussed this too and they accepted it. So, if we object to it, then I need > > to do some work upstream to fix this. What should I tell them is the basis for > > us not allowing it when other accept it? I'm not opposed to your > > recommendation, I just want to be able to state out position, that's all. > > Sure, in Spot's temporary absence I will give it a try. > > Fedora's general policy, ignoring certain special cases, is to > distribute software only under free software licenses. In determining > what is "free", Fedora seeks to apply the FSF's Free Software > Definition and looks to documented FSF policy (where it exists) as the > main source of persuasive external authority. Decisions by other > distros that rigorously adopt a similar policy (particularly Debian), > as well as license approvals/disapprovals by the OSI, are viewed with > respect and may be helpful, but are not treated as similarly > authoritative.[1] Fedora is especially reluctant to adopt a specific > position on a license's freeness/non-freeness that differs from that > of the FSF.[2] > > The Free Software Foundation has, for well over ten years I believe, > publicly classified the Artistic License 1.0 as non-free.[3] We > believe that there is a sound basis for the FSF's opinion; among other > things it stands for the important general principle that, at some > point, licenses may be too vague or confusing to be considered free, a > principle we have applied in reviewing other licenses. This view > applies equally to the Frontier Artistic License, which is based > closely on the Artistic License 1.0 and contains most if not all of > the features that originally troubled the FSF. Fedora has, as I > understand it, acted on this policy by pulling Artistic 1.0-licensed > Perl packages not dual-licensed under the GPL or available under > Artistic 2.0. > > [1] Indeed, several OSI-approved licenses are on the Fedora "bad > license" list, while at least one OSI-disapproved license has been > approved for Fedora. > > [2] I am aware of one case where the FSF judged a license to be free > after (in the absence of guidance from the FSF) we decided it was > nonfree; we have not altered our decision, but the issue is moot > because the licensor revised the license to cure the deficiency. > > [3] If my understanding of the history is correct, the acceptability > of the Artistic License 1.0 was grandfathered into the Debian Free > Software Guidelines and implicitly into the Open Source Definition, > despite known concerns about the license. > > - Richard > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > legal mailing list > legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/legal > > End of legal Digest, Vol 32, Issue 1 > ************************************ > sounds like what spot would have said to me.

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Frontier Artistic License
by Steve Grubb 04 Feb '10

04 Feb '10

Hello, We were doing a license review of the aide package and found that its shipping a file that is released under the Frontier Artistic License: http://www.spinwardstars.com/frontier/fal.html Is this license acceptable to Fedora? (I couldn't find mention of it on the Licensing wiki page.) Aide is a GPLv2+ application in case you need to know that as well. Thanks, -Steve

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legal February 2010