Re: [Fedora-legal-list] "Must-read" licenses and their ethical implications. Possible workarounds.
by Christopher Svanefalk
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[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.
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14 years, 2 months
Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Modding for personal use
by Christopher Svanefalk
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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
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14 years, 2 months
Modding for personal use
by Christopher Svanefalk
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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
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14 years, 2 months
Vague permissions on Mah Jong game
by Göran Uddeborg
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?
14 years, 2 months
"Must-read" licenses and their ethical implications. Possible workarounds.
by Christopher Svanefalk
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[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.
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14 years, 2 months
PHP PEAR channel definition license
by Jon Stanley
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
14 years, 2 months
Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Frontier Artistic License
by threethirty
On Thu, 2010-02-04 at 12:00 +0000, legal-request(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
wrote:
> Send legal mailing list submissions to
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>
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>
> 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.
14 years, 2 months
Frontier Artistic License
by Steve Grubb
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
14 years, 2 months
