Hi, I wanted to bring into attention the recent development in the
licensing of the iText. This software was included in Fedora in the past but then removed
due to licensing trouble:
(i)
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=176981
and especially
(ii)
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=236309
According to the second link it was removed from F-7 because of the fact that it
contained some Sun-licensed files.
I downloaded the software from its current website:
http://www.lowagie.com/iText/download.html
The website claims a dual MPLv1.1 / LGPL license. Inside the package there is a text file
(core/com/lowagie/text/misc_licenses.txt), which I will paste to the bottom of this
email.
The most relevant parts of this txt file are in section (3). The original license ended
with the sentence: "You acknowledge that Software is not designed, licensed or
intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear
facility." The word "licensed" caused the trouble in the past (see
comment#2 in (ii)) as it made the software non-free. But according to the txt file there
has been some email traffic between the original developer and iText developer on January
23, 2008 and the word "licensed" has been removed from that sentence in the
final license.
I think we can re-consider packaging this software. I want to make sure we are on solid
grounds.
Please post your opinions.