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?
On 02/09/2010 10:10 AM, Göran Uddeborg wrote:
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?
If the coloured tiles appear to be identical to the black and white tiles, except, well, coloured in, then they're a derived work of the original black and white tiles and have the same license problem as the original tiles.
Licenses which restrict resale are non-free, and not acceptable for Fedora.
I suspect that there are freely licensed tile pixmaps in one of the other Mah Jong games out there that could be repurposed. If not, perhaps this is a project that Fedora Design could help out with.
~spot
"Tom "spot" Callaway":
If the coloured tiles appear to be identical to the black and white tiles, except, well, coloured in, then they're a derived work of the original black and white tiles and have the same license problem as the original tiles.
I don't know what the originals looked like. But its probably the case.
I suspect that there are freely licensed tile pixmaps in one of the other Mah Jong games out there that could be repurposed.
Good point! I'll try that.
I'll bet this will be the first time a package has a BuildRequires on gnome-games or kdegames! :-)
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Göran Uddeborg -
Tom Callaway