perl-FCGI licence

[Petr Šabata]

No response so far.
Perhaps someone here could provide some insight?

Thanks in advance,
Petr

----- Forwarded message from Petr Šabata <contyk(a)redhat.com&gt; -----

Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:21:55 +0200
From: Petr Šabata <contyk(a)redhat.com&gt;
To: emmanuel.seyman(a)club-internet.fr
Subject: FCGI licence

Hi Emmanuel,

I was just looking at our perl-FCGI package and noticed something
really weird in its source files, namely the following disclaimer
in os_unix.c and os_win32.c files:

	This file contains proprietary and confidential
	information and remains the unpublished property of
	Open Market, Inc. Use, disclosure, or reproduction
	is prohibited except as permitted by express written
	license agreement with Open Market, Inc.

This is pretty ugly.  Do we have such agreement?

I'd ask on the legal list directly but you might know something
more about this...

Thanks,
Petr



----- End forwarded message -----

[Tom Callaway]

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On 08/21/2012 08:01 AM, Petr Šabata wrote:
>  No response so far. Perhaps someone here could provide some
>  insight? 
It is possible that the LICENSE.terms act as the "express written
license agreement with Open Market, Inc", so I sent out emails to all
parties I could find hoping to confirm/deny that, but so far, the only
response has been from the perl CPAN maintainer confirming that he is
not affiliated with Open Market, Inc.

I'll wait a little bit longer here.

~tom

==
Fedora Project
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[Petr Šabata]

On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 09:58:23AM -0400, Tom Callaway wrote:
>  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>  Hash: SHA1
>  
>  On 08/21/2012 08:01 AM, Petr Šabata wrote:
>  > No response so far. Perhaps someone here could provide some
>  > insight?
>  
>  It is possible that the LICENSE.terms act as the "express written
>  license agreement with Open Market, Inc", so I sent out emails to all
>  parties I could find hoping to confirm/deny that, but so far, the only
>  response has been from the perl CPAN maintainer confirming that he is
>  not affiliated with Open Market, Inc.
>  
>  I'll wait a little bit longer here.
>  
>  ~tom 
Thanks, Tom.
-P

[Emmanuel Seyman]

>  On 08/21/2012 08:01 AM, Petr Šabata wrote:
>
>  > No response so far. 
Sorry about that. I've been moving to a new email address which
left me in read-only mode for a few days. I'm back in the saddle, now.

* Tom Callaway [27/08/2012 16:00] :
>  I'll wait a little bit longer here. 
Thank you, Tom.

Emmanuel

[Tom Callaway]

On 08/27/2012 02:23 PM, Emmanuel Seyman wrote:
> > On 08/21/2012 08:01 AM, Petr Šabata wrote:
> >
> >> No response so far.
>  
>  Sorry about that. I've been moving to a new email address which
>  left me in read-only mode for a few days. I'm back in the saddle, now.
>  
>  * Tom Callaway [27/08/2012 16:00] :
> >
> > I'll wait a little bit longer here.
>  
>  Thank you, Tom. 
So, here's what I've discovered:

This code was written by Open Market, Inc. (not to be confused with
OpenMarket, a mobile software company). Open Market was later acquired
by Divine in 2001, and Divine filed for bankruptcy in early 2003. At
this point, things get fuzzier:

FatWire Software acquired Open Market's content management business, and
may have acquired the FastCGI copyrights (but I can't be sure here,
because all the assets of Divine were divided up at their bankruptcy).
Oh, and FatWire Software was acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2011.

Given that we've not had much success lately working with Oracle on
resolving licensing issues (especially when it is unclear whether they
own it or not), I went back and looked at the original FastCGI devkit,
which is where this code originates from, and in my opinion, it is clear
that the devkit LICENSE.TERMS (1997) (OML) apply to the os_* files
(1995) and provide the "express written license agreement with Open
Market, Inc." that would supercede the local non-free license in those
files.

So, to summarize: perl-FCGI is still License: OML and okay for Fedora.

~tom

==
Fedora Project