ASL 2.0 with exceptions

[Zdenek Dohnal]

Hi all,

I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and LGPLv2.

CUPS has a similar license and it was marked as fine for Fedora in this
thread [1] .

Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into the
table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?

Thank you in advance and have a nice day,

Zdenek

[1]
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/...

[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Good_Licenses

Fwd: ASL 2.0 with exceptions

[Zdenek Dohnal]

Attaching LICENSE and NOTICE text, covering the license and exceptions.

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	ASL 2.0 with exceptions
Date: 	Wed, 5 Aug 2020 14:12:04 +0200
From: 	Zdenek Dohnal 
To: 	[e-mail]

Hi all,

I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and LGPLv2.

CUPS has a similar license and it was marked as fine for Fedora in this
thread [1] .

Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into the
table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?

Thank you in advance and have a nice day,

Zdenek

[1]
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/...

[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Good_Licenses

[David Cantrell]

On Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 02:12:04PM +0200, Zdenek Dohnal wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
> which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and LGPLv2.
>
> CUPS has a similar license and it was marked as fine for Fedora in this
> thread [1] .
>
> Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
> exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into the
> table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?
>
> Thank you in advance and have a nice day,
>
> Zdenek
>
> [1]
> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/...
>
> [2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Good_Licenses

The interesting thing to me here is that LLVM carries this license and
exception.  It uses the Apache 2.0 license with a GPLv2 exception.  But the
llvm package in Fedora says 'NCSA' for the License tag.

I think the llvm package might be wrong in Fedora.

Going with SPDX syntax, the way they define Apache 2.0 with the GPLv2
exception (as given as an example in llvm) is:

Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception

https://spdx.org/licenses/LLVM-exception.html

To fit the Fedora naming syntax, we probably need "ASL 2.0 with exceptions"
added to the list of approved licenses.

[Richard Fontana]

On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 11:54 AM David Cantrell  wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 02:12:04PM +0200, Zdenek Dohnal wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
> > which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and LGPLv2.
> >
> > CUPS has a similar license and it was marked as fine for Fedora in this
> > thread [1] .
> >
> > Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
> > exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into the
> > table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?
> >
> > Thank you in advance and have a nice day,
> >
> > Zdenek
> >
> > [1]
> > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/...
> >
> > [2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Good_Licenses
>
> The interesting thing to me here is that LLVM carries this license and
> exception.  It uses the Apache 2.0 license with a GPLv2 exception.  But the
> llvm package in Fedora says 'NCSA' for the License tag.
>
> I think the llvm package might be wrong in Fedora.

LLVM was formerly licensed, or mostly licensed, under the NCSA
license. As of some recent version it switched to the Apache License
2.0 plus that exception.
> Going with SPDX syntax, the way they define Apache 2.0 with the GPLv2
> exception (as given as an example in llvm) is:
>  Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception
>
> https://spdx.org/licenses/LLVM-exception.html
>
> To fit the Fedora naming syntax, we probably need "ASL 2.0 with exceptions"
> added to the list of approved licenses.

Or perhaps using the SPDX notation instead, at least for the exception part?

Richard

[Florian Weimer]

* David Cantrell:
> The interesting thing to me here is that LLVM carries this license and
> exception.  It uses the Apache 2.0 license with a GPLv2 exception.  But the
> llvm package in Fedora says 'NCSA' for the License tag.
>
> I think the llvm package might be wrong in Fedora.

It used to be NCSA, but LLVM was relicensed.  I filed a bug:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1866468

Thanks,
Florian

[David Cantrell]

On Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 12:03:01PM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 11:54 AM David Cantrell  wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 02:12:04PM +0200, Zdenek Dohnal wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
> > > which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and LGPLv2.
> > >
> > > CUPS has a similar license and it was marked as fine for Fedora in this
> > > thread [1] .
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
> > > exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into the
> > > table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?
> > >
> > > Thank you in advance and have a nice day,
> > >
> > > Zdenek
> > >
> > > [1]
> > > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/...
> > >
> > > [2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Good_Licenses
> >
> > The interesting thing to me here is that LLVM carries this license and
> > exception.  It uses the Apache 2.0 license with a GPLv2 exception.  But the
> > llvm package in Fedora says 'NCSA' for the License tag.
> >
> > I think the llvm package might be wrong in Fedora.
>
> LLVM was formerly licensed, or mostly licensed, under the NCSA
> license. As of some recent version it switched to the Apache License
> 2.0 plus that exception.
> > Going with SPDX syntax, the way they define Apache 2.0 with the GPLv2
> > exception (as given as an example in llvm) is:
> >  Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception
> >
> > https://spdx.org/licenses/LLVM-exception.html
> >
> > To fit the Fedora naming syntax, we probably need "ASL 2.0 with exceptions"
> > added to the list of approved licenses.
>
> Or perhaps using the SPDX notation instead, at least for the exception part?

I think the SPDX notation is clear here.  Might be a good time to update the
licensing guidelines for packages to allow packag maintainers to use an SPDX
expression in the License file if they want to and if the licenses for the
package can be expressed using SPDX data.

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/LicensingGuideline...

[Bryan Sutula]

(replied earlier but it was moderated...sorry if a duplicate arrives)

On Wed, 2020-08-05 at 14:12 +0200, Zdenek Dohnal wrote:
> I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
> which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and
> LGPLv2.

[...]
> Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
> exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into
> the table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?

The question of what to name this exception aside, the lprint NOTICE
text is only a portion of the LLVM-exception text[3].  The lprint text
is awkward in that the first word of the exception is "Additionally"
but there's no prior exception text in the lprint NOTICE file for the
"Additionally" to refer to.  I wonder whether the author might be
willing to avoid creating yet another custom exception type, by
including the entire LLVM-exception text in the lprint NOTICE file.

-Bryan Sutula

3. https://spdx.org/licenses/LLVM-exception.html

[Richard Fontana]

On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 1:15 PM Bryan Sutula  wrote:
> (replied earlier but it was moderated...sorry if a duplicate arrives)
>
> On Wed, 2020-08-05 at 14:12 +0200, Zdenek Dohnal wrote:
> > I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
> > which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and
> > LGPLv2.
>
> [...]
> > Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
> > exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into
> > the table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?
>
> The question of what to name this exception aside, the lprint NOTICE
> text is only a portion of the LLVM-exception text[3].  The lprint text
> is awkward in that the first word of the exception is "Additionally"
> but there's no prior exception text in the lprint NOTICE file for the
> "Additionally" to refer to.  I wonder whether the author might be
> willing to avoid creating yet another custom exception type, by
> including the entire LLVM-exception text in the lprint NOTICE file.

Ah, I completely missed that. I suppose it shows that the LLVM
exception is not really suitable as a general-purpose (not
compiler-specific) exception.

Richard

[Zdenek Dohnal]

Hi all,

thank you for all the answers!

There was long-term issue (due Apple legal department) about the
mentioned license change in CUPS and llvm license was an example how the
acceptable license should look like.

After two years NOTICE file was accepted by Apple legal and put in CUPS
project as an exception for ASL 2.0 to prevent future licensing problems.

CUPS project lead at that time and the person who did license change,
Mike Sweet, left Apple in the meantime and now he is an author of
LPrint, which I try to package and he chose the license which CUPS has
to prevent any license issues, because LPrint is based on parts of
previous CUPS code.

CUPS project in Apple now has a new lead, who is unfortunately
unresponsive at the present, so in my opinion changing/updating license
within CUPS is not possible, meaning updating lprint license will not
happen unless CUPS exception changes.

Then, would it be possible to have:

'Apache-2.0 WITH CUPS-exception'

or

'ASL 2.0 with exceptions'

as a license? If it woulf be, what can I do to have an option to use them?

Thank you in advance,

Zdenek

On 8/5/20 7:23 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 1:15 PM Bryan Sutula  wrote:
> > (replied earlier but it was moderated...sorry if a duplicate arrives)
> >
> > On Wed, 2020-08-05 at 14:12 +0200, Zdenek Dohnal wrote:
> > > I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
> > > which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and
> > > LGPLv2.
> >
> > [...]
> > > Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
> > > exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into
> > > the table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?
> >
> > The question of what to name this exception aside, the lprint NOTICE
> > text is only a portion of the LLVM-exception text[3].  The lprint text
> > is awkward in that the first word of the exception is "Additionally"
> > but there's no prior exception text in the lprint NOTICE file for the
> > "Additionally" to refer to.  I wonder whether the author might be
> > willing to avoid creating yet another custom exception type, by
> > including the entire LLVM-exception text in the lprint NOTICE file.
>
> Ah, I completely missed that. I suppose it shows that the LLVM
> exception is not really suitable as a general-purpose (not
> compiler-specific) exception.
>
> Richard

[Richard Fontana]

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 4:21 AM Zdenek Dohnal  wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> thank you for all the answers!
>
> There was long-term issue (due Apple legal department) about the
> mentioned license change in CUPS and llvm license was an example how the
> acceptable license should look like.
>
> After two years NOTICE file was accepted by Apple legal and put in CUPS
> project as an exception for ASL 2.0 to prevent future licensing problems.
>
> CUPS project lead at that time and the person who did license change,
> Mike Sweet, left Apple in the meantime and now he is an author of
> LPrint, which I try to package and he chose the license which CUPS has
> to prevent any license issues, because LPrint is based on parts of
> previous CUPS code.
>
> CUPS project in Apple now has a new lead, who is unfortunately
> unresponsive at the present, so in my opinion changing/updating license
> within CUPS is not possible, meaning updating lprint license will not
> happen unless CUPS exception changes.
>
> Then, would it be possible to have:
>
> 'Apache-2.0 WITH CUPS-exception'
>
> or
>
> 'ASL 2.0 with exceptions'
>
> as a license? If it woulf be, what can I do to have an option to use them?

If I understand correctly, there is no current official SPDX exception
for the CUPS exception. There might be some value in getting it added,
but I doubt I myself would find the time to do so in the shorter term.
:)

Anyway, as for Fedora, I think the easiest thing to do here in the
short term is to just use "ASL 2.0" and ignore the exception. I'm not
sure I see any major value in having the license tag signal the
presence of a license exception, in contrast to cases involving
licenses in the GPL family.

Richard
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Zdenek
>
> On 8/5/20 7:23 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 1:15 PM Bryan Sutula  wrote:
> > > (replied earlier but it was moderated...sorry if a duplicate arrives)
> > >
> > > On Wed, 2020-08-05 at 14:12 +0200, Zdenek Dohnal wrote:
> > > > I'm trying to package lprint https://github.com/michaelrsweet/lprint
> > > > which has Apache Software License 2.0 with exceptions for GPLv2 and
> > > > LGPLv2.
> > >
> > > [...]
> > > > Unfortunately, there isn't a valid short name for 'ASL 2.0 with
> > > > exceptions' at [2] - would it be possible to add the short name into
> > > > the table or should I just use simple 'ASL 2.0'?
> > >
> > > The question of what to name this exception aside, the lprint NOTICE
> > > text is only a portion of the LLVM-exception text[3].  The lprint text
> > > is awkward in that the first word of the exception is "Additionally"
> > > but there's no prior exception text in the lprint NOTICE file for the
> > > "Additionally" to refer to.  I wonder whether the author might be
> > > willing to avoid creating yet another custom exception type, by
> > > including the entire LLVM-exception text in the lprint NOTICE file.
> >
> > Ah, I completely missed that. I suppose it shows that the LLVM
> > exception is not really suitable as a general-purpose (not
> > compiler-specific) exception.
> >
> > Richard
>
> --
> Zdenek Dohnal
> Software Engineer
> Red Hat Czech - Brno TPB-C

[Olivier Lemasle]

Other projects use this "Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception", such as https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasm-tools/ and https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime. They provide Rust crates such as https://crates.io/crates/wat, which I'd like to package in Fedora.

Cf. https://spdx.org/licenses/LLVM-exception.html

As Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception is not listed in Fedora permitted licenses, is it ok to package it? If yes, should I use "ASL 2.0" or "ASL 2.0 WITH LLVM-exception"?

Regards,

--
Olivier Lemasle

[Neal Gompa]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 8:52 AM Olivier Lemasle  wrote:
> Other projects use this "Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception", such as https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasm-tools/ and https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime. They provide Rust crates such as https://crates.io/crates/wat, which I'd like to package in Fedora.
>
> Cf. https://spdx.org/licenses/LLVM-exception.html
>
> As Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception is not listed in Fedora permitted licenses, is it ok to package it? If yes, should I use "ASL 2.0" or "ASL 2.0 WITH LLVM-exception"?

"ASL 2.0 with exceptions" is sufficient.

[Olivier Lemasle]

> "ASL 2.0 with exceptions" is sufficient.

Thank you Neal for your answer. However, "ASL 2.0 with exceptions" is not in the licenses list [1]; should it be added?

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing#SoftwareLicenses

[Neal Gompa]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 1:19 PM Olivier Lemasle  wrote:
> > "ASL 2.0 with exceptions" is sufficient.
>
> Thank you Neal for your answer. However, "ASL 2.0 with exceptions" is not in the licenses list [1]; should it be added?
>
> [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing#SoftwareLicenses

It probably should be.

--
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

[David Cantrell]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 01:21:53PM -0500, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 1:19 PM Olivier Lemasle  wrote:
> > > "ASL 2.0 with exceptions" is sufficient.
> >
> > Thank you Neal for your answer. However, "ASL 2.0 with exceptions" is not in the licenses list [1]; should it be added?
> >
> > [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing#SoftwareLicenses
>
> It probably should be.

Please also add it as an entry in this file:

https://github.com/rpminspect/rpminspect-data-fedora/blob/master/licenses/fe...

Send a pull request to the rpminspect-data-fedora project.

Thanks,

[Ben Cotton]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 2:20 PM David Cantrell  wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 01:21:53PM -0500, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > It probably should be.
>
> Please also add it as an entry in this file:

Let's just stick with Richard's advice on this thread earlier:

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 12:52 PM Richard Fontana  wrote:
> Anyway, as for Fedora, I think the easiest thing to do here in the
> short term is to just use "ASL 2.0" and ignore the exception.

[Neal Gompa]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 2:25 PM Ben Cotton  wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 2:20 PM David Cantrell  wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 01:21:53PM -0500, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > > It probably should be.
> >
> > Please also add it as an entry in this file:
>
> Let's just stick with Richard's advice on this thread earlier:
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 12:52 PM Richard Fontana  wrote:
> > Anyway, as for Fedora, I think the easiest thing to do here in the
> > short term is to just use "ASL 2.0" and ignore the exception.
>
> --
> Ben Cotton
> He / Him / His
> Senior Program Manager, Fedora & CentOS Stream
> Red Hat
> TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis

Is that a good idea given that the exception is necessary for GPL
applications to link to CUPS?

[Richard Fontana]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 2:31 PM Neal Gompa  wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 2:25 PM Ben Cotton  wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 2:20 PM David Cantrell  wrote:
> > > On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 01:21:53PM -0500, Neal Gompa wrote:
> > > > It probably should be.
> > >
> > > Please also add it as an entry in this file:
> >
> > Let's just stick with Richard's advice on this thread earlier:
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 12:52 PM Richard Fontana  wrote:
> > > Anyway, as for Fedora, I think the easiest thing to do here in the
> > > short term is to just use "ASL 2.0" and ignore the exception.
> >
> > --
> > Ben Cotton
> > He / Him / His
> > Senior Program Manager, Fedora & CentOS Stream
> > Red Hat
> > TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
>
> Is that a good idea given that the exception is necessary for GPL
> applications to link to CUPS?

The exception is still part of the license; the question is just
whether it is a detail that should be reflected in the license
metadata.

My argument is that most Fedora users probably won't care, and those
that do aren't going to rely on license metadata anyway. Also, "ASL
2.0 with exceptions" doesn't tell you what the exception is, anyway
(and a Fedora user might not even be sure that the exception is a
permissive exception).

Richard