Curious maybe FOSS license that I can't identify

[Robert-André Mauchin]

Hello,

In a review I came across this License:

© Copyright 2000 UserLand Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2006-2007 Scripting News, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

UserLand Software, Inc. and Scripting News, Inc. are refererred to in 
the following as "the Companies."

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to 
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or 
assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and 
distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, 
provided that the above copyright notice and these paragraphs are 
included on all such copies and derivative works.

This document may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the 
copyright notice or references to the Companies or other organizations. 
Further, while these copyright restrictions apply to the written OPML 
specification, no claim of ownership is made by the Companies to the 
format it describes. Any party may, for commercial or non-commercial 
purposes, implement this format without royalty or license fee to the 
Companies. The limited permissions granted herein are perpetual and will 
not be revoked by the Companies or their successors or assigns.

This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS 
IS" basis and THE COMPANIES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, 
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE 
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED 
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

I've found some RFC example like:

http://dev.opml.org/spec1.html
https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec21.html
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2549

It seems to refer to translation these specifications.
I don't know the name of that license. Can anyone identify it and tell 
me if it's acceptable in Fedora?

Best regards,

Robert-André

[Ben Beasley]

I can’t speak in any official capacity, but I can point out that it 
looks non-free based on the “This document may not be modified in any 
way […]” portion.

A number of software, documentation, and font licenses have been held to 
be unacceptable for restricting or prohibiting modifications in the 
past. Search https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main for “modif” 
to find examples. There appears to be an exception for binary firmware 
blobs, which does not apply here.

– Ben Beasley

On 5/30/21 12:00 PM, Robert-André Mauchin wrote:
> Hello,
>
> In a review I came across this License:
>
> © Copyright 2000 UserLand Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> © Copyright 2006-2007 Scripting News, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
>
> UserLand Software, Inc. and Scripting News, Inc. are refererred to in 
> the following as "the Companies."
>
> This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to 
> others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it 
> or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and 
> distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, 
> provided that the above copyright notice and these paragraphs are 
> included on all such copies and derivative works.
>
> This document may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the 
> copyright notice or references to the Companies or other 
> organizations. Further, while these copyright restrictions apply to 
> the written OPML specification, no claim of ownership is made by the 
> Companies to the format it describes. Any party may, for commercial or 
> non-commercial purposes, implement this format without royalty or 
> license fee to the Companies. The limited permissions granted herein 
> are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Companies or their 
> successors or assigns.
>
> This document and the information contained herein is provided on an 
> "AS IS" basis and THE COMPANIES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR 
> IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE 
> INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED 
> WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
>
> I've found some RFC example like:
>
> http://dev.opml.org/spec1.html
> https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec21.html
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2549
>
> It seems to refer to translation these specifications.
> I don't know the name of that license. Can anyone identify it and tell 
> me if it's acceptable in Fedora?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Robert-André
> _______________________________________________
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> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
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[Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek]

On Sun, May 30, 2021 at 03:03:57PM -0400, Ben Beasley wrote:
> I can’t speak in any official capacity, but I can point out that it
> looks non-free based on the “This document may not be modified in
> any way […]” portion.

I *looks* like they might have wanted to say that the copyright headers
cannot be removed, but accidentally they said that the document cannot
be modified. The second paragraph says something incompatible with the
first.
> A number of software, documentation, and font licenses have been
> held to be unacceptable for restricting or prohibiting modifications
> in the past. Search https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
> for “modif” to find examples. There appears to be an exception for
> binary firmware blobs, which does not apply here.

True.

A wider question tough: should we allow packaging of *documents*
without modification permissions? We wouldn't want to modify a text
that describes a standard or some format even if the license allowed
it, treating it similarly to firmware seems OK.

Zbyszek
> – Ben Beasley
>
> On 5/30/21 12:00 PM, Robert-André Mauchin wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > In a review I came across this License:
> >
> > © Copyright 2000 UserLand Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> > © Copyright 2006-2007 Scripting News, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> >
> > UserLand Software, Inc. and Scripting News, Inc. are refererred to
> > in the following as "the Companies."
> >
> > This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished
> > to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise
> > explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared,
> > copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without
> > restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice
> > and these paragraphs are included on all such copies and
> > derivative works.
> >
> > This document may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
> > the copyright notice or references to the Companies or other
> > organizations. Further, while these copyright restrictions apply
> > to the written OPML specification, no claim of ownership is made
> > by the Companies to the format it describes. Any party may, for
> > commercial or non-commercial purposes, implement this format
> > without royalty or license fee to the Companies. The limited
> > permissions granted herein are perpetual and will not be revoked
> > by the Companies or their successors or assigns.
> >
> > This document and the information contained herein is provided on
> > an "AS IS" basis and THE COMPANIES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES,
> > EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT
> > THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR
> > ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
> > PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
> >
> > I've found some RFC example like:
> >
> > http://dev.opml.org/spec1.html
> > https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec21.html
> > https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2549
> >
> > It seems to refer to translation these specifications.
> > I don't know the name of that license. Can anyone identify it and
> > tell me if it's acceptable in Fedora?
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Robert-André
> > _______________________________________________
> > legal mailing list -- [e-mail]
> > To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]
> > Fedora Code of Conduct:
> > https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
> > List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
> > List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
> > Do not reply to spam on the list, report it:
> > https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
>
> legal mailing list -- [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]
> Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
> List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
> List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]
> Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure

[Jason Tibbitts]

> > > > > Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek  writes:
> A wider question tough: should we allow packaging of *documents*
> without modification permissions?

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Content_Licenses

"The one exception is that we permit content (but only content) which
restricts modification as long as that is the only restriction."

Unfortunately that section has a link into the packaging guidelines
which was outdated even before the guidelines were removed from the
wiki.  It should link to 
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/what-can-be-packag...
or perhaps more specifically
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/what-can-be-packag...

- J<