LICENSE file for spec files

[Vladimir Rusinov]

Hi,

I working on a project <https://github.com/google/copr-sundry> where I'd
like to distribute several Fedora spec files with some local modifications
(which would not make sense in Fedora).

Now, my organisation requires me to put all third-party code under
third_party/ directory of the repo, along with readme file describing where
it was taken from, list of local modifications and original LICENSE file.

Ok, so I go to
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing#License_of_Fed...
where
I can find that all Fedora spec files licensed under MIT.
Since I'm not sure which MIT variant do you use, I go and read FPCA which
says ""MIT License" means the license identified as "Modern Style
withsublicense" at <
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:MIT#Modern_Style_with_sublicense...

So I go to
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:MIT#Modern_Style_with_sublicense
to find there things like "Copyright (c) 1998, 1999, 2000 Thai Open Source
Software Center Ltd" and "The above copyright notice and this permission
notice shall be includedin all copies or substantial portions of the
Software."

And I'm not sure if Thai Open Source Software Center actually has
copyrights for Fedora spec files.

So, which MIT license text should I use?

[Richard Fontana]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 08:35:36PM +0000, Vladimir Rusinov wrote:
>  I working on a project where I'd like to distribute several
> Fedora spec files
>  with some local modifications (which would not make sense in Fedora).
>  
>  Now, my organisation requires me to put all third-party code under third_party/
>  directory of the repo, along with readme file describing where it was taken
>  from, list of local modifications and original LICENSE file.
>  
>  Ok, so I go to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing#
>  License_of_Fedora_SPEC_Files where I can find that all Fedora spec files
>  licensed under MIT.
>  Since I'm not sure which MIT variant do you use, I go and read FPCA which says
>  ""MIT License" means the license identified as "Modern Style
> withsublicense" at
>  <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:MIT#Modern_Style_with_sublicense...
>  
>  So I go to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:MIT#
>  Modern_Style_with_sublicense to find there things like "Copyright (c) 1998,
>  1999, 2000 Thai Open Source Software Center Ltd" and "The above copyright
>  notice and this permission notice shall be includedin all copies or substantial
>  portions of the Software."
>  
>  And I'm not sure if Thai Open Source Software Center actually has copyrights
>  for Fedora spec files.
>  
>  So, which MIT license text should I use? 
I'd suggest using that text but with 'Copyright <YEAR> Fedora Project
Authors' and just use something relevant for the year.

Or you could say something like "Spec files adapted from the Fedora
Project. Licensed under the MIT license". If you want, you could link
to the OSI version of the MIT license (identical to the 'modern style
with sublicense' example apart from the copyright notice).

Richard

[Matthew Miller]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 05:46:31PM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  I'd suggest using that text but with 'Copyright <YEAR>
> Fedora Project
>  Authors' and just use something relevant for the year. 
Could we change the example MIT license in the wiki to say that,
instead of the current random example?

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Richard Fontana]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 05:50:47PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
>  On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 05:46:31PM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  > I'd suggest using that text but with 'Copyright <YEAR> Fedora Project
>  > Authors' and just use something relevant for the year.
>  
>  Could we change the example MIT license in the wiki to say that,
>  instead of the current random example? 
I don't see why not. Also in recent releases of Fedora the LICENSE
file installed by the fedora-release package actually contains the
text of the MIT license with 'Copyright <YEAR> Fedora Project
Authors', which I'd forgotten about until a few minutes ago. That is
supposed to cover the Fedora compilation and explicitly "does not
supersede the licenses of code and content contained in Fedora" (see
Fedora-Legal-README.txt, which goes on to reference the legal
guidelines in the wiki). The choice of the MIT license there was
influenced by the earlier use of the MIT license in the Fedora Project
Contributor Agreement, I suppose.

BTW the example in the wiki isn't random, but was taken from Expat,
which I believe was one of the oldest projects to use the precise
wording of what's now called the MIT license in the strictest sense.

Richard

[Vladimir Rusinov]

Thanks for clarification!

It would be still nice to have it explicitly documented somewhere, consider
this as feature request.

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 11:13 PM Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com&gt;
wrote:

>  On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 05:50:47PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
>  > On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 05:46:31PM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  > > I'd suggest using that text but with 'Copyright <YEAR> Fedora
> Project
>  > > Authors' and just use something relevant for the year.
>  >
>  > Could we change the example MIT license in the wiki to say that,
>  > instead of the current random example?
>
>  I don't see why not. Also in recent releases of Fedora the LICENSE
>  file installed by the fedora-release package actually contains the
>  text of the MIT license with 'Copyright <YEAR> Fedora Project
>  Authors', which I'd forgotten about until a few minutes ago. That is
>  supposed to cover the Fedora compilation and explicitly "does not
>  supersede the licenses of code and content contained in Fedora" (see
>  Fedora-Legal-README.txt, which goes on to reference the legal
>  guidelines in the wiki). The choice of the MIT license there was
>  influenced by the earlier use of the MIT license in the Fedora Project
>  Contributor Agreement, I suppose.
>
>  BTW the example in the wiki isn't random, but was taken from Expat,
>  which I believe was one of the oldest projects to use the precise
>  wording of what's now called the MIT license in the strictest sense.
>
>  Richard
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  legal mailing list
>  legal(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/legal

[Mathieu Bridon]

Hi,

On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 20:35 +0000, Vladimir Rusinov wrote:
>  I working on a project where I'd like to distribute several
> Fedora
>  spec files with some local modifications (which would not make sense
>  in Fedora).
>  
>  Now, my organisation requires me to put all third-party code under
>  third_party/ directory of the repo, along with readme file describing
>  where it was taken from, list of local modifications and original
>  LICENSE file.
>  
>  Ok, so I go to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licen
>  sing#License_of_Fedora_SPEC_Files where I can find that all Fedora
>  spec files licensed under MIT. 
Not really, no. The default license for spec files in Fedora is MIT.

That means that if the package maintainer didn't chose any license
explicitly, then the spec file is MIT.

Some package maintainers do choose to use another licence for their
spec files, for example "php-smbclient" is under the CC-By-SA-4.0
license:
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/php-smbclient.git/tree/php-smbclient
.spec

Make sure you check every spec file you use if they have an explicit
license (this should usually be obvious, as a comment in the very first
lines of the spec file), and if you can't find anything, then you can
assume the spec file is MIT.


-- 
Mathieu

[Mikolaj Izdebski]

On 09/22/2015 11:46 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  Or you could say something like "Spec files adapted from the
> Fedora
>  Project. Licensed under the MIT license".  
Wouldn't that be violation of the license?  If I understand correctly,
any distribution containing code licensed under MIT license must contain
full copy of the license text, not just reference.

-- 
Mikolaj Izdebski
Software Engineer, Red Hat
IRC: mizdebsk

[Richard Fontana]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 12:59:55PM +0200, Mikolaj Izdebski wrote:
>  On 09/22/2015 11:46 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  > Or you could say something like "Spec files adapted from the Fedora
>  > Project. Licensed under the MIT license". 
>  
>  Wouldn't that be violation of the license?  If I understand correctly,
>  any distribution containing code licensed under MIT license must contain
>  full copy of the license text, not just reference. 
No (I am assuming the spec files in question here do not contain the
text of the MIT license, and that we have the usual case where there
is no explicit license covering the spec file). The applicability of
the MIT license is a consequence of the FPCA. Given that the MIT
license does say:

  ... subject to the following conditions:

  The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
  included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

it's reasonable to ask what that means where there is no notice. The
FPCA addresses this:

  You consent to having Fedora provide reasonable notice of Your
  licensing of Your Contribution under the Current Default License
  ... in a manner determined by Fedora.

I consider the information in
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing#License_of_Fed...
(the wiki page is referenced in fedora-release's
Fedora-Legal-README.txt) to be "reasonable notice".  If a contributor
wants more than that the contributor can put a license notice in the
spec file.

[Matthew Miller]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 06:13:13PM -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  BTW the example in the wiki isn't random, but was taken from
> Expat,
>  which I believe was one of the oldest projects to use the precise
>  wording of what's now called the MIT license in the strictest sense. 
Sorry, "apparently random". :)

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader