itext AGPL licensing

[Richard Fontana]

itext is currently packaged in Fedora. The license is given in the
package metadata as (LGPLv2+ or MPLv1.1) and ASL 2.0 and BSD and
LGPLv2+.

As of version 5.0.0, the project has relicensed to AGPLv3. The project
says at http://itextpdf.com/terms-of-use/index.php, and in source code
notices:

  In accordance with Section 7(b) of the GNU Affero General Public
  License, you must retain the producer line in every PDF that is
  created or manipulated using iText.

This is an additional restriction that is not authorized by section 7
of AGPLv3. 

Possibly also of concern is the statement:

  You can be released from the requirements of the license by
  purchasing a commercial license. Buying such a license is mandatory
  as soon as you develop commercial activities involving the iText
  software without disclosing the source code of your own
  applications. 

While the examples given might generally trigger the AGPL source code
distribution requirement, surely there are conceivable "commercial
activities" that would not trigger it. The fact that the project is
now apparently organized as a dual-licensing commercial venture
justifies heightened scrutiny of such statements.

For these reasons, I propose that any future packaging of
AGPL-licensed releases of itext be subject to explicit approval by
Fedora Legal.

-- 
Richard E. Fontana
Red Hat, Inc.

[Matt McCutchen]

On Tue, 2010-08-03 at 02:13 -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>    In accordance with Section 7(b) of the GNU Affero General Public
>    License, you must retain the producer line in every PDF that is
>    created or manipulated using iText.
>  
>  This is an additional restriction that is not authorized by section 7
>  of AGPLv3.  
That isn't obvious to me.  Does 7(b) allow a requirement that a legal
notice be preserved in a specific field of a file format?  If so, it
still seems the requirement could only apply to PDF files that
constitute a derivative work of iText, not (e.g.) to PDF files that just
had pages removed with iText.

(IANAL, I'm just participating out of my own curiosity.)

-- 
Matt

[Richard Fontana]

On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 01:01:37AM -0700, Matt McCutchen wrote:
>  On Tue, 2010-08-03 at 02:13 -0400, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  >   In accordance with Section 7(b) of the GNU Affero General Public
>  >   License, you must retain the producer line in every PDF that is
>  >   created or manipulated using iText.
>  > 
>  > This is an additional restriction that is not authorized by section 7
>  > of AGPLv3. 
>  
>  That isn't obvious to me.  Does 7(b) allow a requirement that a legal
>  notice be preserved in a specific field of a file format? 
No. This clause was largely meant to codify GPL-compatibility of
existing notice preservation requirements in GPLv2-compatible
licenses, which apply only to code itself (or maybe materials
accompanying distributed code). 

- RF