Hey folks,
So I was working through the review of flatpak-kcm[1], where I discovered that KDE GitLab CI scripts are currently licensed CC0-1.0.
I'm in the process of making a request to KDE to consider relicensing all such code/scripts to MIT, but in the meantime, is it okay for us to have CC0-1.0 listed for this specific case?
Thanks in advance,
[1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/2162953
On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 7:48 AM Neal Gompa ngompa13@gmail.com wrote:
Hey folks,
So I was working through the review of flatpak-kcm[1], where I discovered that KDE GitLab CI scripts are currently licensed CC0-1.0.
I'm in the process of making a request to KDE to consider relicensing all such code/scripts to MIT, but in the meantime, is it okay for us to have CC0-1.0 listed for this specific case?
This looks like it's a consequence of the upstream project attempting to conform to the REUSE specification, which requires some form of explicit SPDX-expression-based licensing of all files in a "Project", which REUSE's tools seem to interpret as being equivalent to a repository. That issue has come up already though I am not sure we documented a resolution. Currently, REUSE recommends that highly trivial files, files that might be reasonably assumed not to be copyrightable and so forth, be explicitly placed under CC0. (This continues to be one of my main gripes with REUSE, not just because CC0 is not allowed for code in Fedora but also because CC0 is not well designed for many of the cases that I think REUSE is contemplating it would be used for to conform to this recommendation, and also because any application of a conventional license including CC0 gives credibility to copyright-maximalist arguments. I'm currently pondering an approach that would recommend use of a LicenseRef- designed for these cases, as in some other respects REUSE has some appealing features.)
One point about the Bugzilla: "CC0-1.0" does not need to be mentioned in the license tag because it only covers files that are included in the source RPM. Nevertheless, an exception is required because all Fedora-packaged material must be under Fedora-allowed licenses or be covered by an exception.
Anyway, I have previously thought that we should have a blanket exception for uses of CC0 that result entirely from upstream attempts to make repositories REUSE-conformant.
Richard
On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 2:03 PM Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 7:48 AM Neal Gompa ngompa13@gmail.com wrote:
Hey folks,
So I was working through the review of flatpak-kcm[1], where I discovered that KDE GitLab CI scripts are currently licensed CC0-1.0.
I'm in the process of making a request to KDE to consider relicensing all such code/scripts to MIT, but in the meantime, is it okay for us to have CC0-1.0 listed for this specific case?
This looks like it's a consequence of the upstream project attempting to conform to the REUSE specification, which requires some form of explicit SPDX-expression-based licensing of all files in a "Project", which REUSE's tools seem to interpret as being equivalent to a repository. That issue has come up already though I am not sure we documented a resolution. Currently, REUSE recommends that highly trivial files, files that might be reasonably assumed not to be copyrightable and so forth, be explicitly placed under CC0. (This continues to be one of my main gripes with REUSE, not just because CC0 is not allowed for code in Fedora but also because CC0 is not well designed for many of the cases that I think REUSE is contemplating it would be used for to conform to this recommendation, and also because any application of a conventional license including CC0 gives credibility to copyright-maximalist arguments. I'm currently pondering an approach that would recommend use of a LicenseRef- designed for these cases, as in some other respects REUSE has some appealing features.)
One point about the Bugzilla: "CC0-1.0" does not need to be mentioned in the license tag because it only covers files that are included in the source RPM. Nevertheless, an exception is required because all Fedora-packaged material must be under Fedora-allowed licenses or be covered by an exception.
Anyway, I have previously thought that we should have a blanket exception for uses of CC0 that result entirely from upstream attempts to make repositories REUSE-conformant.
This would be highly appreciated! The discussion upstream isn't exactly going to be easy, so a quick resolution for now would unblock flatpak-kcm and other KDE software stuff.
On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 2:39 PM Neal Gompa ngompa13@gmail.com wrote:
Anyway, I have previously thought that we should have a blanket exception for uses of CC0 that result entirely from upstream attempts to make repositories REUSE-conformant.
This would be highly appreciated! The discussion upstream isn't exactly going to be easy, so a quick resolution for now would unblock flatpak-kcm and other KDE software stuff.
I've added this: https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/blob/main/data/CC0-1.0...
Richard
On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 10:53 PM Richard Fontana rfontana@redhat.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 2:39 PM Neal Gompa ngompa13@gmail.com wrote:
Anyway, I have previously thought that we should have a blanket exception for uses of CC0 that result entirely from upstream attempts to make repositories REUSE-conformant.
This would be highly appreciated! The discussion upstream isn't exactly going to be easy, so a quick resolution for now would unblock flatpak-kcm and other KDE software stuff.
I've added this: https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/blob/main/data/CC0-1.0...
Thank you!
-
Neal Gompa -
Richard Fontana