CAcert.org license

[Matthias Saou]

Hi,

For the following review :
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=474549

I would need to know if the "Non Related Persons Disclaimer and
Licence" under which the CAcert root certificates files are is
acceptable for Fedora or not. Full text here :
http://www.cacert.org/policy/NRPDisclaimerAndLicence.php

What I see is that it only really applies to liability, and doesn't
cover modifications since those wouldn't make much sense. What does
bother me somewhat is the last part of the "License" section : "You may
NOT distribute certificates or root keys under this licence, nor make
representation about them." as well as the fact that liability might be
transferred to the Fedora Project if the certificates are shipped in
the distribution.

IANAL and I found nothing relevant in the "Licensing" wiki page, which
is why I'm posting here.

Matthias

-- 
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[Tom Callaway]

On Tue, 2008-12-09 at 12:57 +0100, Matthias Saou wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  For the following review :
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=474549
>  
>  I would need to know if the "Non Related Persons Disclaimer and
>  Licence" under which the CAcert root certificates files are is
>  acceptable for Fedora or not. Full text here :
>  http://www.cacert.org/policy/NRPDisclaimerAndLicence.php
>  
>  What I see is that it only really applies to liability, and doesn't
>  cover modifications since those wouldn't make much sense. What does
>  bother me somewhat is the last part of the "License" section : "You may
>  NOT distribute certificates or root keys under this licence, nor make
>  representation about them." as well as the fact that liability might be
>  transferred to the Fedora Project if the certificates are shipped in
>  the distribution. 
Yeah, so this would be a Content license rather than a software license.
Given that it does not give permission for us to redistribute (the
cornerstone requirement for Content licenses), this license is not
acceptable for Fedora.

~spot

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

> >>>> "TC" == Tom \"spot\" Callaway
> <Tom> writes: 
TC> Given that it does not give permission for us to redistribute (the
TC> cornerstone requirement for Content licenses), this license is not
TC> acceptable for Fedora.

I guess I'm glad I looked before approving the package, but I have to
wonder: Do the cacert folks actually want anyone to use their
certificates?  I mean, this prevents basically everyone from using
them, because they can't come with the OS or the browser.

 - J<