Changing a license on source with nonresponsive or gone author

[Ray Van Dolson]

Hi all;

This is in regards to an attempt to package figlet[1] for Fedora.  It
turns out that part of this package[2] is under a non-free license.
Attempts to contact the author of this code have been thus far
unsuccessful, and I'm wondering as to the best way to proceed.

The license currently in place on these files indicate that any changes
to the code needs to be emailed to the original author within 30 days.
Would this cover licensing changes as well?  I'm wondering if we could
just change the license on this code, notify the author via the email
address provided and call it good (the author's email address isn't
bouncing, but appears to be inactive).

Another alternative would be to have upstream replace the code with
sufficiently free code, or to remove the functionality completely.

I am also considering patching out the non-free code myself (since
upstream doesn't really have an active maintainer right now as figlet
has been pretty stable for years) and doing the release that way.  The
functionality in question is for decompressing font files which we
could easily live without.

Could I get some thoughts on the above from this list?

Thanks,
Ray

[1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=489830
[2]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=489830#c8

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

> >>>> "RVD" == Ray Van Dolson
> <rayvd(a)bludgeon.org&gt; writes: 
RVD> The license currently in place on these files indicate that any
RVD> changes to the code needs to be emailed to the original author
RVD> within 30 days. Would this cover licensing changes as well?

I cannot imagine a situation in which that would be appropriate.

 - J<

[Rahul Sundaram]

Ray Van Dolson wrote:

>  Hi all;
>  
>  This is in regards to an attempt to package figlet[1] for Fedora.  It
>  turns out that part of this package[2] is under a non-free license.
>  Attempts to contact the author of this code have been thus far
>  unsuccessful, and I'm wondering as to the best way to proceed.
>  
>  The license currently in place on these files indicate that any changes
>  to the code needs to be emailed to the original author within 30 days.
>  Would this cover licensing changes as well?  I'm wondering if we could
>  just change the license on this code, notify the author via the email
>  address provided and call it good (the author's email address isn't
>  bouncing, but appears to be inactive). 
IANAL and all that but you cannot do this.

>  
>  Another alternative would be to have upstream replace the code with
>  sufficiently free code, or to remove the functionality completely. 
This would work and should be your first option

>  I am also considering patching out the non-free code myself (since
>  upstream doesn't really have an active maintainer right now as figlet
>  has been pretty stable for years) and doing the release that way.  The
>  functionality in question is for decompressing font files which we
>  could easily live without. 
This would work and seems to be the simplest option. Just comment the
spec file.

Rahul

[Richard Fontana]

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:10:53 -0700
Ray Van Dolson <rayvd(a)bludgeon.org&gt; wrote:

>  Hi all;
>  
>  This is in regards to an attempt to package figlet[1] for Fedora.  It
>  turns out that part of this package[2] is under a non-free license.
>  Attempts to contact the author of this code have been thus far
>  unsuccessful, and I'm wondering as to the best way to proceed.
>  
>  The license currently in place on these files indicate that any
>  changes to the code needs to be emailed to the original author within
>  30 days. Would this cover licensing changes as well?  I'm wondering
>  if we could just change the license on this code, notify the author
>  via the email address provided and call it good (the author's email
>  address isn't bouncing, but appears to be inactive). 
The licensing terms are not part of what you are getting permission to
modify (at least in the sense of transforming it into a less
restrictive license).  So, no.  

 - RF