Fedora website, Red Hat, copyright notices and FPCA

[Richard Fontana]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 10:13:56AM -0400, Tom Callaway wrote:
> However, I would argue that most copyrightable attachments submitted via
> Bugzilla are intended to be applied to Fedora packages. Once a Fedora
> packager takes an attachment from Bugzilla and uses it in Fedora, it
> becomes a Fedora Contribution and falls under the FPCA agreement that
> the Fedora Packager agreed to. Again, this means that we expect that the
> Fedora Packager is taking "responsibility to first obtain authorization
> from the copyright holder to Submit the Contribution under the terms of
> this FPCA on behalf of, or otherwise with the permission of, that
> copyright holder."

Er, no. This is not correct except in the special case in which the
Fedora packager himself wrote the patch that was attached to that
Bugzilla report.

The definition of 'Contribution' is *very* narrow:

  "Contribution" means a Work that You created, excluding any portion
  that was created by someone else.  (For example, if You Submit a
  package to Fedora, the spec file You write may be a Contribution,
  but all the upstream code in the associated SRPM that You did not
  write is not a Contribution for purposes of this FPCA.)  A
  Contribution consists either of Code or of Content.

So a third-party patch a Fedora packager takes from Bugzilla is *not*
a "Contribution" for purposes of the FPCA. It is completely outside
the scope of it. That is intentional. That is spot's design. :-) 

See also the 'Non-Goals' Preamble:

  the FPCA does not apply to upstream code (or other material) that
  you didn't write; indeed, it would be preposterous for it to attempt
  to do so.  Note the narrow way in which we have defined capital-c
  "Contribution".

I think the reason for the confusion is that even late into the
drafting spot and I debated over how to draft section 1 (or whether
even to have it). While no, Rahul, 'Red Hat Legal' did not 'drive' any
of this design -- it was inherent in spot's idea for the replacement
CLA from the very beginning -- I will admit that I argued in favor of
greater minimalism. In fact, I recall that at one point I didn't want
section 1 in the FPCA at all. So its current inclusion and version is
sort of a policy or drafting compromise between me and spot. It says:

  If You are not the copyright holder of a given Contribution that You
  wish to Submit to Fedora (for example, if Your employer or
  university holds copyright in it), it is Your responsibility to
  first obtain authorization from the copyright holder to Submit the
  Contribution under the terms of this FPCA on behalf of, or otherwise
  with the permission of, that copyright holder.  One form of such
  authorization is for the copyright holder to place, or permit You to
  place, an Acceptable License For Fedora on the Contribution.

So it addresses the issue of works made for hire and such, in the
gentlest possible way. But it only applies to 'Contributions' - the
original creative things that *You* the Contributor personally
created. It does not refer to anything else.  

- Richard







-- 
Richard E. Fontana
Open Source Licensing and Patent Counsel
Red Hat, Inc.