gkrellm themes

[Gene Czarcinski]

I have been a gkrellm fan for a number of years.  While gkrellm is distributed 
as part of Fedora, gkrellm-themes is not being distributed starting with F8 
(although the package is still available as part of the F7 distribution).

The reason gkrellm-themes is no longer distributed is that there is no 
specific licensing indicated for almost all of the themes:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=385131

While themes are not necessary for gkrellm operation, they are nice "eye 
candy" and some produce more readable displays than others ... it is a 
personal preference.

I am volunteering to be a "limited time" upstream package "assembler" to 
create a new base tarball (gkrellm-themes instead of gkrellm-skins) which 
will have only themes with acceptable licensing starting with the two in the 
current package.  But, before diving head first into an empty swimming pool, 
I wanted to determine if there is enough interest to warrent my efforts.

Using my friend google, I located:
http://themes.freshmeat.net/browse/969/
all of which are marked in freshmeat as having GPL, OSI Artistic, freely 
distributable, or freeware "licenses".  While freshmeat marks these packages 
as having licenses, examining a couple of the theme tarballs indicates that 
no license is part of the theme tarball itself. [see (9) below]

First of all, I need guidance as to what licensing would be acceptable (e.g., 
GPL, OSI Artistic, freely distributable, freeware, BSD, etc.).  I need 
comments by (and perhaps some contact with) IP lawyers such as those working 
for Red Hat.

If I proceed with this packaging, my plan is:

1. Use the two GPL'ed themes in the F7 package as the base.

2. Add any other themes which have licensing embedded in a theme tarball.

3. Go through the themes in the F7 package and the freshmeat list to identify 
author(s) for each theme ... if there is no author (e.g., anonymous), drop 
that theme.

4. Send each theme author an email asking them for appropriate licensing.  If 
I get a "NO" answer, drop that theme.  If the email bounces (or I have not 
heard from the author after a month), drop that theme.  For themes which have 
multiple authors (the "last" author hacked a theme of another author), lack 
of response or a negative response for anyone in the chain results in the 
theme being dropped.

5. My preferred response is for the theme's author to send me (or provide me 
access to) an updated tarball with appropriate licensing embedded ... add this 
theme tarball to gkrellm-themes.

6. If I get a response that indicates to use "xxx" acceptable licensing and 
provides me with a copy of that license, add the theme tarball and then add 
the email message and the license info to the gkrellm-themes but do not 
modify the theme tarball itself ... the rpm package will need to put the info 
in the appropriate place ... maybe make them doc files distributed 
in /usr/share/doc/gkrellm-themes.../ as license.<themename>

7.  If I get a response that indicates to use "xxx" acceptable licensing but 
does not provide a copy of the license but I can locate a copy, proceed as 
(6) above.

8.  If I get a response of "whatever ... do what you want" (or words to that 
effect), my action is ??? [add the theme, the email message, and a "GPL 
license??] ... what to do ... what to do??  Guidance please.

9.  With respect to the packages listed on freshmeat, how do I handle packages 
where freshmeat indicates a license but none is embedded?  I found one a theme 
with a README embedded in the tarball which says:

"If you wish to alter this theme or redistribute it, please give me credit 
or I'll hunt you down and rip your eyes out with my teeth.
Ok? good. :)"

How do I handle this?  There is an implication that the theme is under some 
sort of "freely available" license.

There may be other responses which is why I am interest in IP lawyer contacts.  
This may be need where a theme has multiple (chained) authors which have 
different ideas as to what the licensing should be.

As I said, I Am Not A Lawyer and I intend to take all claims of authorship at 
face value ... if an author says he created the theme and puts it under an 
acceptable license, then that is it.

Similarly, I will be making no artistic judgments on what is bundled into 
gkrellm-themes.  Naturally, if anything is truly offensive, then that theme 
may be rejected similar to what was done with screensavers a number of years 
ago.  In any case, turning gkrellm-themes into a Fedora rpm package will 
involve the usual review process which should kick out anything really 
tasteless.

I am not currently a Maintainer on any other package so I would prefer to turn 
the result over to a "regular" Maintainer.  That is, if I can pull enough 
themes together to be worth the effort ... right now, two themes does not 
seem to be worth the effort.  If nobody raises their hand, then I guess I 
will have to learn how to be a Fedora Package Maintainer.

Questions, comments, guidance, etc. are solicited.
-- 
Gene