JBoss stalled (was Re: status of some packages ??)

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 06/03/2010 02:31 PM, Alex Hudson wrote:
> If everyone else is distributing JBoss, though, that calls into question
> whether it's Fedora doing it "properly". 
> 
> Worrying about a set of rights which are unwaivable seems on the face of
> it to be exhibiting an abundance of over-caution, and it seems
> particularly sad that Fedora is losing out having to refrain from
> distributing another Red Hat-sponsored project.

You might feel that way, but the simple fact is that French citizens can
not abandon copyright (aka put works into the Public Domain). This is
the only license that we've been given, but since it is not valid, we
can't use it. Without a license, we cannot include this in Fedora,
because we have none of the rights required for Free Software.

The fact that it comes from "another Red Hat-sponsored project" is
wholly irrelevant.

The argument that "everyone else is doing it, so it must be fine" is
also completely false. As my mother eloquently put it to me at age 6,
"If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?".

The bigger concern is that this code is abandonware. In an active
project, this would already be resolved. It also illustrates the point
of being sure that projects have valid licensing from the start.

~spot