[Fedora-legal-list] re-packaging iText

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Tue, 2008-09-30 at 21:57 -0700, Orcan Ogetbil wrote:
> Hi, I wanted to bring into attention the recent development in the licensing of the iText. This software was included in Fedora in the past but then removed due to licensing trouble:
> (i) https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=176981
> and especially
> (ii) https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=236309
> 
> According to the second link it was removed from F-7 because of the fact that it contained some Sun-licensed files.
> 
> I downloaded the software from its current website:
> http://www.lowagie.com/iText/download.html
> 
> The website claims a dual MPLv1.1 / LGPL license. Inside the package there is a text file (core/com/lowagie/text/misc_licenses.txt), which I will paste to the bottom of this email.
> 
> The most relevant parts of this txt file are in section (3). The original license ended with the sentence: "You acknowledge that Software is not designed, licensed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility." The word "licensed" caused the trouble in the past (see comment#2 in (ii)) as it made the software non-free. But according to the txt file there has been some email traffic between the original developer and iText developer on January 23, 2008 and the word "licensed" has been removed from that sentence in the final license. 
> 
> I think we can re-consider packaging this software. I want to make sure we are on solid grounds.
> 
> Please post your opinions.

Show me a package, and I'll audit it.

~spot