[Fedora-legal-list] Please define "effective license" (for the love of consistency)

[Michael Schwendt]

On Wed, 9 Dec 2009 19:10:19 -0500, Orcan wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Ville Skyttä wrote:
> > On Wednesday 09 December 2009, Orcan Ogetbil wrote:
> >> 1) I came across another review with the same license question. The
> >> source files have one of the
> >> GPLv2, GPLv2+ and LGPLv2+ headers each. They get compiled and produce
> >> 1 final binary executable. None of the headers (or other source code
> >> files) go to the final RPM.
> >>
> >> What goes to the license tag of the package?
> >>
> >> Ref: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=537325#c4
> >>
> >> 2) Hypothetical question (although happens rather frequently): What if
> >> there was a -devel subpackage and .h files with different licenses
> >> ended up in this -devel subpackage?
> >
> > Aren't both questions answered pretty well by
> > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/LicensingGuidelines ?
> >
> 
> Nope. I wouldn't ask if they were.

Fedora's Licensing Guidelines don't use the term "effective license"
anywhere. Not even in the section on dual licensing, which is the scenario
where the packager may choose to pick either license for the whole
program.

There is no such thing as an "effective license" related to the Mixed
Source Licensing Scenario [1], because re-licensing a program, such as
converting from LGPL to GPL, is not done implicitly or automatically.

The FSF wants licensing terms to be applied in a clear/unambiguous way.
That's why they explicitly recommend how to apply a license to source code
files and why they also point out what licenses may be converted to
eachother when copying source code from programs and how to do such
conversion.

In the case of copying LGPL licensed source files into a GPL licensed
program, the files (including code modifications) stay LGPL licensed
till the developers opt to convert them to GPL. Irrevocably and with a
proper change of source code files. Where such a conversion of licenses
is not done in the source code, no implicit/automatic conversion to a
license is done for the compiled program either.

On the contrary, linking with separate programs is a different scenario.
In the "License:" tags filled in by a src.rpm, we only cover the licenses
applied to The Program contained within the src.rpm, but not any licenses
of external programs/libraries which are linked with.

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/LicensingGuidelines#Mixed_Source_Licensing_Scenario