[Fedora-legal-list] Proper description of mysql's documentation license?

[Richard Fontana]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:45:59AM -0500, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> I know Spot has a number of IRL pressures going on, so let me see if I
> can help.  Documentation source of this kind that is nonmodifiable
> does not meet Fedora licensing guidelines, and cannot be included in
> the distribution.
> 
> There might be a (somewhat ugly and unproductive) argument to be made
> that we don't technically need to strip out the docs source itself
> because the distribution in the SRPM only is unmodified and in an
> electronic form similar to that used by Sun.  But that would dodge the
> fact that just making those docs available in the SRPM, even unbuilt
> in the binary RPM, gives them a false appearance of acceptability when
> they are in fact non-free.
> 
> I'd recommend stripping them out of the tarball using the methods
> shown in the packaging guidelines, and then including your own
> %{_docdir}/%{name}-%{version}/README-docs.Fedora indicating the
> licensing of the docs is nonfree, and including a web address for the
> official docs.
> 
> Couldn't Sun just as well protect the sanctity of their official
> documentation by tying their requirements to the use of the MySQL
> trademarks, so that if someone wanted/needed to alter the docs for
> some reason, they were required to relinquish use of those trademarks?
> I think that would allow them to be more fully freed and then we could
> include them in the Fedora repository.
> 
> Spot, Richard, if you see any place above where I'm offbase, please
> jump in.

Looking at this more closely, I am in agreement with Paul. The
documentation should be removed from the source tarball as it does not
meet Fedora legal guidelines (which apply to source as well as binary
distribution). This is clear because the MySQL documentation license
is more restrictive even than the Open Publication License with
"options".  See:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#Documentation_Licenses


-- 
Richard E. Fontana
Red Hat, Inc.