[Fedora-legal-list] README.openfwwf license? -- [[PkgWrangler] Review b43-openfwwf-5.2-2.1.el6 (ON_REVIEW) got new comment]

John W. Linville linville at redhat.com
Tue Mar 16 17:32:09 UTC 2010


On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 06:17:59PM +0100, Michal Schmidt wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:44:38 -0500 John W. Linville wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 06:31:03PM +0300, Peter Lemenkov wrote:
> > > Hello John!
> > > 
> > > I'm sure, that GPL does NOT cover the text of the README, since it
> > > simply a dump of web-page, and I didn't think they licensed their
> > > site contents under GPL :)
> > > 
> > > > Perhaps README.openfwwf needs to be removed or revised?
> > > 
> > > Although, I almost absolutely think that nobody will sue Redhat for
> > > inclusion of  this text, I think, that properly re-licensing a
> > > README is a generally good idea. At least we should ask upstream for
> > > clarification - could you ask someone, who skilled enough in solving
> > > these boring legal issues? I could contact them by myself, but I'n
> > > not sure, what should I ask them. To send us e-mail with license
> > > clarification or to add README (listed below) to their tarball.
> > > 
> > > Just for the reference - here is a full text of README
> > > 
> > > http://cvs.fedoraproject.org/viewvc/rpms/b43-openfwwf/devel/README.openfwwf?view=co
> > > 
> > > -- 
> > > With best regards, Peter Lemenkov.
> > 
> > Peter, thanks for the quick reply!
> > 
> > Perhaps fedora-legal can provide useful advice?
> 
> 
> I asked upstream:
> [...]
> > To make sure Fedora is not doing anything wrong, I'd like to ask
> > you kindly to either:
> >  a) confirm that you are fine with the contents of the webpage being
> >     distributed under the terms of the GPLv2 (i.e. the same license as
> >     OpenFWWF itself).
> >     (Optionally, you could put the README file into the tarball in
> >     the next release of OpenFWWF - other Linux distributions would
> >     surely welcome it too.); or
> >  b) let me know that you do not wish the text from your webpage to be
> >     copied and redistributed. In this case Fedora will remove
> >     README.openfwwf from the package as soon as possible.
> 
> 
> I received a reply from OpenFWWF developer Francesco Gringoli:
> > no problem for the content. And thanks to your message I discovered
> > only now that the copyright message that you report in your web page
> > 
> >    (c) 2008 My Website. Design by NodeThirtyThree + Free CSS
> >    Templates.  Edited by Lorenzo Nava
> > 
> > has nothing to do with our project ! it was the original copyright
> > message from the cms we used.
> > 
> > Please feel free to copy the web page, but please do remove the
> > copyright message from the ascii text you will distribute.
> > 
> > Many thanks to you,
> > cheers,
> > -Francesco
> 
> So we have the permission. We just need to remove the mistaken
> copyright attribution.

OK, I'll remove the copyright text from the README.openfwwf.  But,
do we need to add something else now?

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Linux should be at the core
linville at redhat.com			of your literate lifestyle.



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