[Fedora-legal-list] Is this reference to rpmfusion OK?

[Adam Saunders]

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Hi Bruno,

I don't work for Red Hat, and I contribute to this list on a volunteer 
basis, so I can't speak for Red Hat/Fedora legal policy. Below is my own 
individual understanding of the issue:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Main contains a policy on "Links to 
Third Party Sites":

"This website may be linked to other websites which are not under the 
control of and are not maintained by the Fedora Project. The Fedora 
Project and Red Hat are not responsible for the content of those sites. 
We provide these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion 
of any link to such sites does not imply endorsement by the Fedora 
Project or Red Hat of those sites. We reserve the right to terminate any 
link or linking program at any time."

The command line installation instructions for the patent-encumbered 
Z-Push and notes about RPMFusion don't seem to me to be much of an 
issue, given the above policy. The instructions state explicitly that 
the package is not part of Fedora due to patent restrictions, and notes 
that RPMFusion is located on servers in Europe; the language implies 
that Z-Push may not be patent-encumbered in at least some parts of 
Europe: "Z-Push is not available in Fedora, because Exchange ActiveSync 
is patented by Microsoft in several regions including the United States. 
Software which is legally encumbered, cannot be included in Fedora, 
because it conflicts with our foundations. But Z-Push is available in 
RPM Fusion, a third party repository legally located in Europe."

The documentation on that Zarafa page reminds me of the comments on S3TC 
Texture compression, which seem to me to be fine to include on the 
Fedora Project wiki, at 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Forbidden_items?rd=ForbiddenItems#S3TC_Texture_Compression 


"S3TC and related texture compression algorithms are patented by S3. The 
patent license terms are not suitable for inclusion in Fedora. Users 
located in countries where these patents do not apply may find the 
libtxc_dxtn package from RPM Fusion to be of help. "

As with the Z-Push text, a disclaimer that S3TC is patent-encumbered 
prefaces installation instructions, said installation instructions 
geared only towards users in "safe" jurisdictions and pointing to a 
third-party repository.

Thanks,
Adam Saunders

On 03/14/2014 10:54 AM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Zarafa has detailed instructions on how
> to get a patent encumbered package from rpmfusion. I wasn't sure if this
> particular example had been reviewed by legal yet and it seems
> borderline, so I thought I'd ask here. (There are warnings that it is
> patent encumbered in the US and other places and maybe that makes it OK.)
> _______________________________________________
> legal mailing list
> legal at lists.fedoraproject.org
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/legal


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