[Fedora-legal-list] Prominent notice of changes (Was: Suitability of EPICS Open License)

[Tom Callaway]

On 03/10/2015 12:00 PM, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
>>>>>> "TC" == Tom Callaway <tcallawa at redhat.com> writes:
> 
> TC> Free and GPL compatible.
> 
> Interesting.  The clause about modified copies carrying prominent
> notices isn't completely clear to me. The GPL (v2, at least) requires
> that modified _source files_ carry a prominent notice (which is probably
> something with which few people actually comply) but this EPICS license
> is unclear as to whether it's the source files, the documentation, or
> the output of the program itself which must carry the notice.
> 
> My reading of the EPICS license would suggest that a README.Fedora file
> included in the usual location for documentation would be sufficient
> notice, but I'm no lawyer.
> 
> Still, for these "prominent notice" things, I wonder if there's any
> information anywhere about just how packagers should supply such
> notices or exactly what they should do to comply with such licenses.
> Does our method of supplying pristine source + patches take care of at
> least the GPL requirements?  (I'm sure the smart folks have already
> thought of this, of course; I just don't know if it's written down
> anywhere.)

I'd argue that Fedora's distribution/packaging method meets this
requirement and would also meet the EPICS license requirement. That
said, because the EPICS license is not entirely clear as to whether the
"prominent notice" applies to both the source and the binary
distribution, or simply to one or the other, if I were the packager of a
work under the EPICS license, I would probably ask the upstream how and
when they wish for the prominent notice to be applied.

This is roughly analogous to the "attribution" clause in the CC license
family.

~tom

==
Red Hat
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