--------------------------- DISCLAIMER: This email does not contain legal advice. This email also does not establish a solicitor-client relationship. You should neither take nor fail to take any action based on any information in this email. If you have a legal issue, then retain legal counsel. -------------------------- 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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/legal
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