On Wed, Jan 05, 2022 at 01:30:42AM -0500, Richard Fontana wrote:
On Wed, Jan 5, 2022 at 12:06 AM Jilayne Lovejoy <jlovejoy@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 1/4/22 9:27 AM, David Cantrell wrote:
> Does it follow that we [Fedora] take an open source project that is
> dual licensed and use the license that is acceptable in our project
> and redistribute under those terms? Is that even a thing one can do?
> Given the "or" usage, my assumption is yes. The author is giving the
> downstream user the choice of using that work under the terms of the
> GPL or the terms of the Artistic license. In the case of Fedora,
> we've deemed Artistic undesirable which means our use of the modules
> is technically under the terms of the GPL.
Correct.
>
> For me, I would prefer to see this reflected in the License tags in
> spec files so we can see how we're integrating components in to
> Fedora. If we note a license that we can't use or that we are not
> using, it makes it harder to see at a glance _what_ terms actually
> apply to that component. And that makes it harder for other packagers
> looking for license-compatible dependencies.
Agreed.
I sort of agree.
> I realize this is yet another work project and also that I may be
> incorrect regarding what we can and can't do with regard to
> dual-licensed projects. If we are unable to say "we're using the Perl
> modules under the terms of the GPL" and exclude the Artistic license,
> then really the "or" boolean doesn't apply and it's really always
> "and".
I think you mean that there would not be a need for the "OR" operator in
Fedora, but there are open source projects that may be licensed under a
choice of two "good" Fedora licenses, in which case, it would make sense
to simply pass downstream the choice of both, I would think.
The only reason why "GPL+ or Artistic" (or, presumably in SPDX
notation, "GPL-1.0-or-later OR Artistic-1.0") shouldn't be used by
Fedora is that Artistic-1.0 is "bad" from Fedora's perspective and
Fedora has a policy of not distributing code in packages under "bad"
licenses. Or else we should revisit that classification of
Artistic-1.0, or else document that there is a special exception for
Perl modules because Perl module developers upstream objected to the
use of merely 'GPL" in the spec file license tag. (I don't really like
that last possibility.)
Otherwise, if the disjunctive license expression involves two licenses
Fedora considers "good", then I agree with Jilayne, the choice should
be passed on -- even if there is some argument that it *can't* be
(which would mainly be for license compatibility reasons, I guess).
That has in fact been the practice in Fedora, and in all the projects
and products developed by Red Hat that I'm aware of. At Red Hat we've
even explained this to the occasional customer who asks us which
license of a FOSS-dual-licensed package, or file, we are shipping
under.
I am aware anecdotally that there are other companies that do the
opposite: they are careful to somehow ceremonially or otherwise "pick"
one of the licenses in the disjunct. It is important to note that this
is *not* what is done upstream, i.e. by upstream projects using other
projects' FOSS code, except in extremely rare cases, and I see Fedora,
as well as Red Hat, as perpetuating that general upstream FOSS
community practice of passing on FOSS license choices without further
analysis. One reason for this is that it's generally never clear which
of the licenses ought to be selected or would be preferable, if one
had to make a choice. The result is more complex license identifier
expressions in package metadata, but I think there the complexity is
justified.
What it actually *means* for an intermediary to distribute upstream
code under the upstream choice of licenses, with conditions that might
simultaneously apply to that intermediary on either side of the
disjunct, I'm not entirely sure, but in all normal practical scenarios
it never really matters -- which is another reason for the "pass the
choice on" practice. I'd rather copy the practices of upstream
community projects than the practices of GPL-phobic companies
downstream, basically.
My main concern is that if Fedora maintains a list of forbidden licenses, then
in the case of a dual-licensed project (e.g., a Perl module) presenting a good
license and a bad license, Fedora is using that project under the good
license. Which would mean the terms of redistribution to the user are under
what we have chosen as the good license.
But in cases where we don't have that decision to make, the package should
represent the entire complement of licenses for that project. I don't want to
suggest we start selecting licenses for multi licensed projects--except in
cases where one or more of the choices are one of our forbidden licenses.
Given the nature of "good or bad" case, should we considering a packaging
policy that requires a README.Fedora file included with the %license
definition in the spec file to indicate that Fedora is using this package
under the terms of the 'good' license but in this directory you will find all
of the licenses from the upstream project? The packager would write this file
to clarify things.
--
David Cantrell <dcantrell@xxxxxxxxxx>
Red Hat, Inc. | Boston, MA | EST5EDT
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