On Mon, 2005-09-05 at 06:00 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote: > On Sun, 2005-09-04 at 20:24 -0500, Tom 'spot' Callaway wrote: > > This is just a reminder: YOU MUST PUT THE LICENSE TEXT as a %doc in your > > Fedora Extra packages. > IMO, this decision is a fault, because it puts contributors into a > legally questionable and attackable position. > > > Even perl packages. The only exception to this is > > when the package is Public Domain, and even then, if there is some text > > file that says as much, you should include it as %doc. > > > > Specifically, concern was raised that the GPL did not require this. Greg > > took this specific question to Red Hat Legal, and their response was > > that it is a requirement of the GPL that either the full > > license or the link to the license be included -- but Red Hat Legal > > recommend including the full license text as a best practice. They > > advised us to keep this guideline as a "MUST" in the case of the GPL. > This contradicts the FSF's lawyer's recommendations who, wrt. the GPL say: > Detached license files probably will not withstand trial at US courts, > only licenses inlined into source code will. > > Also, I doubt one is permitted to add license files to packages without > prior permission of the original authors, because this implies > "re-licensing" packages. > > > Rather than submit every possible license to legal to see whether or not > > they would advice us to include the text or not, I proposed to the > > Fedora Extras Steering Committee (FESCO) that we keep the guideline as > > it is, and require all licenses used in a package to be included in text > > format, as %doc, in the %files section of that package. The proposal > > passed. > This is impracticable, because > a) Licensing of sources doesn't necessarily have to match with licenses > of binaries. > b) There exist packages, where almost each source file carries a license > of its own. > > As an exercise, I'd recommend you trying to package a Fedora->Cygwin > cross toolchain. Binutils are GPL'ed, GCC is GPL'ed with exceptions, > Cygwin libs are GPL'ed, newlib binaries are "BSD-like" with several > dozens of different licenses, newlib sources are GPL'ed. > > > This is MUST item number 7 in the Things To Check On Review section in > > the PackageReviewGuidelines: > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageReviewGuidelines#head-05a78c7ca440544397657679f87fbdbd84d9be28 > > > > This is not optional, this is the direction we're taking based on review > > with Red Hat Legal. > > > > Fedora Core packagers: I don't have control over how you make your > > packages (yet!) but you should also strongly consider doing this. > Let me put it this way: > > If this legal requirement is as important as you seem to regard it, it > would be legally grossly negligible to RH not to update their packages, s/negligible/negligent/ > ASAP. > > However, as RH, other Linux distributors and package vendors ship their > packages without it for > 10 years, I am having strong doubts on FESCO > decision rsp. RH-legal's advice and its importance.
