https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1381892 --- Comment #1 from Michael Simacek <msimacek@xxxxxxxxxx> --- There have been some doubts about the licensing of the artifact, due to the fact that in order to download it from upstream web page, it requires the user to agree to a non-free OSGi specification license. The following is a legal explanation of why this shouldn't be an obstacle for including it in Fedora, kindly provided by Richard Fontana (via email): The source files in the JAR, containing Apache License 2.0 notices, are free software, and should be acceptable for packaging in Fedora and RHEL. There is definitely something confusing here: the spec license would seem to apply to the JAR contents as well as the pdf containing the specification. However, the spec license has to be read in light of the fact that the same group granting the spec license is also the group that has explicitly placed those source files under the Apache License 2.0. I read the spec license as applying in some sense to the specification document but not applying to any source files licensed by the OSGi Alliance under the Apache License. Specifically, the spec license says: You are not authorized to create any derivative work of the Specification. However, to the extent that an implementation of the Specification would necessarily be a derivative work of the Specification, OSGi also grants you a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty free, limited license (without the right to sublicense) under any applicable copyrights, to create and/or distribute an implementation of the Specification that: (i) fully implements the Specification including all its required interfaces and functionality; (ii) does not modify, subset, superset or otherwise extend the OSGi Name Space, or include any public or protected packages, classes, Java interfaces, fields or methods within the OSGi Name Space other than those required and authorized by the Specification. An implementation that does not satisfy limitations (i)-(ii) is not considered an implementation of the Specification, does not receive the benefits of this license, and must not be described as an implementation of the Specification. The Apache License on the other hand explicitly permits creation of derivative works even if such derivative works fall outside the conditions here. I.e., one could take the source files in the JAR and use it to fork the OSGi standard, or to create a nonconformant implementation of the OSGi standard. Essentially, the Apache License 2.0 supersedes the spec license as far as the source files in the JAR are concerned. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug. You are always notified about changes to this product and component _______________________________________________ package-review mailing list -- package-review@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to package-review-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx