Hello all (licensing specialists, XML PMC people, fop-devs) (I don't know where might be the best place to discuss this. fop-dev is currently very low-traffic.)
The FOP team needs help. In February we realized that we had problematic hyphenation pattern files in our codebase. For example, some of them were derived from GPL-licensed files. Some action has already been taken. I've documented the whole auditing process and status here: http://nagoya.apache.org/wiki/apachewiki.cgi?FOPAudits/March2003 I'm at a point where I need some advice on how to proceed from here. Here are the questions, I hope are the right ones and help us to resolve these issues quickly. Before we start here's a little background on the hyphenation stuff: Our hyphenation file are XML files that are derived from TeX hyphenation files (ASCII format). These XML files reside in CVS (xml-fop/src/hyph, formerly xml-fop/hyph). During build they are parsed into Java objects and serialized using Java serialization. These serialized objects are included in the JAR (fop.jar) in the binary distribution. 1. Do our hyphenation files have to be licensed under the ASL? Or is it possible to do something similar we do with Java libraries (external dependencies) such as JUnit and JDOM (add the file to CVS and have an accompanying file containing its license)? 2. If the former (of [1]) is true, we need a grant from the copyright holder of the original file, right? What if the original file is unclear about the copyright holder (multiple names, for example) and about the license (no explicit license, for example)? Please see the Wiki page for examples. 3. (Question is somewhat general) What's the threshold for the necessity of a grant? Does a non-committer have to submit a grant on a single new file? 4. Some of the hyphenation pattern files are licensed under the LPPL (LaTeX project public license, http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.html). We'd like to have clearance to use, modify and distribute files under this license in the FOP project. 5. Can we modify and relicense under the ASL hyphenation pattern files clearly stated as being in the public domain without having a grant but giving credit where possible? 6. We can't use files containing a restriction like "Can be used freely for non-commercial purposes.", except if we can positively identify the copyright holder and get a grant, right? Thank you in advance for your help! Jeremias Maerki FOP committer and XML PMC member --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
