Isn't there a much bigger problem, namely "to any person obtaining a copy of this Software to deal in the Software* under the copyrights *without restriction ..."
For comparison, the MIT language is: "to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation ..." They've added "under the copyrights." I assume the intent was to carve out the trademarks from the grant, but they've also, I would say, carved out patents. I would argue that because the license is specifically for copyrights only one can't imply a license for patents. As to the trademark question, IMHO I tend to agree with Richard that the license prohibits lawful nominative/referential fair use. The BSD license says "endorse," which does allow for lawful use (a proper nominative fair use would not suggest endorsement). "Promote" is a closer call; if I say "LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice" at a time when OpenOffice is more well-known, that might be considered using "OpenOffice" in a promotional way. But since it travels with "endorse," there is an argument that they didn't mean to prohibit a lawful referential use. I don't think that can be said for the Mininet license. I think the intentions may have been good with the Mininet license, but done in a way that probably crosses the line. Pam On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 4:37 PM Richard Fontana <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 4:00 PM Iñaki Ucar <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 at 19:50, Richard Fontana <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 12:17 PM Iñaki Ucar <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > > > On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 at 17:12, Richard Fontana <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Mar 18, 2022 at 11:34 AM Jilayne Lovejoy < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > > > > > This license is closest to MIT, but adds a custom lead-in > (groan) at the beginning and a trademark restriction at the end. The > authors should not refer to is as "BSD", nor "OSI-Approved" as that is a > false statement. They really ought to fix that (or just put it under the > regular BSD-3-Clause or MIT!) > > > > > > > > > > > > As for being acceptable for Fedora - I'd be curious to hear > Richard's thoughts on the trademark restriction. > > > > > > > > > > So the clause in question is this: > > > > > > > > > > "The name and trademarks of copyright holder(s) may NOT be used in > > > > > advertising or publicity pertaining to the Software or any > derivatives > > > > > without specific, written prior permission." > > > > > > > > > > The license seems to have first appeared in a related project > coming > > > > > out of Stanford, Openflow. The quoted language seems to me to be > more > > > > > restrictive (and also ambiguous) than counterpart language in well > > > > > known FOSS licenses (e.g. clause 3 of the 3-clause BSD license > [SPDX: > > > > > BSD-3-Clause]). > > > > > > > > > > My initial reaction is that this license is not FOSS and thus is > not > > > > > ok for Fedora. > > > > > > > > But, we have several MIT variants listed with a similar clause about > > > > "advertising and publicity": > > > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:MIT?rd=Licensing/MIT > > > > > > The one here seems closest to what Fedora calls the "NTP variant" and > > > which is an OSI-approved license under the name NTP license: > > > https://opensource.org/licenses/NTP (SPDX: NTP). > > > > > > The difference is that the mininet license says: > > > > > > "The name and trademarks of copyright holder(s) may NOT be used in > > > advertising or publicity pertaining to the Software or any derivatives > > > without specific, written prior permission." > > > > > > while the NTP counterpart says: > > > > > > "and that the name (TrademarkedName) not be used in advertising or > > > publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, > > > written prior permission." > > > > > > (where '(TrademarkedName)' is a placeholder). I think > > > "TrademarkedName" may be a questionable choice of placeholder name. > > > > > > Anyway, one question is whether the differences between the NTP > > > license clause and the corresponding Mininet license clause are > > > significant. One obvious difference is that the "names" you can't use > > > in the Mininet case are left unspecified. > > > > Unspecified? It's the name of the copyright holders. > > The trademarks are unspecified, but maybe that's not a significant problem. > > The way the NTP license is used in practice is that the specific > "name" you're not allowed to use is specified in the license notice > (University of Delaware in the oldest strata of NTP it seems). > > > Similarly, the > > 3-Clause BSD License says: > > > > "3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its > > contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from > > this software without specific prior written permission." > > Yes but I think "use[] to endorse or to promote" is a little more > specific than "use[] in advertising or publicity". > > > I'll open an issue in their repo to propose switching to a standard > > text, but if there's a negative answer, would this be a blocker? > > I don't know. I think it's a difficult case and requires further > thought/discussion. I've only thought about this for a couple of hours > :-) > > I feel that the inclusion of "trademarks" here is what is most > distinctive. Assuming Mininet itself is a trademark of the copyright > holders, why shouldn't I be able to say truthfully in some publicity > statement that my fork of Mininet is based on Mininet (without > notionally breaching the license)? This is different from licenses > that require me to rename my fork to something else. It's also > somewhat different from how the NTP license says I can't use the name > "University of Delaware" when advertising my distribution of NTP or a > derivative of NTP. > > I'd be somewhat curious to find out why Openflow decided to use this > license, where they got it from, and how long they were using it. > > > > > Iñaki > > > > > Another issue is that Fedora has had a pragmatic approach to approving > > > old (typically minimalist permissive) licenses that takes into account > > > the age of the license and the software it's historically associated > > > with. I don't think this has been documented and I think it's > > > something we ought to include in the material on standards for Fedora > > > license approval Jilayne and I have been working on. Red Hat has taken > > > the same approach in its review of RHEL package licenses identified > > > through scanning tools. Basically, we are more forgiving with > > > relatively old licenses. We apply higher standards for newer licenses > > > associated with more recent projects, with the dividing line being > > > roughly late 1990s/early 2000s (when the concept of FOSS license > > > standardization began to take root). Some old licenses of this sort > > > still end up being unapproved for Fedora, most famously SunRPC. > > > > > > The NTP license seems to be *really* old, apparently originating with > > > the University of Delaware in the early 1990s if not earlier. The > > > Mininet/Openflow license as far as I can tell from the quickest > > > research doesn't seem to go back further than ~2012, which is "recent" > > > for purposes of the standard I'm talking about. If anyone has further > > > information on these points it would be helpful. Maybe the Openflow > > > license was actually copied from some much older source -- it > > > certainly looks like it. > > > > > > Richard > > > > > > > > > > > Iñaki > > > > > > > > > Also a pretty good example of how upstream license metadata is > untrustworthy. > > > > > > > > > > Richard > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > Jilayne > > > > > > > > > > > > On 3/18/22 9:21 AM, Iñaki Ucar wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > > > > > Is this license [1] acceptable for Fedora and what would be the > > > > > > appropriate identifier for the License field? It seems to me > some sort > > > > > > of BSD, and in fact the authors themselves identify it as such > in the > > > > > > setup.py file [2], but I'd like to be sure. > > > > > > > > > > > > [1] https://github.com/mininet/mininet/blob/master/LICENSE > > > > > > [2] https://github.com/mininet/mininet/blob/master/setup.py > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > Iñaki Úcar > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Iñaki Úcar > > > > > -- > _______________________________________________ > legal mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > Fedora Code of Conduct: > https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ > List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines > List Archives: > https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected] > Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: > https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure >
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