Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Legal aspects of fedora based appliances
On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 10:22:07PM +0100, Fabian Deutsch wrote: Am Mittwoch, den 09.12.2009, 16:14 -0500 schrieb Paul W. Frields: On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 09:57:10PM +0100, Fabian Deutsch wrote: Hello. Fedora contains various tools for appliance creation. AFAIK it is intended that Fedora shall be used as a base for various appliances ISVs or OEMs want to create. But there is there some legal-guide which summarizes the legal aspects of Fedora based appliances e.g. when I want to distribute a Fedora AOS with some proprietary software? (As some kind of media-center). I'm assuming you mean guidance on whether, and how, these types of appliances can use the Fedora name and associated trademarks. You can find our full trademark guidelines here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines The particular section on appliances and OS images is here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines#Virtual_images_or_appliances_with_unmodified_Fedora_software https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines#Virtual_images_or_appliances_with_combinations_of_Fedora_software_with_non-Fedora_or_modified_Fedora_software The usage of the Fedora tardemark is just one point. There are more questions (for me at least :) ), like: Will a appliance providers have to keep the sources of all distributed packages, even if they are official Fedora packages? Spot or someone else will correct me if I go wrong here, but because the Fedora Project ships source pursuant to the requirements of the GPLv2 section 3(a), downstream remixers cannot simply point to the Fedora Project for source distribution (as in section 3(c)). This is intentional and unlikely to change in the near future. Also, section 3(c) as I understand it is not workable for commercial redistributors. The best solution I can imagine is for downstream remixers to simply prepare the matching source collection, and offer it at the same point of distribution under GPL 3(a) as well. IANAL, TINLA, and so forth. -- Paul W. Frieldshttp://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug ___ Fedora-legal-list mailing list Fedora-legal-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-legal-list
[Fedora-legal-list] Re: [publican-list] Adjusting copyright information
On Tue, Oct 06, 2009 at 01:22:46PM +1000, Ruediger Landmann wrote: On 10/06/2009 09:47 AM, Jeffrey Fearn wrote: Mikhail Gusarov wrote: IANAL, but this can be specified in single file, like Common_Content/common/README: all the data in this directory is under GFDL, but better check with your legal department. Rudi is talking with the legal people about this, we expect a separate update message shortly. Thanks Jeff :) Red Hat legal has identified a number of ambiguities around the licenses involved: specifically, the relationship between the license of the package against the license of the text in the Common Content files, against the license of books that users produce that incorporates that Common Content. One particular problem is that as things stand right now, if the text in Common Content is licensed under the GFDL, this means that any book that anybody builds in Publican that incorporates that text must also be licensed under the GFDL (or a compatible license). This, in turn, creates an immediate incompatibility in any brand package that loads a legal notice with a different license... Legal's solution is that we include a note that explicitly spells out that whatever license appears between the legalnotice tags in the Legal_Notice.xml file applies only to the books into which it is pre-loaded, and not the text of the Legal Notice file itself. Furthermore, they suggest pretty much exactly what you suggested, Mikhail -- we find as permissive a license as possible for the Common Content files, and license them under that, separately from the rest of the contents of the package. So far we've looked at the WTFPL[1], CC0[2], and the so-called GNU All-Permissive License[3]. We had to regretfully reject the WTFPL on the basis that some people might find it offensive. :( This is a real shame, because it basically stands for everything that we need the license on the Common Content files to stand for... When we read the GNU All-Permissive License, it turned out to be not what it claims, since rather than being all permissive, it requires re-users to leave the license in place. Relicensing is therefore as difficult as it is now. Although CC0 is cumbersome (check out the full legal code! [4]), it seems to do what we need it to do. It's therefore the current favourite as license of choice for the Common Content files, unless anyone on the list knows of a similarly broad license with less legalese? Cheers Ruediger [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL [2] http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ [3] http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/License-Notices-for-Other-Files.html [4] http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode I'm forwarding a copy of this to the fedora-legal-list -- Spot may be able to suggest something appropriate to cover the publican Common Content. We need this license to be compatible with inclusion in works produced by Fedora Docs, and in works that incorporate content from the Fedora wiki, right? If CC0 can coexist peacefully in that role with the new CC licensing used in both those cases, it does seem like the best contender. -- Paul W. Frieldshttp://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug ___ Fedora-legal-list mailing list Fedora-legal-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-legal-list
Re: [Fedora-legal-list] Re: [publican-list] Adjusting copyright information
On Tue, Oct 06, 2009 at 02:14:12PM -0400, Tom spot Callaway wrote: On 10/06/2009 02:01 PM, Paul W. Frields wrote: We need this license to be compatible with inclusion in works produced by Fedora Docs, and in works that incorporate content from the Fedora wiki, right? If CC0 can coexist peacefully in that role with the new CC licensing used in both those cases, it does seem like the best contender. Assuming that the CC licensing is CC-BY-SA (Attribution Share-Alike), right? I've asked Red Hat Legal here, just to make sure my instincts are right. Correct, the Docs project is switching to CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2009-October/msg1.html -- Paul W. Frieldshttp://paul.frields.org/ gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug ___ Fedora-legal-list mailing list Fedora-legal-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-legal-list
[Fedora-legal-list] Re: using public domain documents in fedorahosted projects
On Mon, 2008-09-08 at 07:55 +1000, Murray McAllister wrote: Hi, http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Licenses/CLA states: '7. Should you wish to submit work that is not your original creation, you may submit it to the Project separately from any Contribution, identifying the complete details of its source and of any license or other restriction (including, but not limited to, related patents, trademarks, and license agreements) of which you are personally aware, and conspicuously marking the work as Submitted on behalf of a third-party: [named here] . ' Does this apply to fedorahosted projects as well? Does this mean I can not use/copy+paste text from a public domain document (even if it is cited) if it is going to be stored on fedorahosted? This probably belongs on fedora-legal-list; moving the discussion there. Certainly there is nothing actually *barring* you from submitting a public domain work, and the CLA is not intended to do that either. I think the intent of this paragraph is to ensure contributors meet their obligations when submitting work that has some sort of restrictive license attached, and the contributor isn't also copyright holder. We are working on a draft for a new and clearer CLA, so if nothing else this is a point we should be addressing therein. -- Paul W. Frields (IANAL, TINLA, blah blah blah.) gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717 http://paul.frields.org/ - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/ irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Fedora-legal-list mailing list Fedora-legal-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-legal-list
[Fedora-legal-list] Re: [Fedora-spins] rpmfusion based spin
Also CC'ing the Fedora legal list which is also concerned with issues like the trademark guidelines. Paul On Tue, 2008-08-26 at 17:16 +0200, Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote: CC'ing the Fedora Spins SIG mailing list as this concerns most of the subscribers there as well. KH KH wrote: 2008/8/26 Rahul Sundaram [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi, I have been keep a tab on rpmfusion progress by reading the archives and it seems the repository is getting reading for launch soon. Congrats on that. My primary interest here at the moment is creating a spin based on rpmfusion and Fedora which Thorsten Leemhuis mentioned as desirable in one of his earlier mails to this list. I don't know if Thorsten ever mention such spin but having both rpmfusion and fedora on the same media is a very hard legal issue. Actually that's even not possible at all without removing the name Fedora from such spin. (meaning removing artworks and some others packages i don't remember). FWIW, if RPMFusion wishes to provide and distribute their own version of Fedora, including whatever packages not in Fedora, either Free or free or not free at all, right now this is enough: %packages # Remove the fedora-logos package and include something without # Fedora trademarked material -fedora-logos generic-logos (or: rpmfusion-logos if you have the artwork) # Include rpmfusion-release as well rpmfusion-release %end %post # Substitute the Fedora name in /etc/fedora-release and /etc/issue, # which are both owned by package fedora-release, so that it doesn't # pop up in all kinds of weird places such as when booting the machine # (Welcome to Press I to start interactive ... comes to mind). # Note that _all_ trademarks are supposed to be in fedora-logos. sed -i -e 's/Fedora/RPMFusion/g' /etc/fedora-release /etc/issue %end And you're done. To be more accurate: You can do such spins for yourself (either with free only or with nonfree packages), but you cannot redistribute the spin telling it is Fedora. (because it won't be fedora anymore). But you can (have to ?) tell this work is based (derived?) on Fedora. This (being able to say based on Fedora) is pending the new trademark policy at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pfrields/NewTrademarkGuidelines I hope this clarifies some of the issues wrt. a RPMFusion spin. Kind regards, Jeroen van Meeuwen -kanarip ___ Fedora-spins mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fedora-spins signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Fedora-legal-list mailing list Fedora-legal-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-legal-list
