New github TOS
by Stuart Gathman
Should Fedora Legal issue an opinion on this? This affects a lot of
upstream projects used by Fedora.
A number of people (not lawyers) have seen the new github Terms of
Service as incompatible with GPL, CC-BY and other free/libre licenses -
and therefore recommend removing all affected content immediately.
Examples:
Recommend removing content:
https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10_e20170301-tg.htm#e20170301-tg_w...
http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/removing_everything_from_github/
New TOS are innocuous:
https://www.earth.li/~noodles/blog/2017/03/github-tos-change.html
My (IANAL) opinion so far (from #spf(a)irc.perl.org) :
(01:48:09 PM) SDGathman: ScottK: My reading of the new TOS is that *IF*
you don't bother to include an explicit LICENSE in a repo, it has an
implicit BSD license.
(01:48:53 PM) SDGathman: Maybe he is worried he might accidentally
upload a repo with no LICENSE ?
(01:50:57 PM) julian: I doubt that a git hoster's TOS can legally force
any license on your code without you explicitly declaring it.
(01:51:27 PM) julian: unless they, say, explicitly create a `LICENSE`
file for you stating that license.
(01:51:35 PM) julian: and you don't remove/replace it.
(01:55:01 PM) SDGathman: Mainly, the TOS explicitly says that by
uploading, you grant github the right to reproduce your content to
provide their service, *and* grant other github users the right to
"fork" the content.
(01:55:33 PM) SDGathman: There is no implicit license to distribute
beyond github.
(01:56:11 PM) SDGathman: If you don't want people to fork your repo,
maybe it shouldn't be on github? (Or you can buy their private
commercial service.)
(02:16:32 PM) lennyvaknine: or bitbucket :)
(03:03:48 PM) ScottK: One of those posts (or one referenced) says
bitbucket is similar.
(03:04:25 PM) ScottK: sdgathman: OK. I didn't have a strong opinion, but
wanted to make sure you were aware.
(03:07:10 PM) SDGathman: The main takeaway is, just like github warns
you, make sure your repo has a license before uploading. When you create
a new repo on github, they have a menu of standard free/libre licenses
to put in your empty project from the getgo.
(03:07:52 PM) ScottK: And yet, so many don't have it.
(03:09:15 PM) SDGathman: And in that case, the github TOS says it has an
implicit BSD like license.
(03:10:53 PM) SDGathman: Which isn't so bad - unless you are a
commercial company and don't want a competitor grabbing your code just
before the commit that added the LICENSE.
(03:12:35 PM) SDGathman: I always start with GPL, and add PSF or other
looser license later if needed.
(03:13:13 PM) SDGathman: It took a while to cultivate that habit...
7 years, 2 months
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DO WHATEVER PUBLIC LICENSE
by David Labsky
Hello Fedora Legal,
Would software under the following license be okay for inclusion in Fedora? Should I pursue the author to relicence?
> DO WHATEVER PUBLIC LICENSE*
> TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
>
> 0. You can do whatever you want to with the work.
> 1. You cannot stop anybody from doing whatever they want to with the work.
> 2. You cannot revoke anybody elses DO WHATEVER PUBLIC LICENSE in the work.
>
> This program is free software. It comes without any warranty, to
> the extent permitted by applicable law. You can redistribute it
> and/or modify it under the terms of the DO WHATEVER PUBLIC LICENSE
>
> Software originally created by Justin Lloyd @ http://otakunozoku.com/
Source: https://github.com/rednex/rgbds/blob/master/LICENSE
Thank you
Sanqui
7 years, 2 months
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SPDX license tags and Rust packaging
by Neal Gompa
Hello all,
I know that it's been discussed from time to time about using SPDX
identifiers for our license tags[1][2]. In the Rust SIG, we're
beginning the work to figure out the packaging of Rust things. Cargo,
the Rust equivalent of Python's pip, enforces the usage of SPDX
identifiers for license tags in the Cargo.toml (the file indicating
the metadata of a "crate").
If we're considering using SPDX identifiers for license tags (as it
appeared to be the case in Tom's FOSDEM talk[3]), would it be possible
to grant us the ability to just use that data instead of having to
attempt to maintain a mapping of SPDX to Fedora short tags? Since our
ecosystem in Fedora is basically zero right now, we could avoid the
ugliness right from the get-go.
Thanks and best regards,
Neal
[1]: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.o...
[2]: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@lists.fedoraproject.o...
[3]: https://fosdem.org/2017/schedule/event/fedoras_legal_state/
--
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!
7 years, 3 months
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