Bug 253774
| Summary: | Potentially unredistributable due to GPL 'exception' | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Fedora] Fedora | Reporter: | Tim Retout <tim> |
| Component: | liberation-fonts | Assignee: | Caius Chance <K9> |
| Status: | CLOSED NOTABUG | QA Contact: | Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa> |
| Severity: | high | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | urgent | ||
| Version: | rawhide | CC: | mclasen, petersen, tcallawa |
| Target Milestone: | --- | Keywords: | i18n |
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | All | ||
| OS: | All | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | 2007-08-22 14:17:12 UTC | Type: | --- |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
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Description
Tim Retout
2007-08-21 20:26:50 UTC
Erm, not a good start, I hit enter too early, sorry! The License.txt file contains this exception to the GPL, which is also a restriction: (b)As a further exception, any distribution of the object code of the Software in a physical product must provide you the right to access and modify the source code for the Software and to reinstall that modified version of the Software in object code form on the same physical product on which you received it. This is an additional restriction to the GPL, so making the combination of GPL+exception unredistributable. As part of a single, modified licence, not called the GPL, this clause would have been fine - but because the terms refer to the GPL, this causes problems. See this thread on the debian-legal mailing list for even more detail: http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-legal@lists.debian.org/msg36584.html Now that GPLv3 has been released, it would be possible for Red Hat to change the version the GPL to v3, and drop clause 1(b). The restrictions on trademarks probably do not belong in the /license/, either - so please be careful there as well. A license change won't affect linking against any other software, because the existing license is incompatible with the GPLv2 anyway. I'm terribly sorry if this all sounds pedantic - but no one else will be able to redistribute these nice fonts until the license is changed. (A few gulps of caffeine later... I usually look less stupid than this, honest.) Using GPLv3 would seem to be ideal, in fact, because it is in fact permissible to add additional terms "Declining to grant rights under trademark law for use of some trade names, trademarks, or service marks". It will still likely need some sort of font exception such as the one mentioned in the GPL FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#FontException If it helps, I'll offer $beverage_of_choice? Would this be relevant to you inquiries? https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=250753 No, I saw that bug before; that was presumably a mistake in the COPYING file, whereas I am saying that the existing license (License.txt + COPYING together) is self-contradictory. Spoke to the FSF on this one specifically, and this was their response: This is free but GPL-incompatible. I doubt the incompatibility will cause any trouble for you, since you're probably not making software that's a derivative work of the font. ***** This license is fine for Fedora. |