Bug 2036071 - Typo in license
Summary: Typo in license
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: fedora-workstation-repositories
Version: 36
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Matthias Clasen
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: license-validate-audit
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2021-12-29 16:08 UTC by Miroslav Suchý
Modified: 2022-12-21 16:59 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version: fedora-workstation-repositories-38-1.fc38
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2022-12-21 16:59:09 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Miroslav Suchý 2021-12-29 16:08:29 UTC
fedora-workstation-repositories.spec contains
  License:  GPL
but according to 
  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
it should be
  GPLv1
or
  GPL+

Comment 1 "FeRD" (Frank Dana) 2022-01-10 06:24:15 UTC
(In reply to Miroslav Suchý from comment #0)
> fedora-workstation-repositories.spec contains
>   License:  GPL
> but according to 
>   https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main
> it should be
>   GPLv1
> or
>   GPL+

I'm not sure where you got that read. (GPLv1, in particular, is used _only_ when code is explicitly licensed under that version of the GPL only, since it prohibits upgrades, and AFAICT none of these files provide any license statements.)

But I agree that "License: GPL" is wrong mostly because it's explicitly prohibited by
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/LicensingGuidelines/#_gpl_and_lgpl

"""
Since compatibility of code and library linking is especially complex with GPL and LGPL, Fedora packages can no longer simply use "GPL" or "LGPL" in the License: field.
"""

So "GPL" is out, but that doesn't mean "GPL+" is right. (It assumes that "GPL" was correct in the first place, which seems questionable. Because...)

The older Wiki page you referred to also says, at
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main?rd=Licensing#License_of_Fedora_SPEC_Files

"""
All original Fedora contributions are governed by the Fedora Project Contributor Agreement (FPCA). This means that unless a spec file contains an explicit license attribution within it, it is available under the terms of the MIT license.

Since every Fedora SPEC file is contributed by FPCA signers, every Fedora SPEC is available under these license terms (unless otherwise explicitly licensed).
"""

I would read that as covering .repo files in the same way, meaning that at least our own original .repo files (as well as the ones from rpmfusion and _copr_phracek-PyCharm.repo, which are all supplied under the terms of the same FPCA) all fall under the umbrella of the default MIT license.

So the only open question would be the license that covers google-chrome.repo, which isn't immediately obvious since:

 (a) there's no license statement in the .repo file itself
 (b) it's generated by code, in Google's own RPMs
 (c) that code is from Chromium, and references a "BSD-style license" in its headers
 (d) The official google-chrome RPM itself unhelpfully says this:
     License: Multiple, see https://chrome.google.com/
     That page does not provide any immediately-obvious license information.

IANAL, but it seems like best-effort would be to tag fedora-workstation-repos as either "License: MIT", or "License: MIT and BSD" (to cover google-chrome.repo under the same terms as the cron script that generates it, when installed from Google's RPMs).

To be in total compliance the package should probably also include and install a copy of the license(s) in question.

Comment 2 Miroslav Suchý 2022-01-12 00:50:03 UTC
Quoting from https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main 

"... use the appropriate versioning short names as described in the Software License section. "

Comment 3 "FeRD" (Frank Dana) 2022-01-12 03:57:01 UTC
(In reply to Miroslav Suchý from comment #2)
> Quoting from https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main 
> 
> "... use the appropriate versioning short names as described in the Software
> License section. "

Ah, right, fair enough then. Well, as I demonstrated, it seems according to that same page that, for a repo containing nothing but Fedora Project metadata files, the "appropriate... short name" for the license they're covered under would be "MIT".

Comment 4 Ben Cotton 2022-02-08 21:12:47 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 36 development cycle.
Changing version to 36.

Comment 5 Fedora Update System 2022-12-21 16:58:02 UTC
FEDORA-2022-dfa2377561 has been submitted as an update to Fedora 38. https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2022-dfa2377561

Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2022-12-21 16:59:09 UTC
FEDORA-2022-dfa2377561 has been pushed to the Fedora 38 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.


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