Bug 2116859 - man-pages: Contains contents under a not-allowed license
Summary: man-pages: Contains contents under a not-allowed license
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: man-pages
Version: 35
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Nikola Forró
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2022-08-09 12:59 UTC by Florian Weimer
Modified: 2024-09-23 13:29 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version: man-pages-5.13-4.fc36 man-pages-5.12-3.fc35
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2022-08-12 01:38:11 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Florian Weimer 2022-08-09 12:59:48 UTC
The 2017 IEEE license has recently been recognized as not allowed for Fedora:

<https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/blob/main/data/LicenseRef-IEEE-2017.toml>

The POSIX manpages (0p, 1p, 3p sections, i.e. the man-pages-posix-2017-a.tar.xz file) are covered by this license and therefore have to be removed. Thanks.

Comment 1 Fedora Update System 2022-08-09 14:13:37 UTC
FEDORA-2022-9ca17d750d has been submitted as an update to Fedora 36. https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2022-9ca17d750d

Comment 2 Fedora Update System 2022-08-10 01:38:45 UTC
FEDORA-2022-9ca17d750d has been pushed to the Fedora 36 testing repository.
Soon you'll be able to install the update with the following command:
`sudo dnf upgrade --enablerepo=updates-testing --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2022-9ca17d750d`
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2022-9ca17d750d

See also https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for more information on how to test updates.

Comment 3 Fedora Update System 2022-08-10 02:10:12 UTC
FEDORA-2022-d10909281d has been pushed to the Fedora 35 testing repository.
Soon you'll be able to install the update with the following command:
`sudo dnf upgrade --enablerepo=updates-testing --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2022-d10909281d`
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2022-d10909281d

See also https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for more information on how to test updates.

Comment 4 Fedora Update System 2022-08-12 01:38:11 UTC
FEDORA-2022-9ca17d750d has been pushed to the Fedora 36 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 5 phoebos 2022-08-13 23:40:06 UTC
How annoying to no longer be able to have the POSIX standard man pages available as a package. They help countless developers write portable code.

> The 2017 IEEE license has recently been recognized as not allowed for Fedora:

This page is in disagreement: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/legal/allowed-licenses/.

Comment 6 Florian Weimer 2022-08-14 12:34:30 UTC
(In reply to phoebos from comment #5)
> How annoying to no longer be able to have the POSIX standard man pages
> available as a package. They help countless developers write portable code.
> 
> > The 2017 IEEE license has recently been recognized as not allowed for Fedora:
> 
> This page is in disagreement:
> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/legal/allowed-licenses/.

This refers not to the 2017 IEEE license, but to an older version that permits modified redistribution.

Comment 7 James Cassell 2022-08-15 19:25:40 UTC
Is it possible to distribute an older version of these man pages that might be available under a permissible license?

Comment 8 Nikola Forró 2022-08-16 11:29:07 UTC
(In reply to James Cassell from comment #7)
> Is it possible to distribute an older version of these man pages that might
> be available under a permissible license?

I think it would be possible to go back to version 2013-a, does it make sense though?

Comment 9 Florian Weimer 2022-08-16 11:36:46 UTC
(In reply to Nikola Forró from comment #8)
> (In reply to James Cassell from comment #7)
> > Is it possible to distribute an older version of these man pages that might
> > be available under a permissible license?
> 
> I think it would be possible to go back to version 2013-a, does it make
> sense though?

I think shipping out-of-date POSIX documentation would be quite confusing.

The manual pages are available online (in HTML form) from The Open Group. I usually use that because there are many cross-references to supporting documentation, and that documentation is not part of the manual pages that used to be shipped in the man-pages package. I'm also not sure if the man-pages version has all corrigenda applied.

Comment 10 Fedora Update System 2022-08-18 02:20:54 UTC
FEDORA-2022-d10909281d has been pushed to the Fedora 35 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 11 Eric Blake 2023-01-23 16:16:00 UTC
I asked on today's Austin Group meeting if the POSIX folks were aware of any reason why the license is incompatible; their answer was roughly "no one has contacted the Austin Group asking for a chance to work out the legal difficulties and come up with an acceptable license".  Who would I contact at Red Hat legal to get in touch with the Austin Group to see if this is something where we could fix the licensing to get the POSIX man pages back in Fedora under an updated license?

Comment 12 Florian Weimer 2023-01-24 13:30:39 UTC
(In reply to Eric Blake from comment #11)
> I asked on today's Austin Group meeting if the POSIX folks were aware of any
> reason why the license is incompatible; their answer was roughly "no one has
> contacted the Austin Group asking for a chance to work out the legal
> difficulties and come up with an acceptable license".  Who would I contact
> at Red Hat legal to get in touch with the Austin Group to see if this is
> something where we could fix the licensing to get the POSIX man pages back
> in Fedora under an updated license?

The previous license is still approved for Fedora: <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:IEEEDocLicense>

Maybe simply revert to that?


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