copyright and licences review

[Patrice Dumas]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2005 at 09:21:03AM -0400, Brian E. Doty wrote:
> Please explain why are are pursuing this, and
> what commercial intersts you serve.

As I stated in another mail I don't pursue any commercial interest, but I
would like to have grads packaged in the fedora extras. I have packaged
grads for myself but I think it would be nice if other fedora core users
could also have a grads package as part of fedora extras. I do that
on my part time although I use grads at work so maybe it is a bit mixed.

The legal requirements for a package to be included in fedora are at:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingGuidelines#Legal

Most code in grads is covered by the GPL, other parts are covered by BSD
like licences, and other are in the public domain, there is no problem with
these files. But there are parts that doesn't seems to come with an
OSI-approved license. So these files cannot be packaged in a fedora package.
I reviewed the code licences such that you can correct me when I did
a mistake about a file licence. Don Hooper and Matthias Munnich allready
corrected some mistakes I did and added some information.

Another reason why I did this explicit review, is that after I send the
question about multiple licences in one file to the fedora extras list,
the person reviewing grads asked for something similar with the licence
review I send to the list:

   And, I think, it would be acceptable to put some sort of LICENSES.txt
   file in the %doc section of the GrADS package that says something to the
   effect:

      "Portions of this software are copyrighted under the following
       terms..."

   and then include a copy of the above sections.  I think thats fair,
   accurate, and very much in the spirit of the explicitly-included-
   licenses approach currently taken by Fedora.

That's why I checked all the files and send my analysis to the grads list
to have a confirmation. It is not a very pleasant part of the packaging
process but I have to do it. If you prefer I can also withdraw grads
from the packaging review.

However I believed you would view my input positively as the questions
I ask about licences clarifications seems to me to be the questions anybody
should ask before redistributing grads publicly.

--
Pat