Curious why the absence of any kind of license grant isn't a non-starter ...

Pam

On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 4:19 PM Richard Fontana <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 2:38 PM Mattia Verga
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > The libpasastro package is going to bundle the NAIF/Spice toolkit from
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
> > The source code seems to be publicly available, no license file is
> included with the code, but in the headers there's this license text:
> >
> >    THIS SOFTWARE AND ANY RELATED MATERIALS WERE CREATED BY THE
> >    CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (CALTECH) UNDER A U.S.
> >    GOVERNMENT CONTRACT WITH THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE
> >    ADMINISTRATION (NASA). THE SOFTWARE IS TECHNOLOGY AND SOFTWARE
> >    PUBLICLY AVAILABLE UNDER U.S. EXPORT LAWS AND IS PROVIDED "AS-IS"
> >    TO THE RECIPIENT WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING ANY
> >    WARRANTIES OF PERFORMANCE OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
> >    PARTICULAR USE OR PURPOSE (AS SET FORTH IN UNITED STATES UCC
> >    SECTIONS 2312-2313) OR FOR ANY PURPOSE WHATSOEVER, FOR THE
> >    SOFTWARE AND RELATED MATERIALS, HOWEVER USED.
> >
> >    IN NO EVENT SHALL CALTECH, ITS JET PROPULSION LABORATORY, OR NASA
> >    BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES AND/OR COSTS, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
> >    LIMITED TO, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND,
> >    INCLUDING ECONOMIC DAMAGE OR INJURY TO PROPERTY AND LOST PROFITS,
> >    REGARDLESS OF WHETHER CALTECH, JPL, OR NASA BE ADVISED, HAVE
> >    REASON TO KNOW, OR, IN FACT, SHALL KNOW OF THE POSSIBILITY.
> >
> >    RECIPIENT BEARS ALL RISK RELATING TO QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF
> >    THE SOFTWARE AND ANY RELATED MATERIALS, AND AGREES TO INDEMNIFY
> >    CALTECH AND NASA FOR ALL THIRD-PARTY CLAIMS RESULTING FROM THE
> >    ACTIONS OF RECIPIENT IN THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE.
> >
> > Is this license acceptable for inclusion in Fedora? I have a doubt about
> the part "PUBLICLY AVAILABLE UNDER U.S. EXPORT LAWS"...
>
> My concern would be the "agree to indemnify" clause at the end.
> Historically, Fedora has rejected several FOSS-like licenses because
> of overbroad requirements to indemnify upstream licensors (there are
> narrower ones in certain commonly-encountered FOSS licenses -- Apache
> License 2.0, various versions of the MPL, and IIRC various members of
> the EPL family -- that are treated as acceptable, if only because
> they've been grandparented in).
>
> I'm open to being convinced that arbitrary indemnification obligations
> should be acceptable in FOSS licenses, but I'm not aware that anyone
> has yet made that argument.
>
> Richard
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