On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 4:55 AM Vít Ondruch <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Thank you for elaborating. But unfortunately, the only thing this
> definitely answers is that I can "ignore" the license file for the
> moment. But how to proceed?
>
> One thing to note about the package is that in ideal world, it would not
> exist, because either 1) the file would be included and shipped by RPM
> or even better 2) the file would not be needed, because there are other
> ways to implement this functionality in RPM [1]. I want to submit this
> to upstream, but upstream is not responsible to this issue :/ So would
> it make things simple, if the package have the same license as RPM, i.e.
> `GPLv2+`.

Because it would make it more likely that the RPM maintainers will
ship this empty file? I don't know. My only thought is that it is not
good to give the impression that a license like GPLv2+ or the MIT
license can apply to an empty file. But I guess it's not the worst
thing in the world.

Richard




>
> Don't forget that part of my question was if the content is
> copyrightable and with the context above, if it was shipped directly by
> RPM, the answer would probably be yes.
>
>
> Vít
>
>
> [1]
> https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm/issues/782#issuecomment-1748317568
>
>
>
> Dne 16. 10. 23 v 17:53 Richard Fontana napsal(a):
> > On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 11:01 AM Vít Ondruch <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I have submitted rpm-local-generator-support package for a review [1]. It 
> >> can't be simpler:
> >>
> >> https://fedorapeople.org/cgit/vondruch/public_git/rpm-local-generator-support.git/plain/rpm-local-generator-support.spec?id=469fcda122c5856dc10bae4cb75daee0cdf61d15
> >>
> >> It essentially just creates empty file and places it into directory 
> >> structure. I have used `License: MIT` tag, because what else.
> > This reminds me of some packages that used "Public domain" under the
> > Callaway system in the less typical sense of "true" public domain. For
> > one example, see:
> > https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/issues/347 where
> > I suggest the use of `LicenseRef-Not-Copyrightable`. This is not
> > currently in the fedora-license-data set of licenses, but it is used
> > in fedora-license-data itself as part of its attempt to conform the
> > repository to the REUSE specification. where REUSE would generally
> > recommend the use of CC0-1.0.
> >
> > I have been assuming that License tags cannot be empty under Fedora
> > packaging rules (the legal docs are silent on this currently) or that
> > non-empty License tags are enforced by certain tools.
> >
> > For policy reasons, I wouldn't recommend using the MIT license (or
> > CC0) but I wouldn't be surprised to learn there are similar packages
> > that use MIT,  GPLv2, etc.
> >
> > Whether a package that says it's under "MIT" has to or should ship the
> > license file is a mostly separate question. Under the Callaway system
> > there was an expectation that Fedora should "correct" the omission of
> > license files by upstream projects. The current Fedora legal
> > documentation deliberately avoids the whole topic of license files
> > because last year we wanted to move ahead with the new guidelines
> > around SPDX identifiers and so forth without waiting to figure out how
> > to deal with license files, and we still haven't figured that out.
> >
> > The default Fedora license for spec files is the MIT license by virtue
> > of the FPCA (which Fedora should get rid of). Even if the spec file in
> > this case is covered by the MIT license it would not mean the package
> > itself is covered by the MIT license. The FPCA wouldn't even reach the
> > case of a package like this one if you accept the position that the
> > contents of the package are not copyrightable.
> >
> > Richard
> >
> >
> >> But the package review correctly pointed out that I should also ship the 
> >> license file, which would substantially complicate everything. And now I 
> >> wonder, is there even anything what would be licensable? Is the empty file 
> >> created somewhere in the directory structure worth of anything? Can the 
> >> License tag be omitted and would the file be covered by the default Fedora 
> >> license for .spec files?
> >>
> >>
> >> Vít
> >>
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-- 
Richard Fontana
Senior Commercial Counsel
Technology & Open Source
Red Hat
[email protected]
If I am emailing outside of business hours, it does not mean I expect
you to do the same.
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