* On 01/30/2018 02:08 PM, Daniel Hakimi wrote:
> This is allowed, but it is not an exception or modification to the GPL. You
> cannot remove permissions from the GPL under any circumstances. Rather, this is
> allowed because the GPL is, in no way, a trademark license. If anything, the
> above comment merely clarifies that fact. While many projects are not
> trademarked, or, if they are, do not aggressively enforce their trademarks, some
> are and do, and this is fine.
That is good to know. My naïve understanding was that limiting trademark usage
is somehow also limiting the distribution of modified source code. It probably
makes sense to assume that other laws (in this case, trademark laws) might limit
the freedoms provided through the source code license, without invalidating the
latter as a whole or even in part.
> This is perfectly consistent with the DFSG (see 4)
> https://www.debian.org/social_contract. It is also allowed under the FSD ("Thus,
> it is acceptable for the license to require that you change the name of the
> modified version, remove a logo, or identify your modifications as yours.",
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html) and the OSD (again, see 4)
> https://opensource.org/osd.
Okay, but the DFSG also mentions that this is a mere compromise. I understand
why it is labeled as such.
> In the specific case of RedHat -- I trust you've heard of CentOS? CentOS is
> essentially RedHat with the RedHat trademarks removed.
Naturally! Yes, it is essentially a re-branded RHEL.
* On 01/30/2018 09:33 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
> This is a really old form of Red Hat license notice. It predates my
> original joining of Red Hat in 2008, even though, if this is about the
> Spice project (https://www.spice-space.org/), that project did not
> exist as such until after 2008. As soon as I became aware of it I got
> rid of it as an internally-recommended license notice.
Heh, no, the subject was meant to be a metaphor, not relating to the project I'm
working on.
I actually found this in dnf's source code, which I am currently packaging for
Debian.
> If anyone wants to submit a patch to the project proposing that this
> language be replaced -- say, with the FSF-recommended language
> contained in GPLv2 -- I will be supportive. (Since it doesn't strike
> me as the most egregious or important problem in the world and I have
> a lot of other things to do at the moment I am not likely to act on
> this myself in the short term.)
That's fine. So for the time being, can I just tag this as GPL-2+ as usual
without mentioning the trademark restriction part in debian/copyright? Given
that it doesn't affect the license itself, I think that I can omit this detail
in the packaging.
Mihai
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