FS/OSS license: not quite enough of a requirement

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Thu, 2007-05-10 at 18:07 -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On May  9, 2007, "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 2007-05-09 at 20:33 -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> >> Another possibility is that of restrictive patent licenses, and the
> >> recent creative patent agreements we recently learned about, such as
> >> that between Microsoft and Novell.
> 
> > Restrictive patent licenses don't qualify for Fedora as is.
> 
> Excellent.  Where's that stated?

It is implicit in the "only licenses approved by the FSF or OSI are OK
for Fedora".

Unless you think that the FSF or the OSI have approved any restrictive
patent licenses...

> >> Yet another possibility would be trademark agreements that effectively
> >> limited Fedora users' freedoms.
> 
> > Trademark or patent agreements are a board issue, but I can't see the
> > board agreeing to those sorts of things.
> 
> What sorts of things exactly?  It depends on what you understand by
> "limiting users' freedoms."  Requiring certain images to be removed,
> for example, doesn't.  Howver, requiring them to be replaced to keep
> the software functional, and having lots and lots of them, would turn
> the replacement into an unsurmountable work, which would effectively
> limit the freedoms.  What do you think the board would disagree with?

I don't think the Fedora Board would make any trademark or patent
agreements that would limit user freedoms. I'm unwilling to hypothesize
on anything more specific without an actual... well... specific. :)

~spot