permission to use spec files in other projects (Was Re: clamav)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

On 26.09.2007 21:13, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
> 
> I don't think there's any clear right answer or wrong answer.  There is 
> merely the expedient answer that everyone can (a) readily understand and 
> (b) live with.  Because really, how important is this issue?  Just because 
> people want to know the answer, it does not necessarily follow that people 
> care deeply what that answer *is*.

Well, the answer IMHO not important for us, but *is* important for other
parties that might want to pick one of our spec files, modify it and
redistribute it today. They want to be safe that they are free to use
that stuff even in ten years from now, when RH might have been bought by
<insert some evil software company> and starts suing people.

Being safe that you don't get sued today, tomorrow or in ten years from
now if you took ten lines out of a spec files or a simple script that
might be copyright-protectable IMHO is an important part of open source.
That why most people even put licenses in simple scripts.

Take for example /usr/bin/rpmls from rpmdevtools -- it's license is 15
Lines long for 19 lines of code. Are 19 lines copyright-protectable? I
don't know, but I suppose at least some judges in some countries of this
world might say it is. But because it has a license I can be on the safe
side if I take that code for something else as long as I obey its license.

> Having a spec file follow the license of the content it's written to 
> describe seems like a sensible idea to me.
> 
> Having a spec file be completely public domain also makes sense to me.
> 
> Having a spec file be BSD so that the original author gets credit for 
> writing the spec file also makes sense to me.

+1 (albeit I prefer one of the last two or a MIT/X11-style)

CU
thl