[Fedora-legal-list] Fedora and MS-PL (Dynamic Language Runtime)

[C.J. Adams-Collier]

Hey all,

We (the Debian CLI Libraries Team) are packaging IronRuby, IronPython
and the Dynamic Language Runtime for Debian.  Much of the source in this
package is released under the Microsoft Public License:

http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-cli-libs/packages/dlr-languages.git;a=blob;f=debian/copyright;h=74dc4d7f7144e9a0251fa2a32177332a01558d84;hb=f3c10b84cf5f12cb670d14232263ac81662ff714

I asked my friend Brett if he would help us get it packaged up in RPM
format for Fedora.  He tells me that the MS-PL is not on the approved
list for Redhat packages:

14:55 < wakko666> cj: my main concern about packaging ironruby is licensing. 
                  Fedora will accept packages under the MS-Shared-Source 
                  license, but the MS-PL isn't on their list of acceptable 
                  license.
14:58 < cj> wakko666: alrighty.  jschementi is the guy to talk with about 
            licensing issues.  He'll be back some time soon, I'm sure
14:58 < wakko666> of course, i can always write the spec file and you guys can 
                  host your own rpms, but it would be nice to actually get it 
                  into Fedora proper.
14:59 < cj> also, MS-PL is dfsg compliant and [OSI]-approved.  Is it a decision 
            to deny MS-PL or that it just hasn't been reviewed yet?
14:59 < wakko666> not sure. we'd need to ask on the fedora-legal-list mailing 
                  list
14:59 < wakko666> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#SoftwareLicenses

[ed: I mis-wrote OSL-approved]

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ms-pl.html

I do not see MS-PL on the DFSG wiki page:

http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses

However, Mono contains code licensed under MS-PL and it is part of the
main section, implying that it is compliant:

http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-mono/packages/mono.git;a=blob;f=debian/copyright;h=3426e0c3f05891a267ebef547490c8dae999da96;hb=8b65c7c94ae3c808859fb1f2b90aeac92abc53e9

Are the MS-PL pieces of Mono stripped from the Fedora package of Mono?

mcs/class/MicrosoftAjaxLibrary/*
mcs/class/System.Web.Mvc/*

Looking forward to your response,

C.J.

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