[Fedora-legal-list] Legal aspects of fedora based appliances

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 10:22:07PM +0100, Fabian Deutsch wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, den 09.12.2009, 16:14 -0500 schrieb Paul W. Frields:
> > On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 09:57:10PM +0100, Fabian Deutsch wrote:
> > > Hello.
> > > 
> > > Fedora contains various tools for appliance creation. AFAIK it is
> > > intended that Fedora shall be used as a base for various appliances ISVs
> > > or OEMs want to create. But there is there some legal-guide which
> > > summarizes the legal aspects of Fedora based appliances e.g. when I want
> > > to distribute a Fedora AOS with some proprietary software? (As some kind
> > > of media-center).
> > 
> > I'm assuming you mean guidance on whether, and how, these types of
> > appliances can use the "Fedora" name and associated trademarks. You
> > can find our full trademark guidelines here:
> > 
> >   https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines
> > 
> > The particular section on appliances and OS images is here:
> > 
> >   https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines#Virtual_images_or_appliances_with_unmodified_Fedora_software
> >   https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines#Virtual_images_or_appliances_with_combinations_of_Fedora_software_with_non-Fedora_or_modified_Fedora_software
> 
> The usage of the "Fedora" tardemark is just one point. There are more
> questions (for me at least :) ), like:
> Will a appliance providers have to keep the sources of all distributed
> packages, even if they are official Fedora packages?

Spot or someone else will correct me if I go wrong here, but because
the Fedora Project ships source pursuant to the requirements of the
GPLv2 section 3(a), downstream remixers cannot simply point to the
Fedora Project for source distribution (as in section 3(c)).  This is
intentional and unlikely to change in the near future.  Also, section
3(c) as I understand it is not workable for commercial redistributors.

The best solution I can imagine is for downstream remixers to simply
prepare the matching source collection, and offer it at the same point
of distribution under GPL 3(a) as well.  IANAL, TINLA, and so forth.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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