[Fedora-legal-list] GPC License

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 2009-02-25 at 17:16:55 -0500, Eric Moret <eric.moret at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to package Paint.NET for Fedora. It seems this application
> includes the source code of the GPC project which is licensed under its own
> terms. Could you please let me know if this license would be acceptable for
> inclusion in Fedora?

So, in looking at this, there are a few problems:

>From the license:

* Exception 1: The Paint.NET logo and icon artwork are Copyright (C)
Rick Brewster. They are covered by the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license which is detailed here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ . However, permission
is granted to use the logo and icon artwork in ways that directly
discuss or promote Paint.NET (e.g. blog and news posts about Paint.NET,
"Made with Paint.NET" watermarks or insets).

*****
Any CC license with the NonCommercial clause is not acceptable for
Fedora, so you'd have to remove the logo and icon artwork.
*****

Again, from the license:

* Exception 2: Paint.NET makes use of certain text and graphic resources
that it comes with (e.g., toolbar icon graphics, text for menu items and
the status bar). These are collectively referred to as "resource assets"
and are defined to include the contents of files installed by Paint.NET,
or included in its source code distribution, that have a .RESOURCES,
.RESX, or .PNG file extension. This also includes embedded resource
files within the PaintDotNet.Resources.dll installed file. These
"resource assets" are covered by the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license which is detailed here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ . However, permission
is granted to create and distribute derivative works of the "resource
assets" for the sole purpose of providing a translation to a language
other than English. Some "resource assets" are included in unmodified
form from external icon or image libraries and are still covered by
their original, respective licenses (e.g., "Silk", "Visual Studio 2005
Image Library").

*****
Same here. Any "text and graphic resources" under that CC NonCommercial
license would have to be removed.
*****

Lastly, from the license:

* Exception 3: Although the Paint.NET source code distribution includes
the GPC source code, use of the GPC code in any other commercial
application is not permitted without a GPC Commercial Use Licence from
The University of Manchester. For more information, please refer to the
GPC website at: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/alan/software/

The GPC license is non-free, because it has commercial use restrictions.
Thus, I don't think you are going to be able to include Paint.NET in
Fedora. Andrea, you asked about this, and I said before that it might be
okay, but after actually looking at the licensing, this is definitely
not permissable. You'd have to strip out what I suspect is all of the
graphics and the GPC code bits, and I'm not sure that would make it very
useful.

~spot