Licensing:Main

Author:  Tom 'spot' Callaway  (based on many other documents, correspondence with the FSF) Revision: 2.01 Initial Draft: Wednesday May 30, 2007 Last Revised: Monday February 13, 2012

Overview
The goal of the Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to create a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from Free and Open Source software.

All software in Fedora must be under licenses in the  Fedora licensing list. This list is based on the licenses approved by the Free Software Foundation, OSI and consultation with Red Hat Legal.

In addition, all acceptable licenses for Fedora (including copyright, trademark, and patent licenses) must be applicable not only to Red Hat or Fedora, but also to all recipients downstream. This means that any "Fedora-only" licenses, or licenses with specific terms that Red Hat or Fedora meets but that other recipients would not are not acceptable (and almost certainly non-free, as a result).

If code is multiple licensed, and at least one of the licenses is approved for Fedora, that code can be included in Fedora under the approved license(s) (but only under the terms of the approved license(s)).

Package Licensing Guidelines
Fedora has a separate set of Licensing Guidelines which describe, in detail, how to note the license of a package in the RPM Spec file.

Discussion of Licensing
Discussion of Licensing in Fedora (along with any other Fedora legal items which are not considered confidential) takes place on the legal@lists.fedoraproject.org mailing list. The list is open to any interested subscribers, but is moderated such that only subscribers may directly post.

You can subscribe to the mailing list and view the archives here: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/legal

Keep in mind that the legal@ mailing list is not the place to send any correspondence of a confidential nature, nor is it a source for legal advice. You should not assume that any member of the legal@ mailing list is a lawyer.

License Changes
A license change in a package is a very serious event - it has as many, if not more, implications for related packages as ABI changes do.

Therefore, if your package changes license, even if it just changes the license version, it is required that you announce it on fedora-devel-list.

Note that any license change to a more restrictive license or license version may affect the legality of portions of Fedora as a whole; ergo, FESCo reserves the right to block upgrades of packages to versions with new licenses to ensure the legal distribution of Fedora.

Please contact FESCo if you have any questions.

License of Fedora SPEC Files
All original Fedora contributions are governed by the Fedora contributor license agreement (CLA). This allows all recipients to have:

"A perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute this Contribution and such derivative works"

Since every Fedora SPEC file is contributed by CLA signers, every Fedora SPEC is available under these license terms (unless otherwise explicitly licensed).

More information is available in the Fedora CLA.

Frequently Asked Questions
Fedora has a Licensing FAQ page, with frequently asked questions related to licensing (and answers!).

Software License List
These lists are not intended to be all inclusive, there are surely other licenses out there which are not categorized here. However, if a license of relevance to you is not listed here, please email the details to legal@lists.fedoraproject.org (note that this list is moderated, only members may directly post).

Good Licenses
Here is a list of Software Licenses that are OK for Fedora. If your license is not in this list, and you'd like to know if it is appropriate for Fedora, please email the details to legal@lists.fedoraproject.org (note that this list is moderated, only members may directly post).

Bad Licenses
These are software licenses which are NOT OKAY for Fedora. Nothing in Fedora is permitted to use these licenses. They're either non-free or deprecated.

Unknown Licenses
These are licenses for which the Fedora acceptability is unknown/undecided. If one of your packages uses one of these licenses, please let us know by emailing legal@lists.fedoraproject.org (note that this list is moderated, only members may directly post).

Note: Some of these licenses may be pending review from the FSF.

GPL Compatibility Matrix
OK. Hold on tight. Think of this as a horrible legal version of "Does it Blend?".

(contents copied from http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility)

Footnotes:

1: You must follow the terms of GPLv2 when incorporating the code in this case. You cannot take advantage of terms in later versions of the GPL.

2: If you do this, as long as the project contains the code released under GPLv2 only, you will not be able to upgrade the project's license to GPLv3 or later.

3: If you have the ability to release the project under GPLv2 or any later version, you can choose to release it under GPLv3 or any later version—and once you do that, you'll be able to incorporate the code released under GPLv3.

4: If you have the ability to release the project under LGPLv2.1 or any later version, you can choose to release it under LGPLv3 or any later version—and once you do that, you'll be able to incorporate the code released under LGPLv3.

5: You must follow the terms of LGPLv2.1 when incorporating the code in this case. You cannot take advantage of terms in later versions of the LGPL.

6: If you do this, as long as the project contains the code released under LGPLv2.1 only, you will not be able to upgrade the project's license to LGPLv3 or later.

7: LGPLv2.1 gives you permission to relicense the code under any version of the GPL since GPLv2. If you can switch the LGPLed code in this case to using an appropriate version of the GPL instead (as noted in the table), you can make this combination.

8: LGPLv3 gives you permission to relicense the code under GPLv3. In these cases, you can combine the code if you convert the LGPLed code to GPLv3.

Documentation Licenses
These are the Documentation Licenses that we're aware of. There are almost certainly other Documentation Licenses in existence, if your Fedora package uses a license not listed here, please email tcallawa@redhat.com with the details (and full license text).

Good Licenses
Here is a list of Documentation Licenses that are OK for Fedora. If your license is not in this list, and you'd like to know if it is appropriate for Fedora, please email the details to legal@lists.fedoraproject.org (note that this list is moderated, only members may directly post).

Note A: The GNU General Public License can be used for general data which is not software, as long as one can determine what the definition of “source code” refers to in the particular case. In English, it means that you can use the GPL for documentation, but it is not necessarily a good choice, unless you are able to define what "source code" means for your documentation. Also, if you use this license, use the appropriate versioning short names as described in the Software License section.

Bad Licenses
These are documentation licenses which are NOT OKAY for Fedora. Nothing in Fedora should be using these licenses. They're either non-free or deprecated.

Content Licenses
These are the Content Licenses that we're aware of. If your license is not in this list, and you'd like to know if it is appropriate for Fedora, please email the details to legal@lists.fedoraproject.org (note that this list is moderated, only members may directly post). You will also want to review the Code Vs Content section of the Packaging Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#CodeVsContent

Good Licenses
Here is a list of Content Licenses that are OK for Fedora. If your license is not in this list, and you'd like to know if it is appropriate for Fedora, please email the details to legal@lists.fedoraproject.org (note that this list is moderated, only members may directly post). Note that content must be freely distributable without restriction for inclusion in Fedora, and that a written statement from the content owner granting this is considered an approved license for Fedora. The one exception is that we permit content (but only content) which restricts modification as long as that is the only restriction.

Note A: The GNU General Public License can be used for general data which is not software, as long as one can determine what the definition of “source code” refers to in the particular case. In English, it means that you can use the GPL for content, but it is not necessarily a good choice, unless you are able to define what "source code" means for your content. Also, if you use this license, use the appropriate versioning short names as described in the Software License section.

Bad Licenses
These are content licenses which are NOT OKAY for Fedora. Nothing in Fedora should be using these licenses. They're either non-free, deprecated, or have usage/distribution restrictions.

Disclaimer
No usage of trademarks, either in this page or in any license "short identifiers" is intended as advertising. Any trademarks used are the property of their owners.