Re: [fab] Fedora as Free Software?

[Michael Tiemann <tiemann redhat com>]

On Fri, 2006-04-21 at 20:08 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
> > I'm wondering what you guys think about changing the tilt of Fedora from
> > open source to free software.  Namely, saying that the license should
> > meet the free software definition (
> >  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html ) and then mentioning that
> > OSI-certified licenses (with the exception of the Reciprocal Public
> > License, which we're going to reevaluate) are a good list, as well as
> > the free software licenses that are listed on the FSF website.
> > 
> > The goal is to make Fedora a distribution that the FSF can positively
> > endorse.  I think we're really close.  Any reason to not try to go all
> > the way?
> 
> Do we have an idea of what we would need to drop to be completely free
> software definition compliant?

I think the main thing is declaring it to be free software ourselves.
We miss the mark by not actually saying it explicitly.

> What would we lose?
> 
> I guess a few rpm queries on license should work.
> what licenses are we looking for?

I've only found one problematic license (the Reciprocal Public License),
and I seriously doubt that license is attached to any software we
actually ship.

Now, it could be that I'm monstrously in the dark, and that we ship non-
free drivers with Fedora, but I don't think so...

M