Legality of Fedora in production environment

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 10:56 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 16:34 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 06:43 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 05:55 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > 
> > > > > What exactly is your point?
> > > > In a nutshell:
> > > > 
> > > > Fedora ships packages with un-readable, non-verifiable licenses.
> > > 
> > > Hyperbole
> > 
> > I guess, you mean FESCO and FPB ignorance? 
> > 
> > No? In international projects, normally, standardizing languages is one
> > of the first step - Apparently forgotten in Fedora.
> > 
> > No? Then you'll probably be able to provide a translation of this within
> > seconds:
> > http://cvs.fedora.redhat.com/viewcvs/rpms/python-mecab/devel/MeCab-license-Fedora?root=extras&rev=1.1&view=markup
> 
> Me personally?  No.  But just because you and I can't read it doesn't
> make it un-readable and non-verifiable.
What kind of argument is this? 

None of us both can read it, nor will the police man wait behind our
Russian friends, nor will the FBI agent raiding your home because
somebody accused you to own "stolen SW".

May-be you now realize why we can't avoid to have an agreement on
"acceptable license's languages"? 

It's quite simple: You have to agree on a common language (or a limited
set of thereof) otherwise you can't communicate with your customers
(here: users) and 3rd parties (here: authorities). For a US based
distro, I'd expect this language to be English. 

This would at least enable users to translate it into his native
language without major effort.

Ralf