permission to use spec files in other projects

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Wed, 2008-01-02 at 20:29 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:

> Red Hat as the copyright holder can do this however IIUC which then can 
> choose to declare the license of the specs under a permissive license 
> via a header on the spec files. Wouldn't that solve this issue?

Well, let me be more clear (and verbose) about this:

What the CLA says:

2. Contributor Grant of License. You hereby grant to Red Hat, Inc., on
behalf of the Project, and to recipients of software distributed by the
Project: 
      * (a) 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 your Contribution and such derivative
        works; and, 
      * (b) a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up,
        royalty free, irrevocable (subject to Section 3) patent license
        to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and
        otherwise transfer your Contribution and derivative works
        thereof, where such license applies only to those patent claims
        licensable by you that are necessarily infringed by your
        Contribution alone or by combination of your Contribution with
        the work to which you submitted the Contribution. Except for the
        license granted in this section, you reserve all right, title
        and interest in and to your Contributions. 

What this means:

You're not assigning copyright to Red Hat, you're merely giving them a
copyright license that enables them to "reproduce, prepare derivative
works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
your Contribution and such derivative works". You're also giving these
same rights to every recipient of your contribution.

Now, Red Hat can sublicense the spec files, but the previously granted
rights are still granted. So really, what we'd be able to do is say:

/***

The license of all otherwise unlicensed Contributions to Fedora from
Fedora Contributors (under the Fedora CLA) is as follows:

1. Recipients of this software have:
      * (a) 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; and, 
      * (b) a perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up,
royalty free, irrevocable (subject to Section 2) patent license to make,
have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer this
Contribution and derivative works thereof, where such license applies
only to those patent claims licensable by the original Contributor that
are necessarily infringed by this Contribution alone or by combination
of this Contribution with the work to which the Contributor submitted
the Contribution.

2. Reciprocity. As of the date any such litigation is filed, this patent
grant shall immediately terminate with respect to any party that
institutes patent litigation against the Contributor (including a
cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this
Contribution, or the work to which the Contributor has contributed,
constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement.

***/

Why? Because that's what the CLA says. And we can't take that away by
default without invalidating the CLA. As I said before, Red Hat (or
anyone receiving a copy) could sublicense the spec file, but anyone
wishing to could simply choose to ignore that sublicense and instead use
the grants given by the CLA to the work.

~spot