status of file with multiple licences

[Michael Schwendt]

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 20:38:08 -0400, Ed Hill wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 00:49 +0200, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > In a package I have submitted to fedora extras (grads) there is a file 
> > with a lot of copyright and licences. Is it considered to be problematic 
> > or not? The licences seems to be all BSD, and so compatible together 
> > (except that there is one without licence...). What I am interested in 
> > is not really an answer about those examples but something about the 
> > possibility of inclusion in extras of files with multiple licences.
> > Here are the licences, they all appear in the same file. 
> > 
> > /* gd.h: declarations file for the gifdraw module.
> > 
> >         Written by Tom Boutell, 5/94.
> >         Copyright 1994, Cold Spring Harbor Labs.
> >         Permission granted to use this code in any fashion provided
> >         that this notice is retained and any alterations are
> >         labeled as such. It is requested, but not required, that
> >         you share extensions to this module with us so that we
> >         can incorporate them into new versions. */
> > 
> > /* Code drawn from ppmtogif.c, from the pbmplus package
> > **
> > ** Based on GIFENCOD by David Rowley <mgardi at watdscu.waterloo.edu>. A
> > ** Lempel-Zim compression based on "compress".
> > **
> > ** Modified by Marcel Wijkstra <wijkstra at fwi.uva.nl>
> > **
> > ** Copyright (C) 1989 by Jef Poskanzer.
> > **
> > ** Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
> > ** documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided
> > ** that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
> > ** copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
> > ** documentation.  This software is provided "as is" without express or
> > ** implied warranty.
> > **
> > ** The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of
> > ** CompuServe Incorporated.  GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of
> > ** CompuServe Incorporated.
> > 
> > /*
> >  *
> >  * GIF Image compression - modified 'compress'
> >  *
> >  * Based on: compress.c - File compression ala IEEE Computer, June 1984.
> >  *
> >  * By Authors:  Spencer W. Thomas       (decvax!harpo!utah-cs!utah-gr!thomas)
> >  *              Jim McKie               (decvax!mcvax!jim)
> >  *              Steve Davies            (decvax!vax135!petsd!peora!srd)
> >  *              Ken Turkowski           (decvax!decwrl!turtlevax!ken)
> >  *              James A. Woods          (decvax!ihnp4!ames!jaw)
> >  *              Joe Orost               (decvax!vax135!petsd!joe)
> >  *
> >  */
> > 
> > /* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
> > /* | Copyright 1990, 1991, 1993, David Koblas.  (koblas at netcom.com)    | */
> > /* |   Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software   | */
> > /* |   and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby | */
> > /* |   granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all | */
> > /* |   copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission  | */
> > /* |   notice appear in supporting documentation.  This software is    | */
> > /* |   provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.           | */
> > /* +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ */
> 
> 
> Hi Pat,
> 
> IANAL but I don't see any problems with the above licenses.  They are
> all BSD-like as you mention and they do all appear to be compatible.
> 
> And, I think, it would be acceptable to put some sort of LICENSES.txt
> file in the %doc section of the GrADS package that says something to the
> effect:
> 
>   "Portions of this software are copyrighted under the following 
>    terms..."
> 
> and then include a copy of the above sections.  I think thats fair,
> accurate, and very much in the spirit of the explicitly-included-
> licenses approach currently taken by Fedora.

The "...without fee..." part in two of the licences is unclear to me.
Does it refer to "distributing the software without a charge" or "giving
royalty-free permission use, copy, modify, and distribute the software"?