[Fedora-legal-list] CVC3 License

[Jerry James]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 7:38 PM, David A. Wheeler <dwheeler at dwheeler.com> wrote:
> Tom "spot" Callaway:
>>Can you email Clark Barrett and see if he is willing to give you (assuming
>> you'd be the Fedora maintainer) written permission to use the CVC3
>> "trademark" with Fedora's modifications, past/present/future, as needed,
>> or if he would need to approve each modification before we could apply
>> it, in order to use the "CVC3" name?
>
> If he's not willing to grant such permission, perhaps it'd be acceptable
> to just rename the package (e.g., "cvc3mod"), and clearly stating in the
> description that it's a _derivative_ from CVC3 and thus _not_ necessarily
> the official "cvc3".  If that's not enough, the executable program could be
> renamed, but then install a symlink from "cvc3" to it. That way, programs
> that expect its "old" name would keep working.
>
> --- David A. Wheeler

Here is the response I got from Clark.  I'm pasting it in rather than
attaching his email, because his email contained the MIME-encoded
patches I sent to him, making the entire email rather large.  I'll
send the entire email to anyone who needs it.  The "option 4" to which
Clark refers is what David suggested, using a changed name in Fedora.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had not thought about this particular problem when I used this license.  I
will have to think about whether to change the license, but for now, I think
option 4 is most in the spirit of what we are trying to do.

I suggest you call it something that makes it clear you have only made minor
changes, like cvc3+patches_for_fedora or something equally transparent.  The
idea is that anyone can take CVC3 and do whatever they like with it.  But if
you do change it, that change needs to be reflected somehow in the way you
refer to it.  You may use this email to justify including the name "cvc3" in
what you choose to call it.

Long term, I think the best solution would be to invite you to help us
synchronize your changes with the main source, acknowledge you as a developer,
and then distribute the rpm from the cvc3 web site.  Let me know if you would
be interested in this.  I am hoping to push out a new release by the end of the
summer.  That would be a good time to consider it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've got to think about what to call it, maybe cvc3-fedora, but given
a suitable name, am I okay to proceed with submission of this package?

Incidentally, it is in fact necessary to patch this package.  There
are multiple causes of build failures on Fedora 9, including some GCC
4.3 issues and a doxygen-spawned "dot" process that consumes all
memory and dies.

Thank you,
-- 
Jerry James
http://loganjerry.googlepages.com/