Bug 15373 - Improve the Mageia license, change GPL into GPLv2 in /drakx/tree/perl-install/messages.pm#n68-76
Summary: Improve the Mageia license, change GPL into GPLv2 in /drakx/tree/perl-install...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: RPM Packages (show other bugs)
Version: Cauldron
Hardware: All Linux
Priority: Normal enhancement
Target Milestone: Mageia 10
Assignee: Mageia tools maintainers
QA Contact:
URL: https://www.mageia.org/en/about/license/
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2015-02-26 22:15 CET by Agent Smith
Modified: 2023-12-03 19:35 CET (History)
15 users (show)

See Also:
Source RPM: drakx-installer-stage2-18.66-2.mga9
CVE:
Status comment:


Attachments

Description Agent Smith 2015-02-26 22:15:01 CET
Description of problem:

According to the members of the French Mageia community, there's a lot of mistakes in the Mageia license : the part "Intellectual Property Rights" and other parts do not represent the philosophy of the Mageia project (free software, GNU/Linux philosophy), I think it's the original Mandriva license and only the words "Mandriva" have been replaced by "Mageia"... (Sorry, my english is poor, I'm French).

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:


Steps to Reproduce:
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Reproducible: 

Steps to Reproduce:
Comment 1 Agent Smith 2015-02-26 22:16:58 CET
It's the first time that I report a bug, so there's a lot of parts that I unable to write/select. I hope you'll understand.
Comment 2 Rémi Verschelde 2015-02-26 22:24:39 CET
To be clearer, there is nothing wrong as far as I know with regard to the free software philosophy, but our current licence does refer to commercial products and intellectual property; this is not wrong for a free software (free software can be "free" and commercial, like Mandrake/Mandriva were), but it does not correspond to the Mageia project.

We might want to drop parts of the custom license and stick more to the plain GPL.

CC: (none) => remi

Comment 3 Thomas Backlund 2015-02-26 22:34:56 CET
The "Intellectual Property Rights" must stay.

for example this:

"All rights to the components of the Software Products belong to their respective authors and are
protected by intellectual property and copyright laws applicable to software programs."

also covers nVidia / AMD / Broadcom rights about their drivers and a lot of nonfree firwares we ship.


And this one should really be self-explanatory:

""Mageia" and associated logos are trademarks of Mageia.Org"

CC: (none) => tmb

Comment 4 Rémi Verschelde 2015-02-26 22:41:55 CET
I just read the licence again, and actually it fits our project relatively well, so we probably don't need to change it much.

The only part that bugs me is:
  "Mageia" and associated logos are trademarks of Mageia.Org

Did we ever register such trademarks? I'm pretty sure we did not, so this should be removed from our license.

Another point that would be nice to clarify is the version of the GPL license under which Mageia software are licensed. Is it GPL version 1?
Comment 5 Thomas Backlund 2015-02-26 22:44:16 CET
Hm, I think the name got registered in France, but I cant say about the logo for now
Comment 6 Rémi Verschelde 2015-02-26 22:48:54 CET
(In reply to Thomas Backlund from comment #5)
>(In reply to Rémi Verschelde from comment #4)
>> I just read the licence again, and actually it fits our project relatively
>> well, so we probably don't need to change it much.
>> 
>> The only part that bugs me is:
>>   "Mageia" and associated logos are trademarks of Mageia.Org
>> 
>> Did we ever register such trademarks? I'm pretty sure we did not, so this
>> should be removed from our license.
>
> Hm, I think the name got registered in France, but I cant say about the logo
> for now

Anne, could you comment on this part? Did we register the Mageia name as a trademark in France, and what about the logo? If the trademark is registered in France, I guess it's not enforceable in the rest of the world, but at least we can safely say that it's a "registered trademark" I suppose :-) (the Groupon vs. GNOME stuff showed that trademark does not mean much anyway...)

CC: (none) => ennael1

Comment 7 Anne Nicolas 2015-02-26 22:54:35 CET
Mageia name has been registered in the very first days of Mageia, in 2010. See following URL:
http://bases-marques.inpi.fr/Typo3_INPI_Marques/marques_resultats_liste.html

We are transfering it to Mageia.Org association as when it was registered the association was not stil created.
Comment 8 Rémi Verschelde 2015-02-26 23:08:31 CET
OK thanks for the clarification :-)
So I guess the logo is not particularly registered, and that's about the only thing that we'd have to change in the licence?
Comment 9 Thomas Backlund 2015-02-26 23:09:41 CET
Well, I guess we should trademark that one too
Comment 10 Agent Smith 2015-02-27 00:34:59 CET
Thank you for your answers. I'm a beginner in the world of GNU/Linux and Mageia, so I was a little bit lost :)
Comment 11 Anne Nicolas 2015-02-27 00:38:48 CET
(In reply to Thomas Backlund from comment #9)
> Well, I guess we should trademark that one too

Pb is we have to trademark all new version which is quite expensive.
Comment 12 Donald 2015-02-27 23:55:50 CET
I guess thats just another reason to not change the logo

CC: (none) => watersnowrock

Comment 13 Filip Komar 2015-03-18 19:33:50 CET
As license on web page is actually from drakx (see bellow) there is nothing the atelier team can do. I guess council is the best team do assign this bug.

http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/drakx/tree/perl-install/share/po/libDrakX.pot

CC: (none) => filip.komar

Comment 14 Marja Van Waes 2023-09-23 16:43:02 CEST
(In reply to Filip Komar from comment #13)
> As license on web page is actually from drakx (see bellow) there is nothing
> the atelier team can do. I guess council is the best team do assign this bug.
> 
> http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/drakx/tree/perl-install/share/po/libDrakX.
> pot

IINM, currently this line and below
https://gitweb.mageia.org/software/drakx/tree/perl-install/share/po/libDrakX.pot#n4532

It is impossible to assign a bug to council, but I'll assign to the Mageia Tools maintainers and CC all council members I can think of.

Assignee: atelier-bugs => mageiatools
Source RPM: (none) => drakx-installer-stage2-18.66-2.mga9
Summary: Mistakes in the Mageia license => Mistakes in the Mageia license, council decision needed
CC: ennael1, tmb => andrewsfarm, davidwhodgins, doktor5000, joselp, luigiwalser, maat-ml, mageia, magicandsave, marja11, nicolas.salguero, yurchor
Target Milestone: --- => Mageia 10
Product: Websites => Mageia
Component: www.mageia.org => RPM Packages
Version: trunk => Cauldron

Comment 15 Yuri Chornoivan 2023-09-23 17:14:07 CEST
I'm not a lawyer but I can help with translations provided we have a legally correct version of this statement.
Comment 16 Dave Hodgins 2023-09-23 20:11:50 CEST
What language in the license is in question?

Is the English version in question, or just the translation?
Comment 17 Yuri Chornoivan 2023-09-23 20:54:03 CEST
(In reply to Dave Hodgins from comment #16)
> What language in the license is in question?
> 
> Is the English version in question, or just the translation?

I believe it's an English version. And it looks like the whole text is too complex for an unprepared editor.
Comment 18 Bruno Cornec 2023-10-02 01:48:47 CEST
Reading the messages you refer to Marja, I don't think there is anything worng with our wordings. (IANAL)

However, we may want to precise which version of the GPL we apply to our programs (looking at how old the code is, I think the only possibility is GPLv2).

And we could want to trademark the Mageia logo.

That was what was mentioned in this BR in 2015.

So, I dont' think that council has much to say, maybe more to act on that.

CC: (none) => bruno

Comment 19 David Walser 2023-10-02 02:25:37 CEST
I agree with Bruno's interpretation, based on what I read in this bug.
Comment 20 Marja Van Waes 2023-10-13 16:14:20 CEST
(In reply to Bruno Cornec from comment #18)
> Reading the messages you refer to Marja, I don't think there is anything
> worng with our wordings. (IANAL)
> 
> However, we may want to precise which version of the GPL we apply to our
> programs (looking at how old the code is, I think the only possibility is
> GPLv2).
> 
> And we could want to trademark the Mageia logo.
> 
> That was what was mentioned in this BR in 2015.
> 
> So, I dont' think that council has much to say, maybe more to act on that.

(In reply to David Walser from comment #19)
> I agree with Bruno's interpretation, based on what I read in this bug.

Thanks for your replies.

So all that needs to be done is change GPL to GPLv2 in the "N("3. The GPL License and Related Licenses")," section, currently here:
https://gitweb.mageia.org/software/drakx/tree/perl-install/messages.pm#n68
which will propagate to https://www.mageia.org/en/about/license/

And when the board gets bored, which won't happen any time soon, they could trademark the Mageia logo :-)

Summary: Mistakes in the Mageia license, council decision needed => Improve the Mageia license, change GPL into GPLv2 in /drakx/tree/perl-install/messages.pm#n68-76
Severity: normal => enhancement

Marja Van Waes 2023-12-03 19:35:35 CET

See Also: (none) => https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31441


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