CC0 isn't FOSS?

[bzt]

As ~, it turns out that's really seriously considered by some. More info here (emphasis by me):

We plan to classify CC0 as allowed-content only, so that CC0 would no longer be allowed for code. This is a fairly unusual change and may have an impact on a nontrivial number of Fedora packages...

According to Fedora legal

The reason for the change: Over a long period of time a consensus has been building in FOSS that licenses that preclude any form of patent licensing or patent forbearance cannot be considered FOSS. CC0 has a clause that says: "No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document." ... The regular Creative Commons licenses have similar clauses.

How on earth could "patent rights not affected" mean "preclude patent licensing"? Can anybody explain this to me?

What do you think? Am I the only one with the feeling that something is fundamentally wrong here? This smells like complete and total company bullshit to me! As much as their original statement, "licensing precluding patent licensing isn't FOSS"... Hell, even GPL states that "GPL assures that patents cannot be used to render the program non-free". So GPL isn't FOSS either?

What's next, Fedora will ban GPL too?

Cheers,
bzt

ps: I know that we have a Fedora package maintainer in our community, and I'm really sorry to say this, but I'm glad I don't use Fedora (nor RH, nor Suse, nor Oracle, nor CBL-Mariner, nor Ubuntu Linux). IMHO never ever trust any software which is patented or backed up by a greedy, only-profit-matters-not-the-users company!

[Julius]

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/25/ ... e_commons/

I think you have a misquote there, and it is precisely the lack of such clauses that make CC0 not that suitable.

edit: and CC licenses are not a good fit for code anyways.

[Huitsi]

Interesting. I certainly agree that patents can make a piece of software non-free just as well as copyright. I however dare say that most non-corporate licensors have no patents to waive, so a blanket disapproval of CC0 seems rather extreme. Of course, Fedora has to be extra careful because they could get Red Hat into trouble.

As for suitability for software, CC0 seems to be the public domain dedication FSF recommends. I imagine the lack of patent license could be dixed with a single additional sentence {waiving, promising not to enforce, asserting there is no} patents. Perhaps Creative Commons should provide such an add-on for their licenses.

[bzt]

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/25/fedora_sours_on_creative_commons/

I think you have a misquote there, and it is precisely the lack of such clauses that make CC0 not that suitable.

Yeah, I agree the lack of a clause forbidding patenting would make a lot more sense.

But that's not what they are saying, and I'm pretty sure I haven't misquoted them. I've quoted and also linked the original LWN post so anyone can see for themselves. What they say is, "preclude any form of patent licensing or patent forbearance cannot be considered FOSS", which just does not make any sense to me, as it is exactly the opposite of the actual consensus.

edit: and CC licenses are not a good fit for code anyways.

Depends. In general I agree, I prefer GPL or MIT for code myself. But for public domain code, CC0 is the only viable option that's not questioned depending on juridiction and recognized and interpreted equally by different courts too.

Interesting. I certainly agree that patents can make a piece of software non-free just as well as copyright.

Right? That's what I think too.

I however dare say that most non-corporate licensors have no patents to waive, so a blanket disapproval of CC0 seems rather extreme.

Absolutely agree on both of that too.

Of course, Fedora has to be extra careful because they could get Red Hat into trouble.

That's the part that I don't understand. Nobody forces RH to blindly steal all Fedora packages, right? Why couldn't an allegedly community driven Fedora have a package which isn't supported by the corporate backed RH distro? This is the other part that's more than suspicious to me (besides of the twisted "consensus" sentence above).

Cheers,
bzt

[Huitsi]

It's poorly worded, but based on the context I believe "preclude any form of patent licensing" means "explicitly doesn't grant a patent license" rather than "forbids granting a patent license". Compare this to say the MIT/BSD-style licenses which don't explicitly specify whether they are a patent license or not.

Fedora might be community driven, but close enough to Red Hat that what Fedora does could get RH sued. At least that's the understanding I have.

[Julius]

The Register article is pretty clear, and they probably did cross check with Fedora and not just go by a single difficult to interpret sentence.

[bzt]

It's poorly worded, but based on the context I believe "preclude any form of patent licensing" means "explicitly doesn't grant a patent license" rather than "forbids granting a patent license".

My interpretation of "licenses that preclude any form of patent licensing or patent forbearance cannot be considered FOSS" is "if the license forbids patent licensing or does not allow having a patent then it's not FOSS".

Just for fun, I've translated this with GT to my native language (as well as to German and Spanish), and then translated back to English, this is what I got:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

licenses that exclude any form of patent licensing or patent tolerance are not considered FOSS

Now this is exactly the opposite of what I believe developers think about patents and free software, and what (for example) GPL says about being free. Also in this regard CC0 is the absolute patent tolerant license, so it does not make sense to be banned because of this (IMHO).

Fedora might be community driven, but close enough to Red Hat that what Fedora does could get RH sued. At least that's the understanding I have.

That's my understanding too, however that also means Fedora isn't community driven, rather controlled by RH (there's no other way how RH could be sued due to Fedora things). In other words, if Fedora is really community driven, then there's no way RH could be held responsible for the Fedora packages.

The Register article is pretty clear, and they probably did cross check with Fedora and not just go by a single difficult to interpret sentence.

Yes, the Register article makes a lot more sense than the official announcement on LWN. But still banning CC0 seems unreasonable to me.

Thank you guys for your valuable opinions!
bzt

[Julius]

If Qualcomm really did try to get a trojan horse into Linux/Fedora by licensing patent heavy code under CC0, then it seems not too unreasonable.

[bzt]

If Qualcomm really did try to get a trojan horse into Linux/Fedora by licensing patent heavy code under CC0, then it seems not too unreasonable.

It sounds like banning every single kitchen knives because there was once a murder committed by a kitchen knife. That aside, it is pretty sad that Qualcomm has even tried to pull this off, what were they thinking? (And I really really do hope they failed, even without this Fedora restriction.) I'm glad that in the EU software cannot be patented in the first place, meaning only the CC0 part ("no restrictions") applies, so f*k Qualcomm! :-D

Anyway, this sheds some light behind Fedora's motive of banning CC0, which only leaves us with that unfortunate wording. Thanks, @Julius!

Cheers,
bzt

[dulsi]

It does surprise me. At the same time, I don't know what would be affected. I know Anarch is in the distro. They had a search tool which doesn't find it so the search data must not be updated. At the time the data was indexed there was nothing using CC0 (or I'm doing the search wrong).

It's not a big deal for me. Even community distros can make decisions you disagree with. You have the option to fork them but I could also fork Fedora. Realistically that isn't going to happen because I don't want to maintain a distro.

[zzo38]

I have projects that are public domain, although I have not patented them either. I could multilicense them if needed, if I want them in Fedora. One thing is that I do not want to require attribution, and all of the licenses do require attribution.

(I had idea about making up a new license (including allowing use of the patents (and in most cases (but not all), also trademarks), warranty disclaimer, etc, and with explicit compatibility to allow conversion to GPL3 and AGPL3, and also CC-BY-SA 4.0 for works other than computer programs, so that it does not cause license incompatibilities), but I am not a lawyer and I do not know how to properly write the license, and what considerations I might need. My intention is that you can use it and any derivative works in the same way even if copyright law was abolished and everything is public domain, also same than if it isn't if this license is applicable.)

[dulsi]

https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0

Seems like it meets your requirements.

[bzt]

They had a search tool which doesn't find it so the search data must not be updated. At the time the data was indexed there was nothing using CC0 (or I'm doing the search wrong).

Or maybe the ban has already been taken effect.

https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT-0

Big plus for MIT, I like that license too. All the libraries I've created are MIT licensed (and I prefer GPL for end-user applications). BTW I don't think an attribution requirement is a big deal, just showing one more name on the credits page or in the readme is no biggie. (I usually attribute creators anyway, even if the license doesn't mandate it. This just seems like the right thing to do, and it really costs me nothing.)

Cheers,
bzt

[Technopeasant]

I mean, it is true that the Fedora packager could simply re-license any CC0 code onto a different license as they package it.

[Julius]

Relicensing would not help against patent issues. You need the patent holder to be the one licensing the code under a license that explicitly rules out utilizing the patent against people using this software.