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modules/ROOT/pages/license-approval.adoc" title="Report an issue"><i class="fas fa-bug"></i></a></div> </div> <div class="content"> <aside class="toc sidebar dark:text-fp-gray-light" data-title="Contents" data-levels="2"> <div class="toc-content"> <div class="toc-menu"></div> <div class="pt-6"> </div> </div> </aside> <article class="doc dark:text-gray-100"> <h1 class="page mt-8 mb-1">License Approval</h1> <div class="is-before-toc text-xs text-gray-400 border-b border-gray-300 mb-6 pb-1"> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_overview"><a class="anchor" href="#_overview"></a>Overview</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>In order to meet the goal of creating a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from free and open source software, all software and other content made available by Fedora must be under licenses determined to be allowed in Fedora, with only limited, conditional exceptions.</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Fedora applies different license approval criteria for different categories of material: code, documentation, content, fonts, and firmware. The corresponding status names for approved licenses are: <em>allowed</em>, <em>allowed-documentation</em>, <em>allowed-content</em>, <em>allowed-fonts</em>, and <em>allowed-firmware</em>. The strictest license approval standards apply to code, while somewhat relaxed standards apply to the other categories. Licenses that are not allowed for any category are classified as <em>not-allowed</em>.</p> </div> <div class="admonitionblock important"> <table> <tr> <td class="icon"> <i class="fa icon-important" title="Important"></i> </td> <td class="content"> Fedora’s license approval standards apply to everything that is made available by the Fedora Project, not just installable binary packages in Fedora Linux. For example, everything available at <a href="https://pagure.io">Fedora Pagure</a>, <a href="https://src.fedoraproject.org">Fedora Source Packages</a>, <a href="https://koji.fedoraproject.org">Fedora Koji</a>, <a href="https://docs.fedoraproject.org">Fedora documentation</a> and <a href="https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/">Copr repositories</a> is subject to the same licensing rules as Fedora Linux packages. </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>The Fedora legal documentation includes lists of <a href="../allowed-licenses/" class="xref page">allowed</a> and <a href="../not-allowed-licenses/" class="xref page">not-allowed</a> licenses for Fedora. These lists are generated from the data maintained in the <a href="https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data">Fedora License Data</a> repository. In case of any discrepancy between the generated Fedora license lists and the data in Fedora License Data, the latter is considered authoritative. For some purposes you may find it more useful to refer to the repository (particularly the TOML files in the <code>data/</code> directory), rather than the generated lists.</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Fedora uses <a href="../spdx/" class="xref page">SPDX license expressions</a> to represent allowed and not-allowed licenses in TOML files in the Fedora License Data <code>data/</code> directory and in the generated Fedora license lists.</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>If a license that covers something in Fedora, or in a package that has been or is intended to be proposed for inclusion in Fedora Linux, is not listed on the allowed and not-allowed lists, then it must be <a href="../license-review-process/" class="xref page">reviewed</a>.</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Whether a license is allowed or not allowed for Fedora is ultimately determined by the Fedora Council. Today, this decision is normally delegated to members of the Red Hat legal team who are specialists in free software / open source licensing and who are very familiar with and committed to supporting Fedora’s <a href="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/">mission and foundations</a>.</p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_allowed_licenses"><a class="anchor" href="#_allowed_licenses"></a>Allowed Licenses</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>A license is <em>allowed</em> if Fedora determines that the license is a free software / open source license. At a high level, the inquiry involves determining whether the license provides software freedom, and (equivalently) making sure that the license does not place burdens on users' exercise of its permissions that are inconsistent with evolving community norms and traditions around what is acceptable in a free software / open source license.</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>As a general rule, all code made available by Fedora must be governed by an <em>allowed</em> license. A license that is in the general <em>allowed</em> category can be used for anything in Fedora, not just code.</p> </div> <div class="admonitionblock tip"> <table> <tr> <td class="icon"> <i class="fa icon-tip" title="Tip"></i> </td> <td class="content"> Fedora treats spec files as "code". Normally, spec files have no explicit license, and, to the extent they were authored by Fedora contributors and are copyrightable, they are available under the MIT license by virtue of the <a href="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/legal/fpca/">FPCA</a>. </td> </tr> </table> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_licenses_allowed_for_documentation"><a class="anchor" href="#_licenses_allowed_for_documentation"></a>Licenses Allowed for Documentation</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Fedora will designate a license as allowed for documentation (<em>allowed-documentation</em>) if it meets the criteria for <em>allowed</em> licenses and it seems to be specifically designed for documentation and not for code.</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>In addition, Fedora classifies the following licenses as <em>allowed-documentation</em> (even though they do not meet the above criteria):</p> </div> <div class="ulist"> <ul> <li> <p>Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License and its predecessor versions</p> </li> <li> <p>Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License and its predecessor versions</p> </li> <li> <p>The GNU Free Documentation License version 2.1 and its predecessor versions</p> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_licenses_allowed_for_content"><a class="anchor" href="#_licenses_allowed_for_content"></a>Licenses Allowed for Content</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>For purposes of Fedora license classification, “content” means any material that is not clearly code, documentation, fonts or firmware. Here are some examples of content:</p> </div> <div class="ulist"> <ul> <li> <p>graphic image files</p> </li> <li> <p>audio files</p> </li> <li> <p>nonfunctional data sets</p> </li> <li> <p>AppStream metainfo.xml files</p> </li> <li> <p>standards documents</p> </li> <li> <p>certain files relating to functionality and management of markup languages, including XML schema files and resource resolution files, XSL files, SGML declaration files, and ancillary informal documentation accompanying such files</p> </li> <li> <p>machine learning model checkpoints containing pretrained weights</p> </li> <li> <p>non-script slide presentation resources, except to the extent slide presentation content functions as documentation</p> </li> </ul> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Fedora will designate a license as allowed for content (<em>allowed-content</em>) if it meets the criteria for <em>allowed</em> licenses with the following exceptions:</p> </div> <div class="ulist"> <ul> <li> <p>The license may restrict or prohibit modification</p> </li> <li> <p>The license may say that it does not cover patents or grant any patent licenses</p> </li> </ul> </div> <div class="admonitionblock tip"> <table> <tr> <td class="icon"> <i class="fa icon-tip" title="Tip"></i> </td> <td class="content"> When we say that a standards document is subject to the relaxed license criteria for content, we are referring to the copyright-oriented license for the document itself, not licenses covering implementation of the technology specified by the document. </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div class="admonitionblock tip"> <table> <tr> <td class="icon"> <i class="fa icon-tip" title="Tip"></i> </td> <td class="content"> Man pages are considered documentation, not content, even when they are derived from standards documents. </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div class="admonitionblock important"> <table> <tr> <td class="icon"> <i class="fa icon-important" title="Important"></i> </td> <td class="content"> <code>CC0-1.0</code>, which has a clause that says that it does not license or otherwise "affect" patent rights, is no longer <em>allowed</em>, but it continues to be <em>allowed-content</em>. </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Fedora’s decision to treat a particular category of material as "content" generally reflects a pragmatic judgment. The main focus for Fedora is free software; in some cases, for free software to be fully useful, it must be accompanied by non-software items that unfortunately are covered by non-libre terms. Fedora may be more likely to conclude that a given category of material is "content" if such material is (as a general matter) likely of doubtful or "thin" copyrightability.</p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_licenses_allowed_for_fonts"><a class="anchor" href="#_licenses_allowed_for_fonts"></a>Licenses Allowed for Fonts</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Fedora may designate a license as allowed for fonts (<em>allowed-fonts</em>) if it meets the criteria for <em>allowed</em> licenses with the following exception:</p> </div> <div class="ulist"> <ul> <li> <p>The license may contain a nominal prohibition on resale or distribution in isolation</p> </li> </ul> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>In addition, Fedora classifies the following licenses as <em>allowed-fonts</em> (even though at least some of them do not meet the above criteria):</p> </div> <div class="ulist"> <ul> <li> <p>Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License and its predecessor versions</p> </li> <li> <p>Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License and its predecessor versions</p> </li> </ul> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>A good example of what we mean by a "nominal prohibition on resale or distribution in isolation" is found in the following condition in the <a href="https://spdx.org/licenses/OFL-1.1.html">SIL Open Font License 1.1</a>:</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p><code>Neither the Font Software nor any of its individual components, in Original or Modified Versions, may be sold by itself.</code></p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>This kind of prohibition would not be acceptable in a license applicable to code (see, for example, the <a href="https://spot.livejournal.com/315383.html">Sun RPC license</a>).</p> </div> <div class="admonitionblock note"> <table> <tr> <td class="icon"> <i class="fa icon-note" title="Note"></i> </td> <td class="content"> The prohibition in the SIL OFL is "nominal" because in FOSS legal culture it has occasionally been cleverly asserted that one can get around this kind of provision by bundling a trivial 'Hello world' program with the fonts (and there is actually some reason to believe the authors of the SIL OFL intended this). If we were to encounter a license that had such a provision but we believed a 'Hello world' solution was not even arguably viable, we might not consider the license allowable for fonts. </td> </tr> </table> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_licenses_allowed_for_firmware"><a class="anchor" href="#_licenses_allowed_for_firmware"></a>Licenses Allowed for Firmware</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Some applications, drivers, and hardware require binary firmware images to boot Fedora Linux or function properly. Fedora permits inclusion of these files as long as they meet the following license and technical requirements:</p> </div> <div class="sect2"> <h3 id="_license_requirements_for_firmware"><a class="anchor" href="#_license_requirements_for_firmware"></a>License requirements for firmware</h3> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Fedora may designate a license as allowed for firmware (<em>allowed-firmware</em>) if it meets the criteria for <em>allowed</em> licenses with the following exceptions:</p> </div> <div class="ulist"> <ul> <li> <p>The license may prohibit modification, reverse engineering, disassembly or decompilation.</p> </li> <li> <p>The license may require that the firmware be used only in conjunction with specified hardware.</p> </li> <li> <p>The license may require that the firmware be redistributed only as incorporated in the redistributor’s product (or as a maintenance update for existing end users of the redistributor’s product). This may be limited further to those products of the redistributor that support or contain the hardware associated with the licensed firmware.</p> </li> <li> <p>The license may require a redistributor to pass on or impose conditions on users that are no more restrictive than those authorized by Fedora itself with respect to firmware licenses.</p> </li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="sect2"> <h3 id="_technical_firmware_requirements"><a class="anchor" href="#_technical_firmware_requirements"></a>Technical firmware requirements</h3> <div class="paragraph"> <p>While these technical requirements for firmware have nothing to do with licensing, they are included here for convenience.</p> </div> <div class="ulist"> <ul> <li> <p>The files must be non-executable within the Fedora Linux context (note: this means that the files cannot run on their own, not that they are just <code>chmod -x</code>)</p> </li> <li> <p>The files must not be libraries, within the Fedora Linux context</p> </li> <li> <p>The files must be standalone, not embedded in executable or library code (within the Fedora Linux context)</p> </li> <li> <p>The files must be necessary for the functionality of open source code being included in Fedora Linux or to enable Fedora Linux to boot on a specific device, where no other reliable and supported mechanisms exist</p> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_not_allowed_licenses"><a class="anchor" href="#_not_allowed_licenses"></a>'Not allowed' Licenses</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Any license that does not meet the criteria above for allowed licenses (including allowed for a specific category) will be classified as <em>not-allowed</em>.</p> </div> <div class="admonitionblock note"> <table> <tr> <td class="icon"> <i class="fa icon-note" title="Note"></i> </td> <td class="content"> In extremely rare cases we may have some reason to designate a license as <em>not-allowed</em> even though it might meet the formal criteria for the relevant category. An example is <a href="https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/blob/main/data/LicenseRef-wrk.toml?ref_type=heads"><code>LicenseRef-wrk</code></a>, which represents a license based on the Apache License 2.0 and named "Modified Apache License 2.0", presumably without permission from the Apache Software Foundation, which has said that derivatives of the Apache License cannot have "Apache" in their name. </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div class="sect2"> <h3 id="_usage_exceptions"><a class="anchor" href="#_usage_exceptions"></a><code>usage</code> exceptions</h3> <div class="paragraph"> <p>For some <em>not-allowed</em> licenses, or licenses allowed only for a specific category, an exception is recorded in the Fedora License Data TOML file for the license, as the value of the <code>usage</code> key (and displayed in the "Usage" column of the <a href="../not-allowed-licenses/" class="xref page">not-allowed</a> list). The exception will indicate that Fedora tolerates the license under limited conditions (for example, for a specific package, or for a defined time period).</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>For example, here is the <code>usage</code> exception for <code>OPUBL-1.0</code>:</p> </div> <div class="exampleblock"> <div class="content"> Allowed for documentation if the copyright holder does not exercise any of the “LICENSE OPTIONS” listed in Section VI </div> </div> <div class="admonitionblock note"> <table> <tr> <td class="icon"> <i class="fa icon-note" title="Note"></i> </td> <td class="content"> <code>OPUBL-1.0</code> represents the Open Publication License version 1.0, which was classified as "good" for documentation under the Callaway system provided no "options" are exercised. For administrative convenience we now classify it as <em>not-allowed</em> with the <code>usage</code> exception noted above. </td> </tr> </table> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_changes_in_license_status"><a class="anchor" href="#_changes_in_license_status"></a>Changes in License Status</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Fedora aims for stability in its license classifications, but its treatment of a particular license or license type may change as community standards and expectations around acceptable licensing evolve or as new issues and concerns come to light. In rare cases, an allowed license may be reclassified as <em>not-allowed</em>, or an <em>allowed</em> license may be reclassified as allowed only for a specific category of material, as when <code>CC0-1.0</code> was reclassified from <em>allowed</em> to <em>allowed-content</em>. When this sort of reclassification is done, we will try to minimize disruption, including by defining appropriate <code>usage</code> exceptions.</p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sect1"> <h2 id="_background_to_fedora_licensing_policy"><a class="anchor" href="#_background_to_fedora_licensing_policy"></a>Background to Fedora licensing policy</h2> <div class="sectionbody"> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Over several decades, norms concerning acceptable standards for software (and other content) licensing developed out of communities associated with free software and open source projects. Fedora builds upon and contributes to the development of this community tradition. Most of the philosophical and practical groundwork for Fedora’s policies on licensing was developed over many years by <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Spot">Tom 'spot' Callaway</a>, often working in collaboration with members of Red Hat’s legal team.</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>The two most influential efforts to distill FOSS licensing norms are the Free Software Foundation’s maintenance and interpretation of the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#fs-definition">Free Software Definition</a>, and the Open Source Initiative’s maintenance and interpretation of the <a href="https://opensource.org/osd">Open Source Definition</a>. For much of its earlier history, Fedora tended to regard the FSF’s interpretation as highly authoritative, while viewing the OSI’s license review decisions with greater skepticism. However, even at the high point of that period of skepticism, Fedora treated the OSD and OSI decisions as one source of persuasive authority. Fedora has also sometimes taken into account the decisions of other major community Linux distributions and other important community efforts to define and apply software freedom-related legal norms. Fedora’s license approval decisions are both principled and pragmatic.</p> </div> <div class="paragraph"> <p>Out of necessity, Fedora has passed judgment on hundreds of licenses never considered by the FSF or the OSI. In a small number of cases, Fedora has disagreed with decisions of the FSF and OSI regarding whether particular licenses are FOSS. Over time, Fedora has built up an informal body of interpretation and policymaking regarding free/open licensing which has itself influenced the larger FOSS community outside of Fedora.</p> </div> </div> </div> <div id="" class="mt-16"> <p class="contribute px-6 py-3 w-fit bg-gray-100 dark:bg-fp-blue-darker rounded-full">Want to help? <a class="" href="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-docs/contributing-docs/">Learn how to contribute to Fedora Docs <span class="ml-2 inline-block text-3xl leading-4 h-max align-top text-black dark:text-white">›</span></a></p> </div> </article> </div> </main> </div> <footer class="flex flex-col bg-fp-gray-lightest dark:bg-fp-blue-darkest dark:text-fp-gray-light text-sm dark:border-t dark:border-gray-800"> <section class="pt-2 pb-6 px-2"> <p class="text-center">All Fedora Documentation content available under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode">CC BY-SA 4.0</a> or, when specifically noted, under another <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main">accepted</a> free and open content license.</p> <div class="container mx-auto flex flex-col lg:flex-row my-4"> <div class="mx-auto lg:mx-0 lg:basis-3/12"> <img src="../../_/img/fedora-blue.png" alt="Fedora Logo" class="w-36 mb-4 lg:mb-0" /> </div> <ul class="mx-4 flex items-center grow justify-center gap-4 lg:mx-0 lg:gap-12 xl:gap-20 2xl:gap-28 lg:justify-start" > <li class="list-none"> <a href="/en-US/legal/privacy/" class="text-fp-gray-darkest dark:text-fp-gray transition duration-300 ease-in-out hover:text-fp-gray dark:hover:text-fp-gray-light" >Privacy Statement</a > </li> <li class="list-none"> <a href="/en-US/legal/" class="text-fp-gray-darkest transition duration-300 ease-in-out hover:text-fp-gray dark:text-fp-gray dark:hover:text-fp-gray-light" >Legal</a > </li> <li class="list-none"> <a href="/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/" class="text-fp-gray-darkest transition duration-300 ease-in-out hover:text-fp-gray dark:text-fp-gray dark:hover:text-fp-gray-light" >Code of Conduct</a > </li> <li class="list-none"> <a href="https://getfedora.org/en/sponsors/" class="text-fp-gray-darkest transition duration-300 ease-in-out hover:text-fp-gray dark:text-fp-gray dark:hover:text-fp-gray-light" >Sponsors</a > </li> </ul> </div> <p class="text-center text-xs text-fp-gray-dark">Last build: 2024-11-28 00:50:15 UTC | Last content update: 2024-08-08 </p> </section>  <section class="bg-black py-6 text-center md:text-left px-2"> <div class="container mx-auto flex flex-col lg:flex-row"> <div class="mx-auto items-center lg:mx-0 lg:basis-3/12"> <img src="../../_/img/logo-sponsored-by-red-hat.png" alt="Sponsored by Red Hat Logo" class="mb-4 xl:mb-0" /> </div> <div class="flex items-center justify-center text-center lg:text-left lg:ml-8 xl:-ml-8 2xl:ml-5"> <p class="text-white"> Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat. <a class="block text-fp-gray xl:ml-2 xl:inline" href="https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/articles/relationship-between-fedora-and-rhel"> Learn more about the relationship between Red Hat and Fedora. </a> </p> </div> </div> </section> </footer> <script id="site-script" src="../../_/js/site.js" data-ui-root-path="../../_"></script> <script async src="../../_/js/vendor/highlight.js"></script> <script async src="../../_/js/vendor/datatables.js"></script> <script async src="../../_/js/vendor/tabs.js"></script> <script src="../../_/js/vendor/lunr.js"></script> <script src="../../_/js/search-ui.js" id="search-ui-script" data-site-root-path="../.." data-snippet-length="100" data-stylesheet="../../_/css/search.css"></script> <script async src="../../search-index.js"></script> </body> </html>