On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 3:33 PM Kent Fredric <ken...@gentoo.org> wrote:
> I've just discovered dev-perl/Ace has some fun questionable licensing > which includes a lovely indemnity clause, which had previously gone > unnoticed, and it stipulates additional requests for research > publications, which is not something mentioned in any license currently > in tree other than Tinker > > Following is the entire body of the license I plan to put in > licenses/AcePerl-Indemnity ( name chosen to specifically alert people > tempted to accept this license that Indemnification is an important > part they should actually read ) > > Current advice also says that due to the terms of this license, we have > to RESTRICT="mirror" this as well, unless the Trustees want to sign off > on potentially indemnifying CSHL > I think it's less about the Foundation (I'm happy to indemnify them) but the indemnification reads as viral to me and so anyone that operated a distfiles mirror would also implicitly indemnify[0] (through mirroring from us) and it seems unlikely this is a thing we would encourage because our distfiles operators are relying on some diligence on our own end to avoid excessive liability for files we provide to them. -A [0] Whether this would hold up is another matter, but I'm fine with restricting the mirroring of aceperl to avoid this complication. > > Also following up with CPAN because as its *currently* mirrored on > CPAN, and has been mirrored there for at *least* 12 years, its > potentially in a legal situation as well. > > ( But that's the fault of the uploader if true, because you can't > upload anything to CPAN without mirroring being something you didn't > expect ) > > Once this license is added, the plan is to rework Ace-*.ebuild to be under > > LICENSE="|| ( Artistic GPL-1+ ) AcePerl-Indemnity" > > Upstream: https://metacpan.org/source/LDS/AcePerl-1.92/DISCLAIMER.txt > > Text Body: > > ============== > > The Ace.pm package and all associated files are Copyright (c) 1998 > Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. > > This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify > it under the same terms as Perl itself. See the Artistic License file > in the main Perl distribution for specific terms and conditions of > use. In addition, the following disclaimers apply: > > CSHL makes no representations whatsoever as to the SOFTWARE contained > herein. It is experimental in nature and is provided WITHOUT WARRANTY > OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR ANY OTHER > WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. CSHL MAKES NO REPRESENTATION OR > WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY PATENT OR > OTHER PROPRIETARY RIGHT. > > By downloading this SOFTWARE, your Institution hereby indemnifies CSHL > against any loss, claim, damage or liability, of whatsoever kind or > nature, which may arise from your Institution's respective use, > handling or storage of the SOFTWARE. > > If publications result from research using this SOFTWARE, we ask that > CSHL be acknowledged and/or credit be given to CSHL scientists, as > scientifically appropriate. > > ============== > >
