Question on MIT Kerberos Library licensing

Eran Messeri eranm at google.com
Fri May 11 11:45:53 EDT 2018


Thanks for the quick replies both, I'll pass them along.

I don't suppose anybody would remember who the original contributors are so
we could get the clarification directly from OpenVision or whoever retained
its IP portfolio?

Many thanks,
Eran

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 8:05 PM, Simo Sorce <simo at redhat.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 2018-05-10 at 19:14 +0100, Eran Messeri wrote:
> > On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 1:38 PM, Simo Sorce <simo at redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, 2018-05-10 at 10:56 +0100, Eran Messeri wrote:
> > > > Dear Kerberos Developers,
> > > >
> > > > I'd like to use the MIT Kerberos library in an open-source Android
> > > > application I'm developing.
> > > > However, the people who reviewed the licenses had some
> > >
> > > concerns/questions.
> > > >
> > > > Who's a good person to bring up these issues with? Is there someone
> on
> > >
> > > the
> > > > development team that deals with licenses for contributed code in
> > > > particular?
> > > >
> > > > I'm happy to elaborate on the intended use - it's not confidential,
> and
> > > > pretty straightforward use of the Kerberos library.
> > >
> > > Eran,
> > > Maybe you can start by stating what License concerns were raised ?
> > >
> > > The MIT Kerberos library uses one of the most liberal Open Source
> > > licenses you can find, I am surprised if that's at issue, so I am
> > > curious to know what's the perceived problem.
> > >
> >
> > The concerns were around the language related to the files contributed by
> > OpenVision.
> > In particular, the copyright and permission notice
> > <https://web.mit.edu/kerberos/krb5-1.12/doc/mitK5license.html> includes
> the
> > following:
> >
> > "OpenVision retains all copyrights in the donated Source Code. OpenVision
> > also retains copyright to derivative works of the Source Code, whether
> > created by OpenVision or by a third party. The OpenVision copyright
> notice
> > must be preserved if derivative works are made based on the donated
> Source
> > Code."
> >
> > The internal concern was around the potential broad applicability implied
> > by term "derivative works of the Source Code,  whether created by
> > OpenVision or by a third party.".
>
> For this kind of doubts the only good person to ask would be a lawyer.
> I can only say that MIT is distributed by many third parties and none
> of them seem to be overly concerned with the wording of the OpenVision
> grant.
>
> Simo.
>
> --
> Simo Sorce
> Sr. Principal Software Engineer
> Red Hat, Inc
>
>


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