The copyright on the ace implementation was clear, but its licensing terms were not. I was able to clarify the terms with the copyright holder: Copyright 2007 Jerome H. Friedman Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. ========================================================================= To remove any hint of impropriety, here are copies of my email communications with the copyright holder. From: "Jerome H. Friedman" <jhf@stanford.edu> To: "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa@redhat.com> Subject: Re: license for ace() Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:05:10 -0800 Tom, >> > We would like to include it in Fedora, but we need to know the >> > licensing >> > terms for that code. >> >> Sorry for my ignorance, but what is Fedora? > > Fedora is a very popular distribution of Linux. Our previous name was > "Red Hat Linux". Right. I should have remembered that. You hereby have my permission to distribute my ACE code in Fedora. Cheers, Jerry. From tcallawa@redhat.com Wed Oct 31 15:10:12 2007 Subject: Re: license for ace() From: "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa@redhat.com> To: "Jerome H. Friedman" <jhf@stanford.edu> Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:10:12 -0400 On Wed, 2007-10-31 at 11:05 -0800, Jerome H. Friedman wrote: > Tom, > > >> > We would like to include it in Fedora, but we need to know the > >> > licensing > >> > terms for that code. > >> > >> Sorry for my ignorance, but what is Fedora? > > > > Fedora is a very popular distribution of Linux. Our previous name was > > "Red Hat Linux". > > Right. I should have remembered that. > > You hereby have my permission to distribute my ACE code in Fedora. Great! Now, I just need to know under what licensing terms we can distribute it under. :) Here are several common licenses: MIT ==== Copyright 19XX John Doe <jdoe@nowhere.com> Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. BSD ==== Copyright (c) <YEAR>, <OWNER> All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the name of the <ORGANIZATION> nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. GPLv2 ====== http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html If none of those licenses seems correct to you, let me know, and I will show you some others. Thanks, ~Tom From: "Jerome H. Friedman" <jhf@stanford.edu> To: "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa@redhat.com> Subject: Re: license for ace() Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:43:34 -0800 Tom, > MIT > ==== > Copyright 19XX John Doe <jdoe@nowhere.com> > > Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and > its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, > provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that > both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in > supporting documentation. No representations are made about the > suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" > without express or implied warranty. I think this is good enough. Jerry.