Open Stack

On Mon, Dec 02, 2013 at 12:00:44PM -0500, Russell Bryant wrote:
> While reviewing an incubation request for a new project, Barbican [1], I
> see that it would be adding a new dependency, Celery.  As noted below,
> Celery uses the 3-clause BSD license.
> 
> On 12/02/2013 11:53 AM, Russell Bryant wrote:
> >>  ** Project must have no library dependencies which effectively restrict how
> >>     the project may be distributed [1]
> > 
> > http://git.openstack.org/cgit/stackforge/barbican/tree/tools/pip-requires
> > 
> > It looks like the only item here not in the global requirements is
> > Celery, which is licensed under a 3-clause BSD license.
> > 
> > https://github.com/celery/celery/blob/master/LICENSE
> > 
> > A notable point is this clause:
> > 
> >   * 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.
> > 
> > I'm not sure if we have other dependencies using this license already.
> > It's also not clear how to interpret this when Python is always
> > distributed as source.  We can take this up on the legal-discuss mailing
> > list.
> 
> My questions:
> 
> 1) Do we already have dependencies that use this license?  Do we have a
> master list somewhere?

I believe there was a plan some time ago to make up a master list of
licenses of dependencies but I am not sure if that got off the ground.

> 2) How does the documentation clause apply for a Python project?

>From the OpenStack Project's perspective, I would assume that clause
is not triggered at all.

> 3) If we don't already have dependencies using this license, what do
> others thing about accepting it (or not) for OpenStack?

Seems clear to me that it should be acceptable. While the issue that
led to this FAQ was specifically some 2-clause BSD-licensed code,
rather than 3-clause BSD, see:
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ#Incorporating_BSD.2FMIT_Licensed_Code

The Apache Software Foundation considers 3-clause BSD to be a
so-called Category A license, FWIW, and I would say it is commonly
assumed that 3-clause BSD code can be used by or incorporated within
Apache License 2.0 projects, subject to the point made in the
above-referenced FAQ.

 - RF