Licensing issues with src/common/convert_UTF.c

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This bug was first reported at the GNOME Bugzilla [1].

"The claimed licensed is a 3-clause BSD, but some files are different:

src/common/convert_UTF.c has the following license:
 * Unicode, Inc. hereby grants the right to freely use the information
 * supplied in this file in the creation of products supporting the
 * Unicode Standard, and to make copies of this file in any form
 * for internal or external distribution as long as this notice
 * remains attached.
This is clearly not free as no rights to modify the file are granted.
However it looks like it could easily be replaced with some glib functions."

You can find a LGPLv2+ version of those functions inside GLib at [2]. EGLib
also contains a X11-licensed version of those functions, at [3].
Please consider replacing that source code with a free implementation.

[1] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=480128
[2] http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/glib/trunk/glib/gutf8.c?view=markup
[3] http://github.com/myabc/mono/tree/master/eglib

Original issue reported on code.google.com by cosimo.c...@gmail.com on 2 Aug 2008 at 1:17

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Original comment by phajdan.jr@chromium.org on 26 Sep 2011 at 9:16

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Original comment by phajdan.jr@chromium.org on 26 Sep 2011 at 9:53

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Original comment by phajdan.jr@chromium.org on 28 Sep 2011 at 6:01

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Original comment by phajdan.jr@chromium.org on 16 Oct 2012 at 9:33

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[deleted comment]

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Gervase Markham told me that Mark Davis (original author of the code) told him 
via private email that the license on this code is now the standard Unicode 
license, which is an acceptable open source license. I would love to get that 
in a public venue, but I think we can safely replace the license on these files 
with the Unicode license.

Original comment by ted.mielczarek on 21 Jan 2015 at 5:07

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Specifically, Mark's email said:

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 6:01 PM, Gervase Markham <gerv@mozilla.org> wrote:
>     * Unicode, Inc. hereby grants the right to freely use the information
>     * supplied in this file in the creation of products supporting the
>     * Unicode Standard

​It is now covered by http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html#Exhibit1

Mark

— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —

Markus Scherer said: "I would assume that when the Unicode license got updated 
that it then applied to all materials published by Unicode as far as the 
license says they are covered."

I think all of this means that we should just update the license in these files 
to the one given at Mark's URL and be done with it. (And then import new copies 
into the Mozilla tree so my license scanner stops worrying ;-)

Gerv

Original comment by gerv.mar...@gmail.com on 4 Feb 2015 at 2:39

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ted.mielczarek: are you able to update the license on this code based on 
comment 7?

Note also that http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html#Exhibit1 is the "UNICODE, 
INC. LICENSE AGREEMENT - DATA FILES AND SOFTWARE". And it clarifies:

"Software includes any source code published in the Unicode Standard or under 
the directories http://www.unicode.org/Public/, 
http://www.unicode.org/reports/, and http://www.unicode.org/cldr/data/."

The original publication home of these files was:
http://www.unicode.org/Public/PROGRAMS/CVTUTF/
so it is covered by that statement.

So, all in all, I do think we are clear to change the license headers on this 
code.

Gerv

Original comment by gerv.mar...@gmail.com on 25 Feb 2015 at 11:33

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https://breakpad.appspot.com/9764002/

Original comment by mark@chromium.org on 25 Feb 2015 at 3:37

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r1428

Original comment by mark@chromium.org on 25 Feb 2015 at 9:17

• Changed state: Fixed