Pierre, you are using very careful wording while insinuating that there is a problem.

Please clarify: Are you and Cendio hereby disputing the new FreeRDP license? Are you as rdesktop copyright holders claiming that shipping FreeRDP under APL is violating your copyright?

The opposite argument would probably be that every single line of code that ever has been shipped together with your GPL-only code (if any) has been dual-licensed to be GPL compatible. The parts that are dual-licensed have been written from scratch and then piece by piece used with the GPL-only code ... until the point where there was no GPL-only code left and the all the code could be used under the other license. The claim is that all the code currently found in FreeRDP is "sufficiently cleanroom" to not be affected by the GPL.

(In reply to comment #1)
> Pierre, you are using very careful wording while insinuating that there is a
> problem.
> 

Yes, I'm explicitly using very careful wording as I am not a lawyer and can therefore not in good faith make a statement further than that we believe this whole thing is legally unclear and should be treated with caution and care.

> Please clarify: Are you and Cendio hereby disputing the new FreeRDP license?
> Are you as rdesktop copyright holders claiming that shipping FreeRDP under
> APL is violating your copyright?

Cendio are claiming that older versions of FreeRDP had code from rdesktop that were written by Cendio. I don't think anyone involved has disputed that portion.

In order to remove Cendio's copyright claims to FreeRDP (and facilitate the licence change), a "rewrite" of FreeRDP was started. However, we at Cendio have not been convinced that this "rewrite" was performed in a manner that clearly makes it being fully independent from the previous rdesktop origins. The fact that it was done in such a short time frame, and by people previously involved in FreeRDP and rdesktop, are two factors in this.

We have not had any lawyers look at this and give a professional opinion on it, which is why we're not explicitly claiming that FreeRDP is in violation of our copyrights. But we (as laymen) also cannot see this as a clear case of FreeRDP being in the clear, which is why we're trying to shine some light on the dispute.

I really do not want to be in the middle of this. If you think there is a case of copyright infringement, and you can provide proof of this, then you can:

A) Present that proof to us and we will assess whether we wish to continue distributing FreeRDP as part of Fedora

or, even better,

B) Get a lawyer. Pursue available legal avenues in the courts.

While Fedora does not condone copyright infringement, we do not take stances on such issues without a lot more data than you've presented here.

Closing this WONTFIX, either reopen with more data for us to consider or resolve your issues with lawyers (or amicably, across projects).