The legal issue is important for a new distribution, there are several aspects to be covered
~- organization: association or foundation
~- who's responsible for what: president, treasurer
~- licensing according to free software http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html & http://opensource.org (OSI) & http://faq.tuxfamily.org/License/En (see DFSG to be complete)
~- responsibilities of those involved: packagers, mirror-admin, testers, developers, users, magazines which distributes CD/DVD

===Legal management of licenses for Mageia===
Well let's focus on what's distributed, mainly libre-software though copyright is not the only thing to take into account (software patents are still illegal in many countries for those trying to prevent fair-sharing and getting selfish-temporary "rights" in some countries, trademarks too have drawbacks unless they are used appropriately).
{{image class="center" alt="Mageia legal context (draft)" title="Mageia legal context (draft)" url="http://download.tuxfamily.org/cooker/mageia/doc/MageiaLegal20101003.png" link="http://download.tuxfamily.org/cooker/mageia/doc/MageiaLegal20101003.png"}}
Source is available at [[http://download.tuxfamily.org/cooker/mageia/doc/MageiaLegal.xmind Mageia legal xmind]] (of course WikiLicense applies) see CompileXMind to edit it
TODO:
~- add user involvement
~- identify relations on graphic
~- communicate about smallest common multiple (SCM) vs greatest common denominator (GCD): empower users to contribute what they are authorized to, in their respective country, to provide as much as possible (SCM) in the distribution rather than as few as is possible everywhere (GCD), hence adding as much as possible for as many people as possible

===managing those illegal (in many countries) software patents ===

~- plf
~- example with mp3
~~- encoding with Frauhnaufer
~~- reading ? (check references)
~~- users
~~- distribution
~~- who can be concerned?

===What's the use of a fair trademark?===
some examples:
~- http://www.debian.org/logos/index.en.html
~- OIN ?
~- Fedora vs RedHat?
~- Linux Foundation for use of Linux (appropriate for any GNU/Linux distribution iirc)
~~- http://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/linux-foundation-trademark-usage-guidelines how to write it
~~- http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/trademark/attribution everyone and sublicensees
~~- http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/lsb example of logo
~- http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/
~- http://foundation.gnome.org/licensing/index.html (find out KDE trademark too :D)

===for those interested to follow===
Implementation should provide two means of contact, depending on the subject:
~- private: (mageia-issues?) because some things have to be discussed without public knowing, between trusted people
~- standard support: licensing, official position, explanations, like is debian-legal for example

TODO: Discuss -legal only or any need for a -licensing ML ? (IMHO, -legal is sufficient even though it would be public, private contact being possible, only requires proper explanation of what subjects can be addressed and which should not)

===Some references in French===
http://framalang.org/wiki/FRAMALANG:_10_m%C3%A9prises_courantes_sur_la_GPL
http://faq.tuxfamily.org/Licence/Fr
check CategoryLibreAdvocacy particularly ContributionLibre (in french)

=== RDA mail on Mageia ML ===
https://www.mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-discuss/20101004/002134.html


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CategoryBlogMageia CategoryMageiaDev