Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Alex Harsanyi]

On Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 9:39:05 AM UTC+8, Alex Harsanyi wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 11:45:10 PM UTC+8, Joel Dueck wrote:
>>
>> On Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 12:10:56 AM UTC-5, Alex Harsanyi wrote:
>>>
>>> I am curious to know how you plan to comply with section 4.d of the 
>>> LGPL, which states that the users of your application must be able to 
>>> replace the LGPL "library" with a modified version of their own -- this 
>>> means all the racket packages that you use in your application (even the 
>>> ones shipped with Racket):
>>>
>>
>> Excellent question. I don’t intend to comply with the LGPL.
>>
>>
> I was really hoping that you actually had a solution to the problem I
> mentioned...
>
> The LGPL clarification on https://download.racket-lang.org/license.html 
> states
> that we need to be able to re-link the software with modified versions of
> Racket.  I am not sure how to achieve that, so here are my technical
> questions, directed to anyone on this list who can answer them:
>
> 0) To simplify things, the same Racket version and OS can be used for both
>"raco make" to produce the bytecode files as well as the "raco exe" 
> part to
>"link" the executable.
>
> 1) Given a set of ZO files compiled using "raco make", is it possible to
>create an executable from these ZO files using "raco exe", or a call to
>`create-embedded-executable`, without having access to the source files
>themselves?  If it is possible, how?
>
> 2) Is it possible to distribute a Racket package as ZO files only and 
> actually
>be able to use it from Racket? If it is possible, how?
>

I did some investigations and it it turns out that the answer to both 
questions is YES, one can create and distribute the bytecode for a package 
or application and allow the user to link them with a, possibly modified, 
Racket runtime.  The trick is to use "raco pkg create", which allows 
creating binary only packages and works for regular applications too.  
Since no one responded to my message, it seems this is not common 
knowledge, so I wrote some notes about it, in case others find it useful: 
https://alex-hhh.github.io/2019/09/racket-binary-packages.html

Alex.
 

>
> Alex.
>

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Sage Gerard]

Joining in. I want to be part of this.

-slg

 Original Message 
On Aug 29, 2019, 12:31 PM, 'Joel Dueck' via Racket Users wrote:

> On Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 11:27:41 AM UTC-5, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt wrote:
>
>> Thanks for volunteering! I'll follow-up off-list.
>>
>> Sam
>
> Sure thing. Just minutes ago I dug up the Relicensing Permission issue on 
> GitHub
> and found you have made significant progress. Not looking to wrest this out 
> of any-
> one's hands, just to donate a chunk of spare cycles if it will help push this 
> thing over
> the top.
>
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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

['Joel Dueck' via Racket Users]

On Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 11:27:41 AM UTC-5, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt 
wrote:
>
> Thanks for volunteering! I'll follow-up off-list. 
>
> Sam
>

Sure thing. Just minutes ago I dug up the Relicensing Permission issue on 
GitHub
and found you have made significant progress. Not looking to wrest this out 
of any-
one's hands, just to donate a chunk of spare cycles if it will help push 
this thing over
the top.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Sam Tobin-Hochstadt]

Thanks for volunteering! I'll follow-up off-list.

Sam

On Thu, Aug 29, 2019 at 12:14 PM 'Joel Dueck' via Racket Users
 wrote:
>
> On Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 10:45:33 AM UTC-5, Matthew Flatt wrote:
>>
>>
>> A pulse and keyboard is a good start, but the task requires significant
>> initiative to work with the Conservancy to get guidance and make sure
>> things move along. The process may possibly involve contacting
>> individual contributors (again) and helping them figure out who needs
>> to be contacted at their respective institutions, and then making sure
>> that communication actually happens. It's not rocket science, but it's
>> actual work.
>>
>
> Understood. If you or someone can get me up to speed — perhaps some
> email introductions, a list of contributors, a rough indication of the current
> state, I can commit to pushing this cart consistently, say through the end
> of the year. Then we can review and go from there. If anyone else would
> rather do it, or would prefer it be someone else, that’s obviously fine too.
>
> (To clarify, I didn't mean by “pulse and keyboard” to imply anything
> derisive about the work that needs to be done or the people who
> had been doing it. I just wanted to know if any special domain
> expertise was needed or if a prole like me could do it. I'm pretty familiar
> with software licensing issues, but have only been in Racket’s orbit
> for the past few years or so.)
>
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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

['Joel Dueck' via Racket Users]

On Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 10:45:33 AM UTC-5, Matthew Flatt wrote:
>
>
> A pulse and keyboard is a good start, but the task requires significant 
> initiative to work with the Conservancy to get guidance and make sure 
> things move along. The process may possibly involve contacting 
> individual contributors (again) and helping them figure out who needs 
> to be contacted at their respective institutions, and then making sure 
> that communication actually happens. It's not rocket science, but it's 
> actual work. 
>
>
Understood. If you or someone can get me up to speed — perhaps some
email introductions, a list of contributors, a rough indication of the 
current
state, I can commit to pushing this cart consistently, say through the end
of the year. Then we can review and go from there. If anyone else would
rather do it, or would prefer it be someone else, that’s obviously fine too.

(To clarify, I didn't mean by “pulse and keyboard” to imply anything 
derisive about the work that needs to be done or the people who 
had been doing it. I just wanted to know if any special domain 
expertise was needed or if a prole like me could do it. I'm pretty familiar
with software licensing issues, but have only been in Racket’s orbit
for the past few years or so.) 

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Matthew Flatt]

At Thu, 29 Aug 2019 08:14:19 -0700 (PDT), "'Joel Dueck' via Racket Users" wrote:
> On Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 9:01:51 AM UTC-5, Matthew Flatt wrote:
> 
> > > Lingering elsewhere: the relicensing project that commenced more than 
> > > 2.5 years ago [5] — not clear whether under the SFC this effort is 
> > > alive, dead, or what. Of course, Galaxy's Edge took 3 yrs to build, 
> > > so maybe I'm being unreasonably impatient. 
> >
> > Clearly, we could use some help. 
> >
> >
>  What are the tasks that we could take off your hands? Are there 
> requirements for doing these tasks besides having a pulse and a keyboard?

A pulse and keyboard is a good start, but the task requires significant
initiative to work with the Conservancy to get guidance and make sure
things move along. The process may possibly involve contacting
individual contributors (again) and helping them figure out who needs
to be contacted at their respective institutions, and then making sure
that communication actually happens. It's not rocket science, but it's
actual work.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

['Joel Dueck' via Racket Users]

On Thursday, August 29, 2019 at 9:01:51 AM UTC-5, Matthew Flatt wrote:

> > Lingering elsewhere: the relicensing project that commenced more than 
> > 2.5 years ago [5] — not clear whether under the SFC this effort is 
> > alive, dead, or what. Of course, Galaxy's Edge took 3 yrs to build, 
> > so maybe I'm being unreasonably impatient. 
>
> Clearly, we could use some help. 
>
>
 What are the tasks that we could take off your hands? Are there 
requirements for doing these tasks besides having a pulse and a keyboard?

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Matthew Flatt]

At Fri, 23 Aug 2019 11:03:42 -0700, Matthew Butterick wrote:
> Did SFC do so in this case? No idea. Before the switch, Karen Sandler
> from SFC circulated [2] a template agreement [3] but AFAIK the actual
> agreement that Racket's core team signed, and the details thereof,
> has never been shared with the community. (Can it? Should it? Not my
> call. Or did I miss it?)

It was the same, with the "Self-Perpetuating Committee" option for 6:

 https://drive.google.com/open?id=17mrcnMLVMYBCp3fb71gY1a7lYwvIyApR


> Furthermore, the original SFC/Racket press release mentioned a "newly
> formed Project Leadership Committee" [4] — there's never been any
> mention of who's on this committee, or whether their responsibilities
> involve licensing.

It's Matthias, Robby, Sam, Jay, and me --- the same as Racket
leadership before joining the Conservancy.

Leadership's job includes licensing in the sense that if we want to
change the Racket license, then leadership has to move it along, either
by doing the work directly or finding people to help. The Conservancy
can provide legal support and advice, and it obviously has a say in
whether a license choice is compatible with the Conservancy's goals and
membership (which, in the case of the relicensing that we're trying to
accomplish, it is).


> Lingering elsewhere: the relicensing project that commenced more than
> 2.5 years ago [5] — not clear whether under the SFC this effort is
> alive, dead, or what. Of course, Galaxy's Edge took 3 yrs to build,
> so maybe I'm being unreasonably impatient.

Clearly, we could use some help.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Alex Harsanyi]

On Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 11:45:10 PM UTC+8, Joel Dueck wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 12:10:56 AM UTC-5, Alex Harsanyi wrote:
>>
>> I am curious to know how you plan to comply with section 4.d of the LGPL, 
>> which states that the users of your application must be able to replace the 
>> LGPL "library" with a modified version of their own -- this means all the 
>> racket packages that you use in your application (even the ones shipped 
>> with Racket):
>>
>
> Excellent question. I don’t intend to comply with the LGPL.
>
>
I was really hoping that you actually had a solution to the problem I
mentioned...

The LGPL clarification on https://download.racket-lang.org/license.html 
states
that we need to be able to re-link the software with modified versions of
Racket.  I am not sure how to achieve that, so here are my technical
questions, directed to anyone on this list who can answer them:

0) To simplify things, the same Racket version and OS can be used for both
   "raco make" to produce the bytecode files as well as the "raco exe" part 
to
   "link" the executable.

1) Given a set of ZO files compiled using "raco make", is it possible to
   create an executable from these ZO files using "raco exe", or a call to
   `create-embedded-executable`, without having access to the source files
   themselves?  If it is possible, how?

2) Is it possible to distribute a Racket package as ZO files only and 
actually
   be able to use it from Racket? If it is possible, how?

Alex.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

['Joel Dueck' via Racket Users]

On Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 11:54:42 AM UTC-5, Neil Van Dyke wrote:
>
> If someone violates (their non-lawyer interpretation of) the Racket 
> license, in a conspicuous manner like you suggest, would they not expect 
> the SFC to send them a nastygram -- perhaps if only for the SFC to show 
> that they defend the copyright, if not for other reasons? 
>
> Racket core doesn't necessarily even have to be in the loop: 
>
> https://www.itworld.com/article/2732025/gpl-enforcement-sparks-community-flames.html
>  
>


Here’s Karen Sandler, Executive Director of the SFC, responding to Matthew 
Butterick on racket-dev last year[1]:

Apparently, much of the SFC's advocacy and energy goes into GPL / 
>> copyleft issues. But last I checked, Racket is migrating away from GPL 
>> / copyleft. [3] What is the SFC's position on the MIT license? Do 
>> member projects that are not GPL / copyleft have the same standing 
>>  within SFC? 
>>
>
> Conservancy is license agnostic as an organization. We have many 
> projects that are non-copyleft, and they are just as important to us. 
>
> *We only undertake copyleft enforcement for our member projects that ask 
> us to do it.* The vast majority of our work is not related to copyleft at 
> all - it's sending developers to conferences, hiring contractors to work 
> on free software, helping to run conferences and helping with various 
> random things that projects need. 
>

This seems consistent with the twisty maze of events described in the 
article you linked to. I suppose that, taken together, this means that any 
single contributor/copyright holder might be able to have SFC sick their 
lawyers on me.

There’s also, as Matthew Butterick mentioned earlier [2], the open question 
of whether the SFC itself now has ownership of Racket’s trademark and 
copyrights.

[1]: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/racket-dev/QeYN6uZBWBc/TgWA8sx0BAAJ
[2]: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/racket-users/qyBcm77-hCE/nEY_spNYDwAJ

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Alexis King]

> On Aug 28, 2019, at 11:54, Neil Van Dyke  wrote:
> 
> If someone violates (their non-lawyer interpretation of) the Racket license, 
> in a conspicuous manner like you suggest, would they not expect the SFC to 
> send them a nastygram -- perhaps if only for the SFC to show that they defend 
> the copyright, if not for other reasons?

You don’t have any risk of losing a copyright just because you don’t choose to 
enforce it; you’re thinking of trademark law. If a copyright holder chooses not 
to pursue legal action against a violator, they may do so, and it does not in 
any way prevent them pursuing action against them or someone else in the future.

That said, your following sentence is absolutely right: it doesn’t matter if 
the Racket core team chooses not to enforce their copyright if they are not the 
exclusive copyright holders, and as I have already opined, I believe they are 
not. Any copyright holder may pursue legal action against violations of their 
copyright if they so choose, whether they are members of the Racket core team, 
the SFC, or independent Racket contributors.

On the other hand, if I were Joel, I probably wouldn’t be losing sleep over the 
potentiality of a Racket contributor taking me to court over my infringement. 
As I said previously, I don’t know how much Racket code is still exclusively 
licensed under the LGPL, but I’d bet the large majority is now licensed under 
the MIT and Apache licenses as well. Unless Joel starts making millions off his 
project and some contributors come out of the woodwork to try and get a piece 
of that action, I doubt his assessment is incorrect… and if that happens, well, 
he can probably afford to pay them enough to negotiate a license with them.

Still, a calculated risk is still a risk. YMMV, IANAL, and obviously this is 
not qualified legal advice.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Neil Van Dyke]

wrote on 8/28/19 11:45 AM:

Perhaps naively (IANAL), I am willing to be the guinea pig who [...]


I really would've expected the applied game theory civil disobedience / 
anarchism to kick in on a *different* Racket issue. :)


If someone violates (their non-lawyer interpretation of) the Racket 
license, in a conspicuous manner like you suggest, would they not expect 
the SFC to send them a nastygram -- perhaps if only for the SFC to show 
that they defend the copyright, if not for other reasons?


Racket core doesn't necessarily even have to be in the loop: 
https://www.itworld.com/article/2732025/gpl-enforcement-sparks-community-flames.html


That seems like it would be bad for Racket.

I look forward to a few different things getting straightened out in 
September, and then we all can look back, and blame The Racket Fugue on 
this summer's record heat, when no one knew what they were doing.


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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

['Joel Dueck' via Racket Users]

On Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 12:10:56 AM UTC-5, Alex Harsanyi wrote:
>
> I am curious to know how you plan to comply with section 4.d of the LGPL, 
> which states that the users of your application must be able to replace the 
> LGPL "library" with a modified version of their own -- this means all the 
> racket packages that you use in your application (even the ones shipped 
> with Racket):
>

Excellent question. I don’t intend to comply with the LGPL.

My reasoning is as follows:

We know that a couple of years ago, Racket’s caretakers took steps to try 
to change Racket from LGPL to MIT+Apache.
We know that effort has effectively stalled out, with no definite 
explanation given as to why (as far as I know).

So either 
  a) Racket's caretakers have changed their minds and no longer agree that 
the license should be changed, OR
  b) Racket's caretakers have been unable to get all of the original 
copyright-holding contributors to sign off on the change, because of an 
inability to get a response or because some contributors have refused, or 
because the caretakers themselves haven't had time to finish the process, OR
  c) The whole process has been placed on hold because of external factors 
(such as deference to SFC standards/timing), OR
  d) The process is on track but we haven't been told yet. (Perhaps it’s 
very nearly done, perhaps it's being worked on mostly by people who don’t 
know we’re having this discussion, etc.)

I have ruled out (a) since in that case we would expect them to say the 
change is off and put the matter to rest.

If (b) or (c) or (d) is the case, then it remains that *most* of Racket’s 
key contributors still believe in, and fully intend to effect, a switch to 
a more permissive license. Which in turn means that an enforcement action 
(against a developer doing something that would be allowed under those more 
permissive terms) is vanishingly unlikely. The worst case would be a (b) 
situation where some contributors are refusing; even in that case, unless 
the contributors are themselves lawyers, the practical threat of an action 
would (I think?) be small.

Perhaps naively (IANAL), I am willing to be the guinea pig who will put 
these assumptions to the test by violating the terms of Racket’s current 
license. I’ve decided to make the test more interesting by announcing my 
intent here. I will let you all know if I receive any lawyer letters after 
release day. Any such letters would flush out who the recalcitrant 
contributors are and help us identify which portions of Racket need to be 
rewritten to allow the license change to proceed.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Alex Harsanyi]

On Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 12:17:46 AM UTC+8, Joel Dueck wrote:
>
> On Friday, August 23, 2019 at 10:40:13 AM UTC-5, Alexis King wrote:
>>
>> Distributing a closed-source, non-LGPL Racket application without 
>> violating Racket’s licensing terms is likely to be very difficult or 
>> impossible, pending the still-ongoing MIT + Apache 2 relicensing effort. 
>>
>>
> This was startling for me to read, as I have been contemplating doing that 
> very thing.
>

I am curious to know how you plan to comply with section 4.d of the LGPL, 
which states that the users of your application must be able to replace the 
LGPL "library" with a modified version of their own -- this means all the 
racket packages that you use in your application (even the ones shipped 
with Racket):

Option 4.d.1 is not possible, since racket packages are not shared 
libraries.  

Option 4.d.0 would essentially require you to provide your customers with 
all the compiled object code (.zo files), along with instructions on how 
the user can reconstruct your application using a different Racket version 
-- I am not sure if this is even possible.  I guess, you could provide your 
customers with the source code for your application (along with a license 
which prevents them from re-distributing it), in this case they would be 
able to "link in" another version of Racket.  Perhaps there are other ways?

I like the intent of LGPL, but I think this detail makes it a poor fit for 
an environment like Racket.

Also, I am not a lawyer.

Alex.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Neil Van Dyke]

'Joel Dueck' via Racket Users wrote on 8/27/19 12:17 PM:

On Friday, August 23, 2019 at 10:40:13 AM UTC-5, Alexis King wrote:

Distributing a closed-source, non-LGPL Racket application without
violating Racket’s licensing terms is likely to be very difficult
or impossible,


This was startling for me to read, as I have been contemplating doing 
that very thing.


Questions and confusion about software licensing come up all the time, 
when a conscientious person tries to interpret software licenses.


Open source licenses don't seem as adversarial as many closed software 
licenses do, but are still confusing. I think one needs the background 
of a lawyer to even have a credible sense of whether one understands it 
sufficiently.


If one is doing open source, the open source licenses are so well-worn, 
with so much precedent, it doesn't appear to be stopping massive amounts 
of open source work out there.


On the other hand, if one is doing closed software, again, there's a lot 
of precedent of this working out well, and also, presumably, one is 
going to be paying a lawyer to draft/vet their own licenses, in any case 
(regardless of whether one uses Racket, or anything else), which I 
imagine requires taking a look at licenses of the software one's own 
software uses.  (And that lawyer will be vastly better qualified than 
myself and most of us to say (I imagine), "OK, this, that, and the other 
open source license thing are well-accepted, and you're not doing the 
sneaky thing that causes most problems, so I just have a question about 
whether this other thing over here is the same thing as what already has 
a common interpretation".  Then, there might be a lawyerly question, 
that can then be answered in a lawyerly way.  But if I tried to ask a 
lawyerly question, it would be the wrong question, and how I asked it 
would be wrong 10 different ways.)


After some consideration, I hereby announce my intent to distribute a 
closed source non-LGPL Racket application sometime within the next 
year. If anyone with standing has a problem with that, please let me know.


I agree with what I think you're implying: that licensing is unlikely to 
be a problem.  The informality reminds me of a funny bit from "The 
Office": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuZeff2y32M


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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Matthew Butterick]

> On 27 Aug 19, at 9:27 AM, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt  wrote:
> 
> 4. The interpretation of the LGPL as it relates to Racket that appears
> on the download page is our (the Racket leadership) interepretation,
> not the SFCs. None of us are lawyers, but that remains our
> interpretation.

So Racket's licensing is, or is not, supervised by an actual lawyer? In the 
past, I've gathered that Racket management has consulted with a lawyer on 
certain issues. But your comment suggests that maybe this isn't so. Or at least 
not for licensing.


> 3. The license of Racket has not changed as a result of joining the SFC.

> 6. The relicensing is something we hope to complete, but as the SFC is
> now the fiscal sponsor of the Racket project they are working to make
> sure it's done to their standards, which may require more time.

These statements seem somewhat at odds — how should they be reconciled? Do you 
mean that if & when the relicensing is completed, Racket's licensing will be 
thereafter be supervised by the SFC and its lawyers (because the relicensing 
needs to be "done to their standards")? As I understand it, though SFC's 
term-of-art legal designation is "fiscal sponsor", their relationship with 
member projects encompasses more than just fiscal matters. [1]

[1] https://sfconservancy.org/about/ 



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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

['Joel Dueck' via Racket Users]

On Friday, August 23, 2019 at 10:40:13 AM UTC-5, Alexis King wrote:
>
> Distributing a closed-source, non-LGPL Racket application without 
> violating Racket’s licensing terms is likely to be very difficult or 
> impossible, pending the still-ongoing MIT + Apache 2 relicensing effort. 
>
>
This was startling for me to read, as I have been contemplating doing that 
very thing.

After some consideration, I hereby announce my intent to distribute a 
closed source non-LGPL Racket application sometime within the next year. If 
anyone with standing has a problem with that, please let me know.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Neil Van Dyke]

Hendrik Boom wrote on 8/24/19 8:48 AM:
The only problem I see is with the ue of macros in the propietary part 
of your software. They make it difficult to take your object code and 
link it with revised versions of the LGPL'd Racket code.


This seems much the same problem as doing the analogous thing with C 
libraries, not unique to Racket.


Racket macros in practice tend to do than C macros do, but the 
sensitivity of the mechanism seems much the same.


For example, if a C header changes even a single simple cpp-based 
`#define SOME_VALUE 7` "constant" between versions, that would probably 
get baked into compiled code, and one would probably be incorrect to 
relink (without recompiling) a new version of the library that changed that.


(Incidentally, the drawbacks of mixing in closed binary libraries and 
kernel modules with open source software are well-known in C and C++.  
This might plague you, for example, if you're trying to bring up new 
Linux on an old Linux-based device that used closed drivers, or are 
dependent on Nvidia closed drivers for your video display or your GPU 
compute engines.  Separate from not being able to inspect and improve 
the closed stuff, they tend to eventually stop working with newer 
software with which they link, with no practical recourse.)


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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Hendrik Boom]

On Fri, Aug 23, 2019 at 07:20:31PM -0400, Neil Van Dyke wrote:

> 
> Aside: One thing I don't want is anyone new to Racket and open source
> licensing to get a chance drive-by impression that Racket has unusual
> "licensing problems".  I saw this concern multiple times recently.  I'd say
> Racket's standard licensing (for using it as a compiler/runtime/libraries)
> is pretty commercial-friendly, especially given the willingness (perhaps,
> desperation) of a lot of Racketeers to encourage commercial adoption.  Worst
> case might be that a particular attorney will just need some clarifications
> that people are happy to help with.

The only problem I see is with the ue of macros in the propietary part 
of your software.  They make it difficult to take your object code and 
link it with revised versions of the LGPL'd Racket code.

It seems to me that the LGPL does not require you to be able to link 
with incompatible versions of LGPL'd code, so this should not be a 
*legal* problem, but would be a severe practical problem for your 
customers.

Anyone know for sure?

In any case you should be able to release your proprietary source code
to your customers.  They they could install it on their working Racket 
systems.

-- hendrik

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Neil Van Dyke]

(Replying to 2 messages...)

Summary: I think there's probably no barrier for you with Racket's 
licensing and intentions, but you will need to talk with your lawyer 
about the unusual licensing you want to do for your own software. Also, 
a few related thoughts.


Sage Gerard wrote on 8/23/19 9:24 AM:
Has someone tried to release an /open source/ Racket project under a 
license that enforces paid commercial use of that project?


It's my impression that the Racket professors intend that you be able to 
do this, and would be happy to see you to do this.  And at least some of 
the third-parties, as well.


Separate from Racket professors, SFC might also have a bit different 
perspective, since it has some noteworthy FSF influences.  (FSF is 
well-known to be philosophically opposed to the approach I think you 
alluded to, and has suggested other ways to make money from software.)


You might get better answers in a few weeks.  (The US school year starts 
in about a week, and people are finishing up vacations, and a bunch of 
new things have been happening at once.)


and learning what other people are doing to earn money independently 
using Racket.


I think there are only a few people making any money at all with Racket, 
outside of academia.  (We're still waiting for a dotcom startup to 
strike it rich, and then say that Racket was the best tool for getting 
to launch.  Then more people will be willing to bet on it.)


BTW, because some discussions about startups and such can be sensitive, 
for various reasons, there's also a smaller, ephemeral email list: 
https://linki.tools/racket-money/  By default, `racket-users` should be 
used, but `racket-money` is there for some of the times `racket-users` 
won't work.



Sage Gerard wrote on 8/23/19 3:42 PM:
I wonder if I should just pick LGPL for safety and then move to 
multilicense if an opportunity presents itself. To add context, I aim 
to use a custom license.


Of course, once you LGPL a release, that particular release is LGPL 
forever.  If you intend to later institute licensing that "enforces paid 
commercial use", the earlier LGPL release might be a practical threat to 
that.  (That's happened.)


Also, you don't want to inadvertently bait users, by starting out 
as LGPL and then changing the license on them.  (That happens with some 
other projects, including some noteworthy ones in recent months, and 
many people react negatively to that.)


There have been a variety of ideas about how to do this, nothing 
specific to Racket.


If you *really* want to altruistically open source something, before 
you've figured out the paid commercial licensing you want to do, and 
some of your software is well-modularized... then consider polishing up 
some of the more-generic, low-tech pieces you had to write (e.g., module 
for routing HTTP requests), and releasing those as LGPL'd Racket 
packages.  Keep your less-generic, more-IP code closed, until you figure 
out the licensing for that.


When it comes to finding that opportunity; Does this thread provide 
enough information for me to retain an attorney and get candid advice 
on how to proceed, or would (s)he be unable to answer given the state 
of ownership?


I suspect that an attorney very familiar with open source licensing 
probably already has enough information to get started -- based on the 
standard licenses you see people putting on core Racket and any 
third-party packages you're using.


The attorney might then ask you technical questions about the nature of 
the use/integration (e.g., for all the separately licensed stuff are you 
using in some way, did you copy or modify any source code, and what is 
the technical nature of using these in Racket).


Then, if some of the important distinctions still seem muddy to the 
attorney (e.g., "linking" in the sense the license might use it, is 
syntax expansion different than function call, compiler output, runtime, 
etc.), then I suppose the attorney might want to discuss with a 
representative of core Racket (and maybe other copyright holders), 
and/or carefully craft questions for them.  That might be more 
productive than people trying to guess what's the attorney will consider 
muddy.


I'm going to guess, as a non-lawyer, that what's going to cost you the 
most billable hours of attorney time is figuring out a custom license, 
if you end up going that route.


The Racket side seems pretty straightforward (e.g., if you'll use things 
under their current LGPL license), once the attorney understands the 
nature of use/integration.


Aside: One thing I don't want is anyone new to Racket and open source 
licensing to get a chance drive-by impression that Racket has unusual 
"licensing problems".  I saw this concern multiple times recently.  I'd 
say Racket's standard licensing (for using it as a 
compiler/runtime/libraries) is pretty commercial-friendly, especially 
given the willingness (perhaps, desperation) of a lot of Racketeers to 
encourage 

Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Alexis King]

Thank you for the link. I read through it, along with the (much longer) blog 
post linked at the beginning. The first thing it made me realize is that I 
should be more clear: I am not advocating for a CLA! I agree with most of the 
arguments against them that both posts make.

All I was saying is that, given Racket does not have any form of copyright 
assignment agreement, as the blog post calls them, Racket as an organization 
does not possess the copyright to contributors’ code, and they do not control 
enforcement of that copyright. AFAICT, the linked blog post supports that 
(though it argues that’s a good thing, which I agree with, and it also makes an 
argument that a CLA doesn’t necessarily change that in a simple way, either, 
which was indeed news to me and was interesting to read).

I feel like I have reason to believe my interpretation is correct, as it isn’t 
entirely theoretical. In 2014, the developers of the popular, open-source 
Minecraft server modding framework, CraftBukkit, decided to retire the project 
after years of volunteer work. Mojang, Minecraft’s developer, announced they 
had secretly purchased ownership of the project from its co-founders years 
before when they had hired several of them to become Mojang employees, and they 
said would continue the project themselves. That upset several of the 
volunteers, as they realized Mojang had been knowingly exploiting their unpaid 
labor for years without offering any help. One of the developers of CraftBukkit 
proceeded to send Mojang a DMCA takedown request for his own source code, as 
CraftBukkit was GPL-licensed, and the whole project was technically illegal to 
begin with (since it modified and redistributed proprietary Minecraft source 
code).

Assuming the takedown request was legal (which is to say, assuming the 
developer really did hold the copyright), then to comply with it, Mojang would 
have needed to either release the Minecraft server code under the GPL, 
something they were clearly not about to do, or abandon CraftBukkit (or at 
least the parts of it that developer wrote). They chose the latter, despite 
surely having a perfectly capable legal team. Realistically, do I think any 
Racket contributors are going to start DMCAing projects in violation of the 
LGPL for parts of the Racket codebase they hold copyright on? No. But I don’t 
see why the situation would legally be any different for Racket than it was for 
CraftBukkit.

> On Aug 23, 2019, at 14:48, Matthew Butterick  wrote:
> 
> Bradley Kuhn, director of the SFC, has explained why FLOSS projects don't 
> need CLAs, along with some underlying legal truths about FLOSS contributions. 
> [1] 
> 
> [1] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2014/jun/09/do-not-need-cla/ 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 23 Aug 19, at 12:29 PM, Alexis King > > wrote:
>> 
>> Maybe so, but that is, in fact, why I sent the email. I was hoping you could 
>> clue me in as to what I was missing. (Maybe it’s unfair of me to ask you for 
>> free legal analysis, but I don’t feel like it’s all that unreasonable to ask 
>> for just a little clarification here.)
>> 
> 

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Matthew Butterick]

Bradley Kuhn, director of the SFC, has explained why FLOSS projects don't need 
CLAs, along with some underlying legal truths about FLOSS contributions. [1] 

[1] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2014/jun/09/do-not-need-cla/ 



> On 23 Aug 19, at 12:29 PM, Alexis King  wrote:
> 
> Maybe so, but that is, in fact, why I sent the email. I was hoping you could 
> clue me in as to what I was missing. (Maybe it’s unfair of me to ask you for 
> free legal analysis, but I don’t feel like it’s all that unreasonable to ask 
> for just a little clarification here.)
> 

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Sage Gerard]

First, thank you all for the responses.

Originally I figured I would need to find some key contacts and ask them to 
review my Racket package* for written permission to publish under a proposed 
license. But if ownership itself is a question mark, I wonder if I should just 
pick LGPL for safety and then move to multilicense if an opportunity presents 
itself. To add context, I aim to use a custom license.

When it comes to finding that opportunity; Does this thread provide enough 
information for me to retain an attorney and get candid advice on how to 
proceed, or would (s)he be unable to answer given the state of ownership?

* Meaning `raco pkg`. Good catch, Alexis.

-slg

 Original Message 
On Aug 23, 2019, 3:19 PM, Matthew Butterick wrote:

> You're omitting some key facts. So no, I don't agree with your legal analysis.
>
> But the underlying point remains: there is unnecessary murkiness around 
> Racket's licensing status.
>
>> On 23 Aug 19, at 11:24 AM, Alexis King  wrote:
>>
>> AFAIK, copyright of the Racket codebase is not the Racket core team’s to 
>> give. Racket has no CLA, so its copyright belongs to all of the individual 
>> contributors, core team members or not. If the Racket core team did own the 
>> copyright, the relicensing effort would have amounted to little more than a 
>> decision. But as-is, whether the SFC takes ownership of copyrights held by 
>> the core team or not is irrelevant, as any individual Racket contributor 
>> could choose to enforce the terms of the license for their contributions 
>> should they desire. But I’m sure you knew all that already—you’re the 
>> lawyer—so I’m curious what you know that I don’t.
>
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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Alexis King]

> On Aug 23, 2019, at 14:19, Matthew Butterick  wrote:
> 
> You're omitting some key facts.

Maybe so, but that is, in fact, why I sent the email. I was hoping you could 
clue me in as to what I was missing. (Maybe it’s unfair of me to ask you for 
free legal analysis, but I don’t feel like it’s all that unreasonable to ask 
for just a little clarification here.)

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Matthew Butterick]

You're omitting some key facts. So no, I don't agree with your legal analysis. 

But the underlying point remains: there is unnecessary murkiness around 
Racket's licensing status. 


> On 23 Aug 19, at 11:24 AM, Alexis King  wrote:
> 
> AFAIK, copyright of the Racket codebase is not the Racket core team’s to 
> give. Racket has no CLA, so its copyright belongs to all of the individual 
> contributors, core team members or not. If the Racket core team did own the 
> copyright, the relicensing effort would have amounted to little more than a 
> decision. But as-is, whether the SFC takes ownership of copyrights held by 
> the core team or not is irrelevant, as any individual Racket contributor 
> could choose to enforce the terms of the license for their contributions 
> should they desire. But I’m sure you knew all that already—you’re the 
> lawyer—so I’m curious what you know that I don’t.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Alexis King]

> On Aug 23, 2019, at 13:03, Matthew Butterick  wrote:
> 
> In some cases, SFC takes ownership of trademarks and copyrights [1] which 
> means that in terms of license interpretation & enforcement, assumedly the 
> buck would now stop with them. 

AFAIK, copyright of the Racket codebase is not the Racket core team’s to give. 
Racket has no CLA, so its copyright belongs to all of the individual 
contributors, core team members or not. If the Racket core team did own the 
copyright, the relicensing effort would have amounted to little more than a 
decision. But as-is, whether the SFC takes ownership of copyrights held by the 
core team or not is irrelevant, as any individual Racket contributor could 
choose to enforce the terms of the license for their contributions should they 
desire. But I’m sure you knew all that already—you’re the lawyer—so I’m curious 
what you know that I don’t.

At any rate, I second your desire to know what the status of the relicensing 
effort actually is. Are we looking at three stragglers left on the list who 
still haven’t signed? A dozen? A hundred? And maybe more importantly, how many 
lines of code do they really own? At what point can we not just rewrite those 
portions of the codebase? I know that figuring out ownership can be tricky for 
long-running software projects like these, since the question of what 
constitutes derivative work from the original contribution is often unclear, 
but even just a ballpark estimate would be nice to know.

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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Matthew Butterick]

> On Aug 23, 2019, at 6:24 AM, Sage Gerard  wrote:
> 
> Has someone tried to release an open source Racket project under a license 
> that enforces paid commercial use of that project? Light Googling suggests 
> this would be antithetical to the LGPL if not open source in general, but  
> https://download.racket-lang.org/license.html 
>  says "the Racket license does 
> not restrict you at all."



I am a lawyer, and I remain mostly mystified about Racket's licensing / IP 
ownership status since it joined Software Freedom Conservancy in June 2018. 

In some cases, SFC takes ownership of trademarks and copyrights [1] which means 
that in terms of license interpretation & enforcement, assumedly the buck would 
now stop with them. 

Did SFC do so in this case? No idea. Before the switch, Karen Sandler from SFC 
circulated [2] a template agreement [3] but AFAIK the actual agreement that 
Racket's core team signed, and the details thereof, has never been shared with 
the community. (Can it? Should it? Not my call. Or did I miss it?)

Furthermore, the original SFC/Racket press release mentioned a "newly formed 
Project Leadership Committee" [4] — there's never been any mention of who's on 
this committee, or whether their responsibilities involve licensing. 

Lingering elsewhere: the relicensing project that commenced more than 2.5 years 
ago [5] — not clear whether under the SFC this effort is alive, dead, or what. 
Of course, Galaxy's Edge took 3 yrs to build, so maybe I'm being unreasonably 
impatient. 

(BTW though I do not redistribute Racket, there's often a certain amount of 
modified Racket code in packages I maintain, therefore the limitations on 
Racket code also limit the licensing of my packages. Other things being equal 
I'd rather use a license more liberal than the LGPL.)


[1] https://sfconservancy.org/about/ 
[2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/racket-dev/QeYN6uZBWBc/qAbUb_mWBwAJ
[3] https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/ConservancyFSATemplate.pdf 

[4] https://sfconservancy.org/news/2018/jun/12/racketjoins/ 

[5] https://github.com/racket/racket/issues/1570 


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Re: [racket-users] Is it possible to sell commercial use rights to an open source Racket package?

[Alexis King]

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. (But, as others have mentioned, the answer is 
yes.)

In the subject of your subject, you mention “an open source Racket package,” 
but in the body of your email, you talk about “an open source Racket project.” 
If you are genuinely talking about a Racket package (in the `raco pkg` sense, 
distributed as source code), then you are likely not distributing Racket, in 
which case you are not restricted by Racket’s license at all. You are free to 
license your package however you want, commercially or otherwise. You’re only 
bound to the terms of Racket’s license if you redistribute Racket itself.

If you are instead talking about a Racket application, distributed bundled with 
a Racket runtime or any Racket libraries (such as a bundle created with `raco 
distribute`), then you are beholden to the terms of the Racket license. You are 
likely required by the terms of the LGPL to make your application’s source 
files available to your users, as Racket’s ubiquitous use of macros generally 
precludes replacing library dependencies without recompiling their dependents. 
However, that does not force you to license your source files under the LGPL, 
only make them available under your commercial, proprietary license.

Distributing a closed-source, non-LGPL Racket application without violating 
Racket’s licensing terms is likely to be very difficult or impossible, pending 
the still-ongoing MIT + Apache 2 relicensing effort. But you already said your 
project is open source, anyway, so that doesn’t matter for you.

Alexis

P.S. I think the interpretation of the LGPL given in the page you linked is 
wrong, as it seems to assume that access to your bytecode files is sufficient 
to relink your application against modified versions of Racket. In the presence 
of macros (and, to a lesser extent, cross-module inlining), this is very often 
not true. However, there is scant legal precedent for the interpretation of the 
LGPL, so ultimately it’s hard to guess what a court would find convincing.

> On Aug 23, 2019, at 08:24, Sage Gerard  wrote:
> 
> --I believe this email was lost due to me not being subscribed to the list 
> last time I sent it. Sorry if this is a duplicate.
> 
> Has someone tried to release an open source Racket project under a license 
> that enforces paid commercial use of that project? Light Googling suggests 
> this would be antithetical to the LGPL if not open source in general, but 
> https://download.racket-lang.org/license.html 
>  says "the Racket license does 
> not restrict you at all."
> 
> I understand no replies here or any web page constitutes legal advice, so 
> please take my question in the spirit of respecting the LGPL's sublicensing 
> restrictions and learning what other people are doing to earn money 
> independently using Racket.
> 
> ~slg

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