> > From: "Constantine A. Murenin" <mureninc () gmail ! com>
> > If we do not hear from you, we will assume that you have no objection.
> Is this for real?!
> Who do they think they are?  ...
>People should not bother to respond to such nonsense, and then sue
> OpenSSL for obvious copyright infringement

I think "Don't bother to respond, and plan to sue" would be a poor
response,  that would just hurt everyone involved.    Of course
silence does not generally grant permission.....     But the people in
that project might be able to convincingly deliver some kind of
argument that they've had implicit or "understood"  permissions made
at time of submission to use contributions however the project
collectively agrees to use them.


I think it would be most helpful if say  Three or Four  significant
contributors would either  Object / Say No  on the basis  of
disapproving  of  the  "Change procedure"  Or get their lawyers to
draft a Cease & Decist,  On behalf of both themself and their
co-authors,  based on the implied intent to infringe.

And also,  Go remind those folks    that distributed Binaries based on
OpenSSL tree will be infringing with a changed license document  if
Even 1 Contributor  has not agreed to the re-license.

Also, there is no work-around for a contributor denying.   They might
have the  idea of simply Removing and Replacing a  contribution  (Even
if you can accurately identify and rewrite specific lines of code from
a certain author)  does not  necessarily make the distribution
Non-infringing,   As  later code is likely to have built on top of
earlier code.


A suggested concept would be contributors  Replying  to the inquiry with
something firmly saying No,  and  reminding them that Derivative works
include non-literal copying.

EG  [EXAMPLE ] language:

"I do not approve of the manner in which this license change is
being negotiated;  All my co-authors/co-contributors to this code
base must explicitly agree to the change in principle for me to consider
granting permission.

I Do Not consent at this time to any license change regarding
any part of any of my submitted or committed code, Nor any modified version
or derivative work of my contribution(s) created by non-literal copying
of my work deviating from the terms of the the OpenSSL+SSLeay license
documents found in the source tree at the time that my contribution
was made.

If a license statement was not included with any work I submitted, then
my default terms are: Copyright, All Rights Reserved.

I hereby pre-emptively remind you that:

Derivative work includes all code added to the project, even by
other developers that followed my contributions in time which
extended any functionality on top of OpenSSL based on changing
or extending my earlier work, or related to my code in any way,
Including design style, naming conventions, usage of headers
and function prototypes, variable names, and miscellaneous
aesthetic qualities of my contributions.

Please recall the following text from the SSLeay license terms
which applies to my contributions and all OpenSSL project code based
on SSLeay:

 * The licence and distribution terms for any publically available version or
 * derivative of this code cannot be changed.  i.e. this code cannot simply be
 * copied and put under another distribution licence
 * [including the GNU Public Licence.]
"



--
-JH

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