--On Thursday, February 25, 2010 11:54:28 AM -0500 Jeffrey Altman
<[email protected]> wrote:
This is clearly not the IBM Public License 1.0 and I do not believe that
it should have been replaced by it.
Our interpretation at the time was that IBM's release of OpenAFS under the
IPL superceded other IBM license terms found on individual files within the
package. It was clear that licenses on many source files were not cleaned
up, and that it was IBM's intent to release the package as a whole under
the IPL.
We replaced IBM copyright notices and license terms on individual files
with those of the IPL in nearly every case. We did not remove or change
non-IBM copyright notices, and we did not replace license terms on software
like NTP that was distribute with OpenAFS but not as part of it, or on
files like some of those from Sun that came with less restrictive terms
that were not IBM's to change.
We believed these changes were necessary before we could redistribute
OpenAFS in any useful way. In particular, we believed the IPL did not
allow us to modify and redistribute OpenAFS _as shipped by IBM_ without
first insuring that the IPL license language appeared everywhere it was
supposed to.
Note that just because some file with a less restrictive license appeared
in the original release does not mean that the same file plus 10 years of
modifications can still be distributed under that original license. In the
intervening 10 years, those files have been part of OpenAFS and subject to
the terms of the IPL; thus, the only way to use or distribute the modern
versions is to comply with those terms.
As for the .xg files, the majority of them did not include any copyright
statement at all.
As you know, that does not mean no copyright applies. Again, as those
files were part of the OpenAFS distribution distributed by IBM, we assumed
that IBM intended to apply the terms of the IPL 1.0 to them. In the
absence of that assumption, we would not have been able to distribute the
files at all, because we would have lacked a license allowing us to do so.
Lack of a copyright notice or specific license terms on a file does _not_
mean that it is OK to do whatever you want with it; it means you need the
owner's permission to do anything at all.
Those that did had a much earlier copyright statement
dating back to ITC CMU project (1987,1988).
Not relevant. All of that IPR was transferred to Transarc as part of the
spinoff, and eventually became entirely the property of IBM when Transarc
became a wholly-owned subsidiary. The original ITC files can be
distributed under the original terms, which are probably fairly generous,
but the ones that belonged to Transarc and IBM for 10+ years can only be
distributed with the permission of IBM.
For starters, Simon, go ahead and publish your I-Ds using the .xg
sources from the IBM OpenAFS 1.0 release. They should meet your
needs. OpenAFS has a mess that needs to be cleaned up and that will
need to be done in conjunction with IBM.
Only Simon can decide whether he feels comfortable submitting I-Ds using
files from any OpenAFS release, including the original IBM contribution.
Neither you nor I are lawyers, and we should not presume to advise him on
this issue.
-- Jeff
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