On Tue, 20 Jan 2015 20:10:10 -0800 Jeffrey Kegler <[email protected]> wrote:
> I want to ask opinions about two licensing changes I am thinking of > > 1.) Switching Libmarpa to the MIT/Lua license. Currently there are some > companies that forbid their employees to read LGPL code, because of the > danger to their IP in the code that those employees write. In the case of > Libmarpa, I *want* people to read my code -- they can read my papers, and > the code supplements and illustrates those papers, so it makes little sense > to restrict it. Moving to an MIT license means that people will be able to > use the Libmarpa code freely in proprietary code. There is a downside to > this, but the Lua folks and increasingly the open source community seem to > be embracing this trade-off as a win. > I'm all for it. Marpa's complexity makes someone else getting inspired by your paper to implement it with a less restrictive license basically zero especially if their only reason for doing so is religiously favoring one license over another (Like the GNU folks favoring the GPL or OpenBSD favoring the ISC.). > 2.) Changing both Marpa::R2 and Libmarpa so that anyone contributing code > assigns the copyright to me. The upside of this is that I can change the > license. That's also the downside -- I, or someone who managed to legally > take over the copyright from me, would have the right to change to a > proprietary license. I don't want to minimize this danger -- open source > software being taken proprietary is something that happens a lot. > > I think the trade-offs are in favor of copyright assignment to me. My plan > is to use the right to change the license to make licensing more liberal. I don't find this reason very compelling. In order to do copyright assignment, you have to contact all of your past contributors, and convince them to fill out a form of some kind. However, if all you really want to do is change the license this one time; instead, you could contact them all, and ask them to agree to license their patches back to you and everyone else under whatever new license you choose such as MIT or BSD or ISC or public domain or whatever. This way you can do the relicense you want to, but avoid angering some people due to ideological concerns (mentioned below), and having to administer whatever copyright assignment scheme you want. > And note that current and past versions would remain subject to the old > open-source licenses -- neither I or anyone else has the right to rescind > those licenses. You could always "re-free" the software by starting over > from a fork of a previous open-source version. It's a hassle, but it can > be done if needed. And in a sense, it's a danger you are already running > -- even if I can't change the licensing, I might become a flaky project > leader, with the same practical effect. You're ignoring the most important issue with copyright assignment. Just as with the issue of GPL vs BSD(MIT,etc...), people hate copyright assignment. I do. Some organizations use it so they can make some money like MySQL AB. did back before Sun bought them: companies could buy a "real" license from MySQL AB. and use it in their proprietary products allowing them to "bypass" the GPL, because they bought a license direct from the only owner MySQL. MySQL AB. needed the copyright assignment to protect this business model. Others use it like the FSF does so they can have a better case when they sue people who violate the GPL. (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html). I don't know why I hate copyright assignment. I think its just philosophical or perhaps ideological, which is much worse (Think Vi vs. Emacs). I just don't like the idea of the author of something I want to spend time contributing to effectively "stealing" my work just so he could potentially change the license in the future without needing my permission or rewriting my code. I suppose its not stealing, because I'm choosing to give you my copyright, but I'm not freely choosing to do so, because you're forcing me to in order for my code to be accepted into your project. The other problem of copyright assignment is the actual paperwork needed to do so. Obviously everyone who submits code and then does the copyright assignment is not going to need to hire a lawyer to do so. I wondered what the FSF does. Apparently it's quite a process. (https://www.fsf.org/licensing/assigning.html). There is even an "Assignment Administrator". I'm sure you could find a much simpler process, but would it be as rigorous, and able to stand up in court if needed? Just as some people seeing its LGPL, and getting all angry that Marpa fails to use their license of choice (BSD or MIT or something similar like ISC like OpenBSD uses), some people will get all angry that Marpa has copyright assignment. I already have. I've even bothered to write this email to the list where I'm a long time lurker. I just really hate copyright assignment. MySQL AB. using it to make some money I was ok with. FSF being crazy zealots requiring copyright assignment just to make any potential lawsuits more effective, I'm ok with. But some cool small project like Marpa using it just to potentially change the license in the future just makes me surprisingly angry (ideology is powerful stuff). Ironically, potentially angering people originally inspired you to make this move (the reddit post). > > I'm keeping Marpa::R2 on the LGPL, at least for the time being. With > Libmarpa the asymmetry between by completely-open Theory papers and my > LGPL'd code makes the trade-off pretty clear. And nobody but me has made > any significant contribution to Libmarpa. With Marpa::R2, both these > factors are less clear. And in some months I expect it to be replaced with > a Kollos-based Marpa::R3, so that it's not worthwhile to spend a lot of > time rethinking Marpa::R2 licensing. > > A final note: Libmarpa contains some code derived from LGPL'd code written > by others -- GNU's obstack's, and Ben Pfaff's AVL code. This code must and > will remain LGPL'd. > > Thanks, jeffrey > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "marpa parser" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "marpa parser" group. 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