On 10/18/06, Mark Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I would like to propose the following clarifications to the license
and copyright statements of the files residing on the Open Graphics
SVN server (https://svn.suug.ch/repos/opengraphics/main/):
1) Add the full dual-licensing explanation and a line stating
"Copyright (c) Traversal Technology" to all the files.
I fully agree. Does anyone on the list want to help with this? If
you don't have write access to SVN, we can give it to you.
2) Make it automatic: Implement a script that checks whether newly
committed files contain the full dual-licensing explanation. If they
don't, SVN should refuse to commit the change. This will force
contributors to keep the dual-licensing explanation intact.
This is something I wouldn't know how to implement. Due to potential
changes in formatting, we'd have to develop something with heuristics
that computes compliance based on occurrences of the words in the
license and relative locality. A score above a certain number would
then be assumed to be presense of the license. Then, if someone finds
something with a scrambled license (to trick the checker), we can just
delete or revert the file later.
Another option would be to do this manually: If you're going to use
code in the repository, you have to check it and comply with the
license. If the license is noncompliant, you can mention this fact,
and we can decide to remove the offending file.
We'll look at the technical solution you mention below.
3) Change the phrase "GPL 2.0 or newer" in the dual-licensing
explanation to "the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version."
I went ahead and added this change and checked it in. In addition,
there were a few other suggestions made by others that got checked in
along with it.
4) Rephrase point (6) of the dual-licensing explanation as follows:
"It is the responsibility of the submitter of a Modification to ensure
that they have the right to submit the Modification and that they have
all the necessary permissions (including without limitation, patents
and copyrights) from any other contributors or third parties."
done
5) Add an additional (9th) point to the dual-licensing explanation:
"The submitter of a Modification forfeits the right to any patents
covered by This Work and pledges to not enforce any patents covered by
This Work."
done
6) Rephrase point (8) of the dual-licensing explanation as follows:
"The submitter of a Modification assigns copyright of the Modification
to Traversal Technology. Depending on your local laws, you may be able
to assign joint copyright to Traversal Technology and yourself.
Alternatively, you may need to assign copyright exclusively to
Traversal Technology. Assigning joint copyright to Traversal
Technology and yourself is preferable because it will allow you to
make unrestricted use of your work in the future.
Done
7) Add an additional (10th) point to the dual-licensing explanation:
"At your discretion, you are encouraged to add comments to the
"Contributions" section of this Work, indicating the nature of your
Modification."
Done
----------------------------------
Explanation of the clarifications
----------------------------------
The current version of the dual-licensing explanation can be found at:
https://svn.suug.ch/repos/opengraphics/main/trunk/new_model/ogmodel.cpp
Clarification 1:
Every file must contain the full dual-licensing explanation in order
to ensure that the dual-licensing explanation legally applies to that
file. And by this I don't mean a skimpy "see the COPYING file" type
statement. The developer of Konsole is having a heck of a time
enforcing the GPL against violators because he failed to include the
copyright and licensing statement in each file, instead mistakenly
relying on a COPYING file in an ever-changing "upper directory":
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/09/29/164207
Clarification 2:
It has got to be perfectly clear that by submitting a modification to
the SVN server, contributors are assigning the copyright of that
modification to Traversal. Currently, a contributor can claim that he
didn't assign copyright to Traversal because the file he is modifying
has no such assignment statement. The contributor can therefore sue
Traversal Technology if it tries to dual-license the code.
It is technically possible with SVN to check that the dual-licensing
explanation is intact after every commit. See Precommit Hook Scripts:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.reposadmin.create.html#svn.reposadmin.create.hooks
Note: Not all files in SVN need contain this license. Text files
containing only facts don't need any license. Software drivers, under
BSD and MIT licenses, need an entirely different license heading.
We (not just Traversal, but all of OGP) want to profit primarily from
hardware, and we see GPL+dual as probably adequate. There is also the
possibility that we would want to release some hardware designs as
"open source" but not "free software", where there are restrictions on
what people can do with the source code.
Clarification 3:
Right now there are some files that contain absolutely no license, or
maybe just a short reference to "GPL". This three-letter abbreviation
can be shorthand for many things, and we need to avoid this ambiguity
by being as specific as possible.
Clarification 4:
The original phrase "This pertains to both patents and copyrights" was
unclear.
Clarification 5:
Without this clarification, proprietary graphics vendors and anyone
else who wishes to harm the Open Graphics Project, could try sneak
patented technology into the Open Graphics design and then sue us out
of existence. Think SCO with patents.
Clarification 6:
Make it clear that Traversal Technology must have the copyright.
Whether or not the original owner also gets to keep the copyright is a
secondary concern. I removed the phrase "you may be able to retain
copyright while allowing Traversal Technology unrestricted use" since
very few jurisdictions (if any) prevent people from assigning
copyrights.
Clarification 7:
This is merely a suggestion and doesn't fit with any of the other
points.
----------------------------------
Conclusion
----------------------------------
When going up against the billion-dollar proprietary graphics
industry, legal weaknesses such as present in the current Open
Graphics dual-licensing explanation will undoubtedly be used against
us. I think the clarifications suggested here will help protect the
project from law suits.
Your comments and suggestions are welcome.
And your comments and suggestions are most appreciated. Thank you
very much for your help with this. I've modified the license and
checked it in at the URL that you pointed to. Over the next couple of
weeks, we need to get the license added to all other files, and we
need to see about commit filters.
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