I rather feel that this discussion has gone beyond a topic and tone suitable for r-devel. I would like to say however, as an author of several GPL works myself, that I am confident that REvolution Computing (my employer, in case that's not clear) is a good-faith member of the open-source community and adheres to the letter and spirit of all licenses. We will reply to the particulars of Mr Dowle's message in private email. I invite any others who may wish to share comments or concerns to do so to me directly at da...@revolution-computing.com.
# David Smith -- David M Smith <da...@revolution-computing.com> Director of Community, REvolution Computing www.revolution-computing.com Tel: +1 (206) 577-4778 x3203 (San Francisco, USA) On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Matthew Dowle <mdo...@mdowle.plus.com>wrote: > Dear Danese, > > Without prejudice save as to costs > > I am the author of the R library "data.table". I released data.table under > the provisions of the General Public License (GPL). This email is to notify > REvolution that we may be in dispute. If we are in dispute then I am > entitled to issue litigation proceedings against REvolution for breach of > contract. > > To establish if we are in fact in dispute, please answer the following : > > 1. Does REvolution R Enterprise include the library data.table ? > 2. Has REvolution R Enterprise been distributed yet, for example has > REvolution sold a copy ? > 3. If it was distributed, was it distributed under a GPL-compatible license > ? > > FSF guidance : > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem > > Notwithstanding a potential dispute on the basis above, please also answer > the following : > > 4. Has REvolution distributed any program code, written in R or any other > language or environment or otherwise, which uses the library data.table, for > example by calling functions that are provided by data.table at run time ? > 5. If so, was such program code distributed under a GPL compatible license > ? > FSF guidance : > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL (3rd > paragraph) > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NFUseGPLPlugins > > I am making every effort to agree with you that we are not in dispute. I > have several suggestions which may avoid dispute, for example you could > remove data.table from REvolution R Enterprise. You could confirm that the > aggregate work REvolution R Enterprise is released under a GPL-compatible > license. There may well be other solutions you could suggest. You could > decide to postpone distribution of REvolution R Enterprise until all > potential disputes are resolved. If I have not heard from you or your > representatives within 21 days of today 26 April 2009 then I will instruct > my legal representatives to establish whether there is a dispute. > Alternatively you can confirm we are in dispute and I will start to accrue > legal costs immediately thereon. Any such costs will themselves form part of > the claim. I intend to be as open and forthcoming with you about costs as my > lawyers permit me. > > This potential dispute is between myself only and REvolution. You must > engage with me directly by answering the questions above with respect to > data.table. It is a matter for you whether you answer publicly, via your > lawyers or privately to me. It is my understanding that any other GPL'd R > library owners is also entitled to establish, either now or in the future, > whether they are also potentially in dispute with you on the same basis as > above. There are up to 1,700 distinct R libraries, each of which could > potentially generate 1,700 claims of breach of contract on you. One of those > is the R Foundation, who as license holder for the library "base" have > stated they will make a public statement in due course. That is a matter for > the R Foundation, and them alone. In my potential dispute with you, under > English law I have 6 years between the date of any as yet unknown breach of > contract and the date by which I must serve notice on you and submit > particulars of claim to the cou! > rt. My lawyers cannot start to draft particulars of claim until we have > established we are actually in dispute. > > I remind you of the contract by which you are bound by me of your > distributing of my library, or your distributing of programs (yours or > otherwise) which use my library : > > Licensing FAQ page: http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html > Text of the GNU GPL: http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html > Text of the GNU LGPL: http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/lgpl.html > FSF license list page: http://www.fsf.org/licenses/license-list.html > > I look forward to your response. > > I have 5 further points to add, each of which may be relevant with respect > to my potential dispute with you. > > 1. NetworkSpaces (library 'nws') > This is very welcome. I look forward to using it and I look forward to > seeing many other GPL'd libraries being distributed that use it. REvolution > released nws under the GPL, the same license as data.table is released > under. This is a material fact that may be relevant in our potential > dispute. It will be difficult for REvolution to argue in court in defence of > my claim, that either you do not agree with the FSF's GPL license, you do > not agree with the FSF guidance, or you were not aware of the differences > between GPL and LGPL, for example, since your firm has already relied on the > GPL license to protect your library, and the CRAN repository as a method to > impose the license. You would find it hard to argue that no contract has > been signed with a wet signature for example, since you did not impose that > requirement on R users for your own library 'nws'. Your difficulty would be > further compounded if you were yourself the claimant against another entity > which had distributed ! > non-GPL work which used the library nws. > > 2. SFLC > The guidance from the FSF on this matter is above. It goes further than > your summary of SFLC's counsel. As we are both holders of FSF licenses, I > suggest we should both follow the FSF guidance as a standard. This would of > course be a matter for our lawyers to establish in due course, if it turns > out we are in dispute. > > 3. Precedent for CRAN package license status > The onus is on you to prove precedent, since your apparent claim of > precedent would be your defence in the potential case against you from the R > Foundation or indeed in my case against you. There are several steps > required to prove precedent in my person opinion : > i. You must prove that distribution actually took place. The existence of > a package on CRAN does not prove it has been distributed. In the same way > that the REvolution R Enterprise web page exists on your website does not > prove you have distributed that product. It is possible that there are > packages on CRAN that no entity has ever downloaded. Such non-distributed > packages could not breach R's GPL, regardless of their license status. > ii. Then you must prove that the R Foundation knew about such > distribution. The distribution may have taken place off-CRAN, or a host of > other reasons. > iii. Then you must prove that such distribution event did actually breach > R's GPL license, and that the R Foundation knew they would have been able > to prove that. However, the following guidance from the FSF would appear to > suggest that any added restrictions can be removed by the user (the person > using such package) anyway : > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NoMilitary. So there > would be no breach of GPL in this instance even though the package author > attempted to add restrictions. > iv. Then you must prove that the R Foundation did not, and can not in the > future, bring legal action against the particular distribution occurrence. > Under English law a claimant has 6 years from the date of breach of contract > in which to file particulars of claim with the court. The R Foundation may > well have already been taking action. Nobody knows other than the R > Foundation. It could take a long time before the R Foundation is able to > clarify their position. I see no rush. > > Once you had proved each and every point i-iv above, the particular details > of such proved precedent would apply, and those only. So for example, you > might be able to end up being allowed to submit an R library to CRAN with a > potentially GPL-incompatible license, just like the others you claim set > precedent, but that would be all. As far as I am aware, for a package to be > accepted on CRAN it must include all its source code, regardless of its > license file. That may or may not be acceptable to any potential commercial > strategy you are proposing. > > To labour this point, you appear to claim that precedent has been set that > allows you to bundle R along with GPL'd add-on packages along with your own > non-GPL'd packages, and distribute such bundle under a non-GPL license, > distributed off-CRAN. You also or alternatively perhaps claim that > precedent has been set that allows you to distribute your own proprietary R > library 'foreach' and 'iterators' using a non-CRAN distribution mechanism. > Such precedent claims are frankly laughable in my personal opinion. > > One reason your potential defence of legal precedent with respect to the R > Foundation's potential claim on you, involves me, is that in a future > potential dispute with you about a future potential package I might release > under GPL, you might claim in your defence that I have created president by > not issuing proceedings against you now. Therefore your potential claim of > defence with the R Foundation mean that I would be advised to start > proceedings against you now, to avert a similar potential claim of defence > in the future. This is notwithstanding the fact that such claims of legal > precedent in defence of your particular potential breach are laughable > anyway. Then you must consider all other authors of R packages whose > packages you intend to bundle, and you have the same difficulty with them. > In short, your claims of precedent in defence of R Foundation potential > dispute with you, may potentially create a case for legal costs incurred now > by the set of distinct owners of t! > he apx 1,700 package authors who will require to consult legal advisers as > to their positions, as to the best way to avoid compromising their > entitlements due to inaction now. I advise you to act swiftly therefore. > > 4. Whether or not I felt legally obligated to release data.table under the > GPL, because it was or was not derived from the R library "base", or any > other point of FSF guidance, is irrelevant to my potential dispute with you > regarding data.table. The fact is I released data.table under the GPL. > > 5. Denise has stated to be a long-time supporter of the FSF and has served > on the board of the Open Source Initiative since 2001. In what manner does > support of FSF extend? Holding such affiliations may create a conflict of > interest with regard to my potential claim against you. It is feasible, if > we are in dispute of course, that my lawyers could at a future date ask > Denise to relinquish either the FSF affiliation or employment by you. I had > already communicated with the FSF for example before the email from Denise, > so you may be privy to such communication, potentially causing a conflict or > interest. > > 6. On the 22nd April 2009 at 00:30 hours I posted item 4 to the "GPL and > ParallelR" thread on the R Evolution Forum. This item has not yet appeared > on your Forum. Why is this? I refer to the post in which I said I was > moving the thread to r-devel. > > 7. The apparent lack of court judgements with regard to the GPL license is > not in my opinion a weakness of any potential legal action against you. On > the contrary. The measure of the success of the GPL license, and the FSF's > guidance, should in my opinion be the number of disputes that have been > avoided due to the GPL license provisions being abided to thus far. Perhaps > reasonable lower and upper bounds could be put on this number, using R of > course. > > 8. Whether or not the GPL is an advantageous strategy for either the R > community or REvolution is a matter of debate for everyone involved. Such > debate is however irrelevant to my potential dispute with you. We must > first establish that all parties will abide by the FSF's guidance on GPL. > Once that is established we can move on to discuss re-licensing, or > dual-licensing to LGPL. I would again refer you to the FSF's guidance on > that also: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html. > Whether or not I have the option to license data.table under LGPL may or > may not depend on the license of the base package to which data.table in > turn links to. It may be relevant in my potential dispute with you whether > or not your packages 'foreach' and 'iterators' link to base, if you > potentially make new claims of precedent in that regard in the future for > example. > > The opinions and statements in this email are my own, and my own only. > For completeness, I will repeat in public that I support REvolution and have > every respect for all your members of staff. I consider myself a potential > source of revenue for you. You must however abide by the provisions of the > GPL license. > > Yours sincerely, > Matthew > > > P.S. If you are an interested 3rd party reading the letter above and are > now worried about using R due to fear of a potential litigation against you, > then the following 2 links should allay your fears. I am unable to think of > anything that could be more clear than this. > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistribution > > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic > > P.P.S. There are several nodes in the previous threads that I could respond > to individually. It would take too long to do so. I believe I have read > everything on the threads (thanks to all) and tried to respond accordingly > to any outstanding point above. For example point 3.iii may help with > several points raised. > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
