Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello everybody, I am a happy Debian user ever since Potato, and I am the author and therefore potentially upstream of Nuitka, a Python compiler project of mine. I am also aiming to become the Debian Maintainer for it. I have created a package for Nuitka and it has technically evolved to the point, where it comes down to legal issues. So please advise, we don't want to put the burden on ftp-masters. First my intent: I believe intent matters in copyright. Please do not discuss if my intent is good or bad, or if my approach will be effective or not for a project. So my intent was to release Nuitka as Free Software in compliance with the DFSG. My intent was also to make a commercially viable fork of Nuitka impossible until at a later time I choose to allow it. In order to achieve my intent, I have put Nuitka as a whole under GPLv3, and make it clear in the generated source, that the parts of Nuitka copied into the created source, are still GPLv3 and thus the compiled source has to be GPLv3 compatible, and as such: Quote: // This code is in part copyright Kay Hayen, license GPLv3. This has the consequence that // your must either obtain a commercial license or also publish your original source code // under the same license unless you don't distribute this source or its binary. This prevents a viable commercial fork quite clearly. At least if it's based on the ability to use Nuitka to hide the source code from people, which is not something I want to permanently forbid, but at least I have no issue to not immediately allow it. But continuing, intent, I do not want the license to remain like this, that is, I do want to be able to change it later on to a more liberal license. (Originally I said PSF, but I realized that it won't be possible, as I won't have the paperwork to claim and prove full copyright. Now lean towards ASF). I do want Nuitka to be the compiler and as such the restriction can't last. In order to be able to do that, I have included the following notice to the Nuitka source code: Quote: # Copyright 2012, Kay Hayen, mailto:kayha...@gmx.de # # Part of Nuitka, an optimizing Python compiler that is compatible and # integrates with CPython, but also works on its own. # # If you submit Kay Hayen patches to this software in either form, you # automatically grant him a copyright assignment to the code, or in the # alternative a BSD license to the code, should your jurisdiction prevent # this. Obviously it won't affect code that comes to him indirectly or # code you don't submit to him. # # This is to reserve my ability to re-license the code at a later time to # the PSF. With this version of Nuitka, using it for a Closed Source and # distributing the binary only is not allowed. # # This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by # the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License. # # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the # GNU General Public License for more details. # # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License # along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/. # # Please leave the whole of this copyright notice intact. # My worry is that I may get sued by a contributor, or have all kinds of complaints, and therefore, in my mind, the copyright assignment, that so far all substantial contributors accepted to be true, is needed. I also need it, to e.g. allow one contributor, who works on Closed Source, to use Nuitka for everything but Nuitka. The precedent I found is the Apache License, which contains the following text: Quote: 5. Submission of Contributions. Unless You explicitly state otherwise, any Contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the Work by You to the Licensor shall be under the terms and conditions of this License, without any additional terms or conditions. Notwithstanding the above, nothing herein shall supersede or modify the terms of any separate license agreement you may have executed with Licensor regarding such Contributions. That is my very same intent, except that I do not want code to be submitted under GPLv3, but for now copyright assignment. Once it's under ASF, I can drop my own statement. I came up with this variant, that I consider: - Submission of Contributions: Unless you explicitly state otherwise, or have other terms in separate agreements regarding such contributions, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you to the licensor shall be assigning copyright to recipients of that submissions. - I removed myself from the special position, although
Re: Mozilla Public License 2.0 released
Paul Wise p...@debian.org On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:53 AM, MJ Ray wrote: Is the headline that, in a fit of Not Invented Hear and licence proliferation, Mozilla is planning to phase out the GPL/LGPL tri-licensing? Please redirect your complaints somewhere they may have an affect, to Mozilla themselves or one of the free software oriented news outlets like lwn.net. I've submitted something similar to one of the linked pages, but I'd appreciate other debian-legal contributor opinions because this move seems too incredibly daft to be true! Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1rili4-0005qf...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Kay Hayen kayha...@gmx.de // This code is in part copyright Kay Hayen, license GPLv3. This has the consequence that // your must either obtain a commercial license or also publish your original source code // under the same license unless you don't distribute this source or its binary. I do not agree that the above is an accurate description of the GPLv3's consequences. Maybe commercial is being used when proprietary is meant. As written, it looks like an additional restriction that can be completely ignored, as described in GPLv3 section 7. [...] # If you submit Kay Hayen patches to this software in either form, you # automatically grant him a copyright assignment to the code, or in the # alternative a BSD license to the code, should your jurisdiction prevent # this. [...] I suspect this would be overridden by any statement included with the patch submission, like the ASF wording acknowledges. I don't want to discuss my intent. I am not interested to discuss if my approach is too paranoid and need not be, that may be true, but I don't want to take the risk. This the work of most of my spare time for a long time now. I won't discuss this, but I will note that your intent looks a little unfair, demanding that others grant you more permissions than you grant them. Of course, that is your right while you are maintaining the project, but it may limit contributions. -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/e1rilhk-0006bp...@petrol.towers.org.uk
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello MJ, Am 05.01.2012 12:41, schrieb MJ Ray: // This code is in part copyright Kay Hayen, license GPLv3. This has the consequence that // your must either obtain a commercial license or also publish your original source code // under the same license unless you don't distribute this source or its binary. I do not agree that the above is an accurate description of the GPLv3's consequences. Maybe commercial is being used when proprietary is meant. It's too short to be an accurate description. The commercial license would be an exception that I grant for people unwilling or unable to comply with GPLv3. I also wanted to make it clear, that GPLv3 allows privacy, i.e. compiling and using code is already allowed. I might remove the commercial and replace with other if that suites you better. And potentially same with GPLv3 compatible. As written, it looks like an additional restriction that can be completely ignored, as described in GPLv3 section 7. It's also my intent for it to be an additional right that can be ignored safely. To me it means, that you cannot submit any inclusions under GPLv3 to me. Which I find doesn't restrict your freedom, because it is already me freedom to not accept it into my code. And when somebody does submit do me under GPLv3, and I release it, it becomes GPLv3 for everybody. So, does this count as a yes? :) I mean, this basically only avoids that I have to do formalisms to get copyright assignments just so I don't have to reject submissions, by changing the default of you don't assign copyright to me to you do assign to me if you submit. It's the same as with ASF 2.0, submitting your changes under ASF 2.0 is optional and not the default, but the license makes it so. Does my assumption of these 2 being equivalent hold? [...] # If you submit Kay Hayen patches to this software in either form, you # automatically grant him a copyright assignment to the code, or in the # alternative a BSD license to the code, should your jurisdiction prevent # this. [...] I suspect this would be overridden by any statement included with the patch submission, like the ASF wording acknowledges. Of course. I can't make a contract without an agreement. My wording might be amateurish. Requiring you to refuse me more rights. I don't want to discuss my intent. I am not interested to discuss if my approach is too paranoid and need not be, that may be true, but I don't want to take the risk. This the work of most of my spare time for a long time now. I won't discuss this, but I will note that your intent looks a little unfair, demanding that others grant you more permissions than you grant them. Of course, that is your right while you are maintaining the project, but it may limit contributions. The fairness aspect is hard to discuss. That's clear. But since I only accept those extra rights. so that I can later pass more rights on to everybody, should carry weight too. With the control of mine comes limitation. I am fully aware that I might miss out potential contributions because of that. But as I said, there is a plan to lift those restrictions later on. About fairness, just let me say, I would consider it unfair, to find myself in a situation where I couldn't compete as a free software project with a fork of my own code. Yours, Kay PS: I won't give examples I have on my mind, as that will only detract, as people start to discuss the merits of the example. :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f0598f9.4060...@gmx.de
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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Kay Hayen kayha...@gmx.de writes: First my intent: I believe intent matters in copyright. Please do not discuss if my intent is good or bad, or if my approach will be effective or not for a project. Please don't attempt to set rules forbidding discussion of your intent and approach. If it's relevant to the purpose of this forum – and I suspect it is relevant – we are free to discuss your intent and approach however we see fit. So my intent was to release Nuitka as Free Software in compliance with the DFSG. My intent was also to make a commercially viable fork of Nuitka impossible until at a later time I choose to allow it. Those are incompatible goals. The work can only meet the DFSG §6 if it does not discriminate against any field of endeavour; by discriminating against a “commercial viable fork”, you would discriminate against commercial activity. (In case it's not clear, free software is quite commercially viable. It doesn't seem that you are confusing “commercial” with “proprietary”, but that bears clarifying anyway.) So as I understand your goals, you must relinquish at least one of them. I hope you will relinquish the goal of restricting commercial activity, and instead pursue the goal of releasing your work under terms compatible with the DFSG. PS: I am fully aware, that advice you give is not lawyer wise, but I will still appreciate it if you help me achieve my intent, or make it Debian compatible. As I understand your intent, it is not compatible with Debian. Please make it Debian compatible by changing your intent. -- \ “By instructing students how to learn, unlearn, and relearn, a | `\ powerful new dimension can be added to education.” —Alvin | _o__)Toffler, _Future Shock_, 1970 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87mxa29vc5@benfinney.id.au
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello Ben, you wrote: Am 05.01.2012 13:39, schrieb Ben Finney: Kay Hayenkayha...@gmx.de writes: First my intent: I believe intent matters in copyright. Please do not discuss if my intent is good or bad, or if my approach will be effective or not for a project. Please don't attempt to set rules forbidding discussion of your intent and approach. If it's relevant to the purpose of this forum – and I suspect it is relevant – we are free to discuss your intent and approach however we see fit. You misunderstood me. Please assume that I wanted to avoid distractions. So my intent was to release Nuitka as Free Software in compliance with the DFSG. My intent was also to make a commercially viable fork of Nuitka impossible until at a later time I choose to allow it. Those are incompatible goals. The work can only meet the DFSG §6 if it does not discriminate against any field of endeavour; by discriminating against a “commercial viable fork”, you would discriminate against commercial activity. I know that. I didn't forbid commercial use at all. What made you think that I do? When explaining my intent, I just made it clear, that I do not - at this time - want a heavy investment by a competitor with the goal to sell Closed Source licenses. In principle I am not against that though. Such a motivation to choose the GPLv3 license cannot violate the DFSG, can it? I would be very surprised. (In case it's not clear, free software is quite commercially viable. It doesn't seem that you are confusing “commercial” with “proprietary”, but that bears clarifying anyway.) I am quite sure I could make a living by selling Closed Source licenses of Nuitka. I have other plans for it though. I will benefit more from it, if it is as Free as CPython is. So as I understand your goals, you must relinquish at least one of them. I hope you will relinquish the goal of restricting commercial activity, and instead pursue the goal of releasing your work under terms compatible with the DFSG. I think you were misunderstanding. The terms of Nuitka are GPLv3 and the clause I mentioned. The terms of the code generated are for the Nuitka parts, as they remain GPLv3 unless I would do something. The question is merely, is that extra clause, which is much alike what Apache does (my own assessment at this time only), is acceptable. Because, if it is, I will be happy and Debian should be too. Yours, Kay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f05a97a.9090...@gmx.de
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Kay Hayen kayha...@gmx.de wrote: Hello Tanguy, Although you are free to sell this program according to the terms of the GPLv3, I would not like that, and this is why I chose this license, that should make most attempts of doing so non-viable. [or whatever similar text you may want to write] Since such a statement does not require anything, I think it should not render your program non-free, just programs suggesting that the user may thank the author by buying him a beer are free as long as this is a suggestion and not a requirement. The interesting part is contribution copyright assignment. I actually do _not_ want Nuitka to have to stay GPLv3 when it's ready. Then I _definitely_ want it to have another license, with ASF2.0 being the current front runner. I'm not a fan of copyright assignment, and would like to find (if possible) a solution that gives you what you need without requiring it. Requiring copyright assignment allows you to pull an Oracle. I mean no offense by that and I hope you understand my intent in saying that. Would it be possible to have, instead, a contributor agreement that allows contributors to retain copyright while at the same time granting you a non-transferable, non-revokable, exclusive right to relicense their contribution under the ASF2.0 license at a time of your choosing? This allows contributors to know what they're getting into. It allows you to transition smoothly from GPLv3 to ASF2.0 when you feel the time is right, while allowing contributors the comfort of retaining copyright to their code, knowing that they will not later face all their work being swallowed up as in, for example, OpenSolaris. This grant to you would be non-revokable (for your comfort) and non-transferrable (for the contributor's comfort). It would be exclusive to you as an agreement between you and the person submitting code to you. Is this sort of thing even workable? I'd be interested in the opinions d-l at large, as well. -- Chris -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CAOEVnYtpjzzZaP3F7QfXPeDi6mONH9muh0ifnb=eoy4y20w...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello Christofer, The interesting part is contribution copyright assignment. I actually do _not_ want Nuitka to have to stay GPLv3 when it's ready. Then I _definitely_ want it to have another license, with ASF2.0 being the current front runner. I'm not a fan of copyright assignment, and would like to find (if possible) a solution that gives you what you need without requiring it. Requiring copyright assignment allows you to pull an Oracle. I mean no offense by that and I hope you understand my intent in saying that. I take no offense from it. I didn't describe my intents to receive the trust (doesn't matter on legal), just to be considered worth the effort. Would it be possible to have, instead, a contributor agreement that allows contributors to retain copyright while at the same time granting you a non-transferable, non-revokable, exclusive right to relicense their contribution under the ASF2.0 license at a time of your choosing? This allows contributors to know what they're getting into. It allows you to transition smoothly from GPLv3 to ASF2.0 when you feel the time is right, while allowing contributors the comfort of retaining copyright to their code, knowing that they will not later face all their work being swallowed up as in, for example, OpenSolaris. That sounds great and is perfectly acceptable to me. It will achieve my goals. I only loose the freedom to pick another license. But now that I checked things, I would be comfortable with ASF 2.0 and don't consider any other license an option anyway. This grant to you would be non-revokable (for your comfort) and non-transferrable (for the contributor's comfort). It would be exclusive to you as an agreement between you and the person submitting code to you. Is this sort of thing even workable? I'd be interested in the opinions d-l at large, as well. If I make it non-specific to me, it would mean that everybody gets this right and can transfer it via Debian BTS to me as well. A patch by Debian user X would then be send to Debian who has then the right, and forwarded by maintainer/user Y who received it from Debian to me. I think it works for ASF2.0 itself that way too, so it should be possible and compatible to GPLv3 for the time being. I would of course allow to remove that provision. And as only I own the existing source code, only I could exercise the right in a meaningful way, so I wouldn't take a risk from sharing that right. Of course, if the consensus is that it must be specific, and it cannot be transfered via BTS, I can still use the code and seek the right or redo the change if that fails to work. Yours, Kay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f05d2f0.5010...@gmx.de
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Christofer C. Bell, 2012-01-05 17:18+0100: Would it be possible to have, instead, a contributor agreement that allows contributors to retain copyright while at the same time granting you a non-transferable, non-revokable, exclusive right to relicense their contribution under the ASF2.0 license at a time of your choosing? If, as I said, you are thinking about a project management solution, good, because in order to avoid license proliferation and legal questionning by every single distributor, I think it would be better and safer to stay with the unmodified GPL and not add that kind of thing to the license itself. Now, given that you are the main author, which means that, without your code, contributions would be unusable, I think there is an even easier way to achieve the same purpose in practice: simply ask contributors to license their changes under the ASF. Since the GPL is considered as a superset of the ASF, that means: * you, and noone else, would be able to relicense your code under the GPL; * anyone would be able to relicense contributed code under the GPL. Correct me if I am wrong, but I understood that you are trying to avoid that anyone would be able to relicense your project until you relicense it yourself when you see fit. Since, as I said, you are the main author and the project would be unusable without your code, I think this goal would be achieved with that mean. -- ,--. : /` ) Tanguy Ortolo xmpp:tan...@ortolo.eu irc://irc.oftc.net/Tanguy | `-'Debian Developer \_ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/je4lei$r7f$1...@dough.gmane.org
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
On Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:18:27 -0600 Christofer C. Bell wrote: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Kay Hayen kayha...@gmx.de wrote: [...] The interesting part is contribution copyright assignment. I actually do _not_ want Nuitka to have to stay GPLv3 when it's ready. Then I _definitely_ want it to have another license, with ASF2.0 being the current front runner. I'm not a fan of copyright assignment, I also dislike copyright assignment as a requisite for contribution acceptance. I strongly dislike it. [...] Would it be possible to have, instead, a contributor agreement that allows contributors to retain copyright while at the same time granting you a non-transferable, non-revokable, exclusive right to relicense their contribution under the ASF2.0 license at a time of your choosing? I feel that this would be a far better solution than copyright assignment... -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt New GnuPG key, see the transition document! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgpNrUNL1GEPY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello Tanguy, Am 05.01.2012 18:08, schrieb Tanguy Ortolo: Christofer C. Bell, 2012-01-05 17:18+0100: Would it be possible to have, instead, a contributor agreement that allows contributors to retain copyright while at the same time granting you a non-transferable, non-revokable, exclusive right to relicense their contribution under the ASF2.0 license at a time of your choosing? If, as I said, you are thinking about a project management solution, good, because in order to avoid license proliferation and legal questionning by every single distributor, I think it would be better and safer to stay with the unmodified GPL and not add that kind of thing to the license itself. Generally, I think I couldn't provide a modified GPL license and it's not what I intended to do with the statement. It's just something additional that I do. Correct me if I am wrong, but I understood that you are trying to avoid that anyone would be able to relicense your project until you relicense it yourself when you see fit. Since, as I said, you are the main author and the project would be unusable without your code, I think this goal would be achieved with that mean. Yes that is it. It's also similar to what Christofer proposes. I would make it say something like this: # If you (not Kay Hayen) submit patches or make the software # available to licensors of this software in either form, you # automatically them grant them a transferable, non-revokable, # right to relicense the new part of the code to ASF 2.0 unless # you remove this notice before doing so. Then everybody is equal, except me opting out hard coded, so I don't fall into question, of having it not pointed out. That way, if somebody enters a patch to Debian BTS, he gives Debian not only GPLv3, but also ASF2.0, which in turn, Debian forwards to me (it is not known for having a problem with that, copyright may be another story I feared), and I integrate it then, and retain the ability to re-license. I guess, it's the same DFSG legal wise as what I already have, but ought to be a lot more workable and reads more friendly. It esp. doesn't have the bad word copyright assignment in it. So I would prefer that to what I have in any case. Note, it's different from what Christofer said, in that the ASF2.0 rights are made transferable. And it should address what MJ said, because that way, new code is under ASF2.0 for everybody pretty automatic. That way, my only unfairness is to not put my work under GPLv3, a right that I offer everybody else too though. Legally, it would appear like dual licensing, right? The difference would be that I won't have a problem to strip the GPLv3 then from a new release of mine. Yours, Kay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f05f1a7.5070...@gmx.de
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello Francesco, [...] Would it be possible to have, instead, a contributor agreement that allows contributors to retain copyright while at the same time granting you a non-transferable, non-revokable, exclusive right to relicense their contribution under the ASF2.0 license at a time of your choosing? I feel that this would be a far better solution than copyright assignment... I retract the original question! I do not intend to persue that path, I am now convinced that instead, I will go for what was proposed. See my reply to Tanguy just now for a proposed text. Thanks, Kay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f05f2e5.3020...@gmx.de
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Am 05.01.2012 19:53, schrieb Kay Hayen: And it should address what MJ said, because that way, new code is under ASF2.0 for everybody pretty automatic. That way, my only unfairness is to not put my work under GPLv3, a right that I offer everybody else too though. Sorry for this typo: I meant to not put my work under ASF2.0, a right that I offer everybody else too though.. I of course only put my works under GPLv3 during the sunrise phase. Yours, Kay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f05f3d4.5020...@gmx.de
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Kay Hayen, 2012-01-05 19:53+0100: I would make it say something like this: # If you (not Kay Hayen) submit patches So far, this is a contributor agreement. # or make the software # available to licensors of this software in either form, But here you are starting to add on the license, taking high risks of making it non-free and requiring analysis by all the potential distributors. # you # automatically them grant them a transferable, non-revokable, # right to relicense the new part of the code to ASF 2.0 unless # you remove this notice before doing so. Then everybody is equal, except me opting out hard coded, so I don't fall into question, of having it not pointed out. No need to except yourself: I do not see any problem in you requiring yourself to give yourself a right to relicense your own code. :-) Legally, it would appear like dual licensing, right? I do not think so. Dual licensing is usually understood as: pick the license of your choice. Here, it rather sounds like a contributor agreement: if you want to contribute, allow me to relicense your code under the ASF. Honestly, I think it would be simpler to as add a simple comment stating that you wish to relicense it later, and for that reason ask your contributors to license their work under AFS rather than GPL if they want you to integrate their work. As I described before, I do not think that has any undesired effect in practice. I think you should want to avoid making any modification to the license at all, and adding a requirement for redistribution is such a modification. Adding a requirement for contribution, that is having a policy for integrating contributed work is fine as far as I know, and has been used in many projects, mostly in the form of copyright assignment. But you should be aware that this may discourage some contributors. -- ,--. : /` ) Tanguy Ortolo xmpp:tan...@ortolo.eu irc://irc.oftc.net/Tanguy | `-'Debian Developer \_ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/je4sgo$nd5$1...@dough.gmane.org
torque license change
Hi all, I need some opinions about torque's license change. Earlier versions of torque (=2.4) are shipped under the original PBS License (e.g. torque-2.4.16/PBS_License.txt). But now there is a license change in upstreams new torque packages (=2.5) and I am not sure how to handle this new situation. They added a new license (torque-2.5.9/PBS_License_2.5.txt) to the source package and moved the old license to (torque-2.5.9/contrib/PBS_License_2.3.txt) I am posting both licenses below for convenience. Is the license change legal? How should the new debian/copyright file look like? Thanks -Dominique original license in torque-2.4.16/PBS_License.txt : ## OpenPBS (Portable Batch System) v2.3 Software License Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Veridian Information Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. --- For a license to use or redistribute the OpenPBS software under conditions other than those described below, or to purchase support for this software, please contact Veridian Systems, PBS Products Department (Licensor) at: www.OpenPBS.org +1 650 967-4675 sa...@openpbs.org 877 902-4PBS (US toll-free) --- This license covers use of the OpenPBS v2.3 software (the Software) at your site or location, and, for certain users, redistribution of the Software to other sites and locations. Use and redistribution of OpenPBS v2.3 in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that all of the following conditions are met. After December 31, 2001, only conditions 3-6 must be met: 1. Commercial and/or non-commercial use of the Software is permitted provided a current software registration is on file at www.OpenPBS.org. If use of this software contributes to a publication, product, or service, proper attribution must be given; see www.OpenPBS.org/credit.html 2. Redistribution in any form is only permitted for non-commercial, non-profit purposes. There can be no charge for the Software or any software incorporating the Software. Further, there can be no expectation of revenue generated as a consequence of redistributing the Software. 3. Any Redistribution of source code must retain the above copyright notice and the acknowledgment contained in paragraph 6, this list of conditions and the disclaimer contained in paragraph 7. 4. Any Redistribution in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice and the acknowledgment contained in paragraph 6, this list of conditions and the disclaimer contained in paragraph 7 in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 5. Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for the OpenPBS software and any modifications and/or additions to the OpenPBS software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and all modifications and additions to the Software must be freely redistributable by any party (including Licensor) without restriction. 6. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of the Software must display the following acknowledgment: This product includes software developed by NASA Ames Research Center, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Veridian Information Solutions, Inc. Visit www.OpenPBS.org for OpenPBS software support, products, and information. 7. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL VERIDIAN CORPORATION, ITS AFFILIATED COMPANIES, OR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OR ANY OF ITS AGENCIES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT OR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. This license will be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without reference to its choice of law rules. Addendum To obtain complete source code for OpenPBS and modifications/additions provided in torque visit www.openpbs.org and/or www.supercluster.org/downloads. original license in torque-2.5.9/PBS_License_2.5.txt : ## TORQUE v2.5+ Software License
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Kay Hayen kayha...@gmx.de writes: And it should address what MJ said, because that way, new code is under ASF2.0 for everybody pretty automatic. Is that your intent? If so, I don't know why the license is not ASF 2.0 from the start. On the other hand, if you want everyone to receive the work under GPL 3.0 but *not* have the freedom to re-license, then the above intent seems contradictory. That way, my only unfairness is to not put my work under GPLv3, a right that I offer everybody else too though. I am quite confused by this, probably due to the apparent contradiction above. -- \“Some people, when confronted with a problem, think ‘I know, | `\ I'll use regular expressions’. Now they have two problems.” | _o__) —Jamie Zawinski, in alt.religion.emacs | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ipkpaonm@benfinney.id.au
Re: torque license change
Dominique Belhachemi domi...@debian.org writes: But now there is a license change in upstreams new torque packages (=2.5) and I am not sure how to handle this new situation. Thank you for taking the situation seriously and seeking advice. They added a new license (torque-2.5.9/PBS_License_2.5.txt) to the source package and moved the old license to (torque-2.5.9/contrib/PBS_License_2.3.txt) What is the exact text of the license grant? Putting a license text in a work is not an effective grant of license. (Otherwise, a work consisting of seventeen license texts with no license grant would implicitly be licensed under all of them simultaneously. I think that's clearly not the case.) Instead, there needs to be some text from the copyright holder that says “You (the recipient) are free to FOO, BAR, BAZ this particular work under the terms of EXACT_LICENSE_TERMS.” or something to that effect. That is what will tell you exactly which license terms apply to which parts of the work. I am posting both licenses below for convenience. Is the license change legal? Most of us are not lawyers, so our opinion on what is legal should not be very convincing to you. If it is important to you to know whether something is legal for you to do, please consult trained legal professionals. I will assume you meant to ask whether the work would be acceptable in Debian with its new license. How should the new debian/copyright file look like? That depends on what license grants there are in the work. I will withhold comment on the license terms until you say what licenses actually apply to what part of the work. -- \ “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will | `\ not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog | _o__)and a man.” —Mark Twain, _Pudd'n'head Wilson_ | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ehvdanw5@benfinney.id.au
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello Ben, you wrote: And it should address what MJ said, because that way, new code is under ASF2.0 for everybody pretty automatic. Is that your intent? If so, I don't know why the license is not ASF 2.0 from the start. I gave my motivation in the original email. In short I don't want to. On the other hand, if you want everyone to receive the work under GPL 3.0 but *not* have the freedom to re-license, then the above intent seems contradictory. It is supposed to work like this: Everybody receives Nuitka from me under GPLv3. And ASF2.0 for nothing. Then everything created on top of my work becomes GPLv3+ASF2.0 dual license. Then one day, I drop the GPLv3 and it's suddenly ASF2.0 only. That way, my only unfairness is to not put my work under GPLv3, a right that I offer everybody else too though. I am quite confused by this, probably due to the apparent contradiction above. Sorry, I corrected that in a separate Email. I meant ASF2.0 of course. I do not put it under GPLv3 immediately, but only after the sunrise phase is over. That's not fair, but not in sense that I would be the only one who can do it, everybody can drop the notice that makes derived things ASF2.0 as well as GPLv3 and be good. However much sense that would make though. Yours, Kay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f060cb2.6090...@gmx.de
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello Tanguy, thanks for breaking it down: # If you (not Kay Hayen) submit patches So far, this is a contributor agreement. # or make the software # available to licensors of this software in either form, But here you are starting to add on the license, taking high risks of making it non-free and requiring analysis by all the potential distributors. That was intentional. I want people to give GPLv3 and ASF2.0 licenses for everything they give back to people they received the code from, so it can reach me. No need to except yourself: I do not see any problem in you requiring yourself to give yourself a right to relicense your own code. :-) I just don't want to be taken by the words of the license, that would say, if I send a modification, it's ASF2.0. It being part of the notice avoids that. Of course, it can be a separate notice too, where I explain also why I do that. Legally, it would appear like dual licensing, right? I do not think so. Dual licensing is usually understood as: pick the license of your choice. Here, it rather sounds like a contributor agreement: if you want to contribute, allow me to relicense your code under the ASF. On my mind, it should be possible to release all with GPLv3+ASF2.0 and let people pick. Right? That would be DSFG compliant for sure. I therefore consider it to be possible to release everything under GPLv3 and apply GPLv3+ASF2.0 for new code optionally, unless opted out by removing the notice. Much like with any dual license, one can opt out of the dual license GPLv3+ASF2.0 by removing either notice. Just as a hypothetical, as long as the other thing is optional, it cannot violate DFSG, can it? And I don't propose anything non-free at all. Defaulting to giving people the ASF2.0 rights when returning changed code, is not all non-free. It's something ASF2.0 itself asks for. To me it appears logical. I must also admit, it's probably so, because I don't have enough knowledge. Maybe dual licensing works different from what I believe. Honestly, I think it would be simpler to as add a simple comment stating that you wish to relicense it later, and for that reason ask your contributors to license their work under AFS rather than GPL if they want you to integrate their work. As I described before, I do not think that has any undesired effect in practice. When I find code anywhere, say on the Debian BTS in patch form, how do tell who owns the copyright? It's not normally traced, is it? A third person may have created it without my knowledge. And I don't dream of getting people to confirm me any better than yeah yeah, ok when asked, if at all. To be on the safe side, I would like people to modify the file in order to opt out of ASF 2.0 for new code, and then I only need to determine if somebody removed the notice, and if he didn't can freely assume that I can integrate the code. The good about it is that the right thing happens by default. Asking people to do something, sign something, keeping records, etc. is not a burden I could carry. I am not an organization. And in fact, once Nuitka as a whole is under ASF2.0 only, it's the same thing too. If somebody doesn't want to put his code under ASF2.0 and send it back, he has to remove the notice or express it somehow. I think you should want to avoid making any modification to the license at all, and adding a requirement for redistribution is such a modification. I attempted to address this by saying or make the software available to licensors. That is not redistribution, it is contributing back, when you send the code to the source of your license, isn't it? I think, my proposed statement is not even what I wrote about above, it's only less. It's only that if you actively send it back to where it came from that, I can take it under ASF2.0 conditionals. It's not the full ASF2.0 and it doesn't limit GPLv3 rights, it only extends them. Yours, Kay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4f0612c2.2090...@gmx.de
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
By “ASF 2.0” I assume you mean “the Apache license version 2.0”. I will use “Apache 2.0” which I gather is the more widely used name for that license. Kay Hayen kayha...@gmx.de writes: It is supposed to work like this: Everybody receives Nuitka from me under GPLv3. And ASF2.0 for nothing. Then everything created on top of my work becomes GPLv3+ASF2.0 dual license. You've been describing more complexities. Is it really just that you want *every* receipient to receive license under the terms of “GPL 3.0 or Apache license 2.0, recipient's choice”? Then one day, I drop the GPLv3 and it's suddenly ASF2.0 only. Do you intend only some new version of the work to be under Apache 2.0 terms? That's the right of any copyright holder, though I think it's rather odd and don't see what it gains you. The Apache license 2.0 is not a copyleft, so any recipient can still bundle such a work with a trivial work under the GPL 3.0 (or any other compatible license), and they are then distributing your work under the GPL 3.0 again. Do you intend to deny recipients the freedom to re-license under the GPL? The Apache license 2.0 has been explicitly designed to *allow* combination into GPL 3.0 works, so you appear to have chosen licenses poorly if that's your intention. Do you intend existing recipients who received a work under GPL 3.0 to retroactively lose that license in the work? That's both underhanded and ineffective, AFAIK. I don't think that's your intention, but I include it for completeness. As far as what this forum should be interested in: If the work enters Debian licensed under GPL 3.0, that doesn't cause any legal problems for Debian recipients (and that license can't be revoked once granted unless the recipient violates the license). If the work enters Debian licensed under Apache license 2.0, that doesn't cause any legal problems for Debian recipients (and that license, too, can't be revoked once granted unless the recipient violates the license). If you want to make some future version of the work and distribute under a different grant of license, you're free to do so in works to which you hold copyright, but must do so in compliance with the licenses you have received in any contributions from other copyright holders. That's getting outside the scope of this forum, and you should seek trained legal advice if you need to be more sure about that. -- \ “Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a | `\ solution.” —Edward Teller | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87aa61alvm@benfinney.id.au
Re: Mozilla Public License 2.0 released
On Wed, 04 Jan 2012 06:07:46 +0800 Paul Wise wrote: Hi all, Mozilla has released the Mozilla Public License version 2.0: http://lwn.net/Articles/474070/ http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/01/03/mozilla-public-license-version-2-0-released/ https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/ Hi Paul, thanks a lot for the heads up! What follows is the completed text of the final MPL v2.0, as downloaded from http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/index.txt I will send my comments later. Mozilla Public License Version 2.0 == 1. Definitions -- 1.1. Contributor means each individual or legal entity that creates, contributes to the creation of, or owns Covered Software. 1.2. Contributor Version means the combination of the Contributions of others (if any) used by a Contributor and that particular Contributor's Contribution. 1.3. Contribution means Covered Software of a particular Contributor. 1.4. Covered Software means Source Code Form to which the initial Contributor has attached the notice in Exhibit A, the Executable Form of such Source Code Form, and Modifications of such Source Code Form, in each case including portions thereof. 1.5. Incompatible With Secondary Licenses means (a) that the initial Contributor has attached the notice described in Exhibit B to the Covered Software; or (b) that the Covered Software was made available under the terms of version 1.1 or earlier of the License, but not also under the terms of a Secondary License. 1.6. Executable Form means any form of the work other than Source Code Form. 1.7. Larger Work means a work that combines Covered Software with other material, in a separate file or files, that is not Covered Software. 1.8. License means this document. 1.9. Licensable means having the right to grant, to the maximum extent possible, whether at the time of the initial grant or subsequently, any and all of the rights conveyed by this License. 1.10. Modifications means any of the following: (a) any file in Source Code Form that results from an addition to, deletion from, or modification of the contents of Covered Software; or (b) any new file in Source Code Form that contains any Covered Software. 1.11. Patent Claims of a Contributor means any patent claim(s), including without limitation, method, process, and apparatus claims, in any patent Licensable by such Contributor that would be infringed, but for the grant of the License, by the making, using, selling, offering for sale, having made, import, or transfer of either its Contributions or its Contributor Version. 1.12. Secondary License means either the GNU General Public License, Version 2.0, the GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 2.1, the GNU Affero General Public License, Version 3.0, or any later versions of those licenses. 1.13. Source Code Form means the form of the work preferred for making modifications. 1.14. You (or Your) means an individual or a legal entity exercising rights under this License. For legal entities, You includes any entity that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with You. For purposes of this definition, control means (a) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (b) ownership of more than fifty percent (50%) of the outstanding shares or beneficial ownership of such entity. 2. License Grants and Conditions 2.1. Grants Each Contributor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license: (a) under intellectual property rights (other than patent or trademark) Licensable by such Contributor to use, reproduce, make available, modify, display, perform, distribute, and otherwise exploit its Contributions, either on an unmodified basis, with Modifications, or as part of a Larger Work; and (b) under Patent Claims of such Contributor to make, use, sell, offer for sale, have made, import, and otherwise transfer either its Contributions or its Contributor Version. 2.2. Effective Date The licenses granted in Section 2.1 with respect to any Contribution become effective for each Contribution on the date the Contributor first distributes such Contribution. 2.3. Limitations on Grant Scope The licenses granted in this Section 2 are the only rights granted under this License. No additional rights or licenses will be implied from the distribution or licensing of Covered Software under this License. Notwithstanding Section 2.1(b) above, no patent license is granted by a Contributor: (a) for any code that a Contributor has removed from Covered Software; or (b) for infringements caused by: (i) Your and any other third party's modifications of Covered Software, or
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello Ben, thanks for your reply, you wrote: By “ASF 2.0” I assume you mean “the Apache license version 2.0”. I will use “Apache 2.0” which I gather is the more widely used name for that license. I will do so too then. Kay Hayenkayha...@gmx.de writes: It is supposed to work like this: Everybody receives Nuitka from me under GPLv3. And ASF2.0 for nothing. Then everything created on top of my work becomes GPLv3+ASF2.0 dual license. You've been describing more complexities. Is it really just that you want *every* receipient to receive license under the terms of “GPL 3.0 or Apache license 2.0, recipient's choice”? No, that I don't want to do that now at all. I want everybody to receive under GPLv3 and then to contribute back by default under GPLv3 and Apache license 2.0, or optionally under GPLv3 only. Then one day, I drop the GPLv3 and it's suddenly ASF2.0 only. Do you intend only some new version of the work to be under Apache 2.0 terms? That's the right of any copyright holder, though I think it's rather odd and don't see what it gains you. The Apache license 2.0 is not a copyleft, so any recipient can still bundle such a work with a trivial work under the GPL 3.0 (or any other compatible license), and they are then distributing your work under the GPL 3.0 again. As Nuitka is a compiler that creates C++ code, the GPLv3 parts of mine in the generated code would need an exception or else the created code is a derived work. I am, at this time not giving an exception yet. I want to do so only later. I am willing to make Nuitka as a whole and the included parts ASF 2.0 at that time. I would like outside contributions, even of significant form, to not preclude that step. Do you intend to deny recipients the freedom to re-license under the GPL? The Apache license 2.0 has been explicitly designed to *allow* combination into GPL 3.0 works, so you appear to have chosen licenses poorly if that's your intention. That is not the intention at all. I love GPLv3. I named one of my kids after Stallman, even if only the second. I don't think it's good for a compiler that is intended for every application that CPython allows. The generated code e.g. won't be compatible with a lot of Free Software, so there will be a need to do something about it. So I believe, at one point in the future, the Nuitka compiler must move to something that is compatible with about everything. The Apache License 2.0 is that, because it allows to drop all restrictions. Currently I have a clause that automatically requires copyright assignment if you contribute back to me. I have been enlightened here that I can achieve the relicense with less effort. Do you intend existing recipients who received a work under GPL 3.0 to retroactively lose that license in the work? That's both underhanded and ineffective, AFAIK. I don't think that's your intention, but I include it for completeness. Not at all the intention. I just would like to be able to drop the GPLv3 texts, headers, and so on, from the source distribution as nobody needs it then anymore. A hypothetic GPLv3-only fork could integrate my code, and I then couldn' take its code, but I don't believe it in to happen. Like I said in the original mail, I am starting with GPLv3, exactly because it discourages the fork for a compiler heavily. As far as what this forum should be interested in: If the work enters Debian licensed under GPL 3.0, that doesn't cause any legal problems for Debian recipients (and that license can't be revoked once granted unless the recipient violates the license). Thanks. If the work enters Debian licensed under Apache license 2.0, that doesn't cause any legal problems for Debian recipients (and that license, too, can't be revoked once granted unless the recipient violates the license). That's true of course as well. If you want to make some future version of the work and distribute under a different grant of license, you're free to do so in works to which you hold copyright, but must do so in compliance with the licenses you have received in any contributions from other copyright holders. That's getting outside the scope of this forum, and you should seek trained legal advice if you need to be more sure about that. Let me focus the question. If I put that statement in my files: # If you submit patches or make the software available to licensors # of this software in either form, you automatically them grant # them a license for your part of the code under Apache License 2.0 # unless you choose to remove this notice. 1. This won't make the GPLv3 license grant also in the file invalid. 2. It is DSFG compliant. 3. It doesn't preclude entry to Debian for debian-legal reasons. 4. It doesn't preclude entry to Debian for other reasons. Can you confirm or deny these 4 statements, please? I kind of read what you said like this. The only legal advice I can afford for this matter, is the one here, and I
Re: Mozilla Public License 2.0 released
On Thu, 5 Jan 2012 23:58:55 +0100 Francesco Poli wrote: Here's my own personal analysis of the license text. [...] Mozilla Public License Version 2.0 == [...] 1.5. Incompatible With Secondary Licenses means (a) that the initial Contributor has attached the notice described in Exhibit B to the Covered Software; or (b) that the Covered Software was made available under the terms of version 1.1 or earlier of the License, but not also under the terms of a Secondary License. Clause 1.5(b) fails to solve existing compatibility headaches. It disables the default (L)GPL compatibility (caused by clause 3.3) for those works that were previously incompatible because they were only licensed under the MPL v1.1 (or earlier). This means that any existing compatibility headache stays unfixed, unfortunately. I think that it would have been far better if the license authors had enabled (L)GPL compatibility for previously incompatible MPL-licensed works. Doing so would have instantly solved many compatibility issues that currently affect MPL-licensed works. I personally think that making this change would have been the only real motivation to draft and publish v2.0 of the MPL: I am very disappointed that this change was *not* made. To be precise, I am disappointed that it was only made partially, through an optional mechanism (even though I acknowledge that it's an opt-out mechanism, which is better than an opt-in one...) Just to be clear, this is not a Freeness issue in itself, but a big missed opportunity to make life easier for a good number of people... [...] 1.12. Secondary License means either the GNU General Public License, Version 2.0, the GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 2.1, the GNU Affero General Public License, Version 3.0, or any later versions of those licenses. Seeing the GNU AfferoGPL listed among Secondary Licenses does not fill me with joy... I am convinced that works licensed under the GNU AfferoGPL v3.0 are non-free: see http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/11/msg00233.html for more details. I personally would have omitted the AfferoGPL from the list of Secondary Licenses. This is not a Freeness issue in itself, but it further weakens the MPL copyleft mechanism (which is already not particularly strong), whenever compatibility with Secondary Licenses is not disabled. [...] 2.3. Limitations on Grant Scope The licenses granted in this Section 2 are the only rights granted under this License. No additional rights or licenses will be implied from the distribution or licensing of Covered Software under this License. Notwithstanding Section 2.1(b) above, no patent license is granted by a Contributor: (a) for any code that a Contributor has removed from Covered Software; or (b) for infringements caused by: (i) Your and any other third party's modifications of Covered Software, or (ii) the combination of its Contributions with other software (except as part of its Contributor Version); or (c) under Patent Claims infringed by Covered Software in the absence of its Contributions. Clause 2.3 limits the patent license grant when Covered Software is modified. This may create troubles (legal uncertainty) for people willing to modify the work (see DFSG#3). [...] 3.2. Distribution of Executable Form If You distribute Covered Software in Executable Form then: (a) such Covered Software must also be made available in Source Code Form, as described in Section 3.1, and You must inform recipients of the Executable Form how they can obtain a copy of such Source Code Form by reasonable means in a timely manner, at a charge no more than the cost of distribution to the recipient; and If I understand correctly, accompanying the Executable with the Source Code is considered an acceptable way to satisfy clause 3.2(a). Also, if someone offers access to the Executable Form from a place, then offering equivalent access to Source Code from the same place (at a further charge no more than the cost of distribution) is considered another acceptable way to satisfy this clause. If all this is true, then I think that clause 3.2(a) is OK, and is also a significant step forward with respect to MPL v1.1, where source had to be kept online for a given amount of time, after distribution of non-source forms. (b) You may distribute such Executable Form under the terms of this License, or sublicense it under different terms, provided that the license for the Executable Form does not attempt to limit or alter the recipients' rights in the Source Code Form under this License. Clause 3.2(b) allows to sublicense the Executable Form under different terms, while the corresponding Source Code must remain available under the terms of the MPL. This is very confusing, IMHO: having Source Code and Executable forms under different licenses
Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Kay Hayen kayha...@gmx.de writes: I want everybody to receive under GPLv3 and then to contribute back by default under GPLv3 and Apache license 2.0, or optionally under GPLv3 only. At whose option? Since you're asking for opinions: I would reject the first option. If you want to receive people's contributions under both Apache 2.0 and GPL 3.0, it's unfair to deny one of those options to recipients when you distribute those contributions. I would expect, and encourage, people to fork the work and maintain it with the same license for all parties, without any such contributor agreement. If you're saying you are happy for everyone, yourself included, to receive any derived work under GPL 3.0, with no party required to grant some special license as a condition of contributing, then I have no objection to that. -- \“That's the essence of science: Ask an impertinent question, | `\and you're on the way to the pertinent answer.” —Jacob | _o__) Bronowski, _The Ascent of Man_, 1973 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/8762gpa2mn@benfinney.id.au
