Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-06 Thread Kay Hayen 

Am 06.01.2012 05:14, schrieb Ben Finney:

Kay Hayenkayha...@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?


The contributor option of course. If the contributor doesn't remove the 
notice, that he licenses as Apache license 2.0 as well, he does.



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 am not saying I will do this. Although it would avoid to maintain a 
debian/copyright of rather big complexity, which would be incentive 
enough.


No, as it's only a contributor agreement and applies only for code that 
is contributed back, I better distribute that rights to everyone at that 
very moment I integrate it.



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.


I would normally agree with such stance.

But why would one have the goal to keep Nuitka under GPLv3 for long, and 
if the main contributors and about everybody else won't have it either?


As much as I respect principles, I doubt that anybody would put effort 
into that goal. But then I do have limited imagination, as I said, my 
sunrise plan may not be necessary or useful.



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.


How is the Apache license 2.0 any special? And does the DFSG require 
ment regulate against:


a) upstreams that accept no outside contributions or
b) upstreams that accept under the condition that they be licensed under 
Apache License 2.0


I think it doesn't. Do you agree?

I see, you are not going to endorse my approach, that is OK. I see that 
you formulate your rejection as being only personal, not something the 
project should do based on social contract or DFSG.


I would like to count that as a yes, upstreams with such contributor 
agreement can enter.


Yours,
Kay


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-06 Thread Tanguy Ortolo 
Kay Hayen, 2012-01-06 11:27+0100:
 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.
 
 I would normally agree with such stance.
 
 But why would one have the goal to keep Nuitka under GPLv3 for long, and 
 if the main contributors and about everybody else won't have it either?

For what I see, the right question would rather be: why would one have
the goal to distribute Nuitka under GPL for a while, and then switch to
Apache? I mean, honestly, your goal is weird, so seing someone fork it
to maintain it under the GPL would seem pretty normal in comparison.

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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-06 Thread Kay Hayen 


Hello Tanguy,

thanks for your response, you wrote:


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.


I would normally agree with such stance.

But why would one have the goal to keep Nuitka under GPLv3 for long, and
if the main contributors and about everybody else won't have it either?


For what I see, the right question would rather be: why would one have
the goal to distribute Nuitka under GPL for a while, and then switch to
Apache? I mean, honestly, your goal is weird, so seing someone fork it
to maintain it under the GPL would seem pretty normal in comparison.


I tried to explain why. To be public. To be Free Software. To not (yet) 
be forked by people taking it to closed source. To not (yet) be forked 
by people who don't share my plan, but think and act short term.


Notice the yet on that last sentences. I definitely want those things 
to happen, just not yet.


Releasing and maintaining under GPLv3, I won't be able to allow it 
later. And releasing and maintaining under Apache License 2.0 I won't 
be able to prevent the yet things.


With a sunrise phase, I can have both. I agree it's rather untypical, 
but I need not be typical. To be typical, that's not a goal of mine. :-)


And as I said, I don't want to discuss the merits and likelihood of 
things to happen. So I am going to leave the discussion at that.


Yours,
Kay


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Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread MJ Ray 
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.

-- 
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http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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. :-)



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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Ben Finney 
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


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Christofer C. Bell 
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.

-- 
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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread 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.

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.

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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Francesco Poli 
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...

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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 

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


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Tanguy Ortolo 
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
 \_


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Ben Finney 
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.

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  `\   I'll use regular expressions’. Now they have two problems.” |
_o__)   —Jamie Zawinski, in alt.religion.emacs |
Ben Finney


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Ben Finney 
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.

-- 
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Ben Finney


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Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Kay Hayen 


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: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment

2012-01-05 Thread Ben Finney 
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.

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_o__) Bronowski, _The Ascent of Man_, 1973 |
Ben Finney


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