Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On 1/19/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] compatible with itself The GPL is incompatible with itself. quote*** A recent press conference of the Free Software Foundation confirmed the rumors that the GNU General Public License was found to be incompatible with itself. This newly discovered fact may actually cause a lot of disorder in the free software world in which most programs and libraries are licensed under this license. Richard Stallman, chairman of the FSF, called upon developers to immediately exempt GPL-licensed software from the GPL, as far as linking them with GPL programs is concerned. We have already made sure all GNU software and every other software that is licensed to the Free Software Foundation would be ad-hoc compatible with itself. However we need other developers to do the same for their software, Stallman said. Eben Moglen, the FSF's attorney outlined the subsequent steps that his organization will take to overcome this crisis. The first step would be releasing a Modified General Public License (or MGPL for short) that will be compatible with the GPL and with itself as well as with all other licenses that the GPL is already compatible with. It will be labeled the GPL version 2.1, thus allowing developers to convert their software to it. He noted that care would be taken to make sure the upcoming GPL version 3.0 will be compatible with itself, as well as the MGPL. For the time being, though, there is an explosion of commentary, confusion and otherwise bad temper about the newly formed situation. Eric S. Raymond, the famous Open Source Guru notes: This is one of the greatest blows to the Open Source world, I have yet encountered. I have already exempted all of my own software from the GPL in this regard, but there is a lot of other software out there, and many of its authors are not very communicative. Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, on the other hand, seems to find the situation very amusing: I said times and again, that viral licenses such as the GPL are a bad idea, and many open-source advocates disagreed. Now they see that even making sure one's license is compatible with itself, is hard to do when you open that can of worms. The integrity of many software projects whose license is the GPL and yet contain works licensed by several developers is in jeopardy. The Linux kernel is a prominent example of such a case. In a post to its mailing list, Linus Torvalds commented that, in their case, it was not an issue. My interpretation of the GPL is already quite unusual, so I'll simply rule that I also interpret the GPL as compatible with itself. /quote regards, alexander. ***) Posted by Shlomi Fish on Monday April 01
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? On Thu, Jan 19, 2006 at 02:33:41PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: Alexander On 1/19/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Alexander [...] Alexander compatible with itself Alexander Alexander The GPL is incompatible with itself. Alexander Alexander quote*** Alexander Alexander A recent press conference of the Free Software Foundation confirmed Alexander the rumors that the GNU General Public License was found to be Alexander incompatible with itself. This newly discovered fact may actually Alexander cause a lot of disorder in the free software world in which most Alexander programs and libraries are licensed under this license. Alexander Alexander Richard Stallman, chairman of the FSF, called upon developers to Alexander immediately exempt GPL-licensed software from the GPL, as far as Alexander linking them with GPL programs is concerned. We have already made Alexander sure all GNU software and every other software that is licensed to Alexander the Free Software Foundation would be ad-hoc compatible with itself. Alexander However we need other developers to do the same for their software, Alexander Stallman said. Alexander Alexander Eben Moglen, the FSF's attorney outlined the subsequent steps that Alexander his organization will take to overcome this crisis. The first step Alexander would be releasing a Modified General Public License (or MGPL for Alexander short) that will be compatible with the GPL and with itself as well Alexander as with all other licenses that the GPL is already compatible with. Alexander It will be labeled the GPL version 2.1, thus allowing developers to Alexander convert their software to it. He noted that care would be taken to Alexander make sure the upcoming GPL version 3.0 will be compatible with Alexander itself, as well as the MGPL. Alexander Alexander For the time being, though, there is an explosion of commentary, Alexander confusion and otherwise bad temper about the newly formed situation. Alexander Eric S. Raymond, the famous Open Source Guru notes: This is one of Alexander the greatest blows to the Open Source world, I have yet encountered. Alexander I have already exempted all of my own software from the GPL in this Alexander regard, but there is a lot of other software out there, and many of Alexander its authors are not very communicative. Alexander Alexander Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, on the other hand, seems to Alexander find the situation very amusing: I said times and again, that Alexander viral licenses such as the GPL are a bad idea, and many open-source Alexander advocates disagreed. Now they see that even making sure one's Alexander license is compatible with itself, is hard to do when you open that Alexander can of worms. Alexander Alexander The integrity of many software projects whose license is the GPL and Alexander yet contain works licensed by several developers is in jeopardy. The Alexander Linux kernel is a prominent example of such a case. In a post to its Alexander mailing list, Linus Torvalds commented that, in their case, it was Alexander not an issue. My interpretation of the GPL is already quite unusual, Alexander so I'll simply rule that I also interpret the GPL as compatible with Alexander itself. Alexander Alexander /quote Alexander Alexander regards, Alexander alexander. Alexander Alexander ***) Posted by Shlomi Fish on Monday April 01 Alexander -- Yorick signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On 1/19/06, Yorick Cool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? A troll hunter. regards, alexander.
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On 1/19/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/19/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] compatible with itself The GPL is incompatible with itself. [ ... Shlomi Fish on Monday April 01 ...] Beside that, http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/09/22/gpl3.html?page=2 RMS: - Even small changes from version 2 of the GPL will result in an incompatible license. Two slightly different licenses, each saying that modified versions of a program must be distributed under the same license, are inevitably incompatible. That's why we suggest that programs permit use of future versions of the GPL. It is the only way they can migrate. - regards, alexander.
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Yorick Cool [EMAIL PROTECTED] What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? A clue-by-four, the same as used for top-post/whole-quoters. (ObSerious: please stop feeding the troll, please follow the code of conduct and no top-posting. That means you.) -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Hands Off Yorick! On 1/19/06, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yorick Cool [EMAIL PROTECTED] What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? A clue-by-four, the same as used for top-post/whole-quoters. (ObSerious: please stop feeding the troll, please follow the code of conduct and no top-posting. That means you.) -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] regards, alexander.
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Nathanael Nerode wrote: So here it is: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. I like this, together with Arnoud's suggestions. But Walter is right; the devil is in the detail of defining user. In order for the clause to maintain the market in addon clauses which the FSF has talked about, you have to leave it up to the specific clause to define where the line is. And then debian-legal will have the lovely job of judging 27 different variants and deciding which ones are free. There's also a comment discussing potential revisions of this clause on their wiki-like thing. It has my suggestion in, which is along the same lines, but I like yours better. http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/readsay.html?id=204 I think it's inevitable that, whatever this clause ends up like, it'll be possible to write a non-free additional term with it. But we can at least get it phrased in a way which makes it possible to, and encourages people to write free terms. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Thu, Jan 19, 2006 at 02:46:52PM +0100, Yorick Cool wrote: What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? A billy goat gruff, if I remember my mythology correctly. - Matt -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not going to defend patch clauses. I think they're massively horrible things, and the world would be a better place without them. But deciding that they're not free any more would involve altering our standards of freedom, and I don't see any way that we can reasonably do that. Agreed. The original DFSG used to reflect pretty well what was the consensus about freedom in the free software community (not just Debian). While patch clauses are indeed highly annoying they have always been widely considered free, both in and outside Debian. It's unfortunate that, after trying for years to subtly change its meaning, newcomers now are proposing to radically remove some of its balances. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Matthew Garrett: Because saying We used to think that this sort of license provided you with all necessary freedoms, but now we've decided that it doesn't looks astonishingly bad? Is not looking bad more important than getting it right eventually? (Start aliasing [EMAIL PROTECTED] to /dev/null: a big BTS looks bad.) Another irony. I thought Matthew Garrett usually argued for changing views at the drop of a hat. For example, changing position and letting the project sell stuff near the end of http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/09/msg00091.html even though saying we used to say that we wouldn't compete with debian retailers, but now we've decided that we will looks astonishingly bad. I don't think looking bad is a good reason not to re-evaluate a position, but let's honour past agreements until obsoleted. Personally, I think some patch clauses are free enough to allow the four freedoms, although most are a nuisance in practice. I'm happy to discuss that: why not? -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 06:24:19AM +, Matthew Garrett wrote: What mistakes? Pretty much the entire free software community believes that patch-clause licenses are acceptable. Why do you think that they're not? You're asking me to repeat the entire discussion I just had with you and Michael, where I explained very explicitly the serious problems of patch clauses? If you've accidentally deleted your mailbox, I'm sure it's in the list archives. No, you've described why they cause practical inconvenience. You haven't described why everyone else ever was wrong. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Michio Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is not looking bad more important than getting it right eventually? (Start aliasing [EMAIL PROTECTED] to /dev/null: a big BTS looks bad.) Nngh. Another irony. I thought Matthew Garrett usually argued for changing views at the drop of a hat. For example, changing position and letting the project sell stuff near the end of http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/09/msg00091.html even though saying we used to say that we wouldn't compete with debian retailers, but now we've decided that we will looks astonishingly bad. You seem to have misunderstood me. I'm not saying that changing our minds on things is bad. I'm saying that diverging from the rest of the community for no good reason looks bad. It's hardly as if patch clauses were badly understood when the DFSG were written. There's no way you can claim Oh, they didn't know what they were talking about. The people who wrote this document considered the issue and decided that the practical implications were not sufficiently offensive to avoid describing them as free. Since then, the practical freedoms provided by patch clauses have increased. Altering the DFSG would be a clear redefinition of our stance on freedom, and there would be no way that anyone could argue that it was in any way in line with community consensus. Do I think that would look bad? Yes, I do. The DFSG should reflect reality, like our website should do. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] My preferred name is you -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Well, I did devise a potentially Free alternative for the infamous clause 7d after an hour or two's thought. The key point here was that the clause suffered from specifying means rather than ends, which we have diagnosed as a major source of license drafting errors. By restricting the functionality of the program and all derivative works, it causes endless trouble. Instead, I attempted to rewrite this as a restriction which could be imposed on the recipients of the license. So here it is: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. This leverages the careful definition of propagate up top, so that it avoids restricting any acitivities which do not require a copyright license. A restriction along these lines would mean that (1) it imposes no restrictions on the *writers* of derivative works (2) If you've already distributed (or offered to distribute) the work to all its users (the normal case and the troublesome one for the original clause), you have no additional obligations (3) making the program available for users over the Internet (or on a local server) -- if and only if that requires a copyright license, which it probably does -- requires that you provide access to the source code to those users, according to the usual GPL v3 clauses regarding distributing copies. What do other people think of this? It's sort of a forced distribution clause, but it only forces distribution to the people you're already allowing to use the program. If it's considered acceptable, we could push to have this replace the proposed (7d). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Nathanael Nerode wrote: The key point here was that the clause suffered from specifying means rather than ends, which we have diagnosed as a major source of license drafting errors. By restricting the functionality of the program and all derivative works, it causes endless trouble. That perfectly describes my problem with the clause as written. Instead, I attempted to rewrite this as a restriction which could be imposed on the recipients of the license. So here it is: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. This leverages the careful definition of propagate up top, so that it avoids restricting any acitivities which do not require a copyright license. A restriction along these lines would mean that (1) it imposes no restrictions on the *writers* of derivative works (2) If you've already distributed (or offered to distribute) the work to all its users (the normal case and the troublesome one for the original clause), you have no additional obligations (3) making the program available for users over the Internet (or on a local server) -- if and only if that requires a copyright license, which it probably does -- requires that you provide access to the source code to those users, according to the usual GPL v3 clauses regarding distributing copies. What do other people think of this? It's sort of a forced distribution clause, but it only forces distribution to the people you're already allowing to use the program. If it's considered acceptable, we could push to have this replace the proposed (7d). I believe this clause addresses the issue perfectly, and I agree with proposing it as a replacement. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Nathanael Nerode wrote: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. This sounds a lot better. I would suggest using work based on the Program to re-use that definition as well. Also, how about just to receive copies and add under the terms of this License. Or maybe refer to the article that allows you to make copies. Then you nicely catch all the other requirements that you have to fulfil (storage medium, written offer, etc). And this just occurs to me: do I need to have a world-readable /usr/src if I let people log into my system and use a tool that is GPLv3 with 7d enabled? Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:52:39AM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Well, I did devise a potentially Free alternative for the infamous clause 7d after an hour or two's thought. The key point here was that the clause suffered from specifying means rather than ends, which we have diagnosed as a major source of license drafting errors. By restricting the functionality of the program and all derivative works, it causes endless trouble. Instead, I attempted to rewrite this as a restriction which could be imposed on the recipients of the license. So here it is: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. This leverages the careful definition of propagate up top, so that it avoids restricting any acitivities which do not require a copyright license. Neat, although a little hard to understand at first without the context of what it's referring to (Affero-like clauses). I certainly like it a lot more than the original, though, for all of the reasons you cited. What do other people think of this? It's sort of a forced distribution clause, but it only forces distribution to the people you're already allowing to use the program. If it's considered acceptable, we could push to have this replace the proposed (7d). I like it, and I think it should be definitely be submitted to the FSF for consideration. - Matt -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 07:18:10PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: But in that case, you might find it more fruitful to discuss this clause with the FSF itself rather than with debian-legal. Well, I'm not discussing these things here to try to get the weight of this would make Debian call the GPLv3 non-free, since the GFDL showed just how much weight that holds with the FSF. I do want to know what others here think about these things, though, and to let anyone who agrees with these things to lend their voice to fixing them. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On 1/18/06, Matthew Palmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...} What do other people think of this? I think the GPLv3 is great. It's perfect impotence pill for (ordinary contractual) stuff like OSL, IPL, CPL and whatnot the FSF is going to deem now compatible. The OSI approval (I just pray that someone submits it) will be fun. regards, alexander.
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard wrote: No, I've described why they practically *prohibit* code reuse. The only counterarguments I've ever seen are: - code reuse isn't important (often thinly veiled as eg. you don't really need to reuse code, you can always rewrite it), and - if you really want to reuse code, you can create a complex, massively impractical patching system to handle it (and I'm not convinced that's even possible, when two separate patch-clause code bits end up mashed closely together). Incidentally, I think you're right about this; I don't really see how to distribute a single file in the form of a patch to TeX and a patch to, say, an old release of Qt (under their patch clause) simultaneously. If I put the Qt code into the patch to TeX, I violate the Qt license; if I put the TeX code into the patch to Qt, I violate the TeX license; if I do neither, I violate both licenses. Have you heard argument three? A new license incompatible with all other free software licenses practically prohibits code reuse in the same way. This sucks, but we consider it Free (while discouraging it). Patch clauses suck in the exact same way, so we should consider them Free too (while discouraging them). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:14:03PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Have you heard argument three? A new license incompatible with all other free software licenses practically prohibits code reuse in the same way. This sucks, but we consider it Free (while discouraging it). Patch clauses suck in the exact same way, so we should consider them Free too (while discouraging them). The difference is that such a license is at least compatible with itself: if you put your software under the same license, or something almost guaranteed to be compatible (eg. public domain), you can reuse the code. Patch clauses aren't even compatible with themselves: putting your work under the same license doesn't fix it. Also, a license incompatible with other licenses wouldn't cause problems like can't put the code in CVS. I have trouble viewing any software under a license that prohibits the use of ordinary source control as a valuable contribution to free software. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 04:10:38PM -0800, Joe Buck wrote: All these objections from Debian folks, and no one has yet noticed the irony that the type of clause in question (the Affero language) has been championed by the man who wrote the DFSG, Bruce Perens. Bruce repeatedly called the ability to publicly perform a work derived from a GPLed work, but not make the changes public, was a terrible loophole that had to be fixed, and promised to lobby RMS to fix it. After the ironies surrounding the GFDL and the FSF, I'm beginning to become desensitized ... Should the Debian project make a stink anyway? Only if you also want to make a stink about the LGPL, the X license, and every non-copyleft license, because all permit a derivative work to add something like the Affero clause. There's a wide difference. The GPLv3 is explicitly making a statement: these restrictions are acceptable. Permissive licenses merely say I don't care. It implies that the FSF considers such restrictions free, and either hasn't considered, or doesn't care, about the legitimate applications that it implicitly prohibits. I don't think anybody is claiming this license exception is non-free in and of itself (if I have, it was in error), but that doesn't make it not damaging. Too many developers of licenses seem to picture users making small changes, instead of creating mashups that take bits of many programs to make new ones. Indeed, that's exactly the problem with this type of restriction; it assumes people aren't going to reuse bits of their code in ways entirely different from what they used it for. It makes it impossible to reuse useful bits from a networked application inside a non-networked application. If the FSF considers it free, I have to wonder whether they consider code reuse to be important at all. (On the same note, the patch exception in DFSG#4 has got to go; patch clauses prohibit code reuse entirely. Some day ...) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There's a wide difference. The GPLv3 is explicitly making a statement: these restrictions are acceptable. Permissive licenses merely say I don't care. It implies that the FSF considers such restrictions free, and either hasn't considered, or doesn't care, about the legitimate applications that it implicitly prohibits. The fact that they claim the Affero license is free didn't suggest that to you already? (On the same note, the patch exception in DFSG#4 has got to go; patch clauses prohibit code reuse entirely. Some day ...) Patch clauses only prohibit code reuse if your build system is insufficiently complicated. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, Matthew Garrett wrote: Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (On the same note, the patch exception in DFSG#4 has got to go; patch clauses prohibit code reuse entirely. Some day ...) Patch clauses only prohibit code reuse if your build system is insufficiently complicated. And you are willing to contain an entire copy of the codebase from which you are extracting. [Unless the patch clause is per-file...] Don Armstrong -- My spelling ability, or rather the lack thereof, is one of the wonders of the modern world. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 02:37:15AM +, Matthew Garrett wrote: The fact that they claim the Affero license is free didn't suggest that to you already? Personally, I stopped paying attention to what they claim is free and non-free when they called the GFDL free. I just expect people to go hey, the GPL itself says it's OK; it must be a good thing, and it doesn't cause GPL-incompatibility anymore, let's do it! (On the same note, the patch exception in DFSG#4 has got to go; patch clauses prohibit code reuse entirely. Some day ...) Patch clauses only prohibit code reuse if your build system is insufficiently complicated. If I'm reusing a function from one project with a patch clause, sure. I can distribute my entire project as a patch against the project whose code I'm reusing. That's hardly reasonable. It also prohibits me from using public CVS for my project, since that would perform distribution of the modified reused code in a form other than a patch against the original. If I'm reusing two functions from two or more patch-clause projects, it becomes much worse. Patch clauses assume that the only type of modification anyone would ever want to do to a work is to change the original (eg. the bug fix, feature addition variety), ignoring the practice of pulling out code from one project and putting it in another. I also don't understand why anyone would actually want to defend patch clauses. There are very few of them left, so I don't think there's much of that don't want my pet package declared non-free agenda going on, and it seems like an obviously unreasonable hurdle to reuse. It seems like a compromise whose time has passed. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I also don't understand why anyone would actually want to defend patch clauses. There are very few of them left, so I don't think there's much of that don't want my pet package declared non-free agenda going on, and it seems like an obviously unreasonable hurdle to reuse. It seems like a compromise whose time has passed. I'm not going to defend patch clauses. I think they're massively horrible things, and the world would be a better place without them. But deciding that they're not free any more would involve altering our standards of freedom, and I don't see any way that we can reasonably do that. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard writes: (On the same note, the patch exception in DFSG#4 has got to go; patch clauses prohibit code reuse entirely. Some day ...) Patch clauses only prohibit code reuse if your build system is insufficiently complicated. If I'm reusing a function from one project with a patch clause, sure. I can distribute my entire project as a patch against the project whose code I'm reusing. That's hardly reasonable. It also prohibits me from using public CVS for my project, since that would perform distribution of the modified reused code in a form other than a patch against the original. It is pretty hard for me to think of a function that is usable on its own, useful enough to merit reuse in another project, and too large or subtle to be rewritten rather than deal with a patch-clause license. If that worst case is as rare as I think it is, is it noticably worse than the GPL's effective requirement to keep DVDs full of source code on-hand at expos? Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 10:21:18PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote: If I'm reusing a function from one project with a patch clause, sure. I can distribute my entire project as a patch against the project whose code I'm reusing. That's hardly reasonable. It also prohibits me from using public CVS for my project, since that would perform distribution of the modified reused code in a form other than a patch against the original. It is pretty hard for me to think of a function that is usable on its own, useful enough to merit reuse in another project, and too large or subtle to be rewritten rather than deal with a patch-clause license. So you're saying that since it's possible to rewrite code on your own, patch clause licenses are free? That sounds like an argument that code reuse isn't really all that important. If you're stuck on function, then take any other unit of code; set of functions, class heirarchies, etc, and remember that in actively- developed code, code gets shuffled around, refactored, files are merged and split apart, and you'll easily end up with even single functions with some code that originated from one project, and other code from another. FWIW, good audio resamplers and MMX-optimized color space converters come to mind as things that I've wanted permissively-licensed implementations for a long time. In the former case, writing a fast, reasonable-quality polyphase resampler is well above my skill at that sort of thing. The latter, despite not being very much code, is simply such a PITA that I havn't been able to convince myself to implement it. If a project with a patch clause had these, I couldn't reuse it; personal licensing requirements aside, all of the code ends up in SF CVS, and merely committing it with even simple changes to make it fit the project would violate the license. If that worst case is as rare as I think it is, is it noticably worse than the GPL's effective requirement to keep DVDs full of source code on-hand at expos? I'd qualify that as annoying, not as showstopper to code reuse. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard writes: On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 10:21:18PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote: If I'm reusing a function from one project with a patch clause, sure. I can distribute my entire project as a patch against the project whose code I'm reusing. That's hardly reasonable. It also prohibits me from using public CVS for my project, since that would perform distribution of the modified reused code in a form other than a patch against the original. It is pretty hard for me to think of a function that is usable on its own, useful enough to merit reuse in another project, and too large or subtle to be rewritten rather than deal with a patch-clause license. So you're saying that since it's possible to rewrite code on your own, patch clause licenses are free? That sounds like an argument that code reuse isn't really all that important. I am saying that it is hard for me to imagine a case where reuse of patch-claused software is a major impediment to getting the work done. There are works under patch-clause licenses that are cul-de-sacs in the free software world, and patch-clause licenses should be (and are) generally discouraged. However, unless there is a noticeable uptick in works that use those licenses, I think declaring those works non-free would be a net loss in giving users the ability to freely modify and share software. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 11:40:55PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote: It is pretty hard for me to think of a function that is usable on its own, useful enough to merit reuse in another project, and too large or subtle to be rewritten rather than deal with a patch-clause license. So you're saying that since it's possible to rewrite code on your own, patch clause licenses are free? That sounds like an argument that code reuse isn't really all that important. I am saying that it is hard for me to imagine a case where reuse of patch-claused software is a major impediment to getting the work done. This is a rephrasing of code reuse isn't really all that important. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Matthew Garrett wrote: Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I also don't understand why anyone would actually want to defend patch clauses. There are very few of them left, so I don't think there's much of that don't want my pet package declared non-free agenda going on, and it seems like an obviously unreasonable hurdle to reuse. It seems like a compromise whose time has passed. I'm not going to defend patch clauses. I think they're massively horrible things, and the world would be a better place without them. But deciding that they're not free any more would involve altering our standards of freedom, and I don't see any way that we can reasonably do that. Why not? There is an established procedure in place for doing so. Obviously such a thing should not be done lightly, but that doesn't mean it cannot be reasonably done at all. It would be useful, before proposing a GR to do so, to have a list of all the packages currently in main which would become non-free if this clause were abolished, as well as any well-known licenses which might be affected. Offhand, the only package I know of which is currently in main and under a patch-clause license is gnuplot, and I don't know of any well-known DFSG-free licenses (used on more than one project) which include a patch clause. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 05:47:18AM +, Matthew Garrett wrote: Josh Triplett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett wrote: I'm not going to defend patch clauses. I think they're massively horrible things, and the world would be a better place without them. But deciding that they're not free any more would involve altering our standards of freedom, and I don't see any way that we can reasonably do that. Why not? There is an established procedure in place for doing so. Obviously such a thing should not be done lightly, but that doesn't mean it cannot be reasonably done at all. Because saying We used to think that this sort of license provided you with all necessary freedoms, but now we've decided that it doesn't looks astonishingly bad? So the real reason not to fix it is to save face by not admitting mistakes. I expected better from Debian; don't ask me why. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 05:47:18AM +, Matthew Garrett wrote: Because saying We used to think that this sort of license provided you with all necessary freedoms, but now we've decided that it doesn't looks astonishingly bad? So the real reason not to fix it is to save face by not admitting mistakes. I expected better from Debian; don't ask me why. What mistakes? Pretty much the entire free software community believes that patch-clause licenses are acceptable. Why do you think that they're not? -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 06:24:19AM +, Matthew Garrett wrote: Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 05:47:18AM +, Matthew Garrett wrote: Because saying We used to think that this sort of license provided you with all necessary freedoms, but now we've decided that it doesn't looks astonishingly bad? So the real reason not to fix it is to save face by not admitting mistakes. I expected better from Debian; don't ask me why. What mistakes? Pretty much the entire free software community believes that patch-clause licenses are acceptable. Why do you think that they're not? You're asking me to repeat the entire discussion I just had with you and Michael, where I explained very explicitly the serious problems of patch clauses? If you've accidentally deleted your mailbox, I'm sure it's in the list archives. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
