Re: [Freedos-user] FDNET missing from FreeDOS 1.3-RC4

[Travis Siegel]

On 10/14/2021 4:06 AM, Jon Brase wrote:

Oct 13, 2021 23:39:17 Jim Hall 

It appears that somewhere along the line, someone (at AMD?) had access
to the sources, probably in a larger source tree, and ran a batch job
or script to apply the "AMD" statement to a bunch of source files. And
that happened to catch these GPL and public domain source files. I
believe that was done in error. The original public domain and GPL
declarations trump the latter "AMD" statement.

The only issue I see here is if AMD added any code to the public domain files.

For the GPL files, the AMD violated the existing license by marking them as AMD 
proprietary, whether they added anything or not, and the only way for them to 
come back into compliance is to relicense the code under a GPL compatible 
license. So the GPL files are clean in any circumstance.

For the public domain stuff, they can't claim copyright to anything that 
existed in the files when they received them, but they can claim copyright to 
anything that they added.

If the original files can be traced and it can be demonstrated that AMD added 
nothing more than the copyright notices, then they're clean, otherwise it has 
to be determined what code was added by AMD, and that has to be stripped out.

I don't think there's an issue here, for several reasons, besides the 
ones mentioned above, any code added to the files (assuming there was 
some) I'm pretty sure is required to be released back to the community 
anyway.  I'm no lawyer, and various GPL licenses have different 
restrictions, but I'm thinking GPLV1 required any code added be released 
back to the community at large, which is why a second (then a third) 
version of the license was created.


Of course, it's been many years since I read the first version of the 
GPL license, so I could be all wrong about it, but for some reason, that 
seems to stick with me.


And, generally, even if there is proprietary code involved, (doubtful), 
in general (obviously, not always), AMD can only recoupe losses as a 
result of the code being used for commercial gain, which would be real 
hard to prove since freedos is free, and no monitary gain is made as a 
result of including said code.


I'm sure folks could argue this six ways from Sunday, and make all kinds 
of cases for just about anything they want, but has anyone actually made 
an attempt to ask AMD their thoughts on the matter?


Barring getting an all clear from AMD, I'm personally convinced the only 
way forward is to behave as previously mentioned, by removing said 
notices, and leaving it all opensource.  If they have a problem, /I'm 
sure they''ll say something.  I can't honestly see that happening 
though, and if they do, then you'll know exactly what needs removed to 
solve the problem./


/That's a win in everyone's book./

//
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Re: [Freedos-user] FDNET missing from FreeDOS 1.3-RC4

[Jim Hall]

> Hi Jim and Everyone,
>
> On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 10:58 AM Jim Hall  wrote:
> [..]
>
> *If you agree or disagree, I'd appreciate your reply to this email.
> Agreement can be simply "agree" or "+1". If you disagree, please
> discuss. (But consensus from the last discussion favored including
> FDNET, so if no one disagrees now, I'll assume no concerns on this.)
>

On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 3:55 AM Jerome Shidel  wrote:
>
> The items you mention definitely help resolve many of the issues with the 
> FDNet Package. But unfortunately, I don’t think they address the issues that 
> triggered the package being pulled on 4/10/21.
>
> Please refer to that message from Michael Brutman 
> https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37259659/ and my immediate 
> followup response https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37259690/ 
> .
>
> I’m no lawyer. But, I think adding to your resolution list:
>
> (4) Change the FDNet package metadata to reflect all the various open source 
> licenses used by the programs included in the FDNet packages instead of just 
> the copying-policy for FDNet itself. In other words, have it say “Various 
> open source licenses, see included programs” instead of just “GPL V2”.
>
> I think that would be sufficient to comply with the messages I referred to 
> earlier. After all, FDNet itself is only a script and does not get compiled 
> or include any source code from programs themselves. And like a Linux 
> distribution, programs of various and even incompatible licenses may be 
> included in the distribution under certain restrictions.
>[..]


I agree, let's add:

4. update the metadata to "Various open source licenses, see included
programs" or some other generic term to indicate the mix


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-user] FDNET missing from FreeDOS 1.3-RC4

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi Jim and Everyone,

> On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 10:58 AM Jim Hall  wrote:
> [..]
> *If you agree or disagree, I'd appreciate your reply to this email.
> Agreement can be simply "agree" or "+1". If you disagree, please
> discuss. (But consensus from the last discussion favored including
> FDNET, so if no one disagrees now, I'll assume no concerns on this.)

The items you mention definitely help resolve many of the issues with the FDNet 
Package. But unfortunately, I don’t think they address the issues that 
triggered the package being pulled on 4/10/21. 

Please refer to that message from Michael Brutman 
https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37259659/ 
 and my immediate 
followup response https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/37259690/ 
 .

I’m no lawyer. But, I think adding to your resolution list:

(4) Change the FDNet package metadata to reflect all the various open source 
licenses used by the programs included in the FDNet packages instead of just 
the copying-policy for FDNet itself. In other words, have it say “Various open 
source licenses, see included programs” instead of just “GPL V2”.

I think that would be sufficient to comply with the messages I referred to 
earlier. After all, FDNet itself is only a script and does not get compiled or 
include any source code from programs themselves. And like a Linux 
distribution, programs of various and even incompatible licenses may be 
included in the distribution under certain restrictions. 

For example, if you could not release a Linux OS that included programs that 
were licensed under GPLv2 & GPLv3, Linux itself would be dead in the water and 
no longer be usable or updated. 

So, my personal belief is that FDNet (Like Gnome or KDE) can launch/run/execute 
programs of whatever license. And like a Linux Distribution, can include any 
open source licensed program as long as it does not imply that it’s license 
covers everything “in-the-box”.

But, I could be wrong. 

:-)

Jerome




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Re: [Freedos-user] FDNET missing from FreeDOS 1.3-RC4

[Jon Brase]

Oct 13, 2021 23:39:17 Jim Hall 
>
> 
> It appears that somewhere along the line, someone (at AMD?) had access
> to the sources, probably in a larger source tree, and ran a batch job
> or script to apply the "AMD" statement to a bunch of source files. And
> that happened to catch these GPL and public domain source files. I
> believe that was done in error. The original public domain and GPL
> declarations trump the latter "AMD" statement.

The only issue I see here is if AMD added any code to the public domain files.

For the GPL files, the AMD violated the existing license by marking them as AMD 
proprietary, whether they added anything or not, and the only way for them to 
come back into compliance is to relicense the code under a GPL compatible 
license. So the GPL files are clean in any circumstance.

For the public domain stuff, they can't claim copyright to anything that 
existed in the files when they received them, but they can claim copyright to 
anything that they added.

If the original files can be traced and it can be demonstrated that AMD added 
nothing more than the copyright notices, then they're clean, otherwise it has 
to be determined what code was added by AMD, and that has to be stripped out.


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Re: [Freedos-user] FDNET missing from FreeDOS 1.3-RC4

[Jim Hall]

> On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 10:44 AM Brandon Taylor
>  wrote:
> >
> > I've just installed FreeDOS 1.3-RC4 on a virtual machine, and,
> > upon running FDIMPLES, discovered that FDNET is nowhere to be
> > found. What's the issue here?

On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 10:58 AM Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> I had asked that we not include FDNET in FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 due to
> license confusion in the FDNET package. You can see it documented in
> the wiki:
> http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Releases/1.3/Packages#Networking
>
> I've been thinking about this since RC4, and I'm starting to think
> that the package will be okay to include in RC5. But for now, it's not
> in RC4.


I've been distracted with other work, and it appears I never followed
up on this one. I meant to send this note a month ago.

I'd thought a lot about the FDNET issue. Thanks to everyone here for
the conversation we've had about it, going back to to June. I
especially appreciated the comments from Tom and Eric and Paul. You've
convinced me, I agree with you; I now think the license issue for
FDNET is actually a non-issue.

To recap:

Many of the source files have confusing/contradictory license
statements. But the sources show that Russ's GPL and public domain
claims came first. Most of these are in the PCNTPK directory. For
example, many of these files have this disclaimer at the top:

;Copyright (c) 1993 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights Reserved.
;This software is unpblished and contains the trade secrets and
;confidential proprietary information of AMD. Unless otherwise provided
;in the Software Agreement associated herewith, it is licensed in confidence
;"AS IS" and is not to be reproduced in whole or part by any means except
;for backup. Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is subject
;to the restrictions in paragraph (b) (3) (B) of the Rights in Technical
;Data and Computer Software clause in DFAR 52.227-7013 (a) (Oct 1988).
;Software owned by Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 901 Thompson Place,
;Sunnyvale, CA 94088.

But the same source files also have this, below the AMD statement:

;  Copyright, 1990, Russell Nelson, Crynwr Software
;
;
;   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 1.
;
;   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, write to the Free Software
;   Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

..or a "public domain" statement like this:

;  Copyright 1988-1992 Russell Nelson
;
;put into the public domain by Russell Nelson, nel...@crynwr.com


I don't know why the sources later had an "AMD" statement put on them,
but you cannot claim "proprietary" or "copyright" on something that
was previously released under the GNU General Public License.

It appears that somewhere along the line, someone (at AMD?) had access
to the sources, probably in a larger source tree, and ran a batch job
or script to apply the "AMD" statement to a bunch of source files. And
that happened to catch these GPL and public domain source files. I
believe that was done in error. The original public domain and GPL
declarations trump the latter "AMD" statement.


Resolution:


(1) Let's re-accept the FDNET package into the next FreeDOS distribution.

(2) I'll make a note about this decision in the FreeDOS wiki at
http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Releases/1.3/Packages
(this currently has a red "do not include" note on it .. I'll update
to change it a green "include" message)

(3) To prevent future confusion, I'll create a new version of these
source files that *removes* the "AMD" statement, where a previous GPL
or public domain declaration was already made. (I think that's all of
the files in question.) I'll also create (or update, if it exists) a
README file to note the changes to the source files, and why.


I look forward to including networking support again in the next
distribution, which should be FreeDOS 1.3 RC5.


*If you agree or disagree, I'd appreciate your reply to this email.
Agreement can be simply "agree" or "+1". If you disagree, please
discuss. (But consensus from the last discussion favored including
FDNET, so if no one disagrees now, I'll assume no concerns on this.)


Jim


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Re: [Freedos-user] FDNET missing from FreeDOS 1.3-RC4

[Jim Hall]

On Mon, Sep 6, 2021 at 10:44 AM Brandon Taylor
 wrote:
>
> I've just installed FreeDOS 1.3-RC4 on a virtual machine, and,
> upon running FDIMPLES, discovered that FDNET is nowhere to be
> found. What's the issue here?


I had asked that we not include FDNET in FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 due to
license confusion in the FDNET package. You can see it documented in
the wiki:
http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Releases/1.3/Packages#Networking

I've been thinking about this since RC4, and I'm starting to think
that the package will be okay to include in RC5. But for now, it's not
in RC4.


Jim


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[Freedos-user] FDNET missing from FreeDOS 1.3-RC4

[Brandon Taylor]

I've just installed FreeDOS 1.3-RC4 on a virtual machine, and, upon running 
FDIMPLES, discovered that FDNET is nowhere to be found. What's the issue here?

Brandon Taylor
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