Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Rob Lanphier]

Hi Tyler

More comments inline:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:
> Not sure exactly what you mean. The MPL is compatible with both GPL 2.0 and
> 3.0.

MPL v1.1 was not compatible with any version of the GPL, hence the
reason why Mozilla eventually multi-licensed their software under
MPL/GPL/LGPL (they pioneered the approach, IIRC).  MPL v2 achieves GPL
compatibility by specifically naming GPL v2+, LGPL v2.1+, and AGPL v3+
as "Secondary Licenses", and then optionally allowing relicensing
(i.e. one-way conversion of the software to GPL/LGPL/AGPL) under
section 3.3.  It basically bakes multi-licensing into the license
itself.

> What I'm saying is that GPLv2 to GPLv3 is a one-way direction. Once
> code is licensed under v3, you cannot go back to v2. The Apache license is
> only compatible with v3, and code under v2 cannot be combined with Apache
> code, so the only way to add in Apache code to a GPL project is if the
> entire project is v3.

By this logic, once MPL-licensed code is relicensed under GPL, you
cannot go back to MPL, so the only way to add GPL code to an MPL
project is if the entire project is GPL.

The fact that there's an option to upgrade the license to GPLv3 is
sufficient for GPLv2+ code to be compatible with Apache 2.0 code, in
the same way that the option to relicense MPL code as GPL code is
sufficient for GPL compatibility.  You don't need to actually perform
the relicensing, you merely have to offer the licensee the option to
do so if they so desire.

> I will assume good faith for the WMF. I was just making a quick jab; I know
> the WMF is not going to make MediaWiki proprietary.

Thanks for clarifying that.

> However, I will not assume good faith for every other software company out
> there that may take MediaWiki, modify it or improve it in some way, and
> then begin selling it as proprietary software. It's nice to think the world
> is an ideal place where everybody shares their source code, but
> unfortunately we are not living in the ideal, and in fact that is the
> entire reason the GPL was written in the first place: in response to
> companies acting in bad faith.

I think my experience is more-or-less in line with Stas, though I
think I still have more sympathy for the copyleft approach than he
has.  I see the copyleft/permissive choice as more of a tactical than
a moral choice, and that I think permissive is going to be a more
effective long-term tactic to achieve the moral goals also sought by
proponents of copyleft.  Downstream modifiers of software eventually
learn that keeping secret patches to upstream code is more hassle than
whatever "secret sauce" benefits they get.

Also, one cost of copyleft licenses is that they are much, much more
complicated than permissive licenses.  Even though many people feel
comfortable with the compliance requirements of most OSI-approved
licenses, the permissive licenses can usually stand alone without an
FAQ, whereas an FAQ is required for just about all of the copyleft
licenses.  That simplicity reduces a very real barrier to adoption.

Rob

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Gabriel Wicke]

Tyler,

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:
>
> However, I will not assume good faith for every other software company out
> there that may take MediaWiki, modify it or improve it in some way, and
> then begin selling it as proprietary software. It's nice to think the world
> is an ideal place where everybody shares their source code, but
> unfortunately we are not living in the ideal, and in fact that is the
> entire reason the GPL was written in the first place: in response to
> companies acting in bad faith.


the GPL (any version) doesn't do anything for the most likely scenario of a
company offering their 'improved' version of MediaWiki as a service. To
actually have real leverage in this case, we'd need to use the AGPL.

However, the AGPL would make it even harder to split out code into
libraries shared with the wider open source community, as very few
third-party users would consider using AGPL-licensed libraries. Even the
consequences of using AGPL-licensed network services like RESTBase seem to
be less clear than I expected, which is why we are in the process of
relicensing the main server code to Apache 2 as well (modules are already
Apache licensed).

If we were an open core company hoping to sell commercial licenses on FUD
I'd advocate for AGPL. Since we aren't & are actually more interested in
collaborating with the outside world I think that Apache 2 makes more sense
than both GPL & AGPL. Re-licensing MediaWiki is not going to happen any
time soon as there are so many copyright holders, but we could try to
re-license library code where possible. I also think that we should
strongly consider using the Apache 2 license for new projects.

Gabriel
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Stas Malyshev]

Hi!

> I will assume good faith for the WMF. I was just making a quick jab; I know
> the WMF is not going to make MediaWiki proprietary.
> 
> However, I will not assume good faith for every other software company out
> there that may take MediaWiki, modify it or improve it in some way, and
> then begin selling it as proprietary software. It's nice to think the world

I'm in the free software world for more than two decades now, and I
still fail to understand why this scenario bothers people so much. There
are a number of projects that do exactly that, on top of various free
software projects (both non-GPL and GPL), and so far I've not seen much
problem coming out of it. Let's assume for a minute that we live in a
nightmare world where there is a company, say EvilWiki Corp., which
improves mediawiki somehow and sells the result. How exactly life in
that world substantially worse for us than in ours where EvilWiki Corp.
does not exist?

> is an ideal place where everybody shares their source code, but
> unfortunately we are not living in the ideal, and in fact that is the
> entire reason the GPL was written in the first place: in response to
> companies acting in bad faith.

It is true that GPL is a response for that. What I am less sure about is
that it is the *right* response. There are dozens major successful open
source projects that have permissive licenses, or hundreds if you relax
the criteria of "major" somewhat. I have hard time remembering one of
them that seriously suffered from the nightmare scenario as you describe
- maybe there are, but if there would be many, I'd probably hear about
them, so I assume such cases, if existing, must be rare (or I am
exceptionally ignorant).
Some time ago, open source was a weird phenomenon with a shade of crazy
- what do you mean give your code to everybody for free? Isn't that some
Communist plot? I assume in these times adding some legal power to the
movement was a very enticing prospect. Now, open source is a proven
thing, everybody does it - Apple does it, Microsoft does it, IBM does
it, Google does it, everybody who's anybody does it. It's in fashion.
You don't have to force people to follow the fashion. So I wonder if
spending time worrying about if the license is strong enough and
defensive enough is something worth doing now.

-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalys...@wikimedia.org

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Tyler Romeo]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 9:04 PM, Rob Lanphier  wrote:

>
> This is virtually identical to how the old MPL multi-licensing
> boilerplate is worded:
> https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/boilerplate-1.1/
>
> ...which is widely considered sufficient for GPL compatibility.
>

Not sure exactly what you mean. The MPL is compatible with both GPL 2.0 and
3.0. What I'm saying is that GPLv2 to GPLv3 is a one-way direction. Once
code is licensed under v3, you cannot go back to v2. The Apache license is
only compatible with v3, and code under v2 cannot be combined with Apache
code, so the only way to add in Apache code to a GPL project is if the
entire project is v3.


> My main point about not thinking too hard about GPLv3 specifically is
> because I'm generally a little skeptical about GPL's general
> applicability to our use case.
>

[...]
>
> Please assume good faith.
>
> There is absolutely no intention by the WMF to make our software
> proprietary.  The only reason we'd entertain a switch to a more
> permissive license is as a means of collaborating with entities
> (companies, individuals, and organizations) who might steer clear of
> GPL software but otherwise be good open source collaborators out of
> enlightened self interest.


I will assume good faith for the WMF. I was just making a quick jab; I know
the WMF is not going to make MediaWiki proprietary.

However, I will not assume good faith for every other software company out
there that may take MediaWiki, modify it or improve it in some way, and
then begin selling it as proprietary software. It's nice to think the world
is an ideal place where everybody shares their source code, but
unfortunately we are not living in the ideal, and in fact that is the
entire reason the GPL was written in the first place: in response to
companies acting in bad faith.

*-- *
*Tyler Romeo*
Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2016
Major in Computer Science
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Rob Lanphier]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Rob Lanphier  wrote:
>> Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of
>> being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of
>> the GPL)  Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is
>> compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or
>> later" is compatible with.
>>
>
> This is not true. The GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible licenses, and if you
> read the actual license disclaimer, you will see it is not the "functional
> equivalent" of having our code licensed under both.
>
> Rather, what the disclaimer says is that our code is GPLv2 only, *but*,
> anybody who modifies or distributes it is free to, at their discretion,
> change the license to any later version of the GPL. You legally cannot have
> both the GPLv2 and GPLv3 because they are conflicting in their terms.

This is virtually identical to how the old MPL multi-licensing
boilerplate is worded:
https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/boilerplate-1.1/

...which is widely considered sufficient for GPL compatibility.

> I've already described the numerous changes and fixes that have been made
> in the GPLv3, specifically easier enforcement due to changed policies on
> infringement, better international wording, etc. If you'd like to dispute
> any of the good ideas I've listed, then go ahead, but I think the
> improvements v3 makes are more than enough of a goal.

My apologies.  I'll take those into consideration.

> As for your point on it being useless because of the server-side nature of
> PHP, I semi-agree, which is why I proposed the AGPL, but nonetheless the
> advantages of the v3 will still help distributors who download MediaWiki
> from our site. The server-side nature of PHP has nothing to do with it.

My main point about not thinking too hard about GPLv3 specifically is
because I'm generally a little skeptical about GPL's general
applicability to our use case.

>> In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward
>> Apache 2.0.  It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity
>> and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.
>
>
> That is quite depressing to hear. MediaWiki is supposed to be an open
> source software movement, so I would think one of the goals of our
> community would be to preserve that and keep MediaWiki open source, but if
> the WMF has some future goals to make its software proprietary, then I can
> understand why we might want to aim toward something that allows that, such
> as the permissive Apache 2.0.

Please assume good faith.

There is absolutely no intention by the WMF to make our software
proprietary.  The only reason we'd entertain a switch to a more
permissive license is as a means of collaborating with entities
(companies, individuals, and organizations) who might steer clear of
GPL software but otherwise be good open source collaborators out of
enlightened self interest.

Rob

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Tyler Romeo]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Rob Lanphier  wrote:

> Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of
> being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of
> the GPL)  Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is
> compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or
> later" is compatible with.
>

This is not true. The GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible licenses, and if you
read the actual license disclaimer, you will see it is not the "functional
equivalent" of having our code licensed under both.

Rather, what the disclaimer says is that our code is GPLv2 only, *but*,
anybody who modifies or distributes it is free to, at their discretion,
change the license to any later version of the GPL. You legally cannot have
both the GPLv2 and GPLv3 because they are conflicting in their terms.


> Two responses:
> 1.  Because that makes our code incompatible with any GPLv2-only code out
> there.
> 2.  Why is it a good idea?
>
> In general, our licensing choices should be driven by goals, and it's
> unclear what goals are met by moving to GPLv3.  It's also unclear what
> goals any version of the GPL is actually serving in this particular
> context (due to the nature of PHP server side code) but relicensing
> MediaWiki at this late stage (beyond v2->later version) is not really
> a practical option, so I don't feel the need to belabor this
> particular point.
>

I've already described the numerous changes and fixes that have been made
in the GPLv3, specifically easier enforcement due to changed policies on
infringement, better international wording, etc. If you'd like to dispute
any of the good ideas I've listed, then go ahead, but I think the
improvements v3 makes are more than enough of a goal.

As for your point on it being useless because of the server-side nature of
PHP, I semi-agree, which is why I proposed the AGPL, but nonetheless the
advantages of the v3 will still help distributors who download MediaWiki
from our site. The server-side nature of PHP has nothing to do with it.


> That decision isn't final, and in fact, as Gabriel noted on that bug,
> he's working with the other contributors to relicense it under the
> Apache 2.0 license, per a conversation that a bunch of us had at WMF.
>
> In general, we should think about what goal we're trying to address by
> using GPLv2+ or GPLv3+ or any other license for that matter.  My
> personal experience has been that any contribution that has been
> compelled by license rather than given of enlightened self interest is
> done grudgingly and in a rather useless fashion.  There are certainly
> copyleft success stories (e.g.
> ), but for MediaWiki, it's
> unclear under what possible scenario we'd want to compel GPL
> compliance from anyone that wasn't already motivated to work with us
> as an upstream.
>
> In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward
> Apache 2.0.  It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity
> and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.


That is quite depressing to hear. MediaWiki is supposed to be an open
source software movement, so I would think one of the goals of our
community would be to preserve that and keep MediaWiki open source, but if
the WMF has some future goals to make its software proprietary, then I can
understand why we might want to aim toward something that allows that, such
as the permissive Apache 2.0.

*-- *
*Tyler Romeo*
Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2016
Major in Computer Science
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Thomas Mulhall]

any =  

 On Monday, 9 February 2015, 1:16, Thomas Mulhall 
 wrote:
   

 Hi any even if you say GPL 2.0+ GPL 3 is not compatible with GPL 2. 

 On Monday, 9 February 2015, 1:15, Thomas Mulhall 
 wrote:
   

 Here is http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 this link for any one who 
wants to read apache license 2.0 

 On Monday, 9 February 2015, 0:59, Rob Lanphier  wrote:
   

 On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:
> The GPLv3 is not more restrictive.
>
> As I mentioned, if anything it’s more permissive, since it is compatible with 
> more licenses, and because it allows distributors to add some certain 
> additional clauses to the license at their discretion.

Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of
being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of
the GPL)  Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is
compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or
later" is compatible with.

> If a developer wants to release their personal code under the Apache 2.0 
> license, they can do so and still contribute to MediaWiki. Or if a 
> distributor wants to offer their own warranty on MediaWiki, they can.
>
> Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to bring up AGPL, because I’ll admit 
> I even have bad feelings about it, especially considering the whole security 
> patch issue.
>
> However, if somebody would like to offer up an actual reason for why 
> upgrading from v2 to v3 is a bad idea, I’m all ears.

Two responses:
1.  Because that makes our code incompatible with any GPLv2-only code out there.
2.  Why is it a good idea?

In general, our licensing choices should be driven by goals, and it's
unclear what goals are met by moving to GPLv3.  It's also unclear what
goals any version of the GPL is actually serving in this particular
context (due to the nature of PHP server side code) but relicensing
MediaWiki at this late stage (beyond v2->later version) is not really
a practical option, so I don't feel the need to belabor this
particular point.

> (Also, some relevant links, it seems RESTBase is currently under AGPL, so we 
> may eventually be enveloped by it anyway: 
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78212.)

That decision isn't final, and in fact, as Gabriel noted on that bug,
he's working with the other contributors to relicense it under the
Apache 2.0 license, per a conversation that a bunch of us had at WMF.

In general, we should think about what goal we're trying to address by
using GPLv2+ or GPLv3+ or any other license for that matter.  My
personal experience has been that any contribution that has been
compelled by license rather than given of enlightened self interest is
done grudgingly and in a rather useless fashion.  There are certainly
copyleft success stories (e.g.
), but for MediaWiki, it's
unclear under what possible scenario we'd want to compel GPL
compliance from anyone that wasn't already motivated to work with us
as an upstream.

In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward
Apache 2.0.  It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity
and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.

Rob





   
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Thomas Mulhall]

Hi any even if you say GPL 2.0+ GPL 3 is not compatible with GPL 2. 

 On Monday, 9 February 2015, 1:15, Thomas Mulhall 
 wrote:
   

 Here is http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 this link for any one who 
wants to read apache license 2.0 

 On Monday, 9 February 2015, 0:59, Rob Lanphier  wrote:
   

 On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:
> The GPLv3 is not more restrictive.
>
> As I mentioned, if anything it’s more permissive, since it is compatible with 
> more licenses, and because it allows distributors to add some certain 
> additional clauses to the license at their discretion.

Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of
being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of
the GPL)  Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is
compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or
later" is compatible with.

> If a developer wants to release their personal code under the Apache 2.0 
> license, they can do so and still contribute to MediaWiki. Or if a 
> distributor wants to offer their own warranty on MediaWiki, they can.
>
> Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to bring up AGPL, because I’ll admit 
> I even have bad feelings about it, especially considering the whole security 
> patch issue.
>
> However, if somebody would like to offer up an actual reason for why 
> upgrading from v2 to v3 is a bad idea, I’m all ears.

Two responses:
1.  Because that makes our code incompatible with any GPLv2-only code out there.
2.  Why is it a good idea?

In general, our licensing choices should be driven by goals, and it's
unclear what goals are met by moving to GPLv3.  It's also unclear what
goals any version of the GPL is actually serving in this particular
context (due to the nature of PHP server side code) but relicensing
MediaWiki at this late stage (beyond v2->later version) is not really
a practical option, so I don't feel the need to belabor this
particular point.

> (Also, some relevant links, it seems RESTBase is currently under AGPL, so we 
> may eventually be enveloped by it anyway: 
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78212.)

That decision isn't final, and in fact, as Gabriel noted on that bug,
he's working with the other contributors to relicense it under the
Apache 2.0 license, per a conversation that a bunch of us had at WMF.

In general, we should think about what goal we're trying to address by
using GPLv2+ or GPLv3+ or any other license for that matter.  My
personal experience has been that any contribution that has been
compelled by license rather than given of enlightened self interest is
done grudgingly and in a rather useless fashion.  There are certainly
copyleft success stories (e.g.
), but for MediaWiki, it's
unclear under what possible scenario we'd want to compel GPL
compliance from anyone that wasn't already motivated to work with us
as an upstream.

In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward
Apache 2.0.  It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity
and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.

Rob



   
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Thomas Mulhall]

Here is http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 this link for any one who 
wants to read apache license 2.0 

 On Monday, 9 February 2015, 0:59, Rob Lanphier  wrote:
   

 On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:
> The GPLv3 is not more restrictive.
>
> As I mentioned, if anything it’s more permissive, since it is compatible with 
> more licenses, and because it allows distributors to add some certain 
> additional clauses to the license at their discretion.

Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of
being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of
the GPL)  Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is
compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or
later" is compatible with.

> If a developer wants to release their personal code under the Apache 2.0 
> license, they can do so and still contribute to MediaWiki. Or if a 
> distributor wants to offer their own warranty on MediaWiki, they can.
>
> Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to bring up AGPL, because I’ll admit 
> I even have bad feelings about it, especially considering the whole security 
> patch issue.
>
> However, if somebody would like to offer up an actual reason for why 
> upgrading from v2 to v3 is a bad idea, I’m all ears.

Two responses:
1.  Because that makes our code incompatible with any GPLv2-only code out there.
2.  Why is it a good idea?

In general, our licensing choices should be driven by goals, and it's
unclear what goals are met by moving to GPLv3.  It's also unclear what
goals any version of the GPL is actually serving in this particular
context (due to the nature of PHP server side code) but relicensing
MediaWiki at this late stage (beyond v2->later version) is not really
a practical option, so I don't feel the need to belabor this
particular point.

> (Also, some relevant links, it seems RESTBase is currently under AGPL, so we 
> may eventually be enveloped by it anyway: 
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78212.)

That decision isn't final, and in fact, as Gabriel noted on that bug,
he's working with the other contributors to relicense it under the
Apache 2.0 license, per a conversation that a bunch of us had at WMF.

In general, we should think about what goal we're trying to address by
using GPLv2+ or GPLv3+ or any other license for that matter.  My
personal experience has been that any contribution that has been
compelled by license rather than given of enlightened self interest is
done grudgingly and in a rather useless fashion.  There are certainly
copyleft success stories (e.g.
), but for MediaWiki, it's
unclear under what possible scenario we'd want to compel GPL
compliance from anyone that wasn't already motivated to work with us
as an upstream.

In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward
Apache 2.0.  It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity
and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.

Rob

   
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Rob Lanphier]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:
> The GPLv3 is not more restrictive.
>
> As I mentioned, if anything it’s more permissive, since it is compatible with 
> more licenses, and because it allows distributors to add some certain 
> additional clauses to the license at their discretion.

Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of
being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of
the GPL)  Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is
compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or
later" is compatible with.

> If a developer wants to release their personal code under the Apache 2.0 
> license, they can do so and still contribute to MediaWiki. Or if a 
> distributor wants to offer their own warranty on MediaWiki, they can.
>
> Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to bring up AGPL, because I’ll admit 
> I even have bad feelings about it, especially considering the whole security 
> patch issue.
>
> However, if somebody would like to offer up an actual reason for why 
> upgrading from v2 to v3 is a bad idea, I’m all ears.

Two responses:
1.  Because that makes our code incompatible with any GPLv2-only code out there.
2.  Why is it a good idea?

In general, our licensing choices should be driven by goals, and it's
unclear what goals are met by moving to GPLv3.  It's also unclear what
goals any version of the GPL is actually serving in this particular
context (due to the nature of PHP server side code) but relicensing
MediaWiki at this late stage (beyond v2->later version) is not really
a practical option, so I don't feel the need to belabor this
particular point.

> (Also, some relevant links, it seems RESTBase is currently under AGPL, so we 
> may eventually be enveloped by it anyway: 
> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78212.)

That decision isn't final, and in fact, as Gabriel noted on that bug,
he's working with the other contributors to relicense it under the
Apache 2.0 license, per a conversation that a bunch of us had at WMF.

In general, we should think about what goal we're trying to address by
using GPLv2+ or GPLv3+ or any other license for that matter.  My
personal experience has been that any contribution that has been
compelled by license rather than given of enlightened self interest is
done grudgingly and in a rather useless fashion.  There are certainly
copyleft success stories (e.g.
), but for MediaWiki, it's
unclear under what possible scenario we'd want to compel GPL
compliance from anyone that wasn't already motivated to work with us
as an upstream.

In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward
Apache 2.0.  It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity
and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.

Rob

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Tyler Romeo]

The GPLv3 is not more restrictive.

As I mentioned, if anything it’s more permissive, since it is compatible with 
more licenses, and because it allows distributors to add some certain 
additional clauses to the license at their discretion. If a developer wants to 
release their personal code under the Apache 2.0 license, they can do so and 
still contribute to MediaWiki. Or if a distributor wants to offer their own 
warranty on MediaWiki, they can.

Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to bring up AGPL, because I’ll admit I 
even have bad feelings about it, especially considering the whole security 
patch issue.

However, if somebody would like to offer up an actual reason for why upgrading 
from v2 to v3 is a bad idea, I’m all ears.

(Also, some relevant links, it seems RESTBase is currently under AGPL, so we 
may eventually be enveloped by it anyway: 
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78212.)
-- 
Tyler Romeo
0x405D34A7C86B42DF

On February 8, 2015 at 10:40:03, Thomas Mulhall (thomasmulhall...@yahoo.com) 
wrote:

GPLv3 is not a simple upgrade, it is merely a switch to a more
restrictive license.  It is quite unlikely to happen.

Each time the subject has been raised, we ended up with a license flame
war and no strong arguments to switch.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Brian Wolff]

On Feb 8, 2015 8:17 AM, "Tim Landscheidt"  wrote:
>
> Tyler Romeo  wrote:
>
> > One thing to point out is that:
>
> > 1) Even right now, under the GPL, if extensions do qualify as
“derivative works” or w/e, they do have to be GPL licensed.
> > 2) Source code only has to be provided to users of the
> > program. So presuming this is some private wiki with a
> > secret extension, source code does not have to be provided
> > or published to the general public.
>
> > [...]
>
> And if it is a non-private wiki?
>
> I think the general disadvantage of AGPL is that it forces
> you in a contract with your audience (who may be evil, or
> just obnoxious).  With the AGPL, you can't just customize or
> develop extensions without thinking about how to publish it,
> thus raising the bar for setting a up a wiki with MediaWiki.
> Even security fixes would need to be published immediately.
>
> Tim
>
>
>

This.

Furthermore i think a not insignificant portion of current reusers make
minor modifications to mediawiki core code (no matter how much we
discourage it) and dont publish it (because they figure probably nobody
cares if you change a single condition check on line 1646 of some file).
They would be in violation of an agpl licensed mediawiki.

--bawolff
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Florian Schmidt]

I share your opinion, but: back to topic, please :)

-Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
Von: wikitech-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org 
[mailto:wikitech-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] Im Auftrag von Petr Bena
Gesendet: Sonntag, 8. Februar 2015 17:56
An: Wikimedia developers
Betreff: Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

I don't really understand if apple provides their OS for free, why they can't 
create a lightweight version that would run in virtual box, for open source 
developers only... But that's their choice. Let's go back to original topic. 
GPL v 3 is a good idea :) I am just not sure if you don't need permissions from 
other developers who contributed the code in order to change the license.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:53 PM, Petr Bena  wrote:
> TBH as open source developer I don't feel like publishing kernel 
> sources makes it any easier for me to create applications for their 
> platform.
>
> If I want to create an application for android, I can download android 
> studio and run it on Windows, Linux or Mac. The studio itself is open 
> source and programs are easy to package.
>
> If I want to create an application for iPhone, I have to own a Mac, 
> because even if I wanted to buy OS only and install it on non-apple 
> hardware, it wouldn't work and xcode is not available for any other 
> platform than Mac. This is blocker for any open source developer who 
> wants to create non-profit software and isn't willing to put money 
> into something that is never gonna be useful for them, so that they 
> can create software that others can freely use.
>
> This is case of all apple products, even if I wanted to create a 
> program for Windows, which is commercial platform, I can easily do 
> that on linux and compile with mingw compiler that can build .exe 
> files on linux. But in case of apple you can only dream of that.
>
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Antoine Musso  wrote:
>> Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :
>>> What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source 
>>> and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just 
>>> ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not 
>>> to have to work with their products.
>>
>> You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/
>>
>> Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:
>>
>>  http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/
>>
>>  FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0  
>> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html
>>
>>
>> The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they 
>> restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions.  
>> So it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by 
>> respecting the license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 
>> apps. They just make sure the license is respected.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Antoine "hashar" Musso
>>
>>
>> ___
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Ryan Schmidt]

GPL v2+ already includes v3, so people wanting to use MediaWiki under v3 
already can without us needing to do anything about it. As such, I don't see 
the point of making contributions going forwards v3-only. I don't particularly 
care either way, but I vote for the easier route of maintaining the status quo 
since that already includes v3 (or even v2 if the user needs that for some 
reason).

I'm also strongly opposed to AGPL due to the insane requirements it puts on 
users. As mentioned before, it kills off any and all corporate users that want 
to code any custom bits for their wiki, but it also kills off a lot more than 
that: depending on if extensions/skins are considered derivative works 
(Wordpress certainly believes they are iirc), any wiki that makes a custom skin 
to help them stand out would now have to release the source of said skin, which 
rather defeats the point.

> On Feb 8, 2015, at 11:08 AM, Petr Bena  wrote:
> 
> Regarding AGPL: please no
> 
> That would not just kill nearly all commercial usage of mediawiki, but
> it would also introduce insane requirements to most of small wiki
> maintainers who would have to start distributing the source code of
> their customized wikis to public somehow + in case they wouldn't be
> good php programmers and made some security bugs in software
> themselves, they would make it much easier for hackers to find them.
> 
>> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Petr Bena  wrote:
>> I don't really understand if apple provides their OS for free, why
>> they can't create a lightweight version that would run in virtual box,
>> for open source developers only... But that's their choice. Let's go
>> back to original topic. GPL v 3 is a good idea :) I am just not sure
>> if you don't need permissions from other developers who contributed
>> the code in order to change the license.
>> 
>>> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:53 PM, Petr Bena  wrote:
>>> TBH as open source developer I don't feel like publishing kernel
>>> sources makes it any easier for me to create applications for their
>>> platform.
>>> 
>>> If I want to create an application for android, I can download android
>>> studio and run it on Windows, Linux or Mac. The studio itself is open
>>> source and programs are easy to package.
>>> 
>>> If I want to create an application for iPhone, I have to own a Mac,
>>> because even if I wanted to buy OS only and install it on non-apple
>>> hardware, it wouldn't work and xcode is not available for any other
>>> platform than Mac. This is blocker for any open source developer who
>>> wants to create non-profit software and isn't willing to put money
>>> into something that is never gonna be useful for them, so that they
>>> can create software that others can freely use.
>>> 
>>> This is case of all apple products, even if I wanted to create a
>>> program for Windows, which is commercial platform, I can easily do
>>> that on linux and compile with mingw compiler that can build .exe
>>> files on linux. But in case of apple you can only dream of that.
>>> 
 On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Antoine Musso  wrote:
 Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :
> What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source
> and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just
> ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to
> have to work with their products.
 
 You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/
 
 Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:
 
 http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/
 
 FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0
 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html
 
 
 The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they
 restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions.  So
 it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by respecting the
 license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 apps. They just
 make sure the license is respected.
 
 
 --
 Antoine "hashar" Musso
 
 
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Petr Bena]

Regarding AGPL: please no

That would not just kill nearly all commercial usage of mediawiki, but
it would also introduce insane requirements to most of small wiki
maintainers who would have to start distributing the source code of
their customized wikis to public somehow + in case they wouldn't be
good php programmers and made some security bugs in software
themselves, they would make it much easier for hackers to find them.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Petr Bena  wrote:
> I don't really understand if apple provides their OS for free, why
> they can't create a lightweight version that would run in virtual box,
> for open source developers only... But that's their choice. Let's go
> back to original topic. GPL v 3 is a good idea :) I am just not sure
> if you don't need permissions from other developers who contributed
> the code in order to change the license.
>
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:53 PM, Petr Bena  wrote:
>> TBH as open source developer I don't feel like publishing kernel
>> sources makes it any easier for me to create applications for their
>> platform.
>>
>> If I want to create an application for android, I can download android
>> studio and run it on Windows, Linux or Mac. The studio itself is open
>> source and programs are easy to package.
>>
>> If I want to create an application for iPhone, I have to own a Mac,
>> because even if I wanted to buy OS only and install it on non-apple
>> hardware, it wouldn't work and xcode is not available for any other
>> platform than Mac. This is blocker for any open source developer who
>> wants to create non-profit software and isn't willing to put money
>> into something that is never gonna be useful for them, so that they
>> can create software that others can freely use.
>>
>> This is case of all apple products, even if I wanted to create a
>> program for Windows, which is commercial platform, I can easily do
>> that on linux and compile with mingw compiler that can build .exe
>> files on linux. But in case of apple you can only dream of that.
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Antoine Musso  wrote:
>>> Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :
 What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source
 and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just
 ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to
 have to work with their products.
>>>
>>> You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/
>>>
>>> Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:
>>>
>>>  http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/
>>>
>>>  FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0
>>>  https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html
>>>
>>>
>>> The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they
>>> restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions.  So
>>> it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by respecting the
>>> license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 apps. They just
>>> make sure the license is respected.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Antoine "hashar" Musso
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
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>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Petr Bena]

I don't really understand if apple provides their OS for free, why
they can't create a lightweight version that would run in virtual box,
for open source developers only... But that's their choice. Let's go
back to original topic. GPL v 3 is a good idea :) I am just not sure
if you don't need permissions from other developers who contributed
the code in order to change the license.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:53 PM, Petr Bena  wrote:
> TBH as open source developer I don't feel like publishing kernel
> sources makes it any easier for me to create applications for their
> platform.
>
> If I want to create an application for android, I can download android
> studio and run it on Windows, Linux or Mac. The studio itself is open
> source and programs are easy to package.
>
> If I want to create an application for iPhone, I have to own a Mac,
> because even if I wanted to buy OS only and install it on non-apple
> hardware, it wouldn't work and xcode is not available for any other
> platform than Mac. This is blocker for any open source developer who
> wants to create non-profit software and isn't willing to put money
> into something that is never gonna be useful for them, so that they
> can create software that others can freely use.
>
> This is case of all apple products, even if I wanted to create a
> program for Windows, which is commercial platform, I can easily do
> that on linux and compile with mingw compiler that can build .exe
> files on linux. But in case of apple you can only dream of that.
>
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Antoine Musso  wrote:
>> Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :
>>> What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source
>>> and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just
>>> ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to
>>> have to work with their products.
>>
>> You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/
>>
>> Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:
>>
>>  http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/
>>
>>  FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0
>>  https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html
>>
>>
>> The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they
>> restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions.  So
>> it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by respecting the
>> license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 apps. They just
>> make sure the license is respected.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Antoine "hashar" Musso
>>
>>
>> ___
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Petr Bena]

TBH as open source developer I don't feel like publishing kernel
sources makes it any easier for me to create applications for their
platform.

If I want to create an application for android, I can download android
studio and run it on Windows, Linux or Mac. The studio itself is open
source and programs are easy to package.

If I want to create an application for iPhone, I have to own a Mac,
because even if I wanted to buy OS only and install it on non-apple
hardware, it wouldn't work and xcode is not available for any other
platform than Mac. This is blocker for any open source developer who
wants to create non-profit software and isn't willing to put money
into something that is never gonna be useful for them, so that they
can create software that others can freely use.

This is case of all apple products, even if I wanted to create a
program for Windows, which is commercial platform, I can easily do
that on linux and compile with mingw compiler that can build .exe
files on linux. But in case of apple you can only dream of that.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Antoine Musso  wrote:
> Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :
>> What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source
>> and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just
>> ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to
>> have to work with their products.
>
> You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/
>
> Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:
>
>  http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/
>
>  FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0
>  https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html
>
>
> The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they
> restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions.  So
> it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by respecting the
> license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 apps. They just
> make sure the license is respected.
>
>
> --
> Antoine "hashar" Musso
>
>
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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Thomas Mulhall]

Oh ok. 

 On Sunday, 8 February 2015, 15:34, Antoine Musso  
wrote:
   

 Le 07/02/2015 20:57, Thomas Mulhall a écrit :
> Hi should we upgrade GPL to version 3 since version 3 is more modern
> then version 2. Should it be updated in extensions, skins and
> MediaWiki.

Hello Thomas,

MediaWiki is under "GPLv2 or later" and I guess most extensions and
skins as well.

GPLv3 is not a simple upgrade, it is merely a switch to a more
restrictive license.  It is quite unlikely to happen.

Each time the subject has been raised, we ended up with a license flame
war and no strong arguments to switch.


cheers,

-- 
Antoine "hashar" Musso


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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Antoine Musso]

Le 07/02/2015 20:57, Thomas Mulhall a écrit :
> Hi should we upgrade GPL to version 3 since version 3 is more modern
> then version 2. Should it be updated in extensions, skins and
> MediaWiki.

Hello Thomas,

MediaWiki is under "GPLv2 or later" and I guess most extensions and
skins as well.

GPLv3 is not a simple upgrade, it is merely a switch to a more
restrictive license.  It is quite unlikely to happen.

Each time the subject has been raised, we ended up with a license flame
war and no strong arguments to switch.


cheers,

-- 
Antoine "hashar" Musso


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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Antoine Musso]

Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :
> What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source
> and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just
> ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to
> have to work with their products.

You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/

Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:

 http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/

 FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0
 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html


The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they
restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions.  So
it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by respecting the
license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 apps. They just
make sure the license is respected.


-- 
Antoine "hashar" Musso


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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Petr Bena]

What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source
and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just
ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to
have to work with their products.


On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 9:36 PM, Amir E. Aharoni
 wrote:
> Very briefly, GPL 3 adds restrictions on using software patents and DRM with 
> the
> programs that use it. I'm not even entirely sure what these restrictions
> are.
>
> My very wild guess us that MediaWiki probably can go the GPL 3 way.
> MediaWiki mostly runs on servers, so DRM is probably not an issue. Maybe it
> could be an issue on iPhones, but our iPhone app is not GPL anyway, because
> Apple really hates having GPL software in its AppStore.
>
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Tim Landscheidt]

Tyler Romeo  wrote:

> One thing to point out is that:

> 1) Even right now, under the GPL, if extensions do qualify as “derivative 
> works” or w/e, they do have to be GPL licensed.
> 2) Source code only has to be provided to users of the
> program. So presuming this is some private wiki with a
> secret extension, source code does not have to be provided
> or published to the general public.

> [...]

And if it is a non-private wiki?

I think the general disadvantage of AGPL is that it forces
you in a contract with your audience (who may be evil, or
just obnoxious).  With the AGPL, you can't just customize or
develop extensions without thinking about how to publish it,
thus raising the bar for setting a up a wiki with MediaWiki.
Even security fixes would need to be published immediately.

Tim


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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[David Gerard]

On 8 February 2015 at 11:12, Max Semenik  wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 2:13 AM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:

>> (Also, we actually can’t switch to the MIT license without express
>> permissions from every developer who ever contributed to core anyway.)

> Same applies to AGPL.


I believe AGPL counts as an FSF-approved "or later" on GPL 2+.


- d.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Extensions licensing

[Ricordisamoa]

Il 08/02/2015 11:51, K. Peachey ha scritto:

On 8 February 2015 at 19:32, Federico Leva (Nemo) 
wrote:


Thanks! This is a nice cleanup. https://www.mediawiki.org/
wiki/Category:Extensions_with_unknown_license has 1379 pages now, is your
bot going to continue working there?


  That category is a bit dodgy, It's based on a very limited set of switches
in the Extension Infobox.  When I first started working on it, there was ~6
pages in the category and I was cleaning up the pages (did about just under
half) to use a standard based output using Template:EL (Wasn't aware about
SPDX when i searched), with the goal of removing that category magic out of
the infobox directly for the unknown cat then work on the other categories
to clean up their usage as well.

Clearly I never got finished. Good luck to who ever works on it.
Categorization by license is now handled by Module:Extension 
, which uses a small 
subset of SPDX codes with few additions, in a much cleaner and more 
standard way than Template:ExtensionLicense 
. As for me, 
the latter is deprecated.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Max Semenik]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 2:13 AM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:

> (Also, we actually can’t switch to the MIT license without express
> permissions from every developer who ever contributed to core anyway.)
>
Same applies to AGPL.

-- 
Best regards,
Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]])
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Extensions licensing

[K. Peachey]

On 8 February 2015 at 19:32, Federico Leva (Nemo) 
wrote:

> Thanks! This is a nice cleanup. https://www.mediawiki.org/
> wiki/Category:Extensions_with_unknown_license has 1379 pages now, is your
> bot going to continue working there?
>

 That category is a bit dodgy, It's based on a very limited set of switches
in the Extension Infobox.  When I first started working on it, there was ~6
pages in the category and I was cleaning up the pages (did about just under
half) to use a standard based output using Template:EL (Wasn't aware about
SPDX when i searched), with the goal of removing that category magic out of
the infobox directly for the unknown cat then work on the other categories
to clean up their usage as well.

Clearly I never got finished. Good luck to who ever works on it.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Extensions licensing

[Ricordisamoa]

Il 08/02/2015 10:32, Federico Leva (Nemo) ha scritto:
Thanks! This is a nice cleanup. 
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions_with_unknown_license has 
1379 pages now, is your bot going to continue working there?
Actually, my 'bot' is me going through each extension, inspecting its 
code and feeding the correct license to a helper script :-)

I only fixed the simplest cases so far...
As for the code itself, I count 710 extensions with 
$wgExtensionCredits, of which 127 use license-name. ~600 estensions to 
fix means that most don't have a component in the issue tracker, let 
alone jenkins-bot running; so we have no general way to communicate 
with their authors. Also, SPDX license-name patches don't require 
specialised reviewers.

What are you basing this data from? That'd be useful to me.
So, you can file a report in MediaWiki>General/Unknown, but don't 
expect magical elves to pop up. The best way to "report" the missing 
license-name is still to send a patch in gerrit. For this task, I 
don't see us creating a self-merging account à la l10n-bot; but please 
file a bug if you need extra tools.

If we had a "licensing" tag, tasks could still be collected properly.
I will of course send a patch for non-controversial cases, but sometimes 
I'll have to call on maintainers, as in T88251 
.
Many extensions are license-free instead of being under a free license 
(pun intended)


Nemo

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Tyler Romeo]

On February 8, 2015 at 03:47:26, Max Semenik (maxsem.w...@gmail.com) wrote:

Honestly, I'm no big fan of strongly copyleft licenses, especially AGPL. In
addition to scaring off corporate users (yes, even soulless for-profit
drones deserve the right to use FLOSS), it creates a lot of uncertainty
even for open source users. I would personally prefer something much
permissive like MIT style.
The GPL does not stop companies from using open source software. It only stops 
them from modifying open source software and then making it proprietary. 
There’s no way we’re going to switch to a license like MIT that does not 
actually support the free software movement. (Also, we actually can’t switch to 
the MIT license without express permissions from every developer who ever 
contributed to core anyway.)

-- 
Tyler Romeo
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Extensions licensing

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Thanks! This is a nice cleanup. 
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions_with_unknown_license 
has 1379 pages now, is your bot going to continue working there?
	As for the code itself, I count 710 extensions with 
$wgExtensionCredits, of which 127 use license-name. ~600 estensions to 
fix means that most don't have a component in the issue tracker, let 
alone jenkins-bot running; so we have no general way to communicate with 
their authors. Also, SPDX license-name patches don't require specialised 
reviewers.
	So, you can file a report in MediaWiki>General/Unknown, but don't 
expect magical elves to pop up. The best way to "report" the missing 
license-name is still to send a patch in gerrit. For this task, I don't 
see us creating a self-merging account à la l10n-bot; but please file a 
bug if you need extra tools.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

[Max Semenik]

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 2:20 PM, Tyler Romeo  wrote:

> **However**, I’d like to take this opportunity and jump a step further.
> What would everybody think of switching to the AGPLv3 instead? The
> advantage that this provides, for those who don’t know, is a single
> additional restriction: when the software is used over the network, source
> code must still be provided. In other words, the requirements all remain
> the same (providing a copy of the source code, ensuring all modifications
> are also GPLed, etc.). The only difference is that the requirements take
> effect over the Internet rather than only when the software is distributed
> in object code form.
>

Honestly, I'm no big fan of strongly copyleft licenses, especially AGPL. In
addition to scaring off corporate users (yes, even soulless for-profit
drones deserve the right to use FLOSS), it creates a lot of uncertainty
even for open source users. I would personally prefer something much
permissive like MIT style.

-- 
Best regards,
Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]])
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