Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:33:04 Steve Long wrote: > OFC you require all Gentoo ebuilds to be assigned to Gentoo-- that's fair > enough, I accept and support that. It just seems odd that we can't > contribute under GPL3 if we so choose. But yeah, all stuff in Gentoo is (C) > by the Foundation, and it's all available under GPL2 only. The Foundation > can aiui change that to any license it chooses, in the same way as the FSF > has changed the license for its copyrighted works to GPL3. Hi Steve, I'm a bit late in replying to you, but I hope the following will clarify things. First the reason why gentoo is not GPL-2 or later. Basically doing so opens your software up to the whims of the FSF without allowing you to consider whether the new version of the license is desirable or not. With central copyright ownership (whether or not it is legal) it would not be an issue either because the foundation / gentoo technologies (in the time) could relicense it when needed. The second one, why not GPL-3. First of all, is an ebuild a derived work of skel.ebuild? Personally and as a trustee I have no idea of whether it is a derived work from skel.ebuild at all. Or whether skel.ebuild could be seen as a creative work in the sense of the Berne convention (International copyright threaty). What I know is that in general deciding this criterion for software is rather hard. Especially with something this short. One of the criteria is whether it would be straightforward to reproduce the code similarly without having seen the original. If you were to remove all comments from skel.ebuild this criterion seem likely to hold (IANAL). So depending your judgement or the legal advice you take (I can not tell you what is the truth, or what is the foundation position on this), you might be able to put any license desired on ebuilds you write yourself. Whether or not we would accept new ebuilds under GPL-3 or not, that is a different issue altogether. Currently all gentoo software that is not in the form of patches to other people's work is released under the GPL-2. At some point in time there used to be some policy about this, but it seems to have disappeared. Perhaps something that might be discussed. Paul -- Paul de Vrieze Gentoo Developer Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
Marius Mauch wrote: > Well, documention won't help to resolve the legal questions about this > (what exactly is necessary to assign copyright from a person to the > foundation), and that's the main problem IMO. > Yeah, but most of us are pretty well aware that we're submitting an ebuild with Gentoo copyright on it. I think the vast majority are perfectly happy for it to help Gentoo under whatever license you guys think is appropriate. It's not like we don't see the copyright notice, and are unaware of it. The only question is why can't that be GPL3? It's not exactly stopping Gentoo from using the ebuild. But it does imply that the ebuild cannot be used for Tivo-ised systems, which I for one, would much prefer for anything I contribute to. Like I say tho, whatever is best for Gentoo as a whole. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 11:56:24PM +0100, Steve Long wrote: > Greg KH wrote: > >> > So, what is the problem here? The kernel is not going to change > >> > licenses any time soon, so I don't understand your objections. > >> > > >> I think the point is that people who oppose this kind of thing (yes, > >> including me) would rather _our_ contributions were under GPLv3. Yet at > >> the moment, we effectively have no choice. > > > > That is _totally_ different than the case which was specifically brought > > up about the whole "tivo" issue and the Linux kernel. > > > > Ebuilds are different, I have no opinion on that (but I do know that the > > DRM issues mean nothing for them, that only pertains to the kernel). > > > OK, but what about a corporation selling Gentoo-based tivo boxes? Updates > are carried out as, say, binary images, and they continue to use all the > flexibility of Gentoo (built by its users, and devs who are also users) > while curtailing Gentoo users' rights. As you have control over the kernel, just replace it with something you can use to circumvent the drm issue. Quite simple to do, no GPLv3 issues involved at all :) Remember, if you can replace the kernel, you 0wn the whole box full stop. That is why the v3 DRM issues really only affect the kernel, and we (the linux kernel developers) were explicitly told this by the FSF to our faces. thanks, greg k-h -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
Greg KH wrote: >> > So, what is the problem here? The kernel is not going to change >> > licenses any time soon, so I don't understand your objections. >> > >> I think the point is that people who oppose this kind of thing (yes, >> including me) would rather _our_ contributions were under GPLv3. Yet at >> the moment, we effectively have no choice. > > That is _totally_ different than the case which was specifically brought > up about the whole "tivo" issue and the Linux kernel. > > Ebuilds are different, I have no opinion on that (but I do know that the > DRM issues mean nothing for them, that only pertains to the kernel). > OK, but what about a corporation selling Gentoo-based tivo boxes? Updates are carried out as, say, binary images, and they continue to use all the flexibility of Gentoo (built by its users, and devs who are also users) while curtailing Gentoo users' rights. I understand the argument that eg GCC is a paintbox, and the FSF don't want copyright over your paintings, but do want improvements to the toolset to be shared by all. I /had/ thought "3. Protecting Users' Legal Rights From Anti-Circumvention Law" meant that GCC could not be used to build such a system: "No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws" Hmm got that wrong I guess, my bad. (I guess you can tell I ain't a lawyer ;-)) I still don't like it :-) I also wonder how the above applies to BASH, which is usually such a critical element of a GNU/Linux system.. I guess that's what other shells, under less protective licenses, will be used for tho. (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html for users who don't have the url.) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
[gentoo-dev] Re: Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
Chris Gianelloni wrote: > On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 10:18 +0100, Steve Long wrote: >> Or is it `acceptable' for me to put GPLv3 on, say, an ebuild I wrote from >> scratch? > > The point is that we don't feel that you *can* write an ebuild "from > scratch" since it will require certain components, which we feel require > you to base your ebuild on skel.ebuild instead. Basically, if it's an > ebuild and not something else (spec/pkginfo/control) then it is based > off the one skeleton ebuild which is father to them all, skel.ebuild... > I understand what you're getting at but when I first wanted to write an ebuild so my kid could use synfig[1], I hadn't even looked at skel.ebuild (lame, I know. I'd heard of it but wanted to do my own thing- I'm funny like that.) I just based it all on the devmanual functions (since that was linked from the forums) and to me that is akin to reading eg http://wooledge.org/mywiki/BashGuide and then writing a script (although a lot simpler.) I certainly wouldn't accept that it was based in any way on skel.ebuild. I have only just opened skel.ebuild for the first time while copying all the portage/skel.* files to make an ebuild (thought I'd try it) for medit which can be used by pida (altho it needs a new plugin for the new version.) First time I've ever seen the comments from drobbins in the changelog as well. TBH I got tired of all the comments in skel.ebuild since I am up to speed with bash, and was just going to delete it all and start from scratch. I thought I should post since my instinct is to put GPL3 on anything I send out, that isn't work-related. OFC you require all Gentoo ebuilds to be assigned to Gentoo-- that's fair enough, I accept and support that. It just seems odd that we can't contribute under GPL3 if we so choose. But yeah, all stuff in Gentoo is (C) by the Foundation, and it's all available under GPL2 only. The Foundation can aiui change that to any license it chooses, in the same way as the FSF has changed the license for its copyrighted works to GPL3. I agree with Mr McCreesh however, that it is perfectly possible to write an ebuild without looking at skel.ebuild, as I have done it. The devmanual gives enough information to do so. Please note, this is not some paranoia thing about assignment, nor is it a crusade for GPL3. I am happy that I can use Gentoo, period. BTW _Congratulations_ on the excellent write-up in linuxformat! They gave the new release 9 out of 10. They seemed impressed both by the new installer and the networkless install. _ _ [1] These are the bugs for synfig: you'll see from ETL-20060929 that my first ebuild really was simple :-) None of the ones I put in was based on skel.ebuild. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111277 -- ETL http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111278 -- synfig http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111279 -- synfig-studio http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=2&chap=1 is great as well, but I only found that link relatively recently (3 or 4 months ago in #-dev-help) [sorry for length] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
