[gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
I wrote sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod (bug 410199) while studying Gentoo/FreeBSD as part of an attempt to port gptzfsloader to Gentoo Linux. naota wrote an improvement that would be useful to send upstream. However, the GPL-2 license poses a problem according to conversations that I had in #gentoo-dev. While I have asked naota for permission to upstream the line he wrote, this poses a more general issue for collaboration, especially if I port more kernel modules from FreeBSD Ports. Would it be possible to relicense sys-freebsd/* under terms of the BSD-2 license? signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:34:26 -0400 Richard Yao r...@cs.stonybrook.edu wrote: I wrote sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod (bug 410199) while studying Gentoo/FreeBSD as part of an attempt to port gptzfsloader to Gentoo Linux. naota wrote an improvement that would be useful to send upstream. However, the GPL-2 license poses a problem according to conversations that I had in #gentoo-dev. if he wrote the improvement, he can send it upstream under whatever license he wants; generally, it is implicit that a patch follows the same license as the code it applies to, esp. when the author himself agrees to share it with upstream. While I have asked naota for permission to upstream the line he wrote, this poses a more general issue for collaboration, especially if I port more kernel modules from FreeBSD Ports. Would it be possible to relicense sys-freebsd/* under terms of the BSD-2 license? what do you mean by 'relicense' ? for ebuilds, you'll have to ask permission to all contributors to this area, and, afaik, the foundation owns copyrights so it has a word to say too. if you mean the 'LICENSE' field of ebuilds, then this is not the right place to ask. A.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On 03/30/12 13:34, Alexis Ballier wrote: On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:34:26 -0400 Richard Yao r...@cs.stonybrook.edu wrote: I wrote sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod (bug 410199) while studying Gentoo/FreeBSD as part of an attempt to port gptzfsloader to Gentoo Linux. naota wrote an improvement that would be useful to send upstream. However, the GPL-2 license poses a problem according to conversations that I had in #gentoo-dev. if he wrote the improvement, he can send it upstream under whatever license he wants; generally, it is implicit that a patch follows the same license as the code it applies to, esp. when the author himself agrees to share it with upstream. The improvement is to the ebuild itself. It is a variable containing a list of directories upon which the module's build system depends. I spoke to naota and he doesn't have any problem sending this upstream, so I sent an email to the FreeBSD maintainer offering him the improvement. While I have asked naota for permission to upstream the line he wrote, this poses a more general issue for collaboration, especially if I port more kernel modules from FreeBSD Ports. Would it be possible to relicense sys-freebsd/* under terms of the BSD-2 license? what do you mean by 'relicense' ? for ebuilds, you'll have to ask permission to all contributors to this area, and, afaik, the foundation owns copyrights so it has a word to say too. if you mean the 'LICENSE' field of ebuilds, then this is not the right place to ask. A. I am referring to the ebuilds themselves. Right now, all ebuilds in the tree are GPL-2 licensed. This makes contributing FreeBSD-specific improvements to FreeBSD Ports upstream difficult. I want sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod to be BSD-2 licensed, but I do not expect the version that enters the portage tree to be BSD-2 licensed unless people clarify that it is okay to license ebuilds under something other than the GPL-2. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 01:52:18PM -0400, Richard Yao wrote: The improvement is to the ebuild itself. It is a variable containing a list of directories upon which the module's build system depends. I spoke to naota and he doesn't have any problem sending this upstream, so I sent an email to the FreeBSD maintainer offering him the improvement. I would argue that a trivial change like that is unlikely to be substantial enough to constitute a copyrightable work at all.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On 03/30/12 13:52, Richard Yao wrote: I want sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod to be BSD-2 licensed, but I do not expect the version that enters the portage tree to be BSD-2 licensed unless people clarify that it is okay to license ebuilds under something other than the GPL-2. To clarify, I would like the upstream developers to consider improvements in Gentoo/FreeBSD for inclusion to make collaboration easier. I view the GPL-2 to be an issue, particularly because I had to ask naota for permission to contribute his improvement to an ebuild I wrote to the upstream developers. I do not expect the upstream maintainers to familiarize themselves with the intricacies of what they can take and what they cannot take, so I would prefer to relicense all ebuilds in sys-freebsd/* under the terms of the BSD-2 license. It is much easier to say to the upstream developers that everything in portage's sys-freebsd/* category is available to them under the license that they use than it is expect them to learn a list of rules. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On 03/30/12 14:00, Jon Portnoy wrote: On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 01:52:18PM -0400, Richard Yao wrote: The improvement is to the ebuild itself. It is a variable containing a list of directories upon which the module's build system depends. I spoke to naota and he doesn't have any problem sending this upstream, so I sent an email to the FreeBSD maintainer offering him the improvement. I would argue that a trivial change like that is unlikely to be substantial enough to constitute a copyrightable work at all. I brought this to the list specifically because the line between a work being trivial or not is poorly defined. I would prefer something more concrete for the purpose of enabling collaboration with FreeBSD upstream. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On Fri, 30 Mar 2012, Richard Yao wrote: what do you mean by 'relicense' ? for ebuilds, you'll have to ask permission to all contributors to this area, and, afaik, the foundation owns copyrights so it has a word to say too. if you mean the 'LICENSE' field of ebuilds, then this is not the right place to ask. I am referring to the ebuilds themselves. Right now, all ebuilds in the tree are GPL-2 licensed. This makes contributing FreeBSD-specific improvements to FreeBSD Ports upstream difficult. I want sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod to be BSD-2 licensed, but I do not expect the version that enters the portage tree to be BSD-2 licensed unless people clarify that it is okay to license ebuilds under something other than the GPL-2. I fail to understand what the license of the ebuild has to do with the license of the package itself. Ebuilds in the Portage tree must be licensed under the GPL. This is part of the Gentoo Social Contract [1], so I guess it won't change anytime soon. And IMHO, we would be ill-advised to allow different licenses for ebuilds in the tree, because that would imply that we cannot copy code from one ebuild to another (or from ebuild to eclass) any more. Ulrich [1] http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contract.xml
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 2:47 PM, Ulrich Mueller u...@gentoo.org wrote: Ebuilds in the Portage tree must be licensed under the GPL. This is part of the Gentoo Social Contract [1], so I guess it won't change anytime soon. And IMHO, we would be ill-advised to allow different licenses for ebuilds in the tree, because that would imply that we cannot copy code from one ebuild to another (or from ebuild to eclass) any more. Speaking as an individual trustee, I tend to agree. If there are specific pains associated with not being able to submit patches upstream or such, please do point them out and I'm sure we'll consider what can be done to accommodate this. However, if this really is a one-off situation then we're probably better-off if we just ask individual contributors to re-license when needed. I'd think the only thing in the portage tree upstream would be interested in would be patches (including sed operations). Rich
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On 03/30/12 14:47, Ulrich Mueller wrote: I fail to understand what the license of the ebuild has to do with the license of the package itself. It has nothing to do with the license of the package. That is completely separate. This has to do with the license of the ebuild itself. FreeBSD Ports inspired Daniel Robbins to create Portage. The issue that is our ability to share FreeBSD-specific improvements between ebuilds in portage and Makefiles in FreeBSD ports. The issues that are similar for both. Collaboration on FreeBSD-specific things in sys-freebsd/* would make life easier for both portage ebuild maintainers and FreeBSD port maintainers. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On 03/30/12 15:12, Rich Freeman wrote: If there are specific pains associated with not being able to submit patches upstream or such, please do point them out and I'm sure we'll consider what can be done to accommodate this. However, if this really is a one-off situation then we're probably better-off if we just ask individual contributors to re-license when needed. I have already handled this specific case by talking to naota. I will revive the issue on the list should this become a repeat occurrence. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Richard Yao r...@cs.stonybrook.edu wrote: On 03/30/12 14:47, Ulrich Mueller wrote: I fail to understand what the license of the ebuild has to do with the license of the package itself. It has nothing to do with the license of the package. That is completely separate. This has to do with the license of the ebuild itself. FreeBSD Ports inspired Daniel Robbins to create Portage. The issue that is our ability to share FreeBSD-specific improvements between ebuilds in portage and Makefiles in FreeBSD ports. The issues that are similar for both. Collaboration on FreeBSD-specific things in sys-freebsd/* would make life easier for both portage ebuild maintainers and FreeBSD port maintainers. I doubt you can get the content re-licensed under a different license. You may be able to convince folks to add an additional license (|| (GPL-2 BSD-2)). That way Gentoo keeps its GPL-2 and freebsd can have the code as BSD-2. -A
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On 03/30/2012 15:36, Richard Yao wrote: It has nothing to do with the license of the package. That is completely separate. This has to do with the license of the ebuild itself. FreeBSD Ports inspired Daniel Robbins to create Portage. The issue that is our ability to share FreeBSD-specific improvements between ebuilds in portage and Makefiles in FreeBSD ports. The issues that are similar for both. Collaboration on FreeBSD-specific things in sys-freebsd/* would make life easier for both portage ebuild maintainers and FreeBSD port maintainers. I would figure that since each is written in its own language (ebuilds in bash, FBSD in Make), that all you have to do is share the idea of the fix. Ideas themselves can't be licensed, but implementations can, and the idea can be implemented in Makefile syntax in Ports under BSD-2, and in Portage in Bash syntax under GPLv2. That said, sometimes you just find entire chunks of BSD code in Linux, complete with only the BSD copyright block: See drivers/scsi/aic7xxx/queue.h -- Joshua Kinard Gentoo/MIPS ku...@gentoo.org 4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28 The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between. --Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license
On 03/30/12 16:19, Alec Warner wrote: I doubt you can get the content re-licensed under a different license. You may be able to convince folks to add an additional license (|| (GPL-2 BSD-2)). That way Gentoo keeps its GPL-2 and freebsd can have the code as BSD-2. Dual-licensing is fine by me. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
