Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
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... -- Chris Gianelloni Release Engineering Strategic Lead Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee Gentoo Foundation signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:24:25 -0700 Chris Gianelloni [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. Which feelings are clearly wrong, for anyone with any degree of familiarity with ebuilds. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 10:18:13AM +0100, Steve Long wrote: Greg KH wrote: The GPLv2 is all about distribution, not use cases, so yes, this is the case and is perfictly legal with GPLv2 (even the FSF explicitly told Tivo that what they were doing was legal and acceptable.) Well legal, maybe, ie acceptable under the terms. 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). thanks, greg k-h -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thursday 12 July 2007, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: Chris Gianelloni [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. Which feelings are clearly wrong, for anyone with any degree of familiarity with ebuilds. perhaps, but in the larger scheme of things, irrelevant either Gentoo goes GPL-3 or not at all ... having ebuilds with mixed licenses is doomed to failure unless there is a pressing need for Gentoo to go GPL-3 (and i dont think anyone has stated any where it'd matter to Gentoo), there isnt much point right now i dont think -mike signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:00:14 -0400 Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Which feelings are clearly wrong, for anyone with any degree of familiarity with ebuilds. perhaps, but in the larger scheme of things, irrelevant Unless there are third party repositories shipping their own from-scratch ebuilds... In which case, afaics there's nothing to stop *them* from going GPL-3 if they think there's a reason to do so. Unless the Foundation somehow claims that all ebuilds, even those from-scratch, are derived works? -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 20:07 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: Unless there are third party repositories shipping their own from-scratch ebuilds... In which case, afaics there's nothing to stop *them* from going GPL-3 if they think there's a reason to do so. Unless the Foundation somehow claims that all ebuilds, even those from-scratch, are derived works? What's the case here? Third-party ebuilds being contributed into the tree via bugzilla and other means? Or third-party ebuilds from joe shmoe off www.joeshmoesebuilds.com? The second case is meaningless to Gentoo. The first case needs to be considered. The question there, I suppose, is: do we *require* contributors to license ebuilds as GPL-2? And if that is the case, that's what stops them. It would be an interesting question, though, to prove that someone wrote a from-scratch ebuild via looking only at the documentation, and without basing any parts off of already existing ebuilds in the tree, no? Thanks, Seemant signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:14:38 -0400 Seemant Kulleen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What's the case here? Third-party ebuilds being contributed into the tree via bugzilla and other means? Or third-party ebuilds from joe shmoe off www.joeshmoesebuilds.com? The second case is meaningless to Gentoo. The first case needs to be considered. The question there, I suppose, is: do we *require* contributors to license ebuilds as GPL-2? And if that is the case, that's what stops them. Right. The second case is already covered by Gentoo policy. It would be an interesting question, though, to prove that someone wrote a from-scratch ebuild via looking only at the documentation, and without basing any parts off of already existing ebuilds in the tree, no? It'd be interesting to try to prove that they *did* copy it too... For a sufficiently trivial ebuild, it's entirely possible for a third party to come up with something that's very close to the in-tree ebuild, even if they did write it from scratch... Didn't someone (Seemant? I forget) have to 'provably' rewrite a few ebuilds that were in the tree a while ago? Wasn't there some issue with the copyright on ebuilds written by a former developer being something like Copyright blah Gentoo and dude's_nick? -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thursday, 12. July 2007 21:14:38 Seemant Kulleen wrote: It would be an interesting question, though, to prove that someone wrote a from-scratch ebuild via looking only at the documentation, and without basing any parts off of already existing ebuilds in the tree, no? How many angels can dance on the head of a needle? [1] Seriously, guys... *Did* some Gentoo dev commit an ebuild licenced under GPL-3? *Did* some user attach an ebuild licenced under GPL-3 to a bug? Best regards, Wulf [1] The definitive answer, btw, was found by Professor Raoul Mortley: The answer is of course well known; fewer if fat, more if thin. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 15:14 -0400, Seemant Kulleen wrote: On Thu, 2007-07-12 at 20:07 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: Unless there are third party repositories shipping their own from-scratch ebuilds... In which case, afaics there's nothing to stop *them* from going GPL-3 if they think there's a reason to do so. Unless the Foundation somehow claims that all ebuilds, even those from-scratch, are derived works? What's the case here? Third-party ebuilds being contributed into the tree via bugzilla and other means? Or third-party ebuilds from joe shmoe off www.joeshmoesebuilds.com? The second case is meaningless to Gentoo. The first case needs to be considered. The question there, I suppose, is: do we *require* contributors to license ebuilds as GPL-2? And if that is the case, that's what stops them. It would be an interesting question, though, to prove that someone wrote a from-scratch ebuild via looking only at the documentation, and without basing any parts off of already existing ebuilds in the tree, no? How likely is this? Let me put it another way. I write ebuilds all the time. I don't need to look at the documentation or any other ebuilds to write a new one. However, any ebuild I write is a derived work of previous ebuilds. Why? Because I used skel.ebuild and other ebuilds already in the tree as the basis for the ebuilds I originally wrote. Because I no longer need to actually *look* at other ebuilds doesn't change that my entire knowledge base for ebuild writing is derived from other ebuilds, which were based on other ebuilds before them. Also, I would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to write an ebuild that is even slightly complex without using the eclasses, at all. Sure, it is *possible* that someone is capable of writing an ebuild entirely from scratch, but the likelihood is pretty much nonexistent. We could just end this really quickly and require all ebuilds submitted be done under GPLv2. -- Chris Gianelloni Release Engineering Strategic Lead Alpha/AMD64/x86 Architecture Teams Games Developer/Council Member/Foundation Trustee Gentoo Foundation signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:48:05 +0200 Wulf C. Krueger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Seriously, guys... *Did* some Gentoo dev commit an ebuild licenced under GPL-3? *Did* some user attach an ebuild licenced under GPL-3 to a bug? There are third party repositories out there with from-scratch ebuilds that, at the very least, don't use Gentoo copyright. So if the Foundation is claiming that all ebuilds are derived from skel.ebuild as wolf31o2 implies, this is most definitely an issue. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thursday 12 July 2007, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Which feelings are clearly wrong, for anyone with any degree of familiarity with ebuilds. perhaps, but in the larger scheme of things, irrelevant Unless there are third party repositories shipping their own from-scratch ebuilds... why would Gentoo care two licks about ebuilds in third party repositories ... this is just pointless pondering -mike signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:58:49 -0700 Chris Gianelloni [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It would be an interesting question, though, to prove that someone wrote a from-scratch ebuild via looking only at the documentation, and without basing any parts off of already existing ebuilds in the tree, no? How likely is this? I know for a fact that people have already done it and are redistributing works created that way without a Foundation copyright or any Based upon blah, which is copyright Gentoo blah notice. I'm not aware of any non-GPL-2 ebuilds being distributed, but if it is claimed that all ebuilds are derived works of skel.ebuild then there's still a copyright issue here. Let me put it another way. I write ebuilds all the time. I don't need to look at the documentation or any other ebuilds to write a new one. However, any ebuild I write is a derived work of previous ebuilds. Why? Because I used skel.ebuild and other ebuilds already in the tree as the basis for the ebuilds I originally wrote. Because I no longer need to actually *look* at other ebuilds doesn't change that my entire knowledge base for ebuild writing is derived from other ebuilds, which were based on other ebuilds before them. Getting an idea or knowledge from somewhere doesn't subject something to copyright or licence requirements. There may be patent and non-disclosure issues, but neither are applicable here. Also, I would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to write an ebuild that is even slightly complex without using the eclasses, at all. Sure, it is *possible* that someone is capable of writing an ebuild entirely from scratch, but the likelihood is pretty much nonexistent. As I understand it, merely using an eclass doesn't force GPL-2 on an ebuild because there's no linkage involved. We could just end this really quickly and require all ebuilds submitted be done under GPLv2. Sure, but what about third party ebuilds? Claiming that all ebuilds are derived work of a Gentoo-copyrighted ebuild effectively requires all ebuilds that don't have Gentoo copyright to include a statement like: # Based upon skel.ebuild, which is Copyright 1999-2007 Gentoo Foundation There are quite a few things out there that do not currently comply with this requirement. If the Foundation truly believes that all ebuilds are derived works, they should issue some kind of statement saying so. -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
Ciaran McCreesh kirjoitti: As I understand it, merely using an eclass doesn't force GPL-2 on an ebuild because there's no linkage involved. This argument would make it possible to write apps using GPL-2 python libraries in !GPL-2 licenses so I don't think it goes that way but I am no lawyer as said before. Regards, Petteri signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:10:48 -0400 Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thursday 12 July 2007, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Which feelings are clearly wrong, for anyone with any degree of familiarity with ebuilds. perhaps, but in the larger scheme of things, irrelevant Unless there are third party repositories shipping their own from-scratch ebuilds... why would Gentoo care two licks about ebuilds in third party repositories ... this is just pointless pondering Because if they're derived works from skel.ebuild as wolf31o2 is claiming, then there are both copyright and licence requirements imposed upon them. If this is the case, there are people out there in violation, some of whom would likely take extremely strong issue with the derived works argument... -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 11:16:46PM +0300, Petteri Räty wrote: Ciaran McCreesh kirjoitti: As I understand it, merely using an eclass doesn't force GPL-2 on an ebuild because there's no linkage involved. This argument would make it possible to write apps using GPL-2 python libraries in !GPL-2 licenses Correct, it does, just like it permits C applications with GPL-incompatible licenses to link with GPL libraries, so long as this linking is done by the end user and the application is not distributed in its linked form. See for example the NVidia kernel module, or for a somewhat different but similar example, cdrtools. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thursday 12 July 2007, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:10:48 -0400 Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thursday 12 July 2007, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Which feelings are clearly wrong, for anyone with any degree of familiarity with ebuilds. perhaps, but in the larger scheme of things, irrelevant Unless there are third party repositories shipping their own from-scratch ebuilds... why would Gentoo care two licks about ebuilds in third party repositories ... this is just pointless pondering Because if they're derived works from skel.ebuild as wolf31o2 is claiming, then there are both copyright and licence requirements imposed upon them. If this is the case, there are people out there in violation, some of whom would likely take extremely strong issue with the derived works argument... blah blah blah it's a stupid argument third parties are free to license however they like. anything in the Gentoo portage tree has to have a header the same as skel.ebuild. -mike signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:06:05 -0400 Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: third parties are free to license however they like. Could the Foundation make a formal statement to that effect, and could wolf31o2 retract his claim that all ebuilds are derived works of skel.ebuild? -- Ciaran McCreesh signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thursday 12 July 2007, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: third parties are free to license however they like. Could the Foundation make a formal statement to that effect, and could wolf31o2 retract his claim that all ebuilds are derived works of skel.ebuild? why dont you go make a query where it belongs: on the trustees list -mike signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:14:38 -0400 Seemant Kulleen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The question there, I suppose, is: do we *require* contributors to license ebuilds as GPL-2? The Gentoo Project requires contributors to surrender the copyright to the Gentoo Foundation. The Foundation sets the license (to GPL-2). I (hopefully :) explained this in another reply to this thread. Kind regards, JeR -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:11:36 +0100 Ciaran McCreesh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:06:05 -0400 Mike Frysinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: third parties are free to license however they like. Could the Foundation make a formal statement to that effect, and could wolf31o2 retract his claim that all ebuilds are derived works of skel.ebuild? Chris doesn't need to retract his claim, because his claim is very likely false or at best immaterial. Finding out whether one work is a derivative of another is much too expensive. It's easier to state a copyright claim, in effect surrendering the copyright to the Gentoo Foundation, and be done with it, and then let the Gentoo Foundation set the license, in this case GPL-2. This happens to be exactly what the header.txt file[0] in gentoo-x86 is for, but sadly there is no documentation that explains this policy at all, it seems. To be exact, by submitting an ebuild, you actively surrender the copyright to the ebuild to the Gentoo Foundation, formerly Gentoo Technologies, Inc. [1], the original commit of skel.build (later skel.ebuild) already made this very clear: # Copyright 1999-2000 Gentoo Technologies, Inc. # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, v2 or later # Author Your Name your email # $Header$ I remember seeing a less subtle statement to this effect (that the copyright to anything you submit to Gentoo's CVS is passed on to the Gentoo Project) a long time ago, probably in the devrel/recruiters documentation during my own recruitment. Right now I can only find this: ===Headers=== When you submit your ebuilds, the header should be exactly the same as the one in /usr/portage/header.txt. Most importantly, do not modify it in anyway and make sure that the $Header: $ line is intact.[2] Sadly, currently no document on www.gentoo.org explains the judicial better than [3], which has this: The bureaucracy we mention includes: [...] - juridical protection: backing up the licenses Gentoo uses, maintaining the copyrights on Gentoo's software, documentation and other assets and protecting Gentoo's intellectual property and also: In other words, the Gentoo Foundation will: [...] - protect the developed code, documentation, artwork and other material through copyright and licenses I think this lack of clarity calls for some changes to at least the policy documents. Ebuilds can probably not be considered proper derivatives of skel.[e]build, but IANAL, I can only say that having a court find this would be very expensive, whatever the outcome. Therefore, the copyright to an ebuild is or should be actively and simply turned over to the Gentoo Foundation by the developer, and this should be made policy and should be explained properly in a few places in our documentation. Should I file a documentation bug about this? Kind regards, JeR [0] http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/header.txt [1] http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/skel.ebuild [2] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/handbook/handbook.xml?part=2chap=1 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Thursday 12 July 2007, Jeroen Roovers wrote: snip before people start responding with their opinions, take this to the trustees list. that list is for all Gentoo licensing/copyright/blah-blah-boring-crap. -mike signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
Add usual IANAL disclaimer here. All of what I say below is just a recall of what I remember from discussions that happened a few years ago. On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:53:10 +0200 Jeroen Roovers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To be exact, by submitting an ebuild, you actively surrender the copyright to the ebuild to the Gentoo Foundation, formerly Gentoo Technologies, Inc. [1], the original commit of skel.build (later skel.ebuild) already made this very clear: Only if the ebuild actually includes our copyright header, and even then is probably questionable in legal terms. I remember seeing a less subtle statement to this effect (that the copyright to anything you submit to Gentoo's CVS is passed on to the Gentoo Project) a long time ago, probably in the devrel/recruiters documentation during my own recruitment. I think you're talking about the copyright assignment doc, which new devs were required to sign for some time (back when drobbins was still in charge) and send back to drobbins, but which was pulled because of serious flaws. Ever since the copyright assignment issue has been something the foundation/board of trustees should have take care of (one of the reasons we needed the lawyers), with no result so far. Sadly, currently no document on www.gentoo.org explains the judicial better than [3], which has this: The bureaucracy we mention includes: [...] - juridical protection: backing up the licenses Gentoo uses, maintaining the copyrights on Gentoo's software, documentation and other assets and protecting Gentoo's intellectual property and also: In other words, the Gentoo Foundation will: [...] - protect the developed code, documentation, artwork and other material through copyright and licenses Which isn't really related, as we can only protect what we own. Therefore, the copyright to an ebuild is or should be actively and simply turned over to the Gentoo Foundation by the developer, and this should be made policy and should be explained properly in a few places in our documentation. Should I file a documentation bug about this? 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. Marius -- Marius Mauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 05:55:26 +0200 Marius Mauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. I never realised this was controversial. In that case, Mr. Frysinger is correct in stating this thread should probably be moved to this exciting trustees list he keeps mentioning. :) Kind regards, JeR -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Friday 13 July 2007, Jeroen Roovers wrote: Marius Mauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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. I never realised this was controversial. In that case, Mr. Frysinger is correct in stating this thread should probably be moved to this exciting trustees list he keeps mentioning. :) Mr. Frysinger is my dad, stoopid -mike signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Fri, Jul 13, 2007 at 07:04:20AM +0200, Harald van Dijk wrote: Correct, it does, just like it permits C applications with GPL-incompatible licenses to link with GPL libraries, so long as this linking is done by the end user and the application is not distributed in its linked form. See for example the NVidia kernel module, or for a somewhat different but similar example, cdrtools. Not true: cdrecord and all-1 programs in cdrtrools are 100% CDDL. mkisofs is a GPL project that links to non-GPL libraries. This is something that is no problem with the GPLv2 as long as the libraries are not derived from or written for GPL code. As the libraries mkisofs links with are older than mkisofs or at least written independently and usage neutral, there is no problem even with binaray redistribution of mkisofs. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs Neither the FSF nor you hold the copyright to mkisofs, but still, I'll take the FSF's own interpretation over yours. If others believe you're right, that's their choice. Besides, as I recall, the decision for cdrkit was based on a disagreement over the build system license, not the license of libraries. Sorry, that's what I should've said, and that's all I should've said; the rest is not relevant here. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
On Mon, 09 Jul 2007 10:31:23 +0100 Steve Long [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: IMO though, Gentoo is effectively already under GPL3 in that, apart from portage and python, all the core software is GNU. It'd be pretty difficult for instance, to run any ebuild without BASH. It's not a matter of opinion whether Gentoo (sys-apps/portage, the ebuilds and so on) are GPL -2 or -3. Running your own copyrighted works on Gentoo does not effectively mean that your works are suddenly held to the same license as Gentoo. There's a complicated discussion about derived works that I won't go into here, but Gentoo, the Linux distribution, is distributed under many licenses, whereas Gentoo the package management system / Portage tree is distributed under one license -- GPL-2. Whether all the system utils or the kernel are GPL-3 is of no consequence to the package manager or the Portage tree. Lastly, appreciating that (most) ebuilds require bash to be interpreted does *not* make them derivative works of bash in accepted readings of international copyright law. Therefore, the license of bash be(com)ing GPL-3 does not preclude ebuilds being (and remaining) GPL-2. Kind regards, JeR -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
Jeroen Roovers kirjoitti: On Mon, 09 Jul 2007 10:31:23 +0100 Steve Long [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: IMO though, Gentoo is effectively already under GPL3 in that, apart from portage and python, all the core software is GNU. It'd be pretty difficult for instance, to run any ebuild without BASH. It's not a matter of opinion whether Gentoo (sys-apps/portage, the ebuilds and so on) are GPL -2 or -3. Ebuilds heavily call into functions defined in Portage so someone could argue that if Portage goes to GPL-3 so should the ebuilds. Of course with EAPI things might not be this way and I am not a lawyer either. Regards, Petteri signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.
Thus the questions of whether many/most individual ebuilds /could/ be copyrighted or if so whether it's worth doing so. Certainly, it's the tree that contains the license, not the individual ebuilds, etc, which give the copyright statement but little more. Gentoo policy would seem to be, then, that it's the work of the tree as a whole that's copyrighted. Individual ebuilds may or may not be, and it's /implied/ (which isn't necessarily legally binding) that if they are, there'd be little attempt at enforcement unless a significant portion of the tree was copied/modified. I think at current gentoo policy is good. I don't want to have the possibility to have individual licence for individual ebuild because that can block a licence change if such a change become a necessity. That's a long and predictably controversial debate. See all the electrons spilled on it debating the Linux kernel, for instance. While I personally support the FSF and GPL3, there's a definitely valid position held by some that the code return requirements of GPL2 are sufficient, that Tivoization should be specifically allowed, because the code is returned, even if it doesn't work on their specific product without the signing keys and etc. It doesn't matter if gentoo tree is v2 or v3 in regard of tivoization because no one single program in portage is linked against the tree or an eclass. I also think at the tivoization issue is not valid for the patches in the ebuild-xyz/files folder, because they are in the tree and the tree is under gpl v2. So in fact, it doesn't matter in regard of tivoization if the tre is under v2 or v3. I am not a layer, but I will be very surprised if I am wrong on that point. I don't know if an individual patches in some ebuild-xyz/files folder can be under v3 or v2 and later in order to be able to legally patch a gpl-v3 xyz software. The situation is: the ebuild-xyz have a patch under gpl-v2 in its files folder because it is in the tree and the whole tree is v2 only. And the software xyz is under gpl-v3. The problem is at I think at it will not be allowed by the software xyz because gpl-v3 is not compatible with a patch under the gpl-v2 only licence. The patch's licence must be gpl-v2 or later, gpl-v3, or gpl-v3 or later. Dominique -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
