[9fans] The new ridiculous license

[9fans] The new ridiculous license

[A. Baker]

FYI

http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-1023765.html?tag=fd_lede2_hed

--------------8<--------------

(c|net's Stephen Shankland)

Do you ever wish you'd opted for a BSD-style license
instead of the General Public License (GPL)? (Unlike
the GPL, BSD-style licenses such as those used for the
Apache Software Foundation Web server and the FreeBSD
Unix offshoot permit open-source code to be made
proprietary.)

(Linux's Linus Torvalds)

Absolutely not. I personally think that the BSD
license is a dead end for serious projects, since it
inevitably results in forking with no way to re-join
if it becomes commercially viable. (Editors' note:
Forking is dividing a programming project into two
different, overlapping projects.)

Forking a project is in my opinion hugely important,
since forks are how all real development gets done,
and the ability to fork keeps everybody honest (i.e.
if you don't do a good job and keep your users happy,
they can always fork the project and go on their own).
But equally important is the ability to join back
forks, when/if some group finds the right solution to
a problem. And that's where the GPL comes in: you can
really think of the whole license as nothing more than
a requirement to be able to re-join a forked project
from either side.

--------------8<--------------

Ouch!


=====
Boojum

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
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Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> Forking a project is in my opinion hugely important,

s/or/uc/
w
q

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[D. Brownlee]

Wesley Parish wrote:

> If gcc a.k.a. the c compiler's a problem, why not take this one and run with
> it:
> http://www.tendra.org/
>
> "In case you are already wondering, TenDRA is a BSD-licensed C compiler,
> with C++ STL support forthcoming. The original Crown copyright from DERA is
> still present and the further expansion of TenDRA is BSDL'd."
>
> It's reportedly a very high quality one.
>
> Wesley Parish
>

Also, ACK is available with a BSD-style license.
Don't know -- haven't followed compilers lately -- but
it's generated code used to be respectable. It is also
fairly easy to get a compiler up for a new archictecture.
It was recently at:

	http://www.cs.vu.nl/vakgroepen/cs/ack.html

but just noticed that that link is now 404.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Wesley Parish]

Theo de Raadt wrote:

> It's too difficult for me to explain in full details how much of this
> license is not acceptable to us.  But it clearly is not acceptable to
> us.
>
> We have an entire operating system (minus a touch of GPL and LGPL here
> and there, one sendmail license, and a few smatterings of Artistic)
> that has NO CONTRACTS -- every license is simply "copyright law term
> dismissal + warranty disclaimer".  That is free; these licenses make
> no new requirements of anyone; they do not require or re-state
> anything that is already the way it is.  The BSD licenses we have
> simply take rights granted by copyright law to the author, and they
> serve to allow the author to give up all of those rights (except the
> copyright law right to be known as the author).  These licenses ask
> for nothing in return; they do not even restate anything that another
> law might make a problem -- because there is no need to state it!
>
> We can't accept this license as it is. I note your meeting notes said
> that a goal had been to allow OpenBSD to use parts from this (in
> particular we were interested in the c compiler).  I think someone did
> not listen to us, or understand what a BSD-licensed operating system
> has as a goal -- as this is, the plan9 components are now no more free
> for us to use than they were weeks ago.
>
> sure; you have a new license.  That will be good for some people.  Too
> bad it does not go far enough for the needs of a BSD licensed system.
> It's just incompatible.  It would be the most onerous license in our
> tree (well there is the GPL, but year by year we remove and replace
> more and more GPL software in our tree... we had hoped to replace the
> c compiler in the long term with a free one...)

If gcc a.k.a. the c compiler's a problem, why not take this one and run with
it:
http://www.tendra.org/

"In case you are already wondering, TenDRA is a BSD-licensed C compiler,
with C++ STL support forthcoming. The original Crown copyright from DERA is
still present and the further expansion of TenDRA is BSDL'd."

It's reportedly a very high quality one.

Wesley Parish

--
First the wife, tone of awe.  So much a condition.  Kent in the labs, fast
forward.  "So how was the worthlessful businessman?"  But they hadn't
stopped meat for year ago, that arose hotel facade slowly moved apper.
- Don't let emacs meta-x dissociatedpress write your speeches!

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[rog]

> Well, in defense of the printers....  It *is* nice if they have some
> way to tell you that they ran out of ink or had a paper jam or any of
> the myriad of things that can go wrong in such a sensitive device with
> so many moving parts.

not to mention postscript errors...

to be honest, when the spooler here seems to be playing
up, i just fire up inferno and do:

	dial tcp!printerIP!12345 {cat file.ps}

which nicely avoids the middle man.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Jack Johnson]

Anthony Mandic wrote:
> 	I would have read it as gPlan 9.

Actually, if you really want to be in the spirit, you have to give it a
name that's completely impossible to find using a search engine, like "3".

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Anthony Mandic]

Ralph Corderoy wrote:

> > Or that hell had frozen over.  Just stick a gratuitous `g' in front of
> > the name and see what RMS does.
>
> Maybe that's why he refers to it as `Plan Nine';  perhaps he's hoping
> for `Plan Gnine'.

	I would have read it as gPlan 9.

-am	� 2003

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

ron minnich wrote:
> It's not that much fun in jail I hear.

Especially when one has done nothing to deserve being sent there.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Dan Cross wrote:
> ...  So setting up a filter to convert, say, TeX DVI files
> to postscript automatically once they were spooled flat out didn't
> work.

MDQS has no problem with that.  Indeed, back before the barbarian
invasion, we used to have queues for a variety of preprocessing.
By the way, if anybody needs the Y2K-fix for MDQS let me know.
Our system administrators destroyed my access to the FTP site,
but I could mail you a patch.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> Maybe that's why he refers to it as `Plan Nine';  perhaps he's hoping
> for `Plan Gnine'.

That's Gnot funny!

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[John Murdie]

On Fri, 2003-06-20 at 16:31, splite@purdue.edu wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 09:20:08AM +0100, John Murdie wrote:
> >
> > For a start, lpr (more properly the RFC1179 Berkeley print) protocol
> > allows only a success/fail result; there's nowhere to put error or
> > informational messages in the protocol.
>
> Sure there is; the return value is an octet.  They had 255 possible failure
> codes, but the BSD implementation returns 001 on error regardless of the
> cause.  They could have at least distinguished transient (e.g. no spool
> space) versus permanent (no such queue) errors.

Thank you for being more precise about this than I was!

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[splite]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 09:20:08AM +0100, John Murdie wrote:
>
> For a start, lpr (more properly the RFC1179 Berkeley print) protocol
> allows only a success/fail result; there's nowhere to put error or
> informational messages in the protocol.

Sure there is; the return value is an octet.  They had 255 possible failure
codes, but the BSD implementation returns 001 on error regardless of the
cause.  They could have at least distinguished transient (e.g. no spool
space) versus permanent (no such queue) errors.

One could provide distinct error codes without violating the RFC, though
with the following result:

> Everybody and his aunt seems to
> have made incompatible extensions; the Berkeley print server we use here
> has had to be extended to deal with PLP, Novell, HP and Microsoft
> extensions. It's messy.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Richard C Bilson]

> From: Dan Cross <cross@math.psu.edu>
>
> Another interesting variety was AIX printing, where ``lpd'' wasn't so
> much a printing daemon as it was a generic batch queuing system.  I
> remember once someone who was rather fond of AIX defending it to me by
> telling me, ``what other system do you know where you can kick off a
> batch job using lpr?''  My mind boggled and I utterly failed to come
> up with an appropriate response.  I had already ported Berkeley
> lpd to my AIX machines.

It is interesting to me, in light of this, that Linux lpd has become
the system of choice for discriminating hackers to queue their mp3
files:

  http://patrick.wagstrom.net/weblog/archives/000128.html

Another case of software that is just good enough to prevent a rational
alternative from taking hold.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Jason Gurtz]

Lucio De Re wrote:


Agreed on all counts.

Cheers,

~Jason

--

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Lucio De Re]

On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 10:05:01AM -0400, Jason Gurtz wrote:
>
> The ammount of "dedication" required to learn to setup sendmail is
> daunting but my experience has been that once it's setup it just works.
>
Well, some of Sendmail's good press is unjustified, and so is some
of its notoriety.  My take is that those who know sendmail intimately
(I wish I could count myself amongst them) are many and capable,
making sendmail the best tool for the job.

> Of course, that the relevent O'Reilly book is well over a thousand pages
> doesn't bode well for it.
>
I guess the very complexity acts as a selection criterion, a bit
the way FORTRAN produced amongst the most sophisticated scientific
programs.  I found the O'Reilly book quite readable, actually.
One of few tomes that size I have read from cover to cover (and
forgotten much more than I remember - I was in Botswana at the
time, not the most vibrant of environments, reading the bat book
was a good way of killing some very boring evenings :-)

++L

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Jason Gurtz]

Jack Johnson wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, boyd, rounin wrote:
>
>>yes, i'd like to see some improvements.  where could we begin? err, killing
>>    - sendmail
>>
>>then again, i'd be more than happy to see my world view contradicted.

The ammount of "dedication" required to learn to setup sendmail is
daunting but my experience has been that once it's setup it just works.

Of course, that the relevent O'Reilly book is well over a thousand pages
doesn't bode well for it.

Cheers,

~Jason

--

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[matt]

Ralph Corderoy wrote:

>Hi Dan,
>
>
>
>>Or that hell had frozen over.  Just stick a gratuitous `g' in front of
>>the name and see what RMS does.
>>
>>
>
>Maybe that's why he refers to it as `Plan Nine';  perhaps he's hoping
>for `Plan Gnine'.
>
>

so long as it's not "plan k9"  we'll be okay

(
KDE does some interesting things wrt files using proto://filename such
as samba://windows_box/folder

naturally only seems to work in Konqueror & klib friends though. I'm not
sure if anyone has added shell script support (and dont care 8)

I remember reading years ago that NT was going to have synthetic file
support. So you could have an executable called dave.bmp and when the
data was requested it executed the program and returned the data. How
excited I was to install NT, read MSDN and discover only "shortcuts".
Maybe it's in there somewhere, if it is I would warrant that the
symantics change with every service pack.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Dan,

> Or that hell had frozen over.  Just stick a gratuitous `g' in front of
> the name and see what RMS does.

Maybe that's why he refers to it as `Plan Nine';  perhaps he's hoping
for `Plan Gnine'.

Cheers,

--
Ralph Corderoy.      http://inputplus.co.uk/ralph/     http://troff.org/

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Andrew Simmons]

>> CUPS is silly.

> Things designed by committee usually are.....

Oh now, come on!! What about CORBA and ANSI Standard C++?

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

David Presotto wrote:
> I too have a hard time understanding the wrath aimed at OpenBSD.

Earth people are all stupid, stupid, stupid!

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[John Murdie]

On Thu, 2003-06-19 at 22:34, Jack Johnson wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, boyd, rounin wrote:
> >     - 'lpr' protocol
>
> What's wrong with lpr?  I know there's better, but what's *wrong* with it?
>
> -Jack
>

For a start, lpr (more properly the RFC1179 Berkeley print) protocol
allows only a success/fail result; there's nowhere to put error or
informational messages in the protocol. Everybody and his aunt seems to
have made incompatible extensions; the Berkeley print server we use here
has had to be extended to deal with PLP, Novell, HP and Microsoft
extensions. It's messy.

There's worse; I doubt that Plan 9ers will like IPP (the Internet
Printing Protocol) - http://www.pwg.org/ipp/. The first time I saw it, I
thought I'd picked up an X25 manual by mistake.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Markus Friedl]

On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 10:45:30AM -0400, Dan Cross wrote:
> Why is it strictly
> necessary to use the Plan 9 compilers?

I'm using plan9 since 1995 and its toolchain is very good compared
to other things that are out there, so it would be a nice thing to
have plan9 toolchain available for other plattforms as well.  You
don't care, but other people might.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> We could finally set up a reasonable print
> spooler on some old recycled machine (usually an older model Sun running
> one of the BSD's) and have the Solaris machines point to that.  It, in
> turn, would fan out to the network printers using the above mentioned
> setup.  Clunky though the whole thing was, it was more reliable than the
> Solaris implementation of System V printing.

Err, I should qualify this.  Prior to Solaris 2.6, we used the native
Solaris system V stuff to try and spool jobs to a machine running `normal'
lpd.  However, it was terribly unreliable; it would frequently crash,
and jobs would just sort of mysteriously disappear.  Eventually, we took
to using my ports of Berkeley lpd under Solaris, but that was difficult
to maintain (you had to be careful when applying patches that you wouldn't
accidentally overwrite the locally modified printing system with part
of the system's printing system that had been updated, but that you had
already replaced).  Also, there was the problem of the system printing
tools no longer working.  It was easy enough to provide replacements for
command line use, but any time they were embedded in a command, it could
get ugly.  /etc/printers.conf really was a big improvement.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> Actually the line printers of yore usually beat an ink-impregnated
> ribbon against paper.  Details, details.

You forgot to mention that sometimes the old printer ribbons could
make for interesting reading....

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> "On the other hand..."
>
> speaking as a (l)user, and sometime sysadmin, I have almost never had a
> /etc/printcap -> lpr -> <physical printer> problem I couldn't fix simply.

You must be very pious, as you escaped Dante's fifth level of hell,
err, I mean transcript.  :-)  But seriously, here's an anecdote about
the BSD printing setup.  This is from my own personal experience.

When HP printers with directly attached network cards first became
available, it was thrilling.  No more clunky serial or parallel cables
strung up to the back of Sun's or VAXen or early model RS/6000's or
whatever workstation du jour one was using; putting something in
/etc/printcap pointing to a remote machine (the IP address on the
printer) using port 515 seemed to work like a charm.

Except for a couple of things, one of which Geoff alluded to but I'll
give gory details on.  The printer would only respond to one TCP
connection at a time, and what's worse, it was single tasking.  So you
still needed to set up a central Unix machine to spool to the printer
(using the print spooling protocol, oddly enough).  The single tasking
nature of the printer meant that if you spooled a file to it, and then
tried to check the queue with lpq while it was printing, lpq would hang
until it was done printing that job.  Also, since you were printing to
a remote printer, and lpd wouldn't run filters for remote printers
(unless rm= was set to the local machine, which it wasn't, since rm=
was set to the printer), you couldn't do any preprocessing on data sent
to the printer.  So setting up a filter to convert, say, TeX DVI files
to postscript automatically once they were spooled flat out didn't
work.

The solution was to define a fake printer entry for a local printer,
with its output file set to /dev/null (remember to create a new
character special device file with mknod, using the null device's major
and minor numbers so that /dev/null itself wouldn't be gratuitously
locked by lpd!) and then set up a filter that would make a direct
connection to the printer on your behalf (luckily, one could magically
connect to port 9000 on the printer and just dump postscript into it),
possible relaying status information from the printer to the local
queue's status file.  We had a perl script to do it all for us which
was kind of neat.  It would put the number of the currently printing
page in the printer status file, so lpq could tell you how far through
the file you were (a *big* improvement).  Apparantly HP had some stuff
that worked reasonably well, too, but we didn't use it.  Overloading
the if= filter, and doing content conversion there was easier than
dealing with all the special file types and font options and so on that
the LPD protocol sort of magically recognized (the list was woefully
out of data; we had postscript and line printers, not Varian's or
phototypsetters).

In the intervening six or seven years, the situation has scarsely
gotten better.  It's still nearly impossible to just plug a postscript
printer into the network and print to it from a Unix machine without
fiddling around a bit.  Sure, the interface might have gotten better,
but the underlying technical problems are still there.  Again, I think
this goes back to the definition of `wrong' thing.  A lot of people
don't care if their sysadmin widget gives them a way to configure
printers in a relatively painless way.  You could be spooling stuff
using the latter day equivalent of punched cards (oops, you kind of
are with the Berkeley protocol...), and it wouldn't matter as long
as it worked.  However, to others, it would still be an incorrect
solution because you have to put too many wrappers around it to get
it to smell nice.

> But the twisted train-wreck of filesytem-embedded pipes, sockets, binary
> loaded files, non-optional filters, definitions files, logs which is SysV
> printing control is even worse.

Oh, don't get me started on that.  I used to do ersatz ports of lpd to
Solaris and other System V varieties because, even though the BSD printing
subsystem was suboptimal, it was a lot easier to deal with than the
SysV stuff.  When Solaris 6 came out with support for /etc/printers.conf,
we were all quite happy.  We could finally set up a reasonable print
spooler on some old recycled machine (usually an older model Sun running
one of the BSD's) and have the Solaris machines point to that.  It, in
turn, would fan out to the network printers using the above mentioned
setup.  Clunky though the whole thing was, it was more reliable than the
Solaris implementation of System V printing.

Another interesting variety was AIX printing, where ``lpd'' wasn't so
much a printing daemon as it was a generic batch queuing system.  I
remember once someone who was rather fond of AIX defending it to me by
telling me, ``what other system do you know where you can kick off a
batch job using lpr?''  My mind boggled and I utterly failed to come
up with an appropriate response.  I had already ported Berkeley
lpd to my AIX machines.

> CUPS is silly.

Things designed by committee usually are.....

> The problem is really with PRINTERS. people never quite got used to the idea
> of write-only devices. Printers have to 'chatter' and also have to be slapped
> around a bit to do things like [fold|spindle|mutilate] or optional headers, or
> meta-state like "load font" or other crap.
>
> If thats taken out of the print spooler path, it can get much simpler.

Well, in defense of the printers....  It *is* nice if they have some
way to tell you that they ran out of ink or had a paper jam or any of
the myriad of things that can go wrong in such a sensitive device with
so many moving parts.  That more or less implies that they have to
talk back to you.  However, I will agree with the idea of seperation
of spooling duties, and ``talking to the printing device'' duties.

The funny thing is that VMS did this pretty well.

> Does anybody remember the piano-device to sit on an IBM golfball, and make
> it a printer?

I've seen IBM wine, but never golf balls.  I didn't even know they were
into sporting equipment....  :-)

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Lucio De Re]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 01:51:47PM -0400, David Presotto wrote:
>
> Nevertheless, I can see why OpenBSD would be afraid of it.
> It is true that if OpenBSD agreed to indemnify us, they
> could rerelease under their own license so the buck stops
> there, so to speak.  However, that leaves OpenBSD obligated
> in a new way and I could see why they wouldn't like it,
> especially since they too are getting no revenue from the code.
>
It is tempting to think of the FSF as providing an indemnifying
role, as they are funded, but (a) they may not have deep enough
pockets and (b) they may be less than suitable from the community's
point of view.

Still, it may be worth considering.  Founding a Plan 9 "open source"
foundation would be somewhat more difficult.

++L

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[andrey mirtchovski]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, Geoff Collyer wrote:

> In the absence of such printers, one could put a Plan 9 CPU server in
> front of one or more printers, but present a file system interface
> instead of lp or port 515.  Clients could then import the spool
> directory and add, remove or list jobs.
>

bah! impossible! unthinkable!

stop dreaming and let's get back to putting 'ld' in the 2.5.x kernel.

:)

ps: yes, i am a plan9 zealot. and i like it.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Stephen Wynne]

George Michaelson wrote:

> The problem is really with PRINTERS.

Good point. Printers need painful levels of attention no matter
how one communicates with them. Which brings to mind my sense
that our opinions about these things vary the depending on how
much we know about them. Innovations are rare, change
is continuous, and most of us have to suffer with whatever
features and flaws are available.

Most of you know a lot about system implementation. For
a given area, some of you also know what works and what doesn't,
and why. I think end users have some knowledge of that, but most
of the time they just use what's in front of them, and complain
about it in inarticulate terms, like "I had to work late
unclogging that queue again!" I know from personal experience
with lost hard disks, network glitches, and crashing printers.

Isn't operating system innovation getting harder? I can't
believe that user interfaces are getting easier. My 79 year-old
father is less comfortable with the MacOS interface for 8.1
than he was with 3.0, and I'm sure he'd be happier with UNIX MH
mail, most days, than he is with Microsoft Outlook. New
activities involving the Internet and mail should have been
simpler for him, but there are too many settings and graphical
controls that don't matter, and it's a mystery as to where to
find all the ones that do.

I think we could learn a lot from asking an old man why he's
not happy with a newer computer. I laughed when my dad asked
me how to combine two instances of Exchange so that he had
all of his mail and addresses in the same place. This was
over the phone and I don't use MacOS, so I had to set the
problem aside for a while. I'm sure he's beset by the problem
of too many places for places to be on his storage hierarchy
now, for one thing.

Wouldn't Apple like us to believe that usability innovation had
been improving for the last 20 years instead of merely holding
the line, or even losing to increased system complexity?

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Geoff Collyer]

Actually the line printers of yore usually beat an ink-impregnated
ribbon against paper.  Details, details.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Geoff Collyer]

Printer spoolers once had a purpose, when printers really were *line*
printers; that is, they were dumb devices that printed a line of text
at a time, using a rotating drum or chain and hammers that beat paper
against the drum or chain.  This is the model behind V7's lp(4) for
the DEC LP-11.  Many young people have probably never seen one of
these in person, except perhaps in a computer museum.

Once printers became stand-alone devices on a network, they should
have become a lot smarter.  They had TCP/IP and PostScript
interpreters inside them, after all, so they had to have some smarts.
I think Imagen more-or-less got this right but virtually no one since
has.  A printer should be able to take a very large number of
concurrent connections and spool the PostScript files sent internally.
Especially nowadays, with the costs of the hardware components so low,
a printer ought to have a studly processor, a big bag of memory and
the usual obscenely-large disk, and some of the high-end printers do.
As far as I know, though, even the best of these can take at most 0001
simultaneous inbound connections.  As a client, I ought to be able to
open a connection to a printer (and almost never have the connection
attempt fail), throw Postscript at the printer, close the connection,
and be able to count on the printer to print that file, *eventually*,
come power outage, paper jam, or running out of paper or toner.
(Sending cutesy messages saying roughly `the paper jammed, and you
didn't notice within 4 minutes, so I threw your job away; have a nice
day' is not acceptable.) Given such printers, one doesn't need a print
spooler at all (or rather, the print spooler moves into the printer,
where it's invisible).

In the absence of such printers, one could put a Plan 9 CPU server in
front of one or more printers, but present a file system interface
instead of lp or port 515.  Clients could then import the spool
directory and add, remove or list jobs.  The printer would be able to
authenticate the client and thus apply suitable restrictions on what
can be removed, for example.  Copying a Postscript file into the spool
directory should be sufficient to queue it.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[George Michaelson]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003 19:19:01 -0400 Dan Cross <cross@math.psu.edu> wrote:

> > >     - 'lpr' protocol
> >
> > What's wrong with lpr?  I know there's better, but what's *wrong* with it?
>
> In all seriousness; jokes, flames, etc aside.  It's become clear (to
> me, at least) that that's a very complex question to answer
> adequately.  There's no clear, universal definition of what `wrong'
> means: it could be technical, philosophical, political, etc.  What type
> of answer are you looking for?  I'd say the problems with lpr are
> mostly technical; it's an antequated protocol that's more complex than
> it needs to be, and the protocol definition (in the RFC) is really a
> distillation of the protocol in the Berkeley lpr implementation.
>
> 	- Dan C.

"On the other hand..."

speaking as a (l)user, and sometime sysadmin, I have almost never had a
/etc/printcap -> lpr -> <physical printer> problem I couldn't fix simply.

But the twisted train-wreck of filesytem-embedded pipes, sockets, binary loaded
files, non-optional filters, definitions files, logs which is SysV printing
control is even worse.

CUPS is silly.

The problem is really with PRINTERS. people never quite got used to the idea of
write-only devices. Printers have to 'chatter' and also have to be slapped
around a bit to do things like [fold|spindle|mutilate] or optional headers, or
meta-state like "load font" or other crap.

If thats taken out of the print spooler path, it can get much simpler.

Does anybody remember the piano-device to sit on an IBM golfball, and make it a
printer?

-george


--
George Michaelson       |  APNIC
Email: ggm@apnic.net    |  PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064
Phone: +61 7 3367 0490  |  Australia
  Fax: +61 7 3367 0482  |  http://www.apnic.net

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> >     - 'lpr' protocol
>
> What's wrong with lpr?  I know there's better, but what's *wrong* with it?

In all seriousness; jokes, flames, etc aside.  It's become clear (to
me, at least) that that's a very complex question to answer
adequately.  There's no clear, universal definition of what `wrong'
means: it could be technical, philosophical, political, etc.  What type
of answer are you looking for?  I'd say the problems with lpr are
mostly technical; it's an antequated protocol that's more complex than
it needs to be, and the protocol definition (in the RFC) is really a
distillation of the protocol in the Berkeley lpr implementation.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Jack Johnson]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, boyd, rounin wrote:
>     - 'lpr' protocol

What's wrong with lpr?  I know there's better, but what's *wrong* with it?

-Jack

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Jack Johnson]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, boyd, rounin wrote:
> yes, i'd like to see some improvements.  where could we begin? err, killing
>     - sendmail
>
> then again, i'd be more than happy to see my world view contradicted.

I've never been a sendmail fan, but the latest SysAdmin has a great
article on securing sendmail on random hosts (if you find you have to do
that sort of thing).  It made me take a second look at sendmail, and now I
don't hate it (for the application outlined in the article).

-Jack

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[ron minnich]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, boyd, rounin wrote:

> i think the BSD boys should read up on how much serious
> grief you (and the company) can get into when you work for
> a US company and you fall foul of the export regs.

just look at what SCO is now trying to do to IBM: get them in trouble with
the USG over export regs. I expect some IBM folks are really pissed by
now. It's not that much fun in jail I hear.

ron

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> Look guys, flaming other people and other projects is off topic for this
> list, in addition to being unamusing.

yup.  i'll drop it.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Scott Schwartz]

Look guys, flaming other people and other projects is off topic for this
list, in addition to being unamusing.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

what did dennis say once?

    unix retarded o/s development by 10 years

    linux retarded o/s development by 20 years

iirc

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> > Ugh. I feel like Charlie Brown. ``Why's everybody always
> > picking on me?''
>
> good grief.

Heh.  Good one.

> > Really? Why? Can you point out something specific I said that
> > you think is ignorant? Perhaps that I expressed doubt in the
> > OpenBSD team? That's only after eight years of watching the
> > various BSD projects go about doing what they do.
>
> it sounds like you either have some personal beef with the
> development team, or no experience with BSD unix. the openbsd
> team should be commended for their hard work, their os is one
> of the best choices out there.

I think you missed the part where I talked about 8 years of watching
the various BSD projects.  I didn't mention using BSD on various RISC
and CISC machines prior to the introduction of the `free' varients.  I
actually have quite a lot of experience with BSD Unix, having run it
almost exclusively for about five years on various hardware platforms.
What I saw was the systems become more complex, more bloated, and more
difficult to maintain; often gratuitously so.  Then the developers
patted themselves on the back.  No progress there; everyone had
forgotten the lessons they learned in the 70's and early 80's.

Having looked at the source code for OpenBSD, I'm hessitant to
commend them for their hard work.  They do work hard, but they'd be
better off if they worked smarter instead.  Also, OpenBSD might be
one of the best choices for OS's out there (why?) but in a field
starved for competition, that's not saying too much.

But this is all rather far afield from Plan 9.

> > If you disagree with my impression that's fine, but my opinion
> > stands.
>
> opinions that are not based on fact don't count.

As stated above, the opinions are based on fact; often facts that
predate Net/2.  I could site specific examples, if you like; feel free
to ping me off the list about them.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[ot]

> Ugh. I feel like Charlie Brown. ``Why's everybody always
> picking on me?''

good grief.

> Really? Why? Can you point out something specific I said that
> you think is ignorant? Perhaps that I expressed doubt in the
> OpenBSD team? That's only after eight years of watching the
> various BSD projects go about doing what they do.

it sounds like you either have some personal beef with the
development team, or no experience with BSD unix. the openbsd
team should be commended for their hard work, their os is one
of the best choices out there.

> If you disagree with my impression that's fine, but my opinion
> stands.

opinions that are not based on fact don't count.



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Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> I was critical, sure, but that's not the same as a flame; Boyd
> is the master of those.

actually, i'm 'masterless' :)

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> cross:

Ugh.  I feel like Charlie Brown.  ``Why's everybody always picking
on me?''

> i find your comments regarding the openbsd developers both
> ignorant and uncalled-for,

Really?  Why?  Can you point out something specific I said that
you think is ignorant?  Perhaps that I expressed doubt in the
OpenBSD team?  That's only after eight years of watching the
various BSD projects go about doing what they do.  If you disagree
with my impression that's fine, but my opinion stands.

> especially from somebody who was
> complaining about spamming the list with nonsense.

Looking over the last 150 messages in my 9fans folder, I see
11 from me.  After re-reading all of those, I think only about
3 could be said to be flames in the sense I understand them.
Even those aren't so much flames as tongue-in-check statements
about certain individuals (Eric Raymond, Richard Stallman).
I was critical, sure, but that's not the same as a flame; Boyd
is the master of those.

> quit wasting my bandwidth with your childish flames.

Mirrors are helpful.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[David Presotto]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 252 bytes --]

I too have a hard time understanding the wrath aimed at OpenBSD.
I'm rather happy they exist.  What comes out of the box from
them is a hell of a lot safer than any other package and I sure
wish the people using Redhat here where using that instead.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 2569 bytes --]

From: <ot@hushmail.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 11:13:49 -0700
Message-ID: <200306191813.h5JIDraR043404@mailserver3.hushmail.com>


as a proponent of both openbsd and plan9, i must say i am
rather disappointed at this turn of events, but it is
understandable none the less.  it would be nice to see
the plan9 toolchain in openbsd, but i'm sure it will be
just fine without it.

cross:

i find your comments regarding the openbsd developers both
ignorant and uncalled-for, especially from somebody who was
complaining about spamming the list with nonsense.  quit
wasting my bandwidth with your childish flames.




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Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> Nevertheless, they've spent a lot of time
> with me and ehg trying to approximate what we want without
> jeopardazing the company.  This is really amazing considering
> we have no real clout here.

well i'd have to agree.  having worked for Digital i know how
hard it is to get just 100-1000 lines of code out the door and
that's before you get into export regulated stuff.

i think the BSD boys should read up on how much serious
grief you (and the company) can get into when you work for
a US company and you fall foul of the export regs.

it's a whole new ballgame ...

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[ot]

as a proponent of both openbsd and plan9, i must say i am
rather disappointed at this turn of events, but it is
understandable none the less.  it would be nice to see
the plan9 toolchain in openbsd, but i'm sure it will be
just fine without it.

cross:

i find your comments regarding the openbsd developers both
ignorant and uncalled-for, especially from somebody who was
complaining about spamming the list with nonsense.  quit
wasting my bandwidth with your childish flames.




Concerned about your privacy? Follow this link to get
FREE encrypted email: https://www.hushmail.com/?l=2

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Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> Perhaps what Boyd finds hilarious is the idea of them making improvements.

yes, i'd like to see some improvements.  where could we begin? err, killing

    - NFS
    - csh
    - vi
    - gcc
    - sendmail
    - symbolic links
    - emacs
    - curses
    - X11
    - unix domain sockets
    - 'lpr' protocol
    - vi/emacs line editing in bash
    - 2M SLOC which is the linux kernel

and that's just for starters ...

then again, i'd be more than happy to see my world view contradicted.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[David Presotto]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1767 bytes --]

Frankly, i'ld love having someone maintain the compilers, especially
of we get new ones out of it.

Unfortunately, I doubt that we can come up with a license
that they'll like.  I talked to our attorney about removing
the indemnification requirement in section 4.  His answer was
that there were too many things not covered by the
disclaimers.  After the first few examples, I tend to agree.
If we were getting revenue for the release, we could set
aside money from profits for court battles and dump the
indemnification nonsense.  That's what we do with products.
However, there aren't any revenues from plan 9 and the company
is still waiting for its first profitable quarter in a
number of years.

In the past we had actually gotten smaller things out with
just disclaimers.  Our attorneys feel that they would be
irresponsible to do that now.

This is supported by mail I've gotten from some of you saying
that the disclaimers are pretty much worthless in places like
the UK.

Nevertheless, I can see why OpenBSD would be afraid of it.
It is true that if OpenBSD agreed to indemnify us, they
could rerelease under their own license so the buck stops
there, so to speak.  However, that leaves OpenBSD obligated
in a new way and I could see why they wouldn't like it,
especially since they too are getting no revenue from the code.

By the way, I've seen a lot of messages out there deprecating
our lawyers.  It is definitely not warranted.  Their job
is to protect our company without getting in the way of things
that bring in revenue.  Nevertheless, they've spent a lot of time
with me and ehg trying to approximate what we want without
jeopardazing the company.  This is really amazing considering
we have no real clout here.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 1925 bytes --]

From: Erik Terpstra <erik@terpnet.nl>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 16:44:05 GMT
Message-ID: <3ef1e77f$0$49117$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>

boyd, rounin wrote:

>
> i do find it _hysterical_ that the BSD boys want the plan 9 compilers.
>

Obviously because they think the compilers are of great value, that's a
compliment if you ask me. And even better, they are willing to share
their improvements for the benefit of us all.

What's hysterical about that?

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> > i do find it _hysterical_ that the BSD boys want the plan 9 compilers.
>
> And even better, they are willing to share
> their improvements for the benefit of us all.

Perhaps what Boyd finds hilarious is the idea of them making improvements.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> What's hysterical about that?

but i thought gcc was the 'one true compiler' ...

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Erik Terpstra]

boyd, rounin wrote:

>
> i do find it _hysterical_ that the BSD boys want the plan 9 compilers.
>

Obviously because they think the compilers are of great value, that's a
compliment if you ask me. And even better, they are willing to share
their improvements for the benefit of us all.

What's hysterical about that?

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> Follow the Part 772 link on our download page.  That's the denied parties
list.

well, that looks like a bunch of definitions.

when i was a lad, the names of the the 'denied parties' were on the list.

they could _not_ be revealed.  well, you could, but you'd be in a
'world of pain'.

i had a bourne shell script which used 'agrep' to search it.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[David Presotto]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 80 bytes --]

Follow the Part 772 link on our download page.  That's the denied parties
list.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 3122 bytes --]

From: "boyd, rounin" <boyd@insultant.net>
To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 15:51:26 +0200
Message-ID: <002301c33669$e2f6d8c0$e3944251@insultant.net>

> If the license is a contract, that contract is not enforceable as such in
court.
> The reason (at least in English law, perhaps someone can comment on
> NY/USA law) is that for a contract to be created, there must be an exchange
> of value - i.e. Lucent gives you the software, you have to give them something
> of value (e.g. cash) in return.

UK law, a contract has three things:

    - offer [the thing being sold]
    - acceptance [when you say 'i wanna buy it']
    - consideration [the thing given, usually money, so that you get the thing
you want]

that's a common law thing.

contracts are usually things that you sign that both sides are bound by.

however, having said that, in sweden (god forbid) if there's a typo in the
contract and you buy, say, volvo for 1 €re, the court will quash the
contract because it's 'obviously' 'wrong'.

i suspect that the 'problem' with the plan 9 licence is because lucent is a
us company who must comply with ITAR, the Denied Parties List, and
various other export controls --  take it up with the us govt.  end user
certificates, etc etc ...

eg. i can tell you of the existance of the Denied Parties List [DPL], but i
cannot tell you who's on it.  it's so long ago i did the DPL stuff i don't
even want to talk about it, but it still applies to me.

i do find it _hysterical_ that the BSD boys want the plan 9 compilers.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> If the license is a contract, that contract is not enforceable as such in
court.
> The reason (at least in English law, perhaps someone can comment on
> NY/USA law) is that for a contract to be created, there must be an exchange
> of value - i.e. Lucent gives you the software, you have to give them something
> of value (e.g. cash) in return.

UK law, a contract has three things:

    - offer [the thing being sold]
    - acceptance [when you say 'i wanna buy it']
    - consideration [the thing given, usually money, so that you get the thing
you want]

that's a common law thing.

contracts are usually things that you sign that both sides are bound by.

however, having said that, in sweden (god forbid) if there's a typo in the
contract and you buy, say, volvo for 1 �re, the court will quash the
contract because it's 'obviously' 'wrong'.

i suspect that the 'problem' with the plan 9 licence is because lucent is a
us company who must comply with ITAR, the Denied Parties List, and
various other export controls --  take it up with the us govt.  end user
certificates, etc etc ...

eg. i can tell you of the existance of the Denied Parties List [DPL], but i
cannot tell you who's on it.  it's so long ago i did the DPL stuff i don't
even want to talk about it, but it still applies to me.

i do find it _hysterical_ that the BSD boys want the plan 9 compilers.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Keith Nash]

On Tuesday 17 June 2003 16:04, Theo de Raadt wrote:

> That is not a license which makes it free.  It is a *contract* with
> consequences; let me be clear -- it is a contract with consequences
> that I am unwilling to accept.

This is an aspect of open-source license wars that I was not previously aware of.

If the license is a contract, that contract is not enforceable as such in court.  The reason (at least in English law, perhaps someone can comment on NY/USA law) is that for a contract to be created, there must be an exchange of value - i.e. Lucent gives you the software, you have to give them something of value (e.g. cash) in return.

Therefore, no license where the software is given away can be a contract: it is merely a grant of rights to the licensor's copyrighted material (and/or patents and trademarks) - which is exactly what Theo would like it to be.

> Or perhaps you guys are utterly blind to what is happening with IBM
> and SCO right now.

The IBM/SCO case is different, because they have an enforceable contract: IBM paid SCO for certain rights.

Keith.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Jack Johnson]

At 02:25 PM 6/18/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, boyd, rounin wrote:
> > just look at all it's _beautiful_ options ...
>I think it needs more.

It's GNU.  It needs 'less'.

-Jack

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> It's GNU.  It needs 'less'.

Gnu's Not Useful

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[rob pike, esq.]

> I think it needs more.

.... on their way, i guarantee.

-rob

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[ron minnich]

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, boyd, rounin wrote:
> but i thought gcc was the solution to the world's problems ...
>
> just look at all it's _beautiful_ options ...


I think it needs more.

ron

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> (1) It would be very nice to have the plan9 toolchain replace gcc
>     in the Unix world.

but i thought gcc was the solution to the world's problems ...

just look at all it's _beautiful_ options ...

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Charles Forsyth]

> with their wishes of canary values and hacks that attempt
> to randomize memory values, helping to obfuscate buffer-
> overflow attacks.

i think Pascal, Ada and others had a more straightforward approach to that one ...
perhaps what they really want is not a C compiler at all...

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Charles Forsyth]

>>Wouldn't you like to see those pesky 20% lack of speed (in the binary, not

i don't find anything like 20% difference on anything real i'm doing.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[northern snowfall]

>
>
>sorry, wrong guess.
>
Sure sure ;) Then why don't you tell us what
your plans are?

Don

http://www.7f.no-ip.com/~north_


>

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> > If the BSD Unix crowd put as much effort into writing their own
> > compilers as they put into the sort of posturing we saw yesterday,
> > they'd have had their own compilers years ago.  Why is it strictly
> > necessary to use the Plan 9 compilers?  Why not just write your own?
> > It shouldn't take more than a couple months of work, really.
>
> They want to use the Plan 9 compilers because they're better, of course :)

Heh.  :-)

> That settled, I would definitely like to see a more widespread adoption of
> the Plan 9 compilers -- if nothing else, simply because it'll make me feel
> like this operating system is going somewhere and not hitting a dead end
> (not that I'm implying this).

I can understand that, but I'd rather see a more widespread adoption
of the spirit of Plan 9 than any part of its code.  That is, more function
with less software.

> Wouldn't you like to see those pesky 20% lack of speed (in the binary, not
> in compilation) disappear? Presumably that's what the BSD people mean by
> 'improvement'.

It depends.  Not if it means a 100% slowdown in the speed of the
compiler, or an order of magnitude increase in the code size.  The BSD
people don't have a good track record in this area; I found it ironic
that Theo called GNU software bloatware.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[northern snowfall]

>
>
>Wouldn't you like to see those pesky 20% lack of speed (in the binary, not
>in compilation) disappear? Presumably that's what the BSD people mean by
>'improvement'.
>
If you ask me, it isn't so much about speed that interests
the OpenBSD team. The tiny, yet smart, codebase of the Plan
9 compiler project allows the OpenBSD team to go in and hack
it to hell much faster than something like GCC. Especially
with their wishes of canary values and hacks that attempt
to randomize memory values, helping to obfuscate buffer-
overflow attacks. GCC has too large a codebase for them to
go through and alter what they want without reading how
their alterations effect the rest of the design.

It seems clear that they're attacking the problem at the
wrong end of the spectrum. Not to sound crude, but, if they
had the skill to do this in the first place, wouldn't they
have designed their own compilers by now? This kind of
'extended-openwall-grsecurity-etc' concept has been thrown
around by the OpenBSD team for at least a year, that I
know of.

Don

http://www.7f.no-ip.org/~north_


>

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Markus Friedl]

On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 11:21:25AM -0500, northern snowfall wrote:
> If you ask me, it isn't so much about speed that interests
> the OpenBSD team. The tiny, yet smart, codebase of the Plan
> 9 compiler project allows the OpenBSD team to go in and hack
> it to hell much faster than something like GCC. Especially
> with their wishes of canary values and hacks that attempt
> to randomize memory values, helping to obfuscate buffer-
> overflow attacks. GCC has too large a codebase for them to
> go through and alter what they want without reading how
> their alterations effect the rest of the design.

sorry, wrong guess.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> theo's message is on this list because people who can be instrumental
> in crafting a new license happen to read this list.

Then I propose the creation of another list for license issues.
Perhaps, ``plan9-license-flames'' would be a good name.

> would you rather hold the discussion on slashdot? :-]

Well, yes, since I don't read slashdot, and therefore wouldn't be
distracted by it.  :-)

I'd just rather not be a party to the discussion at all.  The current
license is sufficiently liberal for my tastes, the OSI-approved license
seems fine for most other people, and it's a subject that's been beaten
to death, time and again.  Theo just seems upset because he believes he
can't use the compilers in his ersatz version of BSD Unix.  Frankly, I
don't care.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[andrey mirtchovski]

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, Dan Cross wrote:

> If the BSD Unix crowd put as much effort into writing their own
> compilers as they put into the sort of posturing we saw yesterday,
> they'd have had their own compilers years ago.  Why is it strictly
> necessary to use the Plan 9 compilers?  Why not just write your own?
> It shouldn't take more than a couple months of work, really.
>

They want to use the Plan 9 compilers because they're better, of course :)

That settled, I would definitely like to see a more widespread adoption of
the Plan 9 compilers -- if nothing else, simply because it'll make me feel
like this operating system is going somewhere and not hitting a dead end
(not that I'm implying this).

Wouldn't you like to see those pesky 20% lack of speed (in the binary, not
in compilation) disappear? Presumably that's what the BSD people mean by
'improvement'.

andrey

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> > Otherwise, what's your point by sending this garbage to 9fans?  If
> > you've got a problem with Bell Labs, take it up with them.  Don't spam
> > the rest of us with your misunderstandings of the community's goals.
>
> The whole point of the mail is:
>
> (1) It would be very nice to have the plan9 toolchain replace gcc
>     in the Unix world.
>
> (2) Step (1) will probably only happen if the License is much
>     more liberal than the gcc license, e.g. an ISC or BSD style license.
>
> Nobody is forcing you to do (2), especially if you don't care about (1).

At the end of the day, the only people who *really* can change the
license are the people at Lucent's legal department.  Perhaps they can
get pushed and proded in the appropriate direction by folks in 1127,
but ultimately it's the lawyers who decide.  It would be far more
profitable to take it up with them, perhaps first approaching someone
like Dave Presotto with a rationally communicated set of issues and
suggested solutions.  Sending rants filled with insults to a group of
people who mostly don't care at this level of specificity, and who
can't do anything about it anyway, is just a waste of everyone's time.

> So (1) might not be the "community"'s goal, but could do a favour to
> rest of the world outside of the "community".

If the BSD Unix crowd put as much effort into writing their own
compilers as they put into the sort of posturing we saw yesterday,
they'd have had their own compilers years ago.  Why is it strictly
necessary to use the Plan 9 compilers?  Why not just write your own?
It shouldn't take more than a couple months of work, really.

Besides, there *are* BSD licensed compilers out there already.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[matt]

Theo de Raadt wrote:

>Were we on Berkeley drugs when we decided to make OpenSSH that free?
>
>

If you've got any left could you save me some, tnx!


oz wrote:

> would you rather hold the discussion on slashdot? :-]




    Plan9 is now Officially Open Source

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/17/1423211

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Markus Friedl]

Dan Cross:

> Otherwise, what's your point by sending this garbage to 9fans?  If
> you've got a problem with Bell Labs, take it up with them.  Don't spam
> the rest of us with your misunderstandings of the community's goals.

The whole point of the mail is:

(1) It would be very nice to have the plan9 toolchain replace gcc
    in the Unix world.

(2) Step (1) will probably only happen if the License is much
    more liberal than the gcc license, e.g. an ISC or BSD style license.

Nobody is forcing you to do (2), especially if you don't care about (1).

So (1) might not be the "community"'s goal, but could do a favour to
rest of the world outside of the "community".

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[ozan s yigit]

Dan Cross:

> Otherwise, what's your point by sending this garbage to 9fans?  If
> you've got a problem with Bell Labs, take it up with them.  Don't spam
> the rest of us with your misunderstandings of the community's goals.

theo's message is on this list because people who can be instrumental
in crafting a new license happen to read this list. would you rather
hold the discussion on slashdot? :-]

oz
---
there is a fault in reality. do not adjust your minds. -- salman rushdie
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Organization: University of Bath Computing Services, UK
Keywords:
Cc:


--
Dennis Davis, BUCS, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
D.H.Davis@bath.ac.uk

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Andrey S. Kukhar]

Theo de Raadt: rms 2, the story is repeating :)

	kyxap

> Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 20:42:45 -0600 (MDT)
> From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> To: presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com
> Subject: Plan Nine deep-sixed by non-free license
> Reply-to: rms@gnu.org
>
> I was excited to hear that Plan Nine might become free
> software, but it turns out that the license is too
> restrictive to qualify.  We will have to urge people
> not to use the Plan Nine software under its
> present license.
>
> If at some point you are willing to consider rerelease
> under a free software license, please contact me.
> For more information, see
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html and
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Donald Brownlee]

presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> On Tue Jun 17 14:15:16 EDT 2003, brownlee@acm.org wrote:
>
>>To avoid having to indemnify contributors, couldn't
>>a distributor offer a license which disclaims as
>>much as possible AND requires a distributee
>>to accept the Lucent license?
>
>
> The distributor indemnifies against the consequences of his actions.
> The distributor is not indemnifying the contributors against the results
> of their actions (unless of course he misrepresents their claims when
> distributing).
>
>
>>To distribute and have to indemnify the contributors could be risky.
>
>
> If a contributor could be sued for something stupid that a distributor
> did, wouldln't it be risky to contribute?
>

Yes.

A distributor might also be a contributor and have the distributee
accept the Lucent license. It seems that that would push all the
risk, if any, onto the end-user.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> Having to take their denunciations is just the other side of
> the same coin.  Should we ever come up with a license that
> pleases both them and the company, it would be a sign that
> their stance isn't extreme enough.

Or that hell had frozen over.  Just stick a gratuitous `g' in front of
the name and see what RMS does.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Tom Glinos]

>Can you explain this?  None of us can see that.

I could go on and on why I don't like that clause.

Let's take a look at the first sentence. It includes the word "may".
(That word pops up later on as well as well as "would" and "might")
You NEVER use the word "may" when writing a contract.
Such weasel words get you into trouble every time.

Let's take a look at the intent of that clause. As I see it the idea
to layout idemnity relationships between Lucent, the "Distributor",
the "Contributor", and the "End User". Idemnity is a good thing. But this
clause gets it wrong. The language isn't crystal clear.

It then goes on to dictate how parties should act in a legal action.
What if the end user/contributor/Lucent is a prick?
Why would I want to tie my hands and close my options in a legal fight?
Why won't Lucent share in my risk if I change the way I do business? Why won't
you idemnify me? In fact in a fight I'd probably drag Lucent in and sue them.

I have a better idea.
If you wanted to say "nobody and sue anybody because of use of this stuff" then
say it.

As others have pointed out it conflicts with the "NO WARRANTY" and "DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY".
If you REALLY mean those clauses, then you don't need the idemnity clause.

The license would be cleaner and stronger if you were to remove that clause.

Just my opinion.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Jack Johnson]

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, David Presotto wrote:
> Having to take their denunciations is just the other side of
> the same coin.  Should we ever come up with a license that
> pleases both them and the company, it would be a sign that
> their stance isn't extreme enough.

Well said.

-J

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[northern snowfall]

> When *YOU* make secure products that aren't easily evaded with five
> or six extra bytes of machine code and *YOU* come up with theory that
> doesn't just obfuscate attack design then *YOU* can actually get cocky.
> Wobble wobble GOBBLES gotcha dox. And on the flip side, Berkeley
> loves its AC1DB1TCH3Z. Maybe you should, too.

Err, sorry for the OT-RANT. I get very bitchy between the time I've
just woken up and the time I have my first cranberry juice of the day.
However, the facts behind OpenBSD security still stand, and thus, do
my opinions.

UNIX security was one of the reasons I went out on my own and got
involved in OS research (thanks tunes.org). Thankfully, Plan 9 was
there. Enough said.

Don

http://www.7f.no-ip.com/~north_

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[David Presotto]

Nothing like a new license to wash out the free radicals.

Without the people dedicated to an open source cause, we
wouldn't have as liberal a license as we do.  The global
consciousness/sensitivity caused by the free and open movements
was what softened the company enough to accept this license.
We may not like to admit it, but we have rms and his followers
to thank for this license.

Having to take their denunciations is just the other side of
the same coin.  Should we ever come up with a license that
pleases both them and the company, it would be a sign that
their stance isn't extreme enough.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

> The new license is utterly unacceptable for use in a BSD project.

the real problem is that BSD is utterly unacceptable.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[northern snowfall]

>
>
>We've made OpenSSH so free that it is being included not just in
>generic purpose operating systems, but also in routers, switches, and
>reportedly soon even in POSTSCRIPT PRINTERS... from *major vendors*...
>because we are FED UP with one-off crap security software being put
>into these devices; because MY security depends on the security of
>YOUR NETWORK DEVICE; hence we would rather supply a complete 'plug and
>play' solution that any vendor can just merge into their product
>BECAUSE THE LICENSE IS UTTERLY STARK AND CLEAR AND FREE.  But
>increasingly I am becoming convinces that anyone who has ever worked
>for AT&T or Bell Labs does not UNDERSTAND what makes networks more
>secure -- and it is, surprise, FREE DISCLOSURE OF THE SIMPLE STUFF.
>
>Were we on Berkeley drugs when we decided to make OpenSSH that free?
>
You *must* be on "Berkeley drugs" if you think that above paragraph is
in any way valid. Or maybe you're waiting to get backdoored again to
decide you really need to "rethink" the definition of "secure". Or maybe
you're just going to tell everyone that it was somehow related to your
politics (and not your technique at all). Hm.. just like DARPA...

When *YOU* make secure products that aren't easily evaded with five
or six extra bytes of machine code and *YOU* come up with theory that
doesn't just obfuscate attack design then *YOU* can actually get cocky.
Wobble wobble GOBBLES gotcha dox. And on the flip side, Berkeley
loves its AC1DB1TCH3Z. Maybe you should, too.

Don

http://www.7f.no-ip.com/~north_

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[presotto]

On Tue Jun 17 14:15:16 EDT 2003, brownlee@acm.org wrote:
> To avoid having to indemnify contributors, couldn't
> a distributor offer a license which disclaims as
> much as possible AND requires a distributee
> to accept the Lucent license?

The distributor indemnifies against the consequences of his actions.
The distributor is not indemnifying the contributors against the results
of their actions (unless of course he misrepresents their claims when
distributing).

>
> To distribute and have to indemnify the contributors could be risky.

If a contributor could be sued for something stupid that a distributor
did, wouldln't it be risky to contribute?

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Tom Glinos]

Theo has his points:

Let's deal with the Export Restrictions. Lucent and
by induction the licensee MUST keep the US Government
happy. In reality, it's not that onerous a clause.
Always remember the US Government at any time can
make up new laws to screw you (and history show it
has done this frequently). Look at the RIAA inspired mess.
So, don't worry, be happy.

The COMMERCIAL DISTIBUTION clause is just nutty.
I wouldn't bet my business on that clause.
Should anything blow up, (either intentionally or not)
you are screwed. Theo is correct here. But, there
is hope, Lucent reserves the right to change the license.
Perhaps a future license won't be so risky.

But, if you are just doing things for "free" then
I don't see a problem with this license.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[boyd, rounin]

From: "Dan Cross" <cross@math.psu.edu>
> If you don't want to use it because you don't like the license, fine.
> Otherwise, what's your point by sending this garbage to 9fans?

right

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[David Presotto]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 263 bytes --]

Two changes were made to make it clearer/shorter.  The export
disclaimer was added because lawyers don't like to leave
anything dangling.

All the clauses really do address different subjects.
5 and 6 lok real similar and could probably be combined
somehow.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 2649 bytes --]

From: Damian Gerow <dgerow@afflictions.org>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 14:07:09 -0400
Message-ID: <20030617180709.GF3197@afflictions.org>

Thus spake Russ Cox (rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com) [17/06/03 14:01]:
> The version that OSI approved is at
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/approved-template.html
> but it's not what we're using.  We're using the one
> that I posted a link to before:
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/newlicense.html.

Any reason the OSI-approved license was dropped?  Why move to a new license
after one was approved?

IMO, the entire license can be reduced to just Clause 5.  I'm no legalese
expert, but it feels like everything else is just a specific instance of
Clause 5.

Everything in the license basically states over and over again that the
Contributor(s) are not responsible for the Receiver(s) performing action X.
If Clause 5 already says that, just not in so many words, why bother going
to the trouble of pointing everything out?

Even Clause 5 itself is repetitive -- the portion in CAPS seems to be fairly
clear to me, as to what the license is.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Charles Forsyth]

there is another aspect which is: is it actually bad if it's (like) a contract?  perhaps
contracts are good things.  they set out the rights and obligations of the
contracting parties.  more important: for the scope of a contract
they establish a kind of parity between small individuals and enormous
corporate bodies.  i think that's an interesting and indeed admirable effect.
i don't have to trust, i can rely on the existence of that contract.
that's why `loopholes' and `fine print' are nasty.
we feel hard done by, and fortunately the courts often agree.
indeed the development of the enforceable contract is sometimes regarded
as being significant historically.  even villains rely on it (eg, `take out a contract')
although they typically do not pursue their claims through the courts.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Donald Brownlee]

To avoid having to indemnify contributors, couldn't
a distributor offer a license which disclaims as
much as possible AND requires a distributee
to accept the Lucent license?

To distribute and have to indemnify the contributors could be risky.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Damian Gerow]

Thus spake Russ Cox (rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com) [17/06/03 14:01]:
> The version that OSI approved is at
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/approved-template.html
> but it's not what we're using.  We're using the one
> that I posted a link to before:
> http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/newlicense.html.

Any reason the OSI-approved license was dropped?  Why move to a new license
after one was approved?

IMO, the entire license can be reduced to just Clause 5.  I'm no legalese
expert, but it feels like everything else is just a specific instance of
Clause 5.

Everything in the license basically states over and over again that the
Contributor(s) are not responsible for the Receiver(s) performing action X.
If Clause 5 already says that, just not in so many words, why bother going
to the trouble of pointing everything out?

Even Clause 5 itself is repetitive -- the portion in CAPS seems to be fairly
clear to me, as to what the license is.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[David Presotto]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 281 bytes --]

The amendments aren't hidden.  The license you looked at

	http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/newlicense.html

is the final one.  The thing you didn't notice was the line at the
top that said that this was different than what OSI had approved
and a pointer to the differences.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 1949 bytes --]

From: Damian Gerow <dgerow@afflictions.org>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 13:50:12 -0400
Message-ID: <20030617175011.GD3197@afflictions.org>

Thus spake Russ Cox (rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com) [17/06/03 12:42]:
> You might notice that OSI didn't approve clause 7.
> (See http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/osi-diff.html.)

So is there a final revision of the license that we can read, without having
to include external amendments that are 'hidden'?

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Russ Cox, rsc]

The version that OSI approved is at
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/approved-template.html
but it's not what we're using.  We're using the one
that I posted a link to before:
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/newlicense.html.

Russ

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Damian Gerow]

Thus spake Russ Cox (rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com) [17/06/03 12:42]:
> You might notice that OSI didn't approve clause 7.
> (See http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/osi-diff.html.)

So is there a final revision of the license that we can read, without having
to include external amendments that are 'hidden'?

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Russ Cox, rsc]

> The COMMERCIAL DISTIBUTION clause is just nutty.
> I wouldn't bet my business on that clause.
> Should anything blow up, (either intentionally or not)
> you are screwed. Theo is correct here.

Can you explain this?  None of us can see that.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Theo de Raadt]

> Since we're a big company with seemingly big pockets (though mostly empty
> these days) and we do get sued a lot as a result.  Whether or not we're
> in the right its still damed expensive.  Therefore, we can't release
> software without the cover your ass clauses.

Then why don't you guys just use a standard warranty disclaimer then?

 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
 * WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
 * MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
 * ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
 * WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
 * ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
 * OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

Disclaimers of the above form occur on thousands and thousands of
files from some very large organizations... like CMU or MIT or UCB, on
very large software packages which many of you might have used in
whole or in part, like MACH, X11, or BSD.  Disclaimers like this have
worked fine for an entire industry.

Why are Lucent and IBM so special, that instead of having a simple
warranty disclaimer, their licenses instead need to make threats and
assertions of possible reprocussions to distributers? (Sorry, that is
how I view these licenses, and I am not likely to change my viewpoint,
since much of this comes from a distrust of corporations).

By the way, since you mention IBM, postfix is in the same situation --
we can't distribute it on our CDs.  If I were to put it on a CD, and
various possible events occur which are out of my control, the license
has put me on notice that I could be sued.  I don't accept such a
thing.  I consider it a threat to our project's continued existance as
a developer and provider of free software (not just OpenBSD, but
OpenSSH too).

I am sorry for the strong minded way in which I am approaching this,
but I am very dissapointed that after years of requesting that the
plan9 c compiler become free so that we can start extending it and
working with it... that we could be rebuffed in such a way because the
lawyers have not been properly reined in.

I know you wanted this to be really free.  Yet, thus far this is a
failure.

http://www.vitanuova.com/company/products.html claims a desire to
address complexity.  Why not in licenses too?  I quote a sample
license again, of a form that has been used by many many organizations
for decades to make their software free.  So free, that such things
are all over HP routers and switches and cisco pix firewalls, and who
knows where else.

---



Below is an example license to be used for new code in OpenBSD,
modeled after the ISC license.

It is important to specify the year of the copyright.  Additional years
should be separated by a comma, e.g.
    Copyright (c) 2003, 2004

If you add extra text to the body of the license, be careful not to
add further restrictions.

/*
 * Copyright (c) CCYY YOUR NAME HERE <user@your.dom.ain>
 *
 * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
 * purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
 * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
 * WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
 * MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
 * ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
 * WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
 * ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
 * OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
 */

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[David Presotto]

I just read your answer to deraadt and notice that its just
like mine.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Dan Cross]

> We can't accept this license as it is. I note your meeting notes said
> that a goal had been to allow OpenBSD to use parts from this (in
> particular we were interested in the c compiler).  I think someone did
> not listen to us, or understand what a BSD-licensed operating system
> has as a goal -- as this is, the plan9 components are now no more free
> for us to use than they were weeks ago.

I don't think it has ever been a goal of anyone working on Plan 9 to
allow or disallow you or anyone else from using the Plan 9 code.  If
you don't want to use it because you don't like the license, fine.
Otherwise, what's your point by sending this garbage to 9fans?  If
you've got a problem with Bell Labs, take it up with them.  Don't spam
the rest of us with your misunderstandings of the community's goals.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[David Presotto]

Thank you for the comments.  I'll answer them as best I can though
I fear any answer will be insufficient since I really can't change
the license substantially.

> That is not a license which makes it free.  It is a *contract* with
> consequences; let me be clear -- it is a contract with consequences
> that I am unwilling to accept.

That's clearly for you to decide.  Though legally this is not a contract,
It does obligate the recipient which is probably what you mean.

> Note that I sell OpenBSD CDs to fund our project.  That contract right
> there says in term 7:
>
>	If Theo accidentally sells a CD to
>	North Korea, the US can fuck him.

Nice paraphrase and it is indeed true.  However, not because of what the
license says:

	Recipient agrees that Recipient alone is responsible for compliance with
	the United States export administration regulations (and the export control
	laws and regulation of any other countries) and hereby indemnifies the
	Contributors for any liability incurred as a result of the Recipients
	actions which result in any violation of any such laws and regulations.

If Theo accidentally (or not) sells a CD to North Korea, then the US can 'fuck' him,
so to speak, with or without this clause (assuming he's living in the US or
in a country the US can lean on).  The best he can claim as mitigation
is that he didn't know that there might be applicable export controls or
that he did it by accident.  What the clause does do is point out that
he was told, that its his accident and the weight falls on him, not the
contributors.  If he does something to bring the gov down on him, its
on him and not the whole community.  That of course will not make Theo
feel very good.

As far as I know, the only thing that really is covered by the US regulations
is the crypto but that's beside the point.  If you know better than I do (as
well you might, I haven't checked lately) i.e., if you think that the
export regulations no longer apply to such software please tell me.

Of couse then this clause shouldn't bother you because there are no
reguations whose infringement you need to indemnify contributors against.

By the way, this clause has NOT been accepted by OpenSource as the pointer
at the top of the license points out.  The license they accepted
does not contain it.

>It also says in term 4:
>
>	Sell this in a product in ways which "we" do not like, and the
>	contract you have accepted says you can be fucked by anyone
>	who owns this license later and who decides they want to fuck you.

If the lawyers you talk to read it as you described it, then I'ld like to
talk with them.  Please have them contact me.  We've gone over this with
both our lawyer and with the IBM laywer that drafted the CPL and this
reading astounds us all.

This clause comes pretty much intact from the IBM PL.  It means that
should you commercially distribute (sell) this product, and as a result
of that someone sues because of 'your acts and ommissions', that you will
protect the contributors in that suit.

Of course, this may also not be acceptable to you, but that's a different
story.

As for the rest, I agree.  My original wording for the license was:

	take the software and do whatever you'ld like with it

Since we're a big company with seemingly big pockets (though mostly empty
these days) and we do get sued a lot as a result.  Whether or not we're
in the right its still damed expensive.  Therefore, we can't release
software without the cover your ass clauses.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[C H Forsyth]

/*
 * Copyright (c) CCYY YOUR NAME HERE <user@your.dom.ain>
 *
 * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
 * purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
 * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
 * WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
 * MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
 * ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
 * WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
 * ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
 * OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
 */

if you say ``permission ... is granted, provided that [you do/behave thus and so]...'
is that not a form of contract?
(even if there isn't a Party of the First Part and a Party of the Second Part and a Sanity Clause.)
whether a contract is VALID expressed in a given way or with/without particular terms
is another large matter.

if my dom.ain is in a country within certain legal jurisdictions, can i actually DISCLAIM
all that.  for instance in England we cannot avoid liability for negligence or `wilful default',
and nearly always must make that clear.

-------

it seems to me that the aim of clause 4 in the Lucent Hidden License is to ensure that:
given that the Contributors have made their contribution with as little warranty and
guarantees as they can possibly get away with, if someone subsequently decides to distribute
it and ALSO offer extra warranties or guarantees or other forms of support, and someone
takes them up on it but they end up feeling worse for it, the responsibility rests with
the supplier who made the later offer.   thus the original Contributors are safe from being
held responsible for what someone else does with it (even if the original code was at fault)
IF that person makes extra claims, offers, guarantees, etc.
the rationale is that if you claim something the original contributor didn't claim it's
your responsibility to check the claim and make good.

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Theo de Raadt]

It's too difficult for me to explain in full details how much of this
license is not acceptable to us.  But it clearly is not acceptable to
us.

We have an entire operating system (minus a touch of GPL and LGPL here
and there, one sendmail license, and a few smatterings of Artistic)
that has NO CONTRACTS -- every license is simply "copyright law term
dismissal + warranty disclaimer".  That is free; these licenses make
no new requirements of anyone; they do not require or re-state
anything that is already the way it is.  The BSD licenses we have
simply take rights granted by copyright law to the author, and they
serve to allow the author to give up all of those rights (except the
copyright law right to be known as the author).  These licenses ask
for nothing in return; they do not even restate anything that another
law might make a problem -- because there is no need to state it!

We can't accept this license as it is. I note your meeting notes said
that a goal had been to allow OpenBSD to use parts from this (in
particular we were interested in the c compiler).  I think someone did
not listen to us, or understand what a BSD-licensed operating system
has as a goal -- as this is, the plan9 components are now no more free
for us to use than they were weeks ago.

sure; you have a new license.  That will be good for some people.  Too
bad it does not go far enough for the needs of a BSD licensed system.
It's just incompatible.  It would be the most onerous license in our
tree (well there is the GPL, but year by year we remove and replace
more and more GPL software in our tree... we had hoped to replace the
c compiler in the long term with a free one...)

Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Russ Cox, rsc]

> Note that I sell OpenBSD CDs to fund our project.  That contract right
> there says in term 7:
>
> 	If Theo accidentally sells a CD to
> 	North Korea, the US can fuck him.

You might notice that OSI didn't approve clause 7.
(See http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/osi-diff.html.)

  7. EXPORT CONTROL

  Recipient agrees that Recipient alone is responsible for compliance
  with the United States export administration regulations (and the
  export control laws and regulation of any other countries) and hereby
  indemnifies the Contributors for any liability incurred as a result of
  the Recipients actions which result in any violation of any such laws
  and regulations.

If Theo lives in the U.S. and sells a CD to North Korea,
Theo has broken U.S. law regardless of whether section 7 exists.
If Theo lives outside the U.S. and sells a CD to North Korea,
Theo is fine regardless of whether section 7 exists.

> It also says in term 4:
>
> 	Sell this in a product in ways which "we" do not like, and the
> 	contract you have accepted says you can be fucked by anyone
> 	who owns this license later and who decides they want to fuck you.

Where does it say this?  I see that if you put our software
in PostScript printers claiming that it's bulletproof and then
it turns out not to be, then it's your butt on the line not ours
since we never said it was bulletproof.

Russ

[9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Theo de Raadt]

	http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/newlicense.html

[and whichever other versions are proposed..]

The new license is utterly unacceptable for use in a BSD project.

Actually, I am astounded that the OSI would declare such a license
acceptable.

That is not a license which makes it free.  It is a *contract* with
consequences; let me be clear -- it is a contract with consequences
that I am unwilling to accept.

Note that I sell OpenBSD CDs to fund our project.  That contract right
there says in term 7:

	If Theo accidentally sells a CD to
	North Korea, the US can fuck him.

Thanks OSI.  Thanks for being so damn patriotic.

It also says in term 4:

	Sell this in a product in ways which "we" do not like, and the
	contract you have accepted says you can be fucked by anyone
	who owns this license later and who decides they want to fuck you.

Who is "we".  You don't read term 4 that way?  Lawyers I talk to read
it that way.  If lawyers I talk to read it that way, why the heck
would I risk ever in the future ending up in a court room with lawyers
who might argue against me like my lawyers suggest might be possible?
I would be stupid to accept such a term.  And come on it says "certain
responsibilities".  Good god.  Are you people dumb to accept such a
term in a legal document?  It is like "your house mortgage can be
considered invalid in certain situations and then we own your house".

Or perhaps you guys are utterly blind to what is happening with IBM
and SCO right now.

The license you propose is NOT FREE SOFTWARE.  I am astounded the OSI
has gone and decided to become an organization that just rubber stamps
things which are not free.  I don't know who they are talking to, but
these "licenses" which they approve are chock full of constraints
against various segments of the user community.

Wisen up plan9 guys -- keep your software commercial or just make it
free.  Say "Public domain" or say "Copyright us, do anything except
don't claim someone else wrote it", -- or keep it commercial.  These
continual lies wrapped up in contract law are ... such a farce -- why
is it that none of you have the guts to just give it away like the
good people at Berkeley did years and years ago?  Are you really that
gutless?  Did Kirk and Keith and Kirk really understand something
about freedom which you guys don't?  Are all of you really that
trapped that you can't escape the legal frameworks presented to you by
lawyers?  Were those Berkeley guys on drugs when they decided to make
all that stuff "free except give us credit", and like wow man,
suddenly all sorts of stuff from sockets to half of libc ended up
being based on their cope.  Or is it the plan9 people who hold major
delusions?

We've made OpenSSH so free that it is being included not just in
generic purpose operating systems, but also in routers, switches, and
reportedly soon even in POSTSCRIPT PRINTERS... from *major vendors*...
because we are FED UP with one-off crap security software being put
into these devices; because MY security depends on the security of
YOUR NETWORK DEVICE; hence we would rather supply a complete 'plug and
play' solution that any vendor can just merge into their product
BECAUSE THE LICENSE IS UTTERLY STARK AND CLEAR AND FREE.  But
increasingly I am becoming convinces that anyone who has ever worked
for AT&T or Bell Labs does not UNDERSTAND what makes networks more
secure -- and it is, surprise, FREE DISCLOSURE OF THE SIMPLE STUFF.

Were we on Berkeley drugs when we decided to make OpenSSH that free?

Who on this list is using OpenSSH?  Who wants to use something less
free instead?

Put another way... do you guys have some kick ass technology that you
want to change the world, or don't you?  The latest rave vibe on the
internet appears to be that free software is changing the world a lot.
You don't want to be part of that?  Besides being part of all *BSD and
Linux operating systems, OpenSSH is also part of most non-Linux
Unix-like operating systems, but you might have noticed that many of
those systems do not ship with other GNU software by default; like
pick Solaris.  Solaris includes OpenSSH.  Name some GNU software
included by default, ok?  The point is, a SSH server MATTERS.  That
there is a free one matters even more.

There's a reason.  You write a license like you have written here, and
vendors get afraid.  I urge you to write something much simpler.

I am willing to speak this way because after two years of discussion
with plan9 people, it has become clear to me that this compiler will
never be free enough for us to use.  If that changes as a result of
this mail, good.  If not, fine -- I have given up hope.

I urge everyone in power regarding this issue to think this through --
and then, make your simple compiler which we can build into a trusted
component FREE, or, if you don't, sometime in the next few years
something else which is simple and matches it in power, can and might
and probably will show up (because it is clear the gnu bloat compiler
will never achieve such a goal...)

After all, why would you spend so much effort building something so
kick-ass if in the end very few people use it.

- ---

Below is an example license to be used for new code in OpenBSD,
modeled after the ISC license.

It is important to specify the year of the copyright.  Additional years
should be separated by a comma, e.g.
    Copyright (c) 2003, 2004

If you add extra text to the body of the license, be careful not to
add further restrictions.

/*
 * Copyright (c) CCYY YOUR NAME HERE <user@your.dom.ain>
 *
 * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
 * purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
 * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
 * WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
 * MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
 * ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
 * WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
 * ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
 * OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
 */

[9fans] The new ridiculous license

[Theo de Raadt]

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/hidden/newlicense.html

[and whichever other versions are proposed..]

The new license is utterly unacceptable for use in a BSD project.

Actually, I am astounded that the OSI would declare such a license
acceptable.

That is not a license which makes it free.  It is a *contract* with
consequences; let me be clear -- it is a contract with consequences
that I am unwilling to accept.

Note that I sell OpenBSD CDs to fund our project.  That contract right
there says in term 7:

	If Theo accidentally sells a CD to
	North Korea, the US can fuck him.

Thanks OSI.  Thanks for being so damn patriotic.

It also says in term 4:

	Sell this in a product in ways which "we" do not like, and the
	contract you have accepted says you can be fucked by anyone
	who owns this license later and who decides they want to fuck you.

Who is "we".  You don't read term 4 that way?  Lawyers I talk to read
it that way.  If lawyers I talk to read it that way, why the heck
would I risk ever in the future ending up in a court room with lawyers
who might argue against me like my lawyers suggest might be possible?
I would be stupid to accept such a term.  And come on it says "certain
responsibilities".  Good god.  Are you people dumb to accept such a
term in a legal document?  It is like "your house mortgage can be
considered invalid in certain situations and then we own your house".

Or perhaps you guys are utterly blind to what is happening with IBM
and SCO right now.

The license you propose is NOT FREE SOFTWARE.  I am astounded the OSI
has gone and decided to become an organization that just rubber stamps
things which are not free.  I don't know who they are talking to, but
these "licenses" which they approve are chock full of constraints
against various segments of the user community.

Wisen up plan9 guys -- keep your software commercial or just make it
free.  Say "Public domain" or say "Copyright us, do anything except
don't claim someone else wrote it", -- or keep it commercial.  These
continual lies wrapped up in contract law are ... such a farce -- why
is it that none of you have the guts to just give it away like the
good people at Berkeley did years and years ago?  Are you really that
gutless?  Did Kirk and Keith and Kirk really understand something
about freedom which you guys don't?  Are all of you really that
trapped that you can't escape the legal frameworks presented to you by
lawyers?  Were those Berkeley guys on drugs when they decided to make
all that stuff "free except give us credit", and like wow man,
suddenly all sorts of stuff from sockets to half of libc ended up
being based on their cope.  Or is it the plan9 people who hold major
delusions?

We've made OpenSSH so free that it is being included not just in
generic purpose operating systems, but also in routers, switches, and
reportedly soon even in POSTSCRIPT PRINTERS... from *major vendors*...
because we are FED UP with one-off crap security software being put
into these devices; because MY security depends on the security of
YOUR NETWORK DEVICE; hence we would rather supply a complete 'plug and
play' solution that any vendor can just merge into their product
BECAUSE THE LICENSE IS UTTERLY STARK AND CLEAR AND FREE.  But
increasingly I am becoming convinces that anyone who has ever worked
for AT&T or Bell Labs does not UNDERSTAND what makes networks more
secure -- and it is, surprise, FREE DISCLOSURE OF THE SIMPLE STUFF.

Were we on Berkeley drugs when we decided to make OpenSSH that free?

Who on this list is using OpenSSH?  Who wants to use something less
free instead?

Put another way... do you guys have some kick ass technology that you
want to change the world, or don't you?  The latest rave vibe on the
internet appears to be that free software is changing the world a lot.
You don't want to be part of that?  Besides being part of all *BSD and
Linux operating systems, OpenSSH is also part of most non-Linux
Unix-like operating systems, but you might have noticed that many of
those systems do not ship with other GNU software by default; like
pick Solaris.  Solaris includes OpenSSH.  Name some GNU software
included by default, ok?  The point is, a SSH server MATTERS.  That
there is a free one matters even more.

There's a reason.  You write a license like you have written here, and
vendors get afraid.  I urge you to write something much simpler.

I am willing to speak this way because after two years of discussion
with plan9 people, it has become clear to me that this compiler will
never be free enough for us to use.  If that changes as a result of
this mail, good.  If not, fine -- I have given up hope.

I urge everyone in power regarding this issue to think this through --
and then, make your simple compiler which we can build into a trusted
component FREE, or, if you don't, sometime in the next few years
something else which is simple and matches it in power, can and might
and probably will show up (because it is clear the gnu bloat compiler
will never achieve such a goal...)

After all, why would you spend so much effort building something so
kick-ass if in the end very few people use it.

---

Below is an example license to be used for new code in OpenBSD,
modeled after the ISC license.

It is important to specify the year of the copyright.  Additional years
should be separated by a comma, e.g.
    Copyright (c) 2003, 2004

If you add extra text to the body of the license, be careful not to
add further restrictions.

/*
 * Copyright (c) CCYY YOUR NAME HERE <user@your.dom.ain>
 *
 * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
 * purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
 * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
 * WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
 * MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
 * ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
 * WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
 * ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
 * OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
 */