Re: [9fans] Balancing Progress and Accessibility in the Plan 9 Community. (Was: [9fans] Interoperating between 9legacy and 9front)

[Jacob Moody <moody@posixcafe.org>]

On 5/12/24 22:52, ibrahim via 9fans wrote:
> On Monday, 13 May 2024, at 5:09 AM, Jacob Moody wrote:
>> When people suggest tossing that all out for a minimally patched 4e, I think some people rightfully feel a bit annoyed. That's a lot of baby that goes out with that bathwater.
> 
> It's Davids decission what he includes as patches for the 4th edition but I would toss everything out of 9legacy which isn't part of the 4th edition or contributed by the team members at Bell Labs from their archives as enhancements.
> 
> The reasoning is simple : p9f owns the rights for the final release and Nokia has made this release available under a MIT license. Every one who uses plan9 not only to toy around or his/her personal use but also as a system which he/she distributes like I do can't afford risks with code integrated from sources like 9front. There are some libraries taken from 9front derived from other open source projects like freetype (truetype) where copyright notices are absent and this isn't the only library
> where in code comments the sources are named but the original copyright notices are absent.
> 
> plan9 as represented by p9f has a clear license all parts which are not MIT licensed are marked as such but code back ported from other forks like 9front contain code where I have doubts if those are really under an MIT license as you state in your documentation cause deriving from a different license or taking large amounts of code doesn't remove viral licenses like LGPL or GPL.

If you have a list of libraries that you feel do not represent their license providence by /lib/legal/NOTICE in our 9front tree, let me know we should probably get that updated.
Our libttf is not derived from freetype as I understand it.

> 
> It would be in the interest of plan9 and all who professionally use it in embedded systems or as a distributed operating system to keep suspicious code out of the 9legacy CD. If really necessary to provide such contributions or back ports I wouldn't place them in the system folders but as it was in the past in contrib folders for additional download. The risks to infect a clearly licensed system gifted by Nokia to all of us to make best use of it for free commercial private embedded ...
> solutions are to high and I would really prefer it when nothing from forks like 9front would take its way into the 9legacy CD ROM which is defined as :
> 
>          Plan 9 archives, reference releases of Plan 9.
>        
>          9legacy, Plan 9 with many useful patches applied. Download page has an
>          installation CD image including 386, amd64, and arm kernels and binaries;
>          a bootable USB image for 386; a bootable SD card image for Raspberry Pi;
>          and virtual disk images for QEMU and GCE.
>        
>          The 4th Edition distribution from Bell Labs:
>          live CD/install CD/USB image, installation notes,
>          browse the source, additional software

Are you implying that a majority of users are using Plan9 in a commercial setting? That seems a bit absurd.
For personal use I think these license issues (if they do even exist) are of no concern. I think you are greatly
exaggerating the possible issue here for your average user.

> 
> I respect your fork 9front but I won't and can't use it. 9front isn't plan9 from my perspective. Plan 9 is the final release with patches for the files from sources I can be sure that those aren't taken from open source projects by copy and paste. The moment I and others who use plan9 for distribution or embed it on systems we have to be absolutely sure about the sources of the code. I can trust Bell Labs, Nokia, p9f but I won't trust some guys who toy around with their fork of plan9. The moment
> FSF or another organisation starts to suit me because they recognized that some guy at any forked system has copy pasted code from a viral licensed project I am the one who has to take the consequences.

Again, I think in your situation of distributing hardware with plan 9 or whatever, then it makes sense to do whatever your lawyer says.
I think advising against using 9front for every user on these grounds though is misleading at best.

> 
> The first thing I am doing after downloading an iso from 9 legacy is to remove all files which were not part of the final plan9 release. The second thing I have always to do is removing all patches from the iso which came from sources I can't be sure if they really followed licensing rules. The third thing I have to do before distributing my fork of plan9 is to remove fonts ghostscript diff page and other parts of the system which would infect the distribution media to make sure the created
> system is not depending on viral licensed code.

Do you also remove the Lucida and printer fonts? These were released as part of the original source but have interesting claims as to the ability to redistribute them.
Do you also strip out the parts of ape that include ancient GNU utilities? Are you running your system without a diff and patch?

> 
> My fork isn't the only one which gets distributed. I'm sure there exist millions of devices with plan9 integrated without anyone noticing except for those who look into the documentation where the MIT licensed copyright is placed.
> 
> If people from forks like 9front are talking about numbers of their users I always have to laugh. My fork is right now used by about 500 people per semester more users. And be assured this is an unimportant number.

And Java runs on a billion devices.

> 
> Not a single developer who uses plan9 for distributed systems, commercial products will dare to use a system like 9front as the sources. The reason is quite simple :
> 
> You ignore copyrights as you please and distributed 9front under an MIT license long before Nokia as the owner of it decided to do so. You did that at a time when plan9 was placed under GPL.
> 
> 9front is a fork your fork I respect your work. But all your commits and enhancements are absolutly useless for people who intend or use plan9 not only  to play around with this system but make professional use of it. The first thing such people have to check is the way you handle licenses.

I'm quite curious as to your definition of "professional" in one where none of the work done by 9front would be seen as beneficial.
I'm glad you expanded upon this, I think its important context to have for why you didn't suggest 9front to our new user here.

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