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

[vic.thacker@fastmail.fm]

Thank you, Ibrahim, for your comments.  I can see where my suggestions do not make sense.  It is too difficult a challenge for the communities to envisage.  If no one can envisage it, then no one can do it.

Vic


On Mon, May 13, 2024, at 12:52, ibrahim 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.
> 
> 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
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> Therefore 9front is a fork but p9f's provided final release is the real
> thing with a clear ownership and license. 9legacy would be the right
> choice as the current plan9 but it contains code from sources which
> bare the risk of infecting a MIT licensed plan9 if no measures are
> taken regarding these problems.
> 

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