From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: From: David Presotto To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan9 licence clarification In-Reply-To: <20040225071010.GA3961@melkki.cs.Helsinki.FI> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="upas-dwoiwmjqssuainolvunjmptosk" Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 08:49:44 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: f52583a0-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --upas-dwoiwmjqssuainolvunjmptosk Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'ld need to know your situation a little better. What do you mean by 'touches Plan 9 code' or 'touches GPL code'? If you are writing code that just links against our code and are just releasing the source (or unlinked object files), our license doesn't apply to you at all, i.e., you can do whatever you want with the code. If you release it under BSD and want it to be part of our Plan 9 distribution, I'll have to keep it apart (in its own directory) and include the BSD license in that directory. That's because, the BSD requires the list of conditions and disclaimers to stay with the source code. That would be fine with us. We release stuff under GPL, LPL, and a few other licenses on our CD. It just has to be kept separate. If you are the only author of the code, you can also release it under as many licenses as you want. If you desire it to be part of our distribution and not kept separate (i.e. so that other Plan 9ers can mix it into their LPL licensed code) you can release it under the BSD (and/or GPL) license to everyone else and contribute it to Plan 9 under the Plan 9 license. I understand the fear of the legal language in our license. I would have used BSD if my lawyers had allowed it. The bad part about multiple licenses is figuring out what to do with updates. If communities using very different licenses contribute code back to you under their own licenses, then you start having to keep very distinct records of your own since they may have mixed in GPL's or LPL'd or BSD'd code. --upas-dwoiwmjqssuainolvunjmptosk Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Received: from plan9.cs.bell-labs.com ([135.104.9.2]) by plan9; Wed Feb 25 02:11:34 EST 2004 Received: from mail.cse.psu.edu ([130.203.4.6]) by plan9; Wed Feb 25 02:11:32 EST 2004 Received: by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server, from userid 60001) id B9EB019E5B; Wed, 25 Feb 2004 02:11:22 -0500 (EST) Received: from psuvax1.cse.psu.edu (psuvax1.cse.psu.edu [130.203.4.6]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id D98DC19E74; Wed, 25 Feb 2004 02:11:17 -0500 (EST) X-Original-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Delivered-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Received: by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server, from userid 60001) id 9D84F19E50; Wed, 25 Feb 2004 02:10:15 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.cs.helsinki.fi (courier.cs.helsinki.fi [128.214.9.1]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id 31CB519E6D for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Wed, 25 Feb 2004 02:10:13 -0500 (EST) Received: from melkki.cs.helsinki.fi (melkki.cs.helsinki.fi [::ffff:128.214.48.122]) (IDENT: root, AUTH: PLAIN cs-relay, TLS: TLSv1/SSLv3,168bits,DES-CBC3-SHA) by mail.cs.helsinki.fi with esmtp; Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:10:11 +0200 Received: from melkki.cs.helsinki.fi (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by melkki.cs.helsinki.fi (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i1P7AAWo004687 for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:10:10 +0200 Received: (from ekarttun@localhost) by melkki.cs.helsinki.fi (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id i1P7AAAO004685 for 9fans@cse.psu.edu; Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:10:10 +0200 From: Einar Karttunen To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan9 licence clarification Message-ID: <20040225071010.GA3961@melkki.cs.Helsinki.FI> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu Errors-To: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu X-BeenThere: 9fans@cse.psu.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu List-Id: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans.cse.psu.edu> List-Archive: Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:10:10 +0200 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on psuvax1.cse.psu.edu X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: On 23.02 10:52, David Presotto wrote: > The salient point is that SOURCE YOU WRITE DOESN'T > HAVE TO BE MADE PUBLIC unless you call it a > contribution. So if you want to base something on > Plan 9 (including hacking kernel and libraries) > but don't want to give away your work, you can > do so. However, if you want to make money off of > it, you have to take financial responsibility for > your actions. I am writing code which directly touches GPL source in one project and Plan9 source in another. I am not mixing Plan9 and GPL licenced files in any way, but need a way to write my own code that I can use with both. I was thinking of BSD licencing the code, so that the licence would not complicate things needlessly. (It is quite difficult to relicence if I receive patches from other people). Is there any problem with this approach and the Plan9 licence? I am thinking of just distributing a patchset containing my own code. As the licence is quite complex I don't want to be a contributor or distributor as the legalize is too complex for me to understand. The final results would two separate things one under the Plan9 licence and one under the GPL. But my own code being BSD (which should be compatible with both) should give more freedom for future. Or is there a better way? - Einar Karttunen --upas-dwoiwmjqssuainolvunjmptosk--