license survey results

license survey results

[Rich Felker]

Here's what I compiled as the "results" of the license survey. I've
broken it down into very minimal classifications of the opinions
everybody expressed, so please let me know if you think I
misunderstood or misrepresented your ideas (or if I missed you).

non-copyleft (MIT/BSD/etc.) crowd:
chneukirchen
solar
nathan mcsween
hiltjo
khm
[rob landley] (in absentia ;-)

LGPL [non-]crowd:
luka

LGPL w/static-linking exceptions [almost-]crowd:
isaac dunham
gs

LGPL w/commercial licenses [non-]crowd:
aep

only-care-that-the-code-rocks crowd:
nsz

In summary, it looks like everyone except Luka (and perhaps aep) who
responded would like to see at least *some* additional level of
permissiveness to musl's license terms, and the largest single group
is in favor of non-copyleft/"permissive" terms. As such I'll
definitely be making some licensing changes down the line. Please give
me some time to weigh the benefits of the different options and focus
on the code, especially at this time while widespread deployment is
still a ways off. My idea right now (subject to change at my own whim
or suggestions from the community) is that the license might change at
the 0.9 or 1.0 milestone, especially if it looks like we could be
positioned to push musl into widespread usage "in the wild" at that
point.

Thanks for everyone who participated in the survey!

Rich

Re: license survey results

[Luka Marčetić]

On 02/28/2012 02:55 AM, Rich Felker wrote:
> non-copyleft (MIT/BSD/etc.) crowd:
> chneukirchen
> solar
> nathan mcsween
> hiltjo
> khm
> [rob landley] (in absentia ;-)
>
> LGPL [non-]crowd:
> luka
>
> LGPL w/static-linking exceptions [almost-]crowd:
> isaac dunham
> gs
>
> LGPL w/commercial licenses [non-]crowd:
> aep
>
> only-care-that-the-code-rocks crowd:
> nsz
[...]
> the largest single group
> is in favor of non-copyleft/"permissive" terms.

Well if you put it this way... I seriously thought we were winning XD
--LGPL-without-mandatory-commercial-licenses-[non-]crowd representative 
and only member

Re: license survey results

[Isaac Dunham]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:55:57 -0500
Rich Felker <dalias@aerifal.cx> wrote:
<snip>
> non-copyleft (MIT/BSD/etc.) crowd:
> chneukirchen
> solar
> nathan mcsween
> hiltjo
> khm
> [rob landley] (in absentia ;-)
..
> LGPL w/static-linking exceptions [almost-]crowd:
> isaac dunham
> gs
> 
I was thinking "LGPL is semi-bearable, non-copyleft is better, and 
static link exceptions are a good-enough compromise for now; I don't 
have any code that gives me a reason to expect you to change to non-
copyleft."
So if you want, you can put me under non-copyleft...which is ~7 vs 1 
for each of four options.
<snip>
> In summary, it looks like everyone except Luka (and perhaps aep) who
> responded would like to see at least *some* additional level of
> permissiveness to musl's license terms, and the largest single group
> is in favor of non-copyleft/"permissive" terms. As such I'll
> definitely be making some licensing changes down the line. Please give
> me some time to weigh the benefits of the different options and focus
> on the code, especially at this time while widespread deployment is
> still a ways off. 

For the record, I'd prefer a license like MIT/BSD to Apache 2.0 & co.
(where there's a patent clause)--patent clauses just don't sit so well 
with me. Not sure that it legally makes sense though!

-- 
Isaac Dunham <idunham@lavabit.com>

Re: license survey results

[Rich Felker]

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 06:31:21PM -0800, Isaac Dunham wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:55:57 -0500
> Rich Felker <dalias@aerifal.cx> wrote:
> <snip>
> > non-copyleft (MIT/BSD/etc.) crowd:
> > chneukirchen
> > solar
> > nathan mcsween
> > hiltjo
> > khm
> > [rob landley] (in absentia ;-)
> ...
> > LGPL w/static-linking exceptions [almost-]crowd:
> > isaac dunham
> > gs
> > 
> I was thinking "LGPL is semi-bearable, non-copyleft is better, and 
> static link exceptions are a good-enough compromise for now; I don't 
> have any code that gives me a reason to expect you to change to non-
> copyleft."
> So if you want, you can put me under non-copyleft...which is ~7 vs 1 
> for each of four options.

Thanks for clarifying.

> <snip>
> > In summary, it looks like everyone except Luka (and perhaps aep) who
> > responded would like to see at least *some* additional level of
> > permissiveness to musl's license terms, and the largest single group
> > is in favor of non-copyleft/"permissive" terms. As such I'll
> > definitely be making some licensing changes down the line. Please give
> > me some time to weigh the benefits of the different options and focus
> > on the code, especially at this time while widespread deployment is
> > still a ways off. 
> 
> For the record, I'd prefer a license like MIT/BSD to Apache 2.0 & co.
> (where there's a patent clause)--patent clauses just don't sit so well 
> with me. Not sure that it legally makes sense though!

I like patent clauses in principle, but for any kind of copyleft or
similar treatment to be useful, you need leverage. Copyleft, or
respectively the requirement to freely license patents in derivative
works, doesn't get you any code (or respectively, patents) if nobody's
making derivative works... There's also the issue of existing LGPL -
any license that puts further restrictions beyond the LGPL is
undesirable to me because in order to enforce those restrictions we'd
have to make it so new releases aren't also licensable under the LGPL.
Otherwise a party that wanted to avoid the patent clause could just
choose to use LGPL instead.

Rich

Re: license survey results

[aep]

> In summary, it looks like everyone except Luka (and perhaps aep) who
> responded would like to see at least *some* additional level of
> permissiveness to musl's license terms,

For me each of those options is sufficient. Was just showing a 
not-mentioned alternative ;)
Glad to see the majority is leaning towards BSD. Says something about 
musls users and direction.