From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.lib.musl.general/9640 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Rich Felker Newsgroups: gmane.linux.lib.musl.general Subject: Re: musl licensing Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2016 17:35:51 -0400 Message-ID: <20160316213551.GP9349@brightrain.aerifal.cx> References: <20160316201358.GN9349@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20160316211943.ed54cf246e0020872e15eb6a@frign.de> <20160316203428.GO9349@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20160316221527.55ff32b2a989b18e8fcccd37@frign.de> Reply-To: musl@lists.openwall.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1458164173 28613 80.91.229.3 (16 Mar 2016 21:36:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2016 21:36:13 +0000 (UTC) To: musl@lists.openwall.com Original-X-From: musl-return-9653-gllmg-musl=m.gmane.org@lists.openwall.com Wed Mar 16 22:36:08 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: gllmg-musl@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mother.openwall.net ([195.42.179.200]) by plane.gmane.org with smtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1agJ6s-0005aI-O4 for gllmg-musl@m.gmane.org; Wed, 16 Mar 2016 22:36:06 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 27919 invoked by uid 550); 16 Mar 2016 21:36:04 -0000 Mailing-List: contact musl-help@lists.openwall.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-ID: Original-Received: (qmail 27899 invoked from network); 16 Mar 2016 21:36:04 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20160316221527.55ff32b2a989b18e8fcccd37@frign.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Original-Sender: Rich Felker Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.linux.lib.musl.general:9640 Archived-At: On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 10:15:27PM +0100, FRIGN wrote: > On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 16:34:28 -0400 > Rich Felker wrote: > > Hey Rich, > > > Yes, what I'm waiting for on this is whether a "conditional license" > > ("if this code is deemed to be covered by copyright, then we license > > it as BSD0/CC0/whatever") will satisfy them. This makes no difference > > in jurisdictions where public domain is recognized but may make them > > happy. > > can you give me one single aspect in which BSD0 and Public Domain differ? One claims copyright but then gives unlimited permission to use/etc. The other disclaims copyright and thereby avoids placing any copyright-based restrictions on use. In terms of what you can do there is no difference, but there is an ideological difference in claiming "these facts belong to me, and you can only use them because I was willing to give you permission" rather than "I just wrote these facts down, but they don't belong to me or to anyone, and you can freely use them". > > What about authorship/copyright holders per-file? > > I see no need for that and it's one hell to maintain. If you want to > find out exact authorship, "git blame" is your friend. It will give you > the history and everything else ("git log file", "git show", ...). > Trying to emulate that by hand is just tedious and defeats the purpose. I tend to agree. I also find that it's problematic trying to decide whether someone who makes a 1-line or 5-line patch to an existing nontrivial file is a copyright holder for the file, and rather pointless since it really makes no difference except to someone contacting all copyright holders trying to get permission to relicense. As far as I am aware, the vast majority of FOSS projects do not waste their time trying to make such determinations. My view is that a project and its maintainer should document these things sufficiently well that users of the code can feel comfortable that they actually have the license permissions you tell them they have, and that further pedantry that does not affect license validity should be left to lawyers only to be done when there's actually a need for it (since their time costs a lot :). Stupid things like whether a 1-line patch author is a copyright holder may even vary by jurisdiction. FWIW in my experience even the FSF is satisfied that patches consisting of trivial changes, even a fair number of such, do not require having a copyright assignment on file with them, so their lawyers presumably are not concerned about such contributors claiming copyright. Rich