From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.lib.musl.general/9648 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Christopher Lane Newsgroups: gmane.linux.lib.musl.general Subject: Re: musl licensing Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2016 19:06:25 -0700 Message-ID: References: <20160315221757.GA3522@openwall.com> <56E98AB1.9030309@openwall.com> <20160316234656.GQ9349@brightrain.aerifal.cx> Reply-To: musl@lists.openwall.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a114223fae10748052e3513eb X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1458180401 11621 80.91.229.3 (17 Mar 2016 02:06:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2016 02:06:41 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Petr Hosek , kulakowski@chromium.org To: musl@lists.openwall.com Original-X-From: musl-return-9661-gllmg-musl=m.gmane.org@lists.openwall.com Thu Mar 17 03:06:40 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 1agNKh-00032q-6S for gllmg-musl@m.gmane.org; Thu, 17 Mar 2016 03:06:39 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 11384 invoked by uid 550); 17 Mar 2016 02:06:37 -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 11366 invoked from network); 17 Mar 2016 02:06:36 -0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc; bh=mNqGegGPNV9kwTm7LAC9WTcudIMIgug2Ai1YSLHvSAY=; b=FkYNd33gMyg4Jq8X617UIxdqQPFEnR69q5i1g1hNhPIBAa7BQ+cpbs0SmJzxaRfEzw EdAW7NdHQeLqeUlZ4qK4M/rGBeRL1b+hTcPB38BD7IJJjNYuJsUAZrWDtcrs8zfzz9G0 ZgKMLddmlracBPNr+IBtM/gJnoDfsRUgoK+asOqTIdqoOUYG9CyjgJQm0WDS7WHj2H/d 4c4CPVGyOgUE/BWO2OltvS+IPvv7uWblZ93RtgHMKNmQquLBz+B3765C5CKGvPn1rHrz 29V+xgrE1u/B0lv0z7spOZNlpw1ZAtBhvNT2Oir44y5g3XqrXGOEXklBqI3gmuquLObZ IbLQ== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:cc; bh=mNqGegGPNV9kwTm7LAC9WTcudIMIgug2Ai1YSLHvSAY=; b=CF9B2BHb8nqzEkZCPwROTZ272UI4Qb8XvqyebtFEcgax4jdpus8q05otzqv3MSe9os JXqjlkV/IIkIp9ijBy2Lhqlluj7iJCJsnR9bPlryuh6UJhe8FaQ5j/SwqsuyNMRrVwi5 4ohbrGnxy5MCnT+DeZ5QF/ufnv8CoiQZ5qE0gOqsc3RydB5Sp5TCu95wdFQKG97az+tr NhN5XuQ6kOsrWhksuhtnetNpYRAvRyJ0jeYA85NinnqAq61LFNY0Ani4Zw19pwvd5oU+ lKG1X093CVfUdFNioHBdR0yrpUP8GLSDAMKqO7GaujDyXy/IpRY5jkuAsZa+GwtKvonm ruFg== X-Gm-Message-State: AD7BkJLAlcVtzSncgm2DueTFKL4ZYO9BwcvVoZv8zRlxxlxlZb08xFYWiKeLjJzYUOWvXU9nl05L2CqeEZ1o3Q== X-Received: by 10.107.169.95 with SMTP id s92mr7078458ioe.90.1458180385210; Wed, 16 Mar 2016 19:06:25 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20160316234656.GQ9349@brightrain.aerifal.cx> Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.linux.lib.musl.general:9648 Archived-At: --001a114223fae10748052e3513eb Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 4:46 PM, Rich Felker wrote: > On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 10:50:18PM +0000, Petr Hosek wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 9:32 AM Alexander Cherepanov < > ch3root@openwall.com> > > wrote: > > > > > Yeah, this is a crucial question IMHO. There was a similar discussion > > > about LLVM licensing recently: > > > > > > > http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-October/thread.html#91536 > > > > > > From this thread I gathered that: > > > 1) Google is quite serious about CLAs; > > > 2) Google has ideas about copyright/licensing/etc which contradict > > > beliefs held widely in the community; > > > 3) Google is not inclined to explain the situation to the community, > > > judging by > > > > > > http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-October/091752.html > > > > > > Given its past legal troubles, Google has enough stimuli to study the > > > topic very carefully and it could be right. But could be wrong as well. > > > Anyway, I don't think that just saying that CLAs are required is going > > > to change the opinion of the community. > > > > To clarify the CLA bit, we're not asking musl authors to sign the Google > > CLA. Instead, what we proposed was coming up with a CLA specifically for > > musl. > > Yes, I think past discussions (either here or on IRC; I don't > remember) have already clarified that. But I still don't think it's an > interesting option; CLAs seriously deter contributions from new > contibutors, and I think there's an especially large overlap between > people who are interested in musl and contributing to it, and people > who are deterred by CLAs. > > > Since someone, in this case most likely Rich as the project > > maintainer, has to re-license the files which are currently in public > > domain, one way is to have the past contributors sign a "musl project" > CLA > > as a way to keep a track of the legal permission to use and distribute > > these files. However, this is a decision of the musl community and how > you > > do the re-licensing is up to you, as long as you have the permission to > > re-license the files in question. > > I still don't see what the problem is, unless your lawyers are under > the impression that there are "public domain" sources from third > parties. The COPYRIGHT file states: > > "musl as a whole is licensed under the following standard MIT > license." > > and: > > "All other files which have no copyright comments are original works > produced specifically for use as part of this library, written either > by Rich Felker, the main author of the library, or by one or more > contibutors listed above. Details on authorship of individual files > can be found in the git version control history of the project. The > omission of copyright and license comments in each file is in the > interest of source tree size." > > and finally: > > "All public header files (include/* and arch/*/bits/*) should be > treated as Public Domain as they intentionally contain no content > which can be covered by copyright. Some source modules may fall in > this category as well. If you believe that a file is so trivial that > it should be in the Public Domain, please contact the authors and > request an explicit statement releasing it from copyright." > > So as an aggregate/as part of musl, all of the "public domain" files > are _already_ licensed under musl's main license (by the very first > sentence) by people (their authors, i.e. primarily me) who would be > entitled to license them as such even if they were subject to > copyright. > That's a good question. We'll find out why, if the claimed PD files aren't actually PD, they don't then fall under the overall MIT license. > > What I would like to do, if it would satisfy your lawyers, is add a > paragraph at the end (right after the public domain release text): > > "Should the release of these files into the Public Domain be judged > legally invalid or ineffective, permission is hereby granted to use > these files under the following terms: > > Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without > modification, are permitted." > > Does this work? And are there other blocking issues with copyright > status/documentation? > We asked about conditional statements like this one and the answer we got was (paraphrasing; any trampling on legal terms is accidental) "the extra conditional language would then become the subject of argument." Essentially, it provides attack surface for future litigation. In reply, they asked us: if releasing under e.g. BSD0 is OK when PD isn't valid, why isn't it OK for all situations. From previous replies, I gather that the answer is because PD most closely matches the contributors' ideological and ethical standpoints, and thus you'd like to include it in the license text. Please correct me if I'm wrong. We're in the situation of trying to mediate a solution that lets us get back to work and not have to give up on using musl. I'm hoping we can find that middle ground. So I'll run the specific language you provided past some people here and find out what they suggest for providing clear licensing while still preserving the ideological viewpoint. > > Rich > --001a114223fae10748052e3513eb Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 4:46 PM, Rich Felker <dalias@libc.o= rg> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 16, 2016= at 10:50:18PM +0000, Petr Hosek wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 9:32 AM Alexander Cherepanov <ch3root@openwall.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Yeah, this is a crucial question IMHO. There was a similar discus= sion
> > about LLVM licensing recently:
> >
> > http://lists.llvm.o= rg/pipermail/llvm-dev/2015-October/thread.html#91536
> >
> >=C2=A0 From this thread I gathered that:
> > 1) Google is quite serious about CLAs;
> > 2) Google has ideas about copyright/licensing/etc which contradic= t
> > beliefs held widely in the community;
> > 3) Google is not inclined to explain the situation to the communi= ty,
> > judging by
> >
> > http://lists.llvm.org/pip= ermail/llvm-dev/2015-October/091752.html
> >
> > Given its past legal troubles, Google has enough stimuli to study= the
> > topic very carefully and it could be right. But could be wrong as= well.
> > Anyway, I don't think that just saying that CLAs are required= is going
> > to change the opinion of the community.
>
> To clarify the CLA bit, we're not asking musl authors to sign the = Google
> CLA. Instead, what we proposed was coming up with a CLA specifically f= or
> musl.

Yes, I think past discussions (either here or on IRC; I don't remember) have already clarified that. But I still don't think it's= an
interesting option; CLAs seriously deter contributions from new
contibutors, and I think there's an especially large overlap between people who are interested in musl and contributing to it, and people
who are deterred by CLAs.

> Since someone, in this case most likely Rich as the project
> maintainer, has to re-license the files which are currently in public<= br> > domain, one way is to have the past contributors sign a "musl pro= ject" CLA
> as a way to keep a track of the legal permission to use and distribute=
> these files. However, this is a decision of the musl community and how= you
> do the re-licensing is up to you, as long as you have the permission t= o
> re-license the files in question.

I still don't see what the problem is, unless your lawyers are u= nder
the impression that there are "public domain" sources from third<= br> parties. The COPYRIGHT file states:

"musl as a whole is licensed under the following standard MIT
license."

and:

"All other files which have no copyright comments are original works produced specifically for use as part of this library, written either
by Rich Felker, the main author of the library, or by one or more
contibutors listed above. Details on authorship of individual files
can be found in the git version control history of the project. The
omission of copyright and license comments in each file is in the
interest of source tree size."

and finally:

"All public header files (include/* and arch/*/bits/*) should be
treated as Public Domain as they intentionally contain no content
which can be covered by copyright. Some source modules may fall in
this category as well. If you believe that a file is so trivial that
it should be in the Public Domain, please contact the authors and
request an explicit statement releasing it from copyright."

So as an aggregate/as part of musl, all of the "public domain" fi= les
are _already_ licensed under musl's main license (by the very first
sentence) by people (their authors, i.e. primarily me) who would be
entitled to license them as such even if they were subject to
copyright.

That's a good question.= =C2=A0 We'll find out why, if the claimed PD files aren't actually = PD, they don't then fall under the overall MIT license.
=C2= =A0

What I would like to do, if it would satisfy your lawyers, is add a
paragraph at the end (right after the public domain release text):

"Should the release of these files into the Public Domain be judged legally invalid or ineffective, permission is hereby granted to use
these files under the following terms:

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted."

Does this work? And are there other blocking issues with copyright
status/documentation?

We asked about co= nditional statements like this one and the answer we got was (paraphrasing;= any trampling on legal terms is accidental) "the extra conditional la= nguage would then become the subject of argument." =C2=A0Essentially, = it provides attack surface for future litigation.

= In reply, they asked us: if releasing under e.g. BSD0 is OK when PD isn'= ;t valid, why isn't it OK for all situations.=C2=A0 From previous repli= es, I gather that the answer is because PD most closely matches the contrib= utors' ideological and ethical standpoints, and thus you'd like to = include it in the license text.=C2=A0 Please correct me if I'm wrong.

We're in the situation of trying to mediate a s= olution that lets us get back to work and not have to give up on using musl= .=C2=A0 I'm hoping we can find that middle ground.=C2=A0 So I'll ru= n the specific language you provided past some people here and find out wha= t they suggest for providing clear licensing while still preserving the ide= ological viewpoint.
=C2=A0

Rich

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