From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.lib.musl.general/9773 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Christopher Lane Newsgroups: gmane.linux.lib.musl.general Subject: Re: musl licensing Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 10:18:48 -0700 Message-ID: References: <20160317081748.GF13856@example.net> <20160317160131.GE21636@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20160318042158.GN21636@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20160318191209.GQ21636@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20160319043547.GS21636@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20160323023221.GJ21636@brightrain.aerifal.cx> Reply-To: musl@lists.openwall.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a1135f144f194d0052f33386d X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1459271958 29914 80.91.229.3 (29 Mar 2016 17:19:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 17:19:18 +0000 (UTC) To: musl@lists.openwall.com Original-X-From: musl-return-9786-gllmg-musl=m.gmane.org@lists.openwall.com Tue Mar 29 19:19:06 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 1akxII-0005NO-22 for gllmg-musl@m.gmane.org; Tue, 29 Mar 2016 19:19:06 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 11561 invoked by uid 550); 29 Mar 2016 17:19:01 -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 11521 invoked from network); 29 Mar 2016 17:19:00 -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; bh=noAXrjLepZf1Ooj/p1QcQmrYtBt4nhQM5vrlOxO7Lpg=; b=zzoLgCMfx6TpbzCI8M6jqSno15dJQqLS4Ai+58/f7fyiVitKScqANbi25xCs3UdPhB dz1k/5Qa3WtjINQ9iU1zkCaukIPNdTbM9L4VZADWSJscqsO+7d9JsYAb2DthI/UJanCr 8GXzXyD9GshrdinTRcBYg1KU3O+XTnMKJdM5xuztP4YSInh/3yjqiqPAdfHouZL1DnQG 0QF205LYwsHFzb9ZLJ917mXD6cYp/YdaFc+iPtdbVWTqrbZ+H5Y+ZZeCkjWEXO8PWBcL uADuSe53fduOAbC8W7ItIJ/eVgJ4mcJ96B0Vkt7TQPgP/RAouJ7GFoLw0ev6+ZI+uinM MGBQ== 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; bh=noAXrjLepZf1Ooj/p1QcQmrYtBt4nhQM5vrlOxO7Lpg=; b=LChOh42XLQNatNvPRjEAl2kLOY983dAb+hhNjdG7tuDP5IBwNhg0vNu+UOrAQ4rOKV +b/g5iWp71Uva8UrYRPIZ2I8RA61oWFv8wfE8daWMVfzx+URi3xiHbr59sLyP46WxDcP ALHQ+9nau3UWWEk7WNjS60R7598ZJ0XWB0pSGDZTMAn1L1PyXZhgzwD2Nbb9B2TVB9TR RyeFMGYvQlHxk+LICsh9j7ff0N/6IrLfqgaICD/AKrnucaIxjpJsSM5R3e+p0fdaLQSW TJbqJWKTSIyCD385hLirlSVK6mIAYyntA9r4zeZzwG45AMYHtKqLrFHbfwZewyEE2TOV viMA== X-Gm-Message-State: AD7BkJIKx0L9YoWklGWF7MrkK/eyzo87nu1BYwLUFXmvPFmYtdVZ4iNqDrgArtkT0iaiKK3oXapLTG+wATtTgw== X-Received: by 10.50.138.8 with SMTP id qm8mr16216671igb.50.1459271928737; Tue, 29 Mar 2016 10:18:48 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.linux.lib.musl.general:9773 Archived-At: --001a1135f144f194d0052f33386d Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 3:53 PM, Rob Landley wrote: > On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Christopher Lane > wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Rich Felker wrote: > >> > >> On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 03:46:18PM -0700, Christopher Lane wrote: > >> > On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 9:35 PM, Rich Felker wrote: > >> > > >> > > On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 07:47:21PM +0000, George Kulakowski wrote: > >> > Those paragraphs still reference public domain. We can't use the > things > >> > mentioned there. WRT the blowfish impl, there are other > implementations > >> > we > >> > can pull if we want / need that - though I'm not sure we even do want > >> > that. > >> > >> Did they miss the part about the fallback permissive license? I'm > >> pretty sure Solar's implementation of bcrypt (albeit the original, not > >> the one he modified for musl) is used in plenty of other places with > >> no problem. Complaining about copyright status on this is like > >> complaining about fdlibm. If it's really a problem I suspect he would > >> be willing to clarify its status for you. > > Upton Sinclair explained why lawyers aren't comfortable with the > public domain a century ago: > > http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-get-a-man-to-understand-something > > As far as I can tell, to most lawyers a good license is one you can > sue to enforce, I.E. one which provides potential future litigation > employment opportunities for lawyers. This isn't necessarily a > conscious decision, but it's definitely part of the legal profession's > herd mentality. > >From the license creation standpoint, AFAICT you're right. Google's on the receiving end of the musl license, so it seems a "good license" for us is one that provides clarity on what we can do with the code. So, the inverse, basically -- one that we _can't_ be sued over. A license that introduces ambiguity through conditionals that may be argued over is not one we can work with. > > So what I did was take a "safe" license and make a small specific > change to it, which is easy to analyze and hard to object to by > itself, so the result still looks "safe". Thus my license is a "good > license", even if the result is functionally equivalent to placing > code in the public domain. > > I.E. Zero Clause BSD (the Toybox license, which SPDX approved as > "0BSD" ala https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html) took a prominent > variant of a widely approved existing license (the "OpenBSD suggested > template license, the text of which is in the first link from > http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html) under which you _can_ sue people > (in fact AT&T lost a very prominent lawsuit about it in 1993, > https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bsdi/bsdisuit.html) and made a > single small edit that just removed half a sentence: > https://github.com/landley/toybox/commit/ee86b1d8e25c > > The result was a license which grants blanket permission while > requiring nothing in return, using existing and established legal > boilerplate. It had to be an acceptable license if BSD was an > acceptable license, unless you could coherently explain why the > deleted half-sentence caused a problem _other_ than no longer > providing future employment for lawyers. > > I replaced the "everybody dislikes this because everybody else > dislikes this" phrase "public domain" with the "everybody likes this > because everybody else likes this" phrase "BSD license". Instead of > fighting the herd mentality, I tried to leverage it. > 0BSD is awesome, so thanks for your contribution. It enables projects to release under something that's effectively public domain w/o scaring off the lawyers of big litigation target companies. > > So far, nobody's wanted to step into the spotlight and say > "eliminating this source of future litigation threatens my job > security", and I don't think most people consciously think that > anyway. (Besides, there's always patent trolls...) > > Rob > --001a1135f144f194d0052f33386d Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On W= ed, Mar 23, 2016 at 3:53 PM, Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wro= te:
On Wed, Mar 23, 2016= at 3:35 PM, Christopher Lane <lane= chr@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 03:46:18PM -0700, Christopher Lane wrote:<= br> >> > On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 9:35 PM, Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > > On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 07:47:21PM +0000, George Kulakow= ski wrote:
>> > Those paragraphs still reference publ= ic domain.=C2=A0 We can't use the things
>> > mentioned there.=C2=A0 WRT the blowfish impl, there are other= implementations
>> > we
>> > can pull if we want / need that - though I'm not sure we = even do want
>> > that.
>>
>> Did they miss the part about the fallback permissive license? I= 9;m
>> pretty sure Solar's implementation of bcrypt (albeit the origi= nal, not
>> the one he modified for musl) is used in plenty of other places wi= th
>> no problem. Complaining about copyright status on this is like
>> complaining about fdlibm. If it's really a problem I suspect h= e would
>> be willing to clarify its status for you.

Upton Sinclair explained why lawyers aren't comfortable with the=
public domain a century ago:
http://www= .goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-get-a-man-to-understand-some= thing

As far as I can tell, to most lawyers a good license is one you can
sue to enforce, I.E. one which provides potential future litigation
employment opportunities for lawyers. This isn't necessarily a
conscious decision, but it's definitely part of the legal profession= 9;s
herd mentality.

From the license creati= on standpoint, AFAICT you're right.=C2=A0 Google's on the receiving= end of the musl license, so it seems a "good license" for us is = one that provides clarity on what we can do with the code.=C2=A0 So, the in= verse, basically -- one that we _can't_ be sued over.=C2=A0 A license t= hat introduces ambiguity through conditionals that may be argued over is no= t one we can work with.
=C2=A0
https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html) too= k a prominent
variant of a widely approved existing license (the "OpenBSD suggested<= br> template license, the text of which is in the first link from
http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html) under which you _can_ sue = people
(in fact AT&T lost a very prominent lawsuit about it in 1993,
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bsdi/b= sdisuit.html) and made a
single small edit that just removed half a sentence:
https://github.com/landley/toybox/commit/ee86b1= d8e25c

The result was a license which grants blanket permission while
requiring nothing in return, using existing and established legal
boilerplate. It had to be an acceptable license if BSD was an
acceptable license, unless you could coherently explain why the
deleted half-sentence caused a problem _other_ than no longer
providing future employment for lawyers.

I replaced the "everybody dislikes this because everybody else
dislikes this" phrase "public domain" with the "everybo= dy likes this
because everybody else likes this" phrase "BSD license". Ins= tead of
fighting the herd mentality, I tried to leverage it.
<= br>
0BSD is awesome, so thanks for your contribution.=C2=A0 It en= ables projects to release under something that's effectively public dom= ain w/o scaring off the lawyers of big litigation target companies.
=C2=A0

So far, nobody's wanted to step into the spotlight and say
"eliminating this source of future litigation threatens my job
security", and I don't think most people consciously think that anyway. (Besides, there's always patent trolls...)

Rob

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