Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/09/11/two-thank-yous.html

I’m well known for being critical when necessary about what happens in
the software freedom community, but occasionally, there’s nothing to do
but thank someone, particularly when they’ve done something I asked
for. 🙂

First, I’d like to
thank Matthew Garrett
for engaging in some
GPL enforcement (as
covered on lwn.net). He’s taking an interesting tack of filing a
complaint with US Customs. I’ve thought about this method in the past,
but never really felt I wanted to go that route (mainly because I’m more
familiar with the traditional GPL enforcement processes). However, it’s
really important that we try lots of different strategies for GPL
enforcement; the path to success is often many methods in parallel. It
looks like
Matthew already
got the attention of the violator. In the end, every GPL
enforcement strategy is primarily to get the violator’s attention so
they take the issue seriously and come into compliance with the
license.

I’ve written
before about how GPL enforcement can be a lonely place, and when I
see someone get serious about doing some — as Matthew has in the
last year or so — it makes GPL enforcement a lot less lonely. I
still think I can count on my hands all the people active regularly in
GPL enforcement efforts, but I am glad to see that’s changing. The
license
stands
for a principle, and we should defend it, despite the great length
the corporate powers in the software freedom world go to in trying to
stop GPL enforcement.

Secondly, I need to thank my
colleague Chris
DiBona. Two years
ago, I
gave him quite a hard time that Google prohibited hosting
of AGPLv3‘d
projects on its FLOSS Project
Hosting site. The interesting part of our debate was that Chris
argued
that license
proliferation was the reason to prohibit AGPLv3. I argued at the
time that Google simply opposed AGPLv3 because many parts of Google’s
business model rely on the fact that the GPL behaves in practice
somewhat like permissive licenses when deployed in a web services
environment.

Honestly, I never had definitive proof at Google’s “real
reasons” for holding the policy it did for two years, but it
doesn’t matter now, because
yesterday Chris
announced that Google Code Hosting now accepts AGPLv3’d
projects⁰. I really
appreciate Chris’ friendly words on AGPLv3, noting that he didn’t
like turning away projects under licenses that serve a truly new
function, like the AGPL.

Google will now accept projects under any license that is
on OSI’s approved
list. I think this is a reasonable outcome. I firmly believe that
acceptable license lists must be the purview of not-for-profit
organizations, not for-profit ones. Personally, I tend to avoid and
distrust any license that fails to appear on both OSI’s
list and
the FSF
Free Software License List. While I obviously favor the FSF list
myself
(having
helped originate it), I generally want to see a license on both
lists before I’m ready to say for sure there are no worries about
it.

There are two other entities that maintain license lists,
namely the Debian
Project and
Red Hat’s Fedora
Project. I wouldn’t say that I find Debian’s list definitive,
mainly because, despite Debian’s generally democratic slant, the
ftp-masters hold a bit too
much power in interpreting
the DFSG.

As for Fedora, that’s ultimately a project controlled by a for-profit
corporation (Red Hat), and therefore I have some trepidation about
trusting their list, just as I had concerns that Google attempted to set
licensing policy by defining an acceptable license list. As it stands
at the moment, I trust Fedora’s list because I know
that Spot
and Fontana
currently have the ultimate say on what does or does not go onto
Fedora’s list. Nevertheless, Red Hat is ultimately in control of
Fedora, so I think its license list can’t be relied on indefinitely
(e.g., in case Spot and/or Fontana ever leave Red Hat at some
point.)

Anyway, I think the best outcome for the community is for
the logical
conjunction of the OSI’s list and the FSF’s list to be considered
the accepted list of licenses. While I often disagree with the OSI, I
think it’s in the best interest of the community to require that two
distinct non-profits with different missions both
approve a license before it’s considered acceptable. (I suppose I’d
have a different view if OSI had
not accepted
the AGPLv3, though. 😉

⁰I must point out
that Chris has an error
in his
blog post: namely, FSF’s Code
hosting site, Savannah accepts not
just GPL‘d
projects, but any project that is listed as
“GPL-Compatible” on FSF’s Free Software License List.

Post Syndicated from Oglaf! -- Comics. Often dirty. original https://www.oglaf.com/felicity/

Post Syndicated from Oglaf! -- Comics. Often dirty. original https://www.oglaf.com/frog2/

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/27/sun-rpc.html

I first became aware of the Sun RPC license in mid-2001, but my email
archives from the time indicate the issue predated my involvement with
it; it’d been an issue of consideration since 1994. I later had my
first large email thread “free-for-all” on the issue in
April 2002, which was the first of too many that I’d have before it was
all done. In December 2002,
the Debian
bug was filed, and then it became a very public debate. Late last
week, it
was finally resolved. It now ranks as the longest standing Free
Software licensing problem of my career. A cast of dozens deserve credit
for getting it resolved.

Tom “spot” Callaway does
a good job summarizing
the recent occurrences on this issue (and by recent, I mean since
2005 — it’s been going long enough that five years ago is
“recent”), and its final resolution. So, I won’t cover that
recent history, but I encourage people to read Spot’s summary. Simon
Phipps, who worked on this issue during his time as the Chief Open
Source Officer of
Sun, also
wrote about his work on the issue. For my part, I’ll try to cover
the “middle” part of the story from 2001-2005.

So, the funny thing about this license is everyone knew it was Sun’s
intention to make it Free Software. The code is so old, it dates back
to a time when the drafting of Free Software licenses weren’t well
understood (old-schoolers will, for example, remember the annoying
advertising clause in early BSD licenses). Thus, by our modern
standards, the Sun RPC license does appear on its face as trivially
non-Free, but in its historical context, the intent was actually clear,
in my opinion.

Nevertheless, by 2002, we knew how to look at licenses objectively and
critically, and it was clear to many people that the license had
problems. Competing legal theories existed, but the concerns of Debian
were enough to get everyone moving toward a solution.

For my part, I checked in regularly during 2002-2004 with Danese Cooper
(who was, effectively, Simon Phipps’ predecessor at Sun), until I was
practically begging her to pay attention to the issue. While I could
frequently get verbal assurances from Danese and other Sun officials
that it was their clear intention that glibc be permitted to include the
code under the LGPL, I could never get something in writing. I had a
hundred other things to worry about, and eventually, I stopped worrying
about it. I remember thinking at the time: well, I’ve notes on all
these calls and discussions I’ve had with Sun people about the license.
Worst case scenario: I’ll have to testify to this when Sun sues some
Free Software project, and there will be a good estoppel
defense.

Meanwhile, around early 2004, my friend and colleague at
FSF, David “Novalis”
Turner took up the cause in earnest. I think he spent a year or two
as I did: desperately trying to get others to pay attention and solve
the problem. Eventually, he left FSF for other work, and others took up
the cause, including Brett Smith (who took over Novalis’ FSF job), and,
by that time, Spot was also paying attention to this. Both Brett and
Spot worked hard
to get
Simon Phipps attention on it, which finally happened. But around
then began that long waiting period while Oracle was preparing to buy
Sun. It stopped almost anything anyone wanted to get done with Sun, so
everyone just waited (again). It was around that time that I decided I
was pretty sure I never wanted to hear the phrase: “Sun RPC
license” again in my life.

Meanwhile, Richard Fontana had gone to work for Red Hat, and his
self-proclaimed pathological obsession with Free Software (which can
only be rivaled by my own) led him to
begin discussing
the Sun RPC issue again. He and Spot were also doing their best
negotiating with Oracle to get it fixed. They took us the last miles of
this marathon, and now the job is done.

I admit that I feel of some shame that, in recent years, I’ve had such
fatigue about this issue — a simple one that should’ve been
solved a decade and a half ago — that, since 2008, I’ve done
nothing but kibitz about the issue when people complained. I also
didn’t believe that a company as disturbing and anti-Free-Software as
Oracle could ever be convinced to change a license to be
more FaiF. Spot and
Fontana proved me wrong, and I’m glad.

Thanks to everyone in this great cast of characters that made this
ultimately beneficial production of licensing theater possible. I’ve
been honored that I shared the stage in the first few acts, and sorry
that I hid backstage for the last few. It was right to keep working on
it until the job was done. As Fontana
said: Estoppel may be
relevant but never enough; software freedom principle[s] should matter
as much as legal risk. …
[the] standard for FaiF can’t
simply be ‘good defense to copyright infringement
likely’. Thanks to everyone; I’m so glad I no longer have
to wait in fear of a subpoena from Oracle in a lawsuit claiming
infringement of their Sun RPC copyrights.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/27/sun-rpc.html

I first became aware of the Sun RPC license in mid-2001, but my email
archives from the time indicate the issue predated my involvement with
it; it’d been an issue of consideration since 1994. I later had my
first large email thread “free-for-all” on the issue in
April 2002, which was the first of too many that I’d have before it was
all done. In December 2002,
the Debian
bug was filed, and then it became a very public debate. Late last
week, it
was finally resolved. It now ranks as the longest standing Free
Software licensing problem of my career. A cast of dozens deserve credit
for getting it resolved.

Tom “spot” Callaway does
a good job summarizing
the recent occurrences on this issue (and by recent, I mean since
2005 — it’s been going long enough that five years ago is
“recent”), and its final resolution. So, I won’t cover that
recent history, but I encourage people to read Spot’s summary. Simon
Phipps, who worked on this issue during his time as the Chief Open
Source Officer of
Sun, also
wrote about his work on the issue. For my part, I’ll try to cover
the “middle” part of the story from 2001-2005.

So, the funny thing about this license is everyone knew it was Sun’s
intention to make it Free Software. The code is so old, it dates back
to a time when the drafting of Free Software licenses weren’t well
understood (old-schoolers will, for example, remember the annoying
advertising clause in early BSD licenses). Thus, by our modern
standards, the Sun RPC license does appear on its face as trivially
non-Free, but in its historical context, the intent was actually clear,
in my opinion.

Nevertheless, by 2002, we knew how to look at licenses objectively and
critically, and it was clear to many people that the license had
problems. Competing legal theories existed, but the concerns of Debian
were enough to get everyone moving toward a solution.

For my part, I checked in regularly during 2002-2004 with Danese Cooper
(who was, effectively, Simon Phipps’ predecessor at Sun), until I was
practically begging her to pay attention to the issue. While I could
frequently get verbal assurances from Danese and other Sun officials
that it was their clear intention that glibc be permitted to include the
code under the LGPL, I could never get something in writing. I had a
hundred other things to worry about, and eventually, I stopped worrying
about it. I remember thinking at the time: well, I’ve notes on all
these calls and discussions I’ve had with Sun people about the license.
Worst case scenario: I’ll have to testify to this when Sun sues some
Free Software project, and there will be a good estoppel
defense.

Meanwhile, around early 2004, my friend and colleague at
FSF, David “Novalis”
Turner took up the cause in earnest. I think he spent a year or two
as I did: desperately trying to get others to pay attention and solve
the problem. Eventually, he left FSF for other work, and others took up
the cause, including Brett Smith (who took over Novalis’ FSF job), and,
by that time, Spot was also paying attention to this. Both Brett and
Spot worked hard
to get
Simon Phipps attention on it, which finally happened. But around
then began that long waiting period while Oracle was preparing to buy
Sun. It stopped almost anything anyone wanted to get done with Sun, so
everyone just waited (again). It was around that time that I decided I
was pretty sure I never wanted to hear the phrase: “Sun RPC
license” again in my life.

Meanwhile, Richard Fontana had gone to work for Red Hat, and his
self-proclaimed pathological obsession with Free Software (which can
only be rivaled by my own) led him to
begin discussing
the Sun RPC issue again. He and Spot were also doing their best
negotiating with Oracle to get it fixed. They took us the last miles of
this marathon, and now the job is done.

I admit that I feel of some shame that, in recent years, I’ve had such
fatigue about this issue — a simple one that should’ve been
solved a decade and a half ago — that, since 2008, I’ve done
nothing but kibitz about the issue when people complained. I also
didn’t believe that a company as disturbing and anti-Free-Software as
Oracle could ever be convinced to change a license to be
more FaiF. Spot and
Fontana proved me wrong, and I’m glad.

Thanks to everyone in this great cast of characters that made this
ultimately beneficial production of licensing theater possible. I’ve
been honored that I shared the stage in the first few acts, and sorry
that I hid backstage for the last few. It was right to keep working on
it until the job was done. As Fontana
said: Estoppel may be
relevant but never enough; software freedom principle[s] should matter
as much as legal risk. …
[the] standard for FaiF can’t
simply be ‘good defense to copyright infringement
likely’. Thanks to everyone; I’m so glad I no longer have
to wait in fear of a subpoena from Oracle in a lawsuit claiming
infringement of their Sun RPC copyrights.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/27/sun-rpc.html

I first became aware of the Sun RPC license in mid-2001, but my email
archives from the time indicate the issue predated my involvement with
it; it’d been an issue of consideration since 1994. I later had my
first large email thread “free-for-all” on the issue in
April 2002, which was the first of too many that I’d have before it was
all done. In December 2002,
the Debian
bug was filed, and then it became a very public debate. Late last
week, it
was finally resolved. It now ranks as the longest standing Free
Software licensing problem of my career. A cast of dozens deserve credit
for getting it resolved.

Tom “spot” Callaway does
a good job summarizing
the recent occurrences on this issue (and by recent, I mean since
2005 — it’s been going long enough that five years ago is
“recent”), and its final resolution. So, I won’t cover that
recent history, but I encourage people to read Spot’s summary. Simon
Phipps, who worked on this issue during his time as the Chief Open
Source Officer of
Sun, also
wrote about his work on the issue. For my part, I’ll try to cover
the “middle” part of the story from 2001-2005.

So, the funny thing about this license is everyone knew it was Sun’s
intention to make it Free Software. The code is so old, it dates back
to a time when the drafting of Free Software licenses weren’t well
understood (old-schoolers will, for example, remember the annoying
advertising clause in early BSD licenses). Thus, by our modern
standards, the Sun RPC license does appear on its face as trivially
non-Free, but in its historical context, the intent was actually clear,
in my opinion.

Nevertheless, by 2002, we knew how to look at licenses objectively and
critically, and it was clear to many people that the license had
problems. Competing legal theories existed, but the concerns of Debian
were enough to get everyone moving toward a solution.

For my part, I checked in regularly during 2002-2004 with Danese Cooper
(who was, effectively, Simon Phipps’ predecessor at Sun), until I was
practically begging her to pay attention to the issue. While I could
frequently get verbal assurances from Danese and other Sun officials
that it was their clear intention that glibc be permitted to include the
code under the LGPL, I could never get something in writing. I had a
hundred other things to worry about, and eventually, I stopped worrying
about it. I remember thinking at the time: well, I’ve notes on all
these calls and discussions I’ve had with Sun people about the license.
Worst case scenario: I’ll have to testify to this when Sun sues some
Free Software project, and there will be a good estoppel
defense.

Meanwhile, around early 2004, my friend and colleague at
FSF, David “Novalis”
Turner took up the cause in earnest. I think he spent a year or two
as I did: desperately trying to get others to pay attention and solve
the problem. Eventually, he left FSF for other work, and others took up
the cause, including Brett Smith (who took over Novalis’ FSF job), and,
by that time, Spot was also paying attention to this. Both Brett and
Spot worked hard
to get
Simon Phipps attention on it, which finally happened. But around
then began that long waiting period while Oracle was preparing to buy
Sun. It stopped almost anything anyone wanted to get done with Sun, so
everyone just waited (again). It was around that time that I decided I
was pretty sure I never wanted to hear the phrase: “Sun RPC
license” again in my life.

Meanwhile, Richard Fontana had gone to work for Red Hat, and his
self-proclaimed pathological obsession with Free Software (which can
only be rivaled by my own) led him to
begin discussing
the Sun RPC issue again. He and Spot were also doing their best
negotiating with Oracle to get it fixed. They took us the last miles of
this marathon, and now the job is done.

I admit that I feel of some shame that, in recent years, I’ve had such
fatigue about this issue — a simple one that should’ve been
solved a decade and a half ago — that, since 2008, I’ve done
nothing but kibitz about the issue when people complained. I also
didn’t believe that a company as disturbing and anti-Free-Software as
Oracle could ever be convinced to change a license to be
more FaiF. Spot and
Fontana proved me wrong, and I’m glad.

Thanks to everyone in this great cast of characters that made this
ultimately beneficial production of licensing theater possible. I’ve
been honored that I shared the stage in the first few acts, and sorry
that I hid backstage for the last few. It was right to keep working on
it until the job was done. As Fontana
said: Estoppel may be
relevant but never enough; software freedom principle[s] should matter
as much as legal risk. …
[the] standard for FaiF can’t
simply be ‘good defense to copyright infringement
likely’. Thanks to everyone; I’m so glad I no longer have
to wait in fear of a subpoena from Oracle in a lawsuit claiming
infringement of their Sun RPC copyrights.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/08/27/sun-rpc.html

I first became aware of the Sun RPC license in mid-2001, but my email
archives from the time indicate the issue predated my involvement with
it; it’d been an issue of consideration since 1994. I later had my
first large email thread “free-for-all” on the issue in
April 2002, which was the first of too many that I’d have before it was
all done. In December 2002,
the Debian
bug was filed, and then it became a very public debate. Late last
week, it
was finally resolved. It now ranks as the longest standing Free
Software licensing problem of my career. A cast of dozens deserve credit
for getting it resolved.

Tom “spot” Callaway does
a good job summarizing
the recent occurrences on this issue (and by recent, I mean since
2005 — it’s been going long enough that five years ago is
“recent”), and its final resolution. So, I won’t cover that
recent history, but I encourage people to read Spot’s summary. Simon
Phipps, who worked on this issue during his time as the Chief Open
Source Officer of
Sun, also
wrote about his work on the issue. For my part, I’ll try to cover
the “middle” part of the story from 2001-2005.

So, the funny thing about this license is everyone knew it was Sun’s
intention to make it Free Software. The code is so old, it dates back
to a time when the drafting of Free Software licenses weren’t well
understood (old-schoolers will, for example, remember the annoying
advertising clause in early BSD licenses). Thus, by our modern
standards, the Sun RPC license does appear on its face as trivially
non-Free, but in its historical context, the intent was actually clear,
in my opinion.

Nevertheless, by 2002, we knew how to look at licenses objectively and
critically, and it was clear to many people that the license had
problems. Competing legal theories existed, but the concerns of Debian
were enough to get everyone moving toward a solution.

For my part, I checked in regularly during 2002-2004 with Danese Cooper
(who was, effectively, Simon Phipps’ predecessor at Sun), until I was
practically begging her to pay attention to the issue. While I could
frequently get verbal assurances from Danese and other Sun officials
that it was their clear intention that glibc be permitted to include the
code under the LGPL, I could never get something in writing. I had a
hundred other things to worry about, and eventually, I stopped worrying
about it. I remember thinking at the time: well, I’ve notes on all
these calls and discussions I’ve had with Sun people about the license.
Worst case scenario: I’ll have to testify to this when Sun sues some
Free Software project, and there will be a good estoppel
defense.

Meanwhile, around early 2004, my friend and colleague at
FSF, David “Novalis”
Turner took up the cause in earnest. I think he spent a year or two
as I did: desperately trying to get others to pay attention and solve
the problem. Eventually, he left FSF for other work, and others took up
the cause, including Brett Smith (who took over Novalis’ FSF job), and,
by that time, Spot was also paying attention to this. Both Brett and
Spot worked hard
to get
Simon Phipps attention on it, which finally happened. But around
then began that long waiting period while Oracle was preparing to buy
Sun. It stopped almost anything anyone wanted to get done with Sun, so
everyone just waited (again). It was around that time that I decided I
was pretty sure I never wanted to hear the phrase: “Sun RPC
license” again in my life.

Meanwhile, Richard Fontana had gone to work for Red Hat, and his
self-proclaimed pathological obsession with Free Software (which can
only be rivaled by my own) led him to
begin discussing
the Sun RPC issue again. He and Spot were also doing their best
negotiating with Oracle to get it fixed. They took us the last miles of
this marathon, and now the job is done.

I admit that I feel of some shame that, in recent years, I’ve had such
fatigue about this issue — a simple one that should’ve been
solved a decade and a half ago — that, since 2008, I’ve done
nothing but kibitz about the issue when people complained. I also
didn’t believe that a company as disturbing and anti-Free-Software as
Oracle could ever be convinced to change a license to be
more FaiF. Spot and
Fontana proved me wrong, and I’m glad.

Thanks to everyone in this great cast of characters that made this
ultimately beneficial production of licensing theater possible. I’ve
been honored that I shared the stage in the first few acts, and sorry
that I hid backstage for the last few. It was right to keep working on
it until the job was done. As Fontana
said: Estoppel may be
relevant but never enough; software freedom principle[s] should matter
as much as legal risk. …
[the] standard for FaiF can’t
simply be ‘good defense to copyright infringement
likely’. Thanks to everyone; I’m so glad I no longer have
to wait in fear of a subpoena from Oracle in a lawsuit claiming
infringement of their Sun RPC copyrights.