comments on "Comment" section

[Michael Bradley, Jr.]

I wanted to offer some comments and questions regarding the "Comment" section of Shen 17's license.pdf file.

The point of this email is not to ask you to remove the section nor to request that you preface it with additional remarks. I've already made my views clear in previous posts to this mailing list and Hacker News, and I am willing to accept that you see things a bit differently. Instead, I primarily wish to point out statements that are unclear to me – perhaps others feel the same way. I will also suggest some corrections related to grammar and punctuation, but those are minor points and I don't mean to pick nits. I am not per se asking for (additional) philosophical or historical justification of your statements – to my mind, you've given ample explanation in previous posts to this mailing list.

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1. This license applies to all derived versions of Shen, including all versions derived from the sources provided whatever the method of compilation and the object code generated.

#1 would be less awkward with a comma between "provided" and "whatever", but that's a minor point.

2. This is the reason for clause 2 in the BSD.

#2 might be better situated after #3, with "for clause 2" expanded to "for clauses 1 and 2".

3. Such derived works should carry the above license on those source files generated – or with the files if they are binary.

The second part of #3 could be more clear, e.g. "...or in a separate file accompanying binary distributions."

4. Any original code specifically written by the programmer which not derived from the sources supplied is and should be copyrighted to that programmer.

The phrase "which not derived" in #4 seems to be missing an "is" between "which" and "not".

5. This work may be placed under any license of choice except GPL because of the viral condition.

Does "[t]his work" in #5 refer specifically to the "original code" in #4, to your original work (Shen 17), or to the "derived versions" of #1? The impression I get is that it refers to the subject of #4 and by extension to the subject of #1. I really feel you need to state this more clearly.

6. There is no legal right to relicense or sublicense BSD code or any derived version to another license (e.g. GPL).

7. The power to place a license on a work belongs to the copyright holder.

8. A person does not assume copyright over a work by making a small change to it. Only if the change is substantial to be deemed intellectually significant can such a claim be made and then only over the change itself.

#8 seems to be missing an "enough" after the word "substantial".

9. Hence if changing code, if you wish to retain copyright over your changes and they are intellectually significant, offset these changes under your copyright.

#6-#9 aren't entirely unclear, but in view of #5 and the ambiguity of the phrase "this work", the question comes to mind: why would someone be legally prohibited from licensing his "original code" under the GPL if "the power to place a license on a work belongs to the copyright holder"? I don't think you need to add a bunch of statements expounding on the viral nature of the GPL, but I think the jumble of ideas in #5-#9 needs to be straightened out.

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In summary, if the "Comment" section is going to be a permanent feature, then I think it should be as clear as possible.

Best regards,

--
Michael Bradley
@michaelsbradley

[Mark Tarver]

Fair enough.  I was in fact summarising an extended  discussion about copyright law in a short a space as possible.  It is not part of the license conditions but simply a comment.  I'll take this on board  

On Wednesday, 4 February 2015 20:16:08 UTC, Michael Bradley, Jr. wrote:

I wanted to offer some comments and questions regarding the "Comment" section of Shen 17's license.pdf file.

The point of this email is not to ask you to remove the section nor to request that you preface it with additional remarks. I've already made my views clear in previous posts to this mailing list and Hacker News, and I am willing to accept that you see things a bit differently. Instead, I primarily wish to point out statements that are unclear to me – perhaps others feel the same way. I will also suggest some corrections related to grammar and punctuation, but those are minor points and I don't mean to pick nits. I am not per se asking for (additional) philosophical or historical justification of your statements – to my mind, you've given ample explanation in previous posts to this mailing list.

-----------------

1. This license applies to all derived versions of Shen, including all versions derived from the sources provided whatever the method of compilation and the object code generated.

#1 would be less awkward with a comma between "provided" and "whatever", but that's a minor point.

Yes, easily done. 

2. This is the reason for clause 2 in the BSD.

#2 might be better situated after #3, with "for clause 2" expanded to "for clauses 1 and 2".

Ok

 

3. Such derived works should carry the above license on those source files generated – or with the files if they are binary.

The second part of #3 could be more clear, e.g. "...or in a separate file accompanying binary distributions."

4. Any original code specifically written by the programmer which not derived from the sources supplied is and should be copyrighted to that programmer.

The phrase "which not derived" in #4 seems to be missing an "is" between "which" and "not".

Yes, thx.  Obviously after a long work period. :)

 

5. This work may be placed under any license of choice except GPL because of the viral condition.

Does "[t]his work" in #5 refer specifically to the "original code" in #4, to your original work (Shen 17), or to the "derived versions" of #1? The impression I get is that it refers to the subject of #4 and by extension to the subject of #1. I really feel you need to state this more clearly.

6. There is no legal right to relicense or sublicense BSD code or any derived version to another license (e.g. GPL).

7. The power to place a license on a work belongs to the copyright holder.

8. A person does not assume copyright over a work by making a small change to it. Only if the change is substantial to be deemed intellectually significant can such a claim be made and then only over the change itself.

#8 seems to be missing an "enough" after the word "substantial".

fine 

9. Hence if changing code, if you wish to retain copyright over your changes and they are intellectually significant, offset these changes under your copyright.

#6-#9 aren't entirely unclear, but in view of #5 and the ambiguity of the phrase "this work", the question comes to mind: why would someone be legally prohibited from licensing his "original code" under the GPL if "the power to place a license on a work belongs to the copyright holder"? I don't think you need to add a bunch of statements expounding on the viral nature of the GPL, but I think the jumble of ideas in #5-#9 needs to be straightened out.

As far as copyrighting your work is concerned, I encourage people to do it.   Don't rely on the Berne convention because when the code 'escapes' nobody will know who wrote it. Copyrighting gives the power to choose a license.  However in the case of GPL, GPLing say your primitives file, would require GPLing the  Shen/BSD which needs it to run.  Now this is possible only if the author gives consent (hence the Reyk case) for dual-licensing and this I do not give because, for many good reasons,  I regard the FSF as corrupt.   Hence it is the legal provision within the GPL which prevents this choice.  The FSF controls the terms of that license and that control prevents you, even as copyright holder, from doing what you want.   BSD does not do that, nor MIT or a whole bunch of other licenses.

But as long as the license does not those viral conditions on my work, I'm fine.  Hence running GPL code on top of Shen is fine.  But I don't use GPL in the library because I wish to avoid complications and achieve BSD uniformity across code.

Perhaps my statements were victim of trying to fit too much in a small space and I'll revisit the wording.  But I think everybody understands what is involved.  

Mark

[Mark Tarver]

I should also point out that these are comments are meant to remind people of conventions already in place; not to create and place extra conditions on the BSD.   Hence I did not feel the need to resort to legalese in these comments.  

Mark

[Mark Tarver]

Comments on BSD, GPL and Copyright

 

This license applies to all derived versions of Shen, including all versions derived from the sources provided whatever the method of compilation and the object code generated.   Such derived works should carry the above license on those source files generated – or with the files if they are binary. 

 

There is no legal right to relicense or sublicense BSD code or any derived version of Shen to another license (e.g. GPL).   The power to sublicense on a work belongs to the copyright holder.  As a matter of principle I (Mark Tarver) refuse to engage with the GPL run by the FSF; my reasons are given here.

 

Any original code specifically written by the programmer which is not derived from the sources supplied is and should be copyrighted to that programmer.  This original code may be placed under any license of choice as long as it does not require dual licensing the BSD-licensed Shen under GPL.

 

Regarding changes to the Shen code; copyright is not exerted over a body of code  by making a small change to it.  If the change is substantial to be deemed intellectually significant then copyright may only be claimed over the change itself. 

Is that clearer?

Mark 

[Luis Souto Graña]

"Though I have no quarrel with the GPL license as such (my library work is BSD)" :D

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[Mark Tarver]

Indeed the library will soon carry the OS logo and the no GPL logo that the download page carries.  The problem with the GPL (esp version 3) is that it is a long complex license backed by  a corrupt organisation.  Harold (before he totally lost it and went off spouting BS on Hacker News) agreed that the library should be kept free of GPL.  

I think is important for the OS community to send a strong message about the practices outlined on that link.   BTW the link to closed source funding on that page used to exist and has been removed by the FSF but AFAIK it pointed to Oracle.  I think it was around $30,000 p.a.

The FSF and the outdated and silly stuff about 'evil closed source' and calling working programmers 'thieves' is not only hypocritical but totally unsound philosophically.  All this BS has polarised people and really stopped the open source movement evolving.  We've never moved on to the deep questions about OS economics, distributive justice,  the apparent failure of OS methodology in HeartBleed and indeed much past ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which needs serious revision.

Mark

On Thursday, 5 February 2015 20:16:43 UTC, Luis Souto Graña wrote:

"Though I have no quarrel with the GPL license as such (my library work is BSD)" :D

2015-02-05 19:38 GMT+01:00 Mark Tarver <dr.mt...@gmail.com>:

Comments on BSD, GPL and Copyright

 

This license applies to all derived versions of Shen, including all versions derived from the sources provided whatever the method of compilation and the object code generated.   Such derived works should carry the above license on those source files generated – or with the files if they are binary. 

 

There is no legal right to relicense or sublicense BSD code or any derived version of Shen to another license (e.g. GPL).   The power to sublicense on a work belongs to the copyright holder.  As a matter of principle I (Mark Tarver) refuse to engage with the GPL run by the FSF; my reasons are given here.

 

Any original code specifically written by the programmer which is not derived from the sources supplied is and should be copyrighted to that programmer.  This original code may be placed under any license of choice as long as it does not require dual licensing the BSD-licensed Shen under GPL.

 

Regarding changes to the Shen code; copyright is not exerted over a body of code  by making a small change to it.  If the change is substantial to be deemed intellectually significant then copyright may only be claimed over the change itself. 

Is that clearer?

Mark 

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[Luis Souto Graña]

That isn't "Though I have no quarrel with the GPL license as such (my library work is BSD)" :D

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[Mark Tarver]

I mean that I have no quarrel with people using GPL where my work is not affected.  The GPL license is partly a victim of the practices of the organisation that fronts it.  If you have an outfit engaged in double-dealing who draft a complex license, then the ethics of that outfit do bear on whether you adopt it or not.   I think the FSF sucks.  I also think that the only way the OS movement will force a change in their practice is to walk away from the GPL until the FSF evolves.   Since Stallman is probably incapable of that, you can reach your own conclusion about what needs to happen.

In order to discuss the ethical basis of the GPL, you need to throw out nearly everything Stallman has to say because so much of it is sub-101 philosophy.   I think that the GPL is useful because it represents a goal but there is no moral imperative to adopt the GPL or share in that goal.  

Mark

[Mark Tarver]

I'll also add this.  If you look at the SFLC (the legal arm of the FSF), you will find Moglen is making a lot of money off the GPL 3; this license is long and complex enough to catch out companies who will pay up rather than face a law suit.   Now suppose I agreed to dual license Shen to GPL v 3 and Shen (and this is by no means unlikely) goes viral and ends up embedded in hardware from washing machines to satellites (not silly to suppose, its powerful but very compact).  Now in that instance Moglen would have a great time as a lawyer.  But if you ask, in that event, how much of his legal fees would go back to this project, you can bet nada.

And this is the situation really.  The GPL is feeding the lawyers.  So how do you stop the lawyers feeding off the work of the programmers?  You stop using their license.

Mark 

[Michael Bradley, Jr.]

It does not seem clearer to me. That is, I don't think it's clear that you are not adding an additional term or condition to the BSD license vs. explaining that the end statement of block #3 logically flows from block #2 (i.e. your "matter of principle").

After a good night's sleep and some additional thought about this, I want to restate my objection to a "Comment" section in the license file. It's your call and I will respect it, but I think it's a mistake and unhelpful to the "Shen cause" and the Shen community. In saying that, I don't mean to attack or insult you (I admire your work on Shen), I'm just trying to be honest. Please word it however you feel is best, just keep in mind that what is apparent to you may not be apparent to others; and that the merits of having a plain vanilla license file (pdf, txt, whatever) with commentary offered at length elsewhere (e.g. in Shen doc) may greatly outweigh what you stand to accomplish by appending anything to the license text.

If you would like me to offer feedback on further revisions to your commentary, I will do so. But I don't think I have too much more to add beyond what I've stated above.

Best regards,

--
Michael Bradley
@michaelsbradley

[Mark Tarver]

Well, there are three issues here.  Presentation and content and politics.

As regards content; the interpretation of law, I don't see that any counterclaim was produced in the two weeks prior to BSD to show anything I had to say was wrong.  Nobody challenged me with any legal point.  Certainly ample time was given for dispute and the time for arguments on that have passed.   The substance of that interpretation is written above.

As regards presentation,  I don't think that I can formulate what I have just written in any way that is more concise and clearer.   

The political point; that it is unhelpful to the Shen cause to state the truth on these matters may well be true.  I have never really thought that people who were offended by the truth were worth my time.   

I think at this point, we need to let this go.

Mark

[Mark Tarver]

I think the only thing I would change is to put in the comma you suggested and END OF LICENSE and I'll do that.  But apart from that everything in comments is in accordance with law.  And unless anybody can think of why we should thrash this out beyond the weeks already devoted to going into this stuff, we'll call it a day.

Mark

[Raoul Duke]

> As regards content; the interpretation of law, I don't see that any
> counterclaim was produced in the two weeks prior to BSD to show anything I
> had to say was wrong. Nobody challenged me with any legal point. Certainly
> ample time was given for dispute and the time for arguments on that have
> passed. The substance of that interpretation is written above.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Raoul Duke]

> and END OF LICENSE

yes; that would be a good thing, I think.

thanks.

[Mark Tarver]

This is not a murder enquiry Raould, this was a discussion of law and copyright and it went on at length and I was open about defending copyright law, mine and other people's and 'running it legal'.   But really that needs to end now and we need to move on.   Shen is BSD, people can do as they wish with it as long as the usual copyright laws are obeyed and the BSD license is retained.

Mark

[Luis Souto Graña]

Sorry, I'm Spanish and my English is very bad. In that sentence: "Though I have no quarrel with the GPL license as such (my library work is BSD) ", you are saying implicitly that a normal BSD is GPL-compatible. I think you should have explicitly said from the beginning of the campaign that your BSD isn't GPL-compatible. I have not supported, but that sentence I had already read before. Other people who really have supported I'm sure they will also poorly understood.

I'm a GNU guile newbie, although I'm 42 years old. My opinion on Stallman is quite similar to yours: say evil is wrong. In your web also found Eben Moglen's salary. But GPL is not Stallman. I've never heard "closed source software is evil" in GNU guile community. They are respectful.

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[Mark Tarver]

Actually I'm saying nothing of the kind,  all I'm saying there is that I've written open source code under BSD in the library and if people want to use GPL elsewhere, that's their call.

This business of BSD being 'GPL compatible' is a phrase from Stallman.  I don't think there is much point in going into what he might mean by it because having read his 2007 thread, I consider he is ignorant of copyright law.   No BSD license, in itself, gives the right to dual license under the GPL.  Consent has to be given.  It was for that very cause that de Raadt fought Moglen and the Linux people and fair play to him for being plucky.   

I do agree that the whole GPL community is not crap because of the people at the top are corrupt and no good.    But you cannot separate the FSF/SFLC from the GPL.   And I've said why I don't want to endorse the FSF and I don't want the shadow of that control over the kernel. 

But before we sob in our hankies, let's see what that means.   Not such a lot.  It only affects the auxiliary code used to compile Shen into the native platform and only Ramil AFAIK is using GPL and he is moving to LGPL.  So really nothing much to be miffed over because we'll all be using OS licenses in the kernel, just not GPL.  This means that people will be free of a restrictive license.  And there is nothing to stop you writing GPL applications on top of Shen.   

Mark

[Mark Tarver]

And really I need to get to bed.  So if we've all had enough of copyright law and licenses (I certainly have) I'm going to end here.   Just show respect to people's work and the law will look after you.  

Mark

[Mark Tarver]

I'll say this last thing and then I'll close this thread.  Even if you put the FSF aside, there is a very strong case for keeping the GPL out of the kernel and the associated code needed to wed it to the native platform and sticking to licenses like BSD and MIT.  If you ever get as far as building the Ring and generating stand alone applications that use kernel & associated code in commercial application, the last thing you need is a nasty chunk of GPLed code right in the middle of your application.  My refusal to dual license and my stand by copyright will not only protect you platform holders, it will protect application writers.  You will be dealing with code under liberal licenses w.o. fear.

As Marx & Engels said 'You have nothing to lose but your chains'.

And on that thought.  Enough said on all this.  Have a good night.

Mark

[Luis Souto Graña]

I don't understand how Ramil Farkhshatov can use LGPL, but I'm a newbie. Good night and thanks for the replies.

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[Luis Souto Graña]

The newbie has understood, thanks.  http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/75436/relicense-bsd-2-3-clause-code-to-gpl