My understanding is that the flask notebook cannot include the openssl
headers because of licensing incompatibilities.
So I'd support adding openssl-dev as a requirement of Sage. What
systems does it come default on? I don't recall having a problem on
OSX, for example.
Jason
> So I'd support adding openssl-dev as a requirement of Sage. What systems
> does it come default on? I don't recall having a problem on OSX, for
> example.
On Debian (and presumably Ubuntu as well), the correct package name
appears to be libssl-dev, not openssl-dev.
Does that get around the licensing issues? I'm not convinced it does myself.
If you make it a requirement to use non-GPL code, which is not part of the core
of the operating system to run Sage, then I don't see how Sage can be considered
GPL any more.
What do you do if a system has the OpenSSL libraries, but they are too old? Or
if it has the libraries, but not the development headers? Someone has already
said the development headers don't come with Ubuntu.
Perhaps you can argue you don't actually link to the headers, so that is ok. All
seems a bit doggy to me.
I believe the license of Sage is very dubious at best, even in it's current
state. Unfortunately, the huge number of different "open source" licenses seems
to make this almost inevitable.
Has anyone ever tried getting the OpenSSL developers to release OpenSSL under a
GPL license, or perhaps dual license it, giving anyone the choice to use
whatever license they want.
Would you consider Sage GPL if it needed to link to libraries written by Wolfram
Research for Mathematica?
Dave
I thought we came to a conclusion about this (that it was not okay to
ship, but was okay to use), but maybe not.
If it's a problem to use OpenSSL (as compared to shipping OpenSSL), then
I guess here are a few options:
1. Get sagenb relicensed BSD (which may require work to rewrite mitel's
contributions, since we can't seem to contact him for relicensing
permission). Would this solve the issue?
2. Figure out some way to use openssl alternatives. This might be
harder, since twisted depends on openssl, for example, and python
Here is (yet another) page on this:
http://lwn.net/Articles/428111/
>
> If you make it a requirement to use non-GPL code, which is not part of
> the core of the operating system to run Sage, then I don't see how Sage
> can be considered GPL any more.
>
> What do you do if a system has the OpenSSL libraries, but they are too
> old? Or if it has the libraries, but not the development headers?
> Someone has already said the development headers don't come with Ubuntu.
>
> Perhaps you can argue you don't actually link to the headers, so that is
> ok. All seems a bit doggy to me.
>
> I believe the license of Sage is very dubious at best, even in it's
> current state. Unfortunately, the huge number of different "open source"
> licenses seems to make this almost inevitable.
>
> Has anyone ever tried getting the OpenSSL developers to release OpenSSL
> under a GPL license, or perhaps dual license it, giving anyone the
> choice to use whatever license they want.
From the above page:
aiui [as I understand it], the problem here is actually a former OpenSSL
hacker who has no interest (and, in fact, a positive interest against)
in changing the OpenSSL licensing. Most of the current OpenSSL hackers
don't have an issue with the change (again, aiui).
IIRC, the question is not so much distributing our source that just has
an import statement, but distributing binaries that we've compiled.
And remember, GPL has an exception that says you can link against system
libraries (see the page I posted earlier, or
http://people.gnome.org/~markmc/openssl-and-the-gpl.html). Win32
certainly is a system library. Different people believe different
things about OpenSSL being a system library. IIRC, FSF doesn't think it is.
Thanks,
Jason
That makes the OpenSSL license GPL-incompatible. See
http://people.gnome.org/~markmc/openssl-and-the-gpl.html
Thanks,
Jason
Right, of course... if we're talking about distributing binaries then
what I said goes out the window. And of course we should be talking
about distributing binaries, since... we distribute binaries...
Thanks! :)
-Keshav
----
Join us in #sagemath on irc.freenode.net !
That probably means a lot more users would need to be root to install Sage,
since if the development headers are not present, they would have a bit of a
problem.
I believe also OpenSSL does not exactly have a great reputation for backwards
compatibility, with it sometimes being necessary to have specific versions.
See
http://linuxtesting.org/upstream-tracker/versions/openssl.html
or see
http://rs79.vrx.net/interests/computers/sw/openssl/
where it says:
"Openssl 0.96 and 0.97 are not backward compatible. If you have an ancient
version of 0.9.6 you should install the last good version of 0.9.6. Otherwise
you have to recompile things like Apache to know about 0.9.7."
I've never followed the development closely, or had any particular interest in
OpenSSL, but to me at least it would be a bad decision to insist on OpenSSL,
whilst trying to keep other Sage goals (GPL, non-root builds etc).
Dave
(Disclaimer: I have never used the notebook.)
When ruby became popular for web apps, there was a similar problem. All
of the existing application servers sucked, so new ones popped up just
to run rails.
Rather than build SSL support into the application servers, everyone
deployed apache or nginx as an SSL proxy in front of them. Could this
work for the sage notebook?
The notebook would always run on e.g. localhost:8080 unencrypted,
without linking to OpenSSL. If someone wants to make his notebook server
public, he downloads nginx/apache and a tiny config file that proxies
0.0.0.0:8080 to localhost:8080, possibly using SSL.
This sounds good to me. William was also musing about whether
out-of-the-box SSL support in the notebook was really that important,
a while ago: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/sage-devel/Jl11JxIb2E8/discussion
. IMO we can extend that reasoning to whether SSL support in the
notebook is really that important at all, out-of-the-box or otherwise.
As long as we provide instructions on how to use nginx as a backend to
provide SSL, we're not really losing functionality, just increasing
inconvenience a bit for those who want to use SSL.
Sage is changing the license for packages? I thought the Sage
distribution was GPLv3 because of GPLv3 packages it included. Who said
the Sage distribution was GPLv2+?
Thanks,
Jason
From an email exchange between me and William in October:
On Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 06:31, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 3:28 PM, Keshav Kini <kesha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Saturday, October 1, 2011 10:28:28 AM UTC+8, William wrote:
>>>
>>> (2) Sage is GPLv3, which is a license that is perceived as very
>>> corporate unfriendly by many of the top companies that do commercial
>>> software.
>>
>> Last I checked, Sage was GPLv2+. This is stated in COPYING.txt in the root
>> directory of the latest dev version, too (4.7.2.alpha3). Has something
>> changed?
>
> The complete Sage distribution is GPLv3+. The core Sage library
> (written in Python and Cython) is GPLv2+. However, many of the
> components of Sage are GPLv3+.
I suppose if we are really shipping GPLv3-*only* components, then the
distribution isn't really GPLv3+. So I guess that's one thing to
clarify (i.e., are we?).
Jason
So I guess COPYING.txt should be updated then...
And Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sage_Math) also says:
Sage is free software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General
Public License version 2+.
It could even work out of the box. There shouldn't be a problem
distributing apache/nginx linked against OpenSSL in the sage tarball.
The sage tarball is licensed GPLv3(+?), so I think the same problem is
there.
Jason
Yes, IMO it should. See http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/12447 .
So you are suggesting that the openssl support be automatically
removed if the libssl-dev is missing, when somebody tries to compile?
That sounds reasonable. I *think* OpenSSL is also a requirement for
OpenID, so they'd lose that as well.
So exactly what error happens when you try to install sagenb on a system
with the headers? I assume we need to work around that, and then just
check `import ssl` when we try to turn on OpenID or something else that
requires ssl.
Jason
This isn't the same situation at all!
If you link to it, you need to have compatible licences -- and they're
not compatible.
If you make them just work together if they happen to be on the same
box, you're using them as intended, and there is no licence issue since
the notebook works independantly of openssl!
Snark on #sagemath
Yes, but Michael said "distributing apache/nginx linked against
OpenSSL in the sage tarball", which is what Jeroen was responding to.
A tarball isn't really licensed, the code is. Is shipping
sage+apache.tar really different than sage.tar and apache.tar when they
contain exactly the same files?
I'm saying we'd build a static apache/nginx, and bundle that with
sage-x.x.tar.
If that makes people uneasy, we could make it a separate tarball.
We don't want any of the sage stuff linked with OpenSSL, but we don't
care if apache/nginx are linked to it, since that doesn't affect sage.
The GPL extends to cover all code shipped together, IIRC. So it is
different, in my understanding.
Jason
That's fine. I don't think any of us are lawyers, thank god, so like I
said in my response to Jeroen we could make it a separate tarball and
still accomplishing the goal.
Okay, so it's a dependency of pyOpenSSL. I believe that is needed for
the OpenID stuff as well as twisted. So we'll just need to catch those
installation failures and print appropriate explanatory messages
('install the OpenSSL headers and reinstall the spkg').
Jason
Putting them in the same archive isn't a problem, or distributions
would have problem.
The licences cover derived works as far as I know, which isn't the case
by just putting together.
Snark on #sagemath
I was being loose with the terminology; the type of proxy I was
referring to is called a reverse proxy.
You can do fancier stuff (like load balancing) with them, but
essentially, *this* reverse proxy would just send data back and forth
unaltered between the sage notebook and a web browser.
Forward proxies are another beast.
I think it pretty much *is* the same situation license-wise. You are
just replacing the non-GPL openSSL by the non-GPL apache. But I am not
a lawyer, so I won't bother discussing this further.
You are
just replacing the non-GPL openSSL by the non-GPL apache. But I am not
a lawyer, so I won't bother discussing this further.
Precisely. We would have to link to OpenSSL though, whereas we
communicate with apache over a TCP/IP connection.
I'm not a lawyer either, but as far as I know it isn't a problem to
connect a browser under any licence to a server under any licence...
Snark on #sagemath
The *only* problem I found was the URL displayed when you publish a
worksheet which is wrong.
I see what you mean now. The notebook assumes it's running in the
virtual host's document root. This isn't too hard to fix; you could set
up a subdomain (sagenb.math.example.edu) or just use another port.
The problem is that these,
return RedirectResponse('/home/' + W.filename())
should really be,
return RedirectResponse(basepath + 'home/' + W.filename())
This is a valid issue for sure, but there's a notebook rewrite coming
Real Soon Now, so I don't know the best place to report it.
If anyone is seriously interested in the reverse proxy solution, I can
make sure that it works with the new notebook.
Please report issues for the new notebook at http://github.com/sagemath/sagenb ! Thanks :)
achtung: sent from phone, possibly unduly terse
On Feb 13, 2012 9:04 AM, "Michael Orlitzky" <mic...@orlitzky.com> wrote:On 02/12/2012 10:54 AM, Jonathan wrote: > > I found my notes on proxying Sage. If you set up Sage a...
I see what you mean now. The notebook assumes it's running in the virtual host's document root. This isn't too hard to fix; you could set up a subdomain (sagenb.math.example.edu) or just use another port.
The problem is that these,
return RedirectResponse('/home/' + W.filename())
should really be,
return RedirectResponse(basepath + 'home/' + W.filename())
This is a valid issue for sure, but there's a notebook rewrite coming Real Soon Now, so I don't know the best place to report it.
If anyone is seriously interested in the reverse proxy solution, I can make sure that it works with the new notebook.
-- To post to this group, send an email to sage-...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this g...
> Sage is changing the license for packages? I thought the Sage
> distribution was GPLv3 because of GPLv3 packages it included. Who said
> the Sage distribution was GPLv2+?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jason
We have numerous GPL version 2 only components too, so the truth is there is no
legal license for Sage.
To cut and past from the GPL2 in gfan
======================
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
=======================
Since some of packages will not have the "or later version" added into the
license, we can't distribute Sage as GPL 3 or even "GPL 2 or any later version",
since some of the components don't have the "or any later version".
IMHO, if you want to be totally legal, then you should not use Sage.
On the other hand, I personally don't see anything particularly immoral about
using Sage. I don't think the intenstion of the authors of the packages would be
to prevent their code being used in projects like Sage.
Dave
Which packages are those? I thought we were being really careful to not
include any packages that were GPLv2 only in the base, standard
distribution of Sage?
Or are you just imagining that there probably is such a package?
Thanks,
Jason
First one I find is gfan. This is SPKG.txt:
= gfan =
== Description ==
From http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~jensen/software/gfan/gfan.html:
Gfan is a software package for computing Groebner fans and tropical varieties.
These are polyhedral fans associated to polynomial ideals. The maximal cones
of a Groebner fan are in bijection with the marked reduced Groebner bases of
its defining ideal. The software computes all marked reduced Groebner bases of
an ideal. Their union is a universal Groebner basis. The tropical variety of a
polynomial ideal is a certain subcomplex of the Groebner fan. Gfan contains
algorithms for computing this complex for general ideals and specialized
algorithms for tropical curves, tropical hypersurfaces and tropical varieties
of prime ideals. In addition to the above core functions the package contains
many tools which are useful in the study of Groebner bases, initial ideals and
tropical geometry.
== License ==
* GPL v2
This is COPYING in the source.
drkirkby@hawk:~/sage-5.0.beta3/spkg/standard/gfan-0.4plus.p1$ more src/COPYING
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Dave
>
> First one I find is gfan. This is SPKG.txt:
gfan is GPLv2+.
I know the author of gfan personally; I don't remember for sure, but I
think got him to GPL it in the first place. All he did was take his
code and put the standard GPL "COPYING" file (which has the GPLv2
license in it) in the same directory, and include a LICENSE file that
says:
-------------
deep:src wstein$ more LICENSE
The Gfan software is distributed under the "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC
LICENSE" as described in the file "COPYING".
Ask the author if you want a more reasonable license.
-------------
Because the LICENSE file (and code) do not specifically state that the
program is GPLv2, one may use any version of the GPL license (>= 2).
I'm not comfortable with this statement: "IMHO, if you want to be
totally legal, then you should not use Sage." It seems like FUD that
ignores a ton of hard work that we have all done campaigning to get
licenses changed, sometimes choosing a much more difficult path
(regarding which libraries we use) just because of GPL versions, etc.
To the best of my knowledge there is not ** ONE SINGLE PACKAGE **
included with Sage that is licensed GPLv2 only. If this is not
actually the case, I really want to know about it. I believe that
Sage is 100% legally distributed and does not violate any copyright
statements at all.
That said, it would be good to change the line in *our* SPKG.txt for
gfan that says:
"== License ==
* GPL v2"
This line was added in 2010 by Alex Ghitza and positively reviewed by
Marshal Hampton. They claimed to be dealing with trac #3043 (from 4
years ago) which specifically asked for clarification of this. The
first comment on trac #3043 was by Michael Abshoff (who has actually
read the GPL) where he explained very clearly exactly how things work
with GPL, and that the software is GPLv2+. Then Alex seems to have
ignored or misinterpreted Michael's remark with "I would say that's
pretty clear"... since maybe he hasn't so closely read the GPL.
So please review: http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/12504
-- William
> --
> To post to this group, send an email to sage-...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to
> sage-devel+...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel
> URL: http://www.sagemath.org
--
William Stein
Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org
I asked Anders about the license off list before William's post. To
clarify this, he changed the LICENSE file to the following :
--------------
The Gfan software is distributed under the "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE"
version 2 or any later version as described in the file "COPYING". Ask
the author if you want a more reasonable license.
--------------
This will be in a later release of gfan.
Cheers,
Burcin
Thanks, I made this issue #38:
But currently SPKG.txt and COPYING state version 2 only.
SPKG.txt for Mercurial states
"== License ==
* GNU General Public License version 2, or any later version
"
but the COPYING file does not state "or any later version". Some programs do
(like znpoly), but Mercurial does not. Nor does gfan - despite you say you know
different. Nor does the COPYING file in 'moin', though SPKG.txt says it is
"GPLv2+".
> Because the LICENSE file (and code) do not specifically state that the
> program is GPLv2, one may use any version of the GPL license (>= 2).
Note, that an author has to add the "or any later version" for it to become
applicable. Unless that is specifically stated, it you can't apply it.
iconv is GPL3 only.
> I'm not comfortable with this statement: "IMHO, if you want to be
> totally legal, then you should not use Sage." It seems like FUD that
> ignores a ton of hard work that we have all done campaigning to get
> licenses changed, sometimes choosing a much more difficult path
> (regarding which libraries we use) just because of GPL versions, etc.
If you believe it is 100% legal that is fine. But I don't, and nor does Jeroen
Demeyer
http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/msg/078c738469cc5bbd
> To the best of my knowledge there is not ** ONE SINGLE PACKAGE **
> included with Sage that is licensed GPLv2 only.
Well, certainly there seems to be a lot of COPYING files that state they are GPL
version 2, with no mention of the "any later version" the license says one
should put if one wants to apply the license to later releases.
> If this is not
> actually the case, I really want to know about it. I believe that
> Sage is 100% legally distributed and does not violate any copyright
> statements at all.
You are welcome to your opinion. I just don't happen to agree with it.
Dave
That does not matter.
>
>> Because the LICENSE file (and code) do not specifically state that the
>> program is GPLv2, one may use any version of the GPL license (>= 2).
>
>
> Note, that an author has to add the "or any later version" for it to become applicable. Unless that is specifically stated, it you can't apply it.
I think you are just making that up. From the GPL: "If the Program
does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any
version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."
>
> iconv is GPL3 only.
That's fine because GPL3 is GPLv2+ compatible. Remember your claim
is: "if you want to be totally legal, then you should not use Sage."
>> I'm not comfortable with this statement: "IMHO, if you want to be
>> totally legal, then you should not use Sage." It seems like FUD that
>> ignores a ton of hard work that we have all done campaigning to get
>> licenses changed, sometimes choosing a much more difficult path
>> (regarding which libraries we use) just because of GPL versions, etc.
>
>
> If you believe it is 100% legal that is fine. But I don't, and nor does Jeroen Demeyer
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/msg/078c738469cc5bbd
There he says "I will say it more strongly: Sage *is* violating the
GPL by distributing
GPLv3-only packages (such as cvxopt) under a GPLv2+ licence. "
However, that again is irrelevant, because we are *not* distributing
cvxopt under a GPLv2+ license. I don't why anybody would think we
are. Why do you and Jereon think I am distributing Sage under a
GPLv2+ license?!?!
The only claim made in our COPYING file is this:
"Every component of Sage except jsmath is licensed under a GPL v2
(or later) compatible license."
The GPLv3-only license is compatible with GPLv2+, in the sense that
one can combine a GPLv2+ codebase with a GPLv3 codebase to create a
new program that is licensed under GPLv3. Obviously, as a combined
work, one must apply the GPLv3 license to the GPLv2+ codebase.
>> To the best of my knowledge there is not ** ONE SINGLE PACKAGE **
>> included with Sage that is licensed GPLv2 only.
>
>
> Well, certainly there seems to be a lot of COPYING files that state they are GPL version 2, with no mention of the "any later version" the license says one should put if one wants to apply the license to later releases.
>
The COPYING file is from FSF. It looks like this. Maybe you should read it:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ cat COPYING
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
...
... If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
...
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
...
If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
Public License instead of this License.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> If this is not
>> actually the case, I really want to know about it. I believe that
>> Sage is 100% legally distributed and does not violate any copyright
>> statements at all.
>
>
> You are welcome to your opinion. I just don't happen to agree with it.
I would be very appreciate if you could provide even a shred of
evidence that supports your opinion that: "IMHO, if you want to be
totally legal, then you should not use Sage." I know of absolutely no
copyright issues with the current Sage distribution. If I were aware
of any violations, I would address them ASAP.
-- William
1. Distributing GPLv3-only packages would not violate the GPL (as I
explained elsewhere a few minutes ago).
2. cvxopt is *NOT* GPLv3-only licensed. The license is GPLv3+.
-- William
Why does it not matter?
>> Note, that an author has to add the "or any later version" for it to become applicable. Unless that is specifically stated, it you can't apply it.
>
> I think you are just making that up. From the GPL: "If the Program
> does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any
> version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."
I'm not making it up.
If someone writes "This program is released under the GPL", and does not state a
version, then you are correct that you are able to apply any version you want.
However, if a version is stated, as it it with moinmoin, gfan, Mercurial, then
you can't just add the "any later" bit if you chose to.
Take Moinmoin for example. As that is currently in Sage, the license says at the
top:
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
further down we read
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
Clearly in this case moinmoin has
1) Stated a version (version 2, June 1991)
2) Has not stated "or any later version"
3) Has not just stated "the GPL" and not given a version.
In that case, it is just version 2. But other code is just version 3. The two
are incompatible.
> I would be very appreciate if you could provide even a shred of
> evidence that supports your opinion that: "IMHO, if you want to be
> totally legal, then you should not use Sage." I know of absolutely no
> copyright issues with the current Sage distribution. If I were aware
> of any violations, I would address them ASAP.
I've provided more than a shred of evidence.
Dave
Do you understand the following statement?: The COPYING file is
something provided by FSF. It is not modified by the author of the
code.
>
>
>>> Note, that an author has to add the "or any later version" for it to
>>> become applicable. Unless that is specifically stated, it you can't apply
>>> it.
>>
>>
>> I think you are just making that up. From the GPL: "If the Program
>> does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any
>> version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."
>
>
> I'm not making it up.
>
> If someone writes "This program is released under the GPL", and does not
> state a version, then you are correct that you are able to apply any version
> you want.
>
> However, if a version is stated, as it it with moinmoin, gfan, Mercurial,
> then you can't just add the "any later" bit if you chose to.
>
> Take Moinmoin for example. As that is currently in Sage, the license says at
> the top:
Moinmoin is GPLv2+. The file moin-1.9.1.p2/src/moin/README says "This
program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version."
They then include the file COPYING that is distributed by the FSF,
which you keep quoting from.
>
>
> GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
> Version 2, June 1991
>
> further down we read
>
>
> Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
> specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
> later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
> either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
> Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
>
> this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
> Foundation.
>
> Clearly in this case moinmoin has
>
> 1) Stated a version (version 2, June 1991)
Nope.
> 2) Has not stated "or any later version"
Nop.e
> 3) Has not just stated "the GPL" and not given a version.
Nope.
> In that case, it is just version 2. But other code is just version 3. The
> two are incompatible.
Nope.
>
>
>> I would be very appreciate if you could provide even a shred of
>> evidence that supports your opinion that: "IMHO, if you want to be
>> totally legal, then you should not use Sage." I know of absolutely no
>> copyright issues with the current Sage distribution. If I were aware
>> of any violations, I would address them ASAP.
>
>
> I've provided more than a shred of evidence.
Not a single shred.
Can you please read [1] very carefully, then reconsider your position?
[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
>
>
> Dave
>
> --
> To post to this group, send an email to sage-...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to
> sage-devel+...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel
> URL: http://www.sagemath.org
--
(Of course, I don't vouch for any of these statements - just trying to
clarify the discussion.)
-Keshav
Wow, you actually *sounded* like a lawyer for a moment there!
-- William
>
> --
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I can understand and agree with Alex's comments
=============================
Both the version of gfan that's currently in Sage (0.3) and the latest version
(0.4plus) have a file COPYING which is just the text of GPL version 2. I would
say that's pretty clear, and it should be in the file SPKG.txt.
=============================
I would interpret Alex as saying that's version 2, and only version 2.
I've no idea how Michael Abshoff can say the FSF consider that code is licensed
under version X+, even if you include a license with version X, and no comment
about later versions. That makes no sense to me, and I've no idea where Micheal
got that from. He has not provided any evidence to back up that dubious claim.
I think we could argue this all night. I for one think Sage is on dodgy ground
license-wise. Jeroen Demeyer is even more adamant there are legal issues.
William is happy.
Dave
See here for instance:
Quoting from item 4 in that answer:
If neither the source, nor the upstream composed documentation says
anything about the license version, then it could be under _ANY_
version of the GPL. The version listed in COPYING is irrelevant from
this perspective. Technically it could be under any license, but if
all we have to go by is COPYING, we'll use COPYING to imply that it
is under the GPL, all versions (GPL+).
> I think we could argue this all night. I for one think Sage is on
> dodgy ground license-wise. Jeroen Demeyer is even more adamant there
> are legal issues.
>
> William is happy.
IMHO, the tone on sage-devel has been deteriorating lately. Please try
not to contribute to the noise this way. Several people have tried to
give helpful responses to your initial claim. Repeating the same point
over and over without looking anything up is not productive.
On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:42:27 +0000
"Dr. David Kirkby" <david....@onetel.net> wrote:
> But currently SPKG.txt and COPYING state version 2 only.
>
> SPKG.txt for Mercurial states
>
> "== License ==
> * GNU General Public License version 2, or any later version
> "
>
> but the COPYING file does not state "or any later version". Some
> programs do (like znpoly), but Mercurial does not. Nor does gfan -
> despite you say you know different. Nor does the COPYING file in
> 'moin', though SPKG.txt says it is "GPLv2+".
Mercurial source code clearly states GPLv2+. They also have it on
their web site:
http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/License
Same for moinmoin:
Cheers,
Burcin
I also think that the fact that the sentence quoted above is irrelevant,
since compatibility is not transitive: you could have A and B
compatible, A and C compatible, but not B and C compatible.
Nowhere in COPYING.txt it is claimed that Sage (as a whole) is released
under GPLv3.