license file

[Ralf Hemmecke]

Hi Waldek,

at sourceforge you link to http://fricas.sourceforge.net/copyright.txt .
But this file is different from
https://github.com/fricas/fricas/blob/master/license/LICENSE.AXIOM .

I think you should remove LICENSE.AXIOM and rather move
src/etc/copyright to /licence/LICENSE, since

I just now realised that there is a copyright file under src/etc.
I find that a bit confusing.

Ralf

[Waldek Hebisch]

Well, LICENSE.AXIOM is original NAG licence. Among others it says:

- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
notice,
^^^^^^

One interpretation of the above is that we are not allowed to
remove LICENSE.AXIOM (unless we remove all NAG provioded code).
This interpretation probably goes too far, but I think that it
is better to keep the file. In open source project we have more
contributors, so more licences. copyright.txt is supposed to
be complete statement of _all_ involved licences.

--
Waldek Hebisch

[Ralf Hemmecke]

On 7/3/19 11:38 AM, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
>>
>> Hi Waldek,
>>
>> at sourceforge you link to http://fricas.sourceforge.net/copyright.txt .
>> But this file is different from
>> https://github.com/fricas/fricas/blob/master/license/LICENSE.AXIOM .
>>
>> I think you should remove LICENSE.AXIOM and rather move
>> src/etc/copyright to /licence/LICENSE, since
>>
>> I just now realised that there is a copyright file under src/etc.
>> I find that a bit confusing.
>
> Well, LICENSE.AXIOM is original NAG licence. Among others it says:
>
> - Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> notice,
> ^^^^^^
>
> One interpretation of the above is that we are not allowed to
> remove LICENSE.AXIOM (unless we remove all NAG provioded code).

But I was not just saying "remove LICENSE.AXIOM", but rather to also
move /src/etc/copyright to /license/LICENCE. Nobody looks into /src/etc
for a license file.

> This interpretation probably goes too far, but I think that it
> is better to keep the file. In open source project we have more
> contributors, so more licences. copyright.txt is supposed to
> be complete statement of _all_ involved licences.

Yes. And why not moving that file to /license/LICENCE instead of
/src/etc/copyright.txt?

The other thing is that if we remove LICENSE.AXIOM, we don't remove the
"notice". It is letter by letter included in copyright.txt. So how could
anyone claim, that we do not include the "copyright notice"?

Why would the filename LICENSE.AXIOM matter?

Ralf

[Waldek Hebisch]

Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
>
> On 7/3/19 11:38 AM, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> > Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Waldek,
> >>
> >> at sourceforge you link to http://fricas.sourceforge.net/copyright.txt .
> >> But this file is different from
> >> https://github.com/fricas/fricas/blob/master/license/LICENSE.AXIOM .
> >>
> >> I think you should remove LICENSE.AXIOM and rather move
> >> src/etc/copyright to /licence/LICENSE, since
> >>
> >> I just now realised that there is a copyright file under src/etc.
> >> I find that a bit confusing.
> >
> > Well, LICENSE.AXIOM is original NAG licence. Among others it says:
> >
> > - Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > notice,
> > ^^^^^^
> >
> > One interpretation of the above is that we are not allowed to
> > remove LICENSE.AXIOM (unless we remove all NAG provioded code).
>
> But I was not just saying "remove LICENSE.AXIOM", but rather to also
> move /src/etc/copyright to /license/LICENCE. Nobody looks into /src/etc
> for a license file.

Build process takes trunk.pp6/src/etc/copyright and embeds it into
executable, so that ')copyright' can show it. For easy
finding/viewing there is http://fricas.sourceforge.net/copyright.txt

>
> > This interpretation probably goes too far, but I think that it
> > is better to keep the file. In open source project we have more
> > contributors, so more licences. copyright.txt is supposed to
> > be complete statement of _all_ involved licences.
>
> Yes. And why not moving that file to /license/LICENCE instead of
> /src/etc/copyright.txt?
>
> The other thing is that if we remove LICENSE.AXIOM, we don't remove the
> "notice". It is letter by letter included in copyright.txt. So how could
> anyone claim, that we do not include the "copyright notice"?
>
> Why would the filename LICENSE.AXIOM matter?

Well, lawyers can invent funny arguments. Current arrangement
avoid need to _think_ about possible legal subtleties.
Another thing is that keeping licence files as-is it is
easier to people who want to check if anything changed.


--
Waldek Hebisch

[Ralf Hemmecke]

> Build process takes trunk.pp6/src/etc/copyright and embeds it into
> executable, so that ')copyright' can show it. For easy
> finding/viewing there is http://fricas.sourceforge.net/copyright.txt

Still, I would argue, that the /license directory is the better place to
put that file. The build process can certainly also take it from there.

>> Why would the filename LICENSE.AXIOM matter?
>
> Well, lawyers can invent funny arguments.

Your right. Isn't that funny that we are afraid of lawyers that
complicate life.

> Current arrangement avoid need to _think_ about possible legal
> subtleties.

I cannot think of a reasonable argument that any lawyer would come up
with. And since FriCAS is not a cashcow, probably no lawyer will ever
even look at the code. ;-)

> Another thing is that keeping licence files as-is it is easier to
> people who want to check if anything changed.

That's a non-issue. We have a couple of commits that only change whitespace.

Ralf

[Waldek Hebisch]

Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
>
> > Another thing is that keeping licence files as-is it is easier to
> > people who want to check if anything changed.
>
> That's a non-issue. We have a couple of commits that only change whitespace.

I am not sure if I was clear enough. Since we are talking about
licence I meant "want to check if anything changed in licence terms".
--
Waldek Hebisch