Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Richard Stallman]

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BzrForEmacsDevs
allows GPL version 2, but not the current version.
This is not a good thing.  Would the author(s) please
change it to allow future versions of the GNU GPL as well?
The documentation we recommend to Emacs developers has to
set a good example for licensing as well as have useful
information.

Are there other pages on emacswiki.org which have this problem?

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Karl Fogel]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BzrForEmacsDevs
> allows GPL version 2, but not the current version.

That's not quite true.  The license blurb at the bottom of the page
says:

  This work is licensed to you under version 2 of the GNU General Public
  License.  Alternatively, you may choose to receive this work under any
  other license that grants the right to use, copy, modify, and/or
  distribute the work, as long as that license imposes the restriction
  that derivative works have to grant the same rights and impose the
  same restriction. For example, you may choose to receive this work
  under the GNU Free Documentation License, the CreativeCommons
  ShareAlike License, the XEmacs manual license, or similar licenses."

So that allows the GPLv3, as well as many other licenses.

(Note also that the words "similar licenses" at the end link to a very
short and simple share-alike type of license.)

> This is not a good thing.  Would the author(s) please
> change it to allow future versions of the GNU GPL as well?
> The documentation we recommend to Emacs developers has to
> set a good example for licensing as well as have useful
> information.

I wrote most of that page, and would be happy to change "2" to "3" in
the blurb, but don't see how to do so.  It appears to be an
administrative function of the EmacsWiki site, and I'm not sure how to
change it, nor whether it can be changed on a per-page basis.

> Are there other pages on emacswiki.org which have this problem?

All of them, presumably (though I'm not sure it's a problem).

-Karl

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Richard Stallman]

      This work is licensed to you under version 2 of the GNU General Public
      License.  Alternatively, you may choose to receive this work under any
      other license that grants the right to use, copy, modify, and/or
      distribute the work, as long as that license imposes the restriction
      that derivative works have to grant the same rights and impose the
      same restriction. For example, you may choose to receive this work
      under the GNU Free Documentation License, the CreativeCommons
      ShareAlike License, the XEmacs manual license, or similar licenses."

    So that allows the GPLv3, as well as many other licenses.

I know; I read that before.  I think that does not alloq GPLv3.
Section 7 of GPLv3 allows some limited variation in the licenses of
derivative works, so it does not fit the criterion.

So I think we have a real problem here.

Who runs the site?

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Lennart Borgman]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 9:37 PM, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>      This work is licensed to you under version 2 of the GNU General Public
>      License.  Alternatively, you may choose to receive this work under any
>      other license that grants the right to use, copy, modify, and/or
>      distribute the work, as long as that license imposes the restriction
>      that derivative works have to grant the same rights and impose the
>      same restriction. For example, you may choose to receive this work
>      under the GNU Free Documentation License, the CreativeCommons
>      ShareAlike License, the XEmacs manual license, or similar licenses."
>
>    So that allows the GPLv3, as well as many other licenses.
>
> I know; I read that before.  I think that does not alloq GPLv3.
> Section 7 of GPLv3 allows some limited variation in the licenses of
> derivative works, so it does not fit the criterion.
>
> So I think we have a real problem here.
>
> Who runs the site?


EmacsWiki? http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AlexSchroeder

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Richard Stallman]

    EmacsWiki? http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AlexSchroeder

Can you tell me his email address?  Email is the way I communicate.

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Jay Belanger]

>     EmacsWiki? http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AlexSchroeder
>
> Can you tell me his email address?  Email is the way I communicate.

It's kensanata@gmail.com

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Les Harris]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Can you tell me his email address?  Email is the way I communicate.

kensanata@gmail.com

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Stefan Monnier]

>     EmacsWiki? http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AlexSchroeder
> Can you tell me his email address?  Email is the way I communicate.

Try

   grep 'Schroeder' lisp/ChangeLog*

;-)


-- Stefan

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Jay Belanger]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>       This work is licensed to you under version 2 of the GNU General Public
>       License.  Alternatively, you may choose to receive this work under any
>       other license that grants the right to use, copy, modify, and/or
>       distribute the work, as long as that license imposes the restriction
>       that derivative works have to grant the same rights and impose the
>       same restriction. For example, you may choose to receive this work
>       under the GNU Free Documentation License, the CreativeCommons
>       ShareAlike License, the XEmacs manual license, or similar licenses."
>
>     So that allows the GPLv3, as well as many other licenses.
>
> I know; I read that before.  I think that does not alloq GPLv3.

But BzrForEmacsDevs is documentation, and it does allow the GFDL.

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Richard Stallman]

    But BzrForEmacsDevs is documentation, and it does allow the GFDL.

That's true.  Nonetheless, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3 is a very bad
example.  We should not set a bad licensing example.

In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
similar license.  Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed
this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3?

That would be a bad problem.  Can someone tell me if there are any?

Can someone please send me the email address of the people who run
that site?

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Karl Fogel]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> That's true.  Nonetheless, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3 is a very bad
> example.  We should not set a bad licensing example.
>
> In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
> similar license.  Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed
> this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3?
>
> That would be a bad problem.  Can someone tell me if there are any?
>
> Can someone please send me the email address of the people who run
> that site?

Les Harris already sent that name and email address.  Here it is again:

  Alex Schroeder <kensanata@gmail.com>

More information about him can be found at
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AlexSchroeder.

-Karl

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Richard Stallman]

    Les Harris already sent that name and email address.  Here it is again:

He had already sent it, but it had not arrived in my machine.
You had a chance to see it, but I did not.

Messages can only arrive in my machine when I transfer a batch.  His
message arrived in the same transfer in which I sent the second
message.

The mail I sent out is always based on what I had picked up in the
last transfer, up to a day before.  Therefore it will frequently
happen that I write in ignorance of mail that you have already seen
but that is not yet available to me.  When that happens, please don't
attach any significance to it.

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Stefan Monnier]

> In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
> similar license.  Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed
> this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3?

> That would be a bad problem.  Can someone tell me if there are any?

There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a license
would be illegal, AFAIK.


        Stefan

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Lennart Borgman]

Could you please answer on the devel list? Or aren't you subscribed there?



On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Stefan Monnier
<monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>> In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
>> similar license.  Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed
>> this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3?
>
>> That would be a bad problem.  Can someone tell me if there are any?
>
> There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a license
> would be illegal, AFAIK.
>
>
>        Stefan
>
>
>

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Lennart Borgman]

Ah, shit. Mail sw ... ;-)

I wanted to ask Alex to answer here.


On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 10:52 PM, Lennart Borgman
<lennart.borgman@gmail.com> wrote:
> Could you please answer on the devel list? Or aren't you subscribed there?
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Stefan Monnier
> <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>>> In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
>>> similar license.  Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed
>>> this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3?
>>
>>> That would be a bad problem.  Can someone tell me if there are any?
>>
>> There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a license
>> would be illegal, AFAIK.
>>
>>
>>        Stefan
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Lennart Borgman]

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Stefan Monnier
<monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>> In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
>> similar license.  Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed
>> this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3?
>
>> That would be a bad problem.  Can someone tell me if there are any?
>
> There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a license
> would be illegal, AFAIK.



Alex is not subscribed here. Here is the answer I got from Alex when I
asked him to comment:

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 10:23 PM, Alex Schroeder <kensanata@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't follow it. I think the people involved did not read the entire
> blurb:
>
> This work is licensed to you under version 2 of the GNU General Public
> License. Alternatively, you may choose to receive this work under any other
> license that grants the right to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute the
> work, as long as that license imposes the restriction that derivative works
> have to grant the same rights and impose the same restriction. For example,
> you may choose to receive this work under the GNU Free Documentation
> License, theCreativeCommons ShareAlike License, the XEmacs manual license,
> or similar licenses.
>
> --
> Sent from a mobile phone. Sorry for being terse.
>
> On 25.11.2009, at 19:58, Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Alex,
>
> Are you following this thread?
>
> Best wishes,
> L
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>
> Date: Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 7:44 PM
> Subject: Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs
> To: Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com>
> Cc: rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>
>
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:30:27 -0600, Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com> wrote:
>
> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BzrForEmacsDevs
>
> allows GPL version 2, but not the current version.
>
> This is not a good thing.  Would the author(s) please change it to
>
> allow future versions of the GNU GPL as well?  The documentation we
>
> recommend to Emacs developers has to set a good example for licensing
>
> as well as have useful information.
>
> I wrote most of that page, and would be happy to change "2" to "3" in
>
> the blurb, but don't see how to do so.  It appears to be an
>
> administrative function of the EmacsWiki site, and I'm not sure how to
>
> change it, nor whether it can be changed on a per-page basis.
>
> EmacsWiki uses the Oddmuse engine; a Wiki engine written in Perl.
>
> Indeed, as you have guessed, the license text is a configuration setting
> in the Perl backend of the Wiki (a configurable footer for all pages).
> It is common for all the pages of the Wiki, so you would have to contact
> Alex Schroeder to install a change and it would affect all the pages of
> the Wiki.
>

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Richard Stallman]

    There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a license
    would be illegal, AFAIK.

That would indeed be a bad problem.  And if they don't use Emacs-23 features
and the result is that they are licensed incompatibly with it, that would
also be a bad problem.

I will write to Schroeder presently.

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Jonas Bernoulli]

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 07:23, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>    There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a license
>    would be illegal, AFAIK.
>
> That would indeed be a bad problem.  And if they don't use Emacs-23 features
> and the result is that they are licensed incompatibly with it, that would
> also be a bad problem.
>
> I will write to Schroeder presently.

From http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ElispArea#toc9:

> Conventions
>
> The wiki is for free software only. Please make sure your files contain an appropriate blurb that says so. Code snippets are covered by the license in the footer of every page.
>
> Please describe the EmacsLisp libraries you add to the Wiki. CreateNewPages to do that, or add the descriptions to existing pages.

The most important part to notice is that only documentation is
licensed under the GPL2+ while libraries are licensed under whatever
free license is specified in the library itself.

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[David Kastrup]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
>> similar license.  Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed
>> this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3?
>
>> That would be a bad problem.  Can someone tell me if there are any?
>
> There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a
> license would be illegal, AFAIK.

Not really.  It would just be impractical since distributing this as
part of an Emacs 23 distribution would not be feasible.  You can of
course offer any code you wrote yourself under any license you feel fit.
The problem is that the distribution is then effectively not even under
GPLv2 since meeting the _GPLv2_ terms is not reliably possible for
_redistributors_ unless they don't distribute Emacs.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
>>> similar license.  Are there programs in the wiki which are licensed
>>> this way, allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3?
>>> That would be a bad problem.  Can someone tell me if there are any?
>> There might be some, but if they rely on Emacs-23 features, such a
>> license would be illegal, AFAIK.
> Not really.  It would just be impractical since distributing this as
> part of an Emacs 23 distribution would not be feasible.  You can of
> course offer any code you wrote yourself under any license you feel fit.

This is a murky area, but the fact that the code can only run together
with GPLv3 code might imply that it is illegal to distribute it under
an incompatible license, even if it's distributed separately.

The reason for it might be the same as the reason why it wouldn't be
legal to distribute "forward only, ed-style patch" with an incompatible
license, even though none of the GPLv3 code appears in the patch.

IIRC this has never been tested in court, but convinced a company to
write the fgmp library so as to be able to distribute a program that
used libgmp but wasn't compatible with its license.


        Stefan

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Lennart Borgman]

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Stefan Monnier
<monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>
> This is a murky area, but the fact that the code can only run together
> with GPLv3 code might imply that it is illegal to distribute it under
> an incompatible license, even if it's distributed separately.


Hm, then perhaps some code became illegal when GPLv3 was released and
even more will be illegal when GPLv4 is released...

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Stefan Monnier]

>> This is a murky area, but the fact that the code can only run together
>> with GPLv3 code might imply that it is illegal to distribute it under
>> an incompatible license, even if it's distributed separately.
> Hm, then perhaps some code became illegal when GPLv3 was released and
> even more will be illegal when GPLv4 is released...

No: releasing a new version of the GPL makes no difference, and neither
does releasing a new version of Emacs.  What makes a difference is when
a package is modified to make use of features that are only provided by
an Emacs that uses a new license (e.g. Emacs-23, released under the
GPLv3+, adds many new features which are not available in any GPLv2+
emacsen).


        Stefan

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Richard Stallman]

    Hm, then perhaps some code became illegal when GPLv3 was released

The mere release of a new license has no such effect.  If this result
occurred, it occurred when we released Emacs under GPLv3+ instead of
GPLv2+.

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Richard Stallman writes:

 > allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3 is a very bad example.  We should not
 > set a bad licensing example.

Please get your lawyer to look at it.  It was the need of XEmacs for a
license compatible with the unnamed, unversioned documentation license
we inherited from Lucid (which presumably inherited it from Emacs 18
and Emacs 19) that inspired the multiple licensing.  Alex wanted to
generalize it, so the *intent* is that any license that grants the
listed rights and requires that they be granted to those "downstream"
of the licensee may be used.  GPLv3 clearly qualifies by the intent.

I am fairly sure that Alex would be happy to modify the permission
notice based on a lawyer's advice on how to accomplish his intention.

 > In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
 > similar license.

All pages in the wiki are licensed that way.

I spot-checked one of the major programs distributed on the wiki, Drew
Adams's "icicles".  The pages describing the program say it is "GPL v2
or later" although the pages have the standard permission notice for
the wiki.  The libraries themselves contain the standard permission
notice, for "GPL v2 or later".

So I don't think there is a general problem with programs; anything
large enough to have a separate file probably has the standard
notice.  Snippets of code included directly in a page will have the
page's license, of course, but AFAIK nobody using the wiki believes
that the GPL is only permitted as version 2.  (I understand that what
a court says may vary; please help Alex get the legal advice he needs
to accomplish his intention.)

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Lennart Borgman]

I am cc:ing Alex so he can take part.


On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 1:05 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> Richard Stallman writes:
>
>  > allowing GPLv2 and not GPLv3 is a very bad example.  We should not
>  > set a bad licensing example.
>
> Please get your lawyer to look at it.  It was the need of XEmacs for a
> license compatible with the unnamed, unversioned documentation license
> we inherited from Lucid (which presumably inherited it from Emacs 18
> and Emacs 19) that inspired the multiple licensing.  Alex wanted to
> generalize it, so the *intent* is that any license that grants the
> listed rights and requires that they be granted to those "downstream"
> of the licensee may be used.  GPLv3 clearly qualifies by the intent.
>
> I am fairly sure that Alex would be happy to modify the permission
> notice based on a lawyer's advice on how to accomplish his intention.
>
>  > In addition, I wonder about the other pages in that wiki have a
>  > similar license.
>
> All pages in the wiki are licensed that way.
>
> I spot-checked one of the major programs distributed on the wiki, Drew
> Adams's "icicles".  The pages describing the program say it is "GPL v2
> or later" although the pages have the standard permission notice for
> the wiki.  The libraries themselves contain the standard permission
> notice, for "GPL v2 or later".
>
> So I don't think there is a general problem with programs; anything
> large enough to have a separate file probably has the standard
> notice.  Snippets of code included directly in a page will have the
> page's license, of course, but AFAIK nobody using the wiki believes
> that the GPL is only permitted as version 2.  (I understand that what
> a court says may vary; please help Alex get the legal advice he needs
> to accomplish his intention.)
>
>
>
>
>

Re: Bad choice of license in BzrForEmacsDevs

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:30:27 -0600, Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com> wrote:
> Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BzrForEmacsDevs
>> allows GPL version 2, but not the current version.
>
>> This is not a good thing.  Would the author(s) please change it to
>> allow future versions of the GNU GPL as well?  The documentation we
>> recommend to Emacs developers has to set a good example for licensing
>> as well as have useful information.
>
> I wrote most of that page, and would be happy to change "2" to "3" in
> the blurb, but don't see how to do so.  It appears to be an
> administrative function of the EmacsWiki site, and I'm not sure how to
> change it, nor whether it can be changed on a per-page basis.

EmacsWiki uses the Oddmuse engine; a Wiki engine written in Perl.

Indeed, as you have guessed, the license text is a configuration setting
in the Perl backend of the Wiki (a configurable footer for all pages).
It is common for all the pages of the Wiki, so you would have to contact
Alex Schroeder to install a change and it would affect all the pages of
the Wiki.