Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Rob Browning]

OK, finally finished dealing with various real-life issues and back to
working on the release.

I have finally integrated the new release policy into
workbook/build/release.txt.  It's in the "Policy" section and is
nearly identical to the first copy I posted here.  If you didn't see
the previous copy, then please look at the file, especially if you
have CVS write access.

Two notable changes are that the waiting period after a beta release
before we declare that Guile is ready for a stable release has been
extended from one to two weeks (as per ttn's suggestion), and it has
been noted that in addition to the release manager, members of the
maintainer committee are expliticly allowed to make changes to a
stable branch without talking to the release manager beforehand.  Of
course keeping in touch with the release manager is still strongly
advised :> I have also updated various other files in tasks/ and bugs/
to refer to the new release policy so that people will be more likely
to remember it.

While I was working on release.txt I also reformatted the file as an
outline, but there's still a lot of cleaning up to do, and in general,
I agree with ttn that migrating some of those steps into a well
documented script (or scripts) is probably a good idea.

OK, on with the release status.

Items blocking release 1.6.1:
-----------------------------

NOTE: if you're working on something that's NOT listed below, please
contact me.  If something is neither in the 1.6.1 section of
workbook/tasks/TODO nor marked release 1.6.1 critical in
workbook/bugs/, then I may release without it.

  (1) document libtool conventions [rlb]

  (2) make sure all bugs have required headers

      What are the required headers?  i.e. how would this TODO item be
      satisfied?

  (3) bugs/instructions-to-distributors [rlb]

      I'll handle this one -- I'll either have full fledged
      instructions by the release, or I'll include some information
      and a request for packagers to contact guile-devel before
      packaging.  This will depend on how far I get before all the
      other release critical bugs are finished.

  (4) bugs/COPYING-is-wrong [rlb]

      Umm, COPYING is now the GPL in CVS.  Perhaps I should fix that :>


So I'll take care of three of the four.  I'll plan to fix them shortly
-- probably in a day or so, after I finish some other non-Guile
things.  If anyone else wants to fix (4) and has the time, feel free
to.

Thanks

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

>   (2) make sure all bugs have required headers
> 
>       What are the required headers?  i.e. how would this TODO item be
>       satisfied?

I'd say that this is not release critical as it does not affect the
release.

>   (4) bugs/COPYING-is-wrong [rlb]
> 
>       Umm, COPYING is now the GPL in CVS.  Perhaps I should fix that :>

Has this been resolved with our private mails?  For everybody to see:

    mvo:

    I don't think we need to change anything about the file COPYING.  It
    is not the license statement of Guile, it is only used as a
    'subroutine' in the actual license statements.  These actual license
    statements are contained in each individual file.

    Here is how the subroutine is invoked:

     * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
     * along with this software; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to
     * the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330,
     * Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
     *
     * As a special exception, the Free Software Foundation gives permission
     * for additional uses of the text contained in its release of GUILE.


    So technically, we don't need to change COPYING to be watertight.  We
    might consider it anyway to better publicize our license terms.  There
    are prominent sections in the README and the manual that explain the
    license terms of Guile.  Maybe that is not enough?

I'm hesitant to change COPYING as it is a 'standard' file with
identical contents in a lot of packages.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Rob Browning]

Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.ping.de> writes:

> I'd say that this is not release critical as it does not affect the
> release.

I was leaning that way as well.

>>   (4) bugs/COPYING-is-wrong [rlb]
>> 
>>       Umm, COPYING is now the GPL in CVS.  Perhaps I should fix that :>
>
> Has this been resolved with our private mails?  For everybody to see:

[...]

> I'm hesitant to change COPYING as it is a 'standard' file with
> identical contents in a lot of packages.

Hmm.  I had tended to think of COPYING as the 'standard' place (when
it existed) to look to see what license the authors wanted for the
whole project.  So I was just worried that people may look there first
and continue under the assumption that Guile is only under the GPL.

As long as it's clear which part of COPYING is the GPL, then all the
text in the source files should be OK since they just say that the GPL
is in COPYING, which it is (along with the disclaimer, which they may
have already seen if coming from a source file).

Anyway, not a big deal either way -- since the README mentions the
exception, I guess most people are likely to read that even before
checking COPYING.  I'm now OK with closing this bug if you like.

Thanks

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

> I'm now OK with closing this bug if you like.

OK.  Please close it.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

> Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.ping.de> writes:
> 
> > I'd say that this is not release critical as it does not affect the
> > release.
> 
> I was leaning that way as well.

OK, so let's ignore it (for the release).

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Neil Jerram]

>>>>> "Rob" == Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

    Rob> Anyway, not a big deal either way -- since the README mentions the
    Rob> exception, I guess most people are likely to read that even before
    Rob> checking COPYING.  I'm now OK with closing this bug if you like.

Just an idea: we could leave COPYING as is, and add COPYING-GUILE to
explain the exception and refer to COPYING.  Then most people going to
look for COPYING would notice COPYING-GUILE as well.  The text for
COPYING-GUILE can be the same as what is currently in README.

        Neil


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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Dale P. Smith]

On 25 May 2002 17:01:08 +0100
Neil Jerram <neil@ossau.uklinux.net> wrote:

> >>>>> "Rob" == Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:
> 
>     Rob> Anyway, not a big deal either way -- since the README mentions the
>     Rob> exception, I guess most people are likely to read that even before
>     Rob> checking COPYING.  I'm now OK with closing this bug if you like.
> 
> Just an idea: we could leave COPYING as is, and add COPYING-GUILE to
> explain the exception and refer to COPYING.  Then most people going to
> look for COPYING would notice COPYING-GUILE as well.  The text for
> COPYING-GUILE can be the same as what is currently in README.

That's what I was going to suggest.

-Dale
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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Rob Browning]

Neil Jerram <neil@ossau.uklinux.net> writes:

> Just an idea: we could leave COPYING as is, and add COPYING-GUILE to
> explain the exception and refer to COPYING.  Then most people going to
> look for COPYING would notice COPYING-GUILE as well.  The text for
> COPYING-GUILE can be the same as what is currently in README.

I actually kinda like that idea.  Marius?

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

> Neil Jerram <neil@ossau.uklinux.net> writes:
> 
> > Just an idea: we could leave COPYING as is, and add COPYING-GUILE to
> > explain the exception and refer to COPYING.  Then most people going to
> > look for COPYING would notice COPYING-GUILE as well.  The text for
> > COPYING-GUILE can be the same as what is currently in README.
> 
> I actually kinda like that idea.  Marius?

Excellent idea!

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[rm]

On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 05:01:08PM +0100, Neil Jerram wrote:
> >>>>> "Rob" == Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:
> 
>     Rob> Anyway, not a big deal either way -- since the README mentions the
>     Rob> exception, I guess most people are likely to read that even before
>     Rob> checking COPYING.  I'm now OK with closing this bug if you like.
> 
> Just an idea: we could leave COPYING as is, and add COPYING-GUILE to
> explain the exception and refer to COPYING.  Then most people going to
> look for COPYING would notice COPYING-GUILE as well.  The text for
> COPYING-GUILE can be the same as what is currently in README.

Hmm, just in my own experience, COPYING is _the_ file i look at to
determine the licence of the software. If i find the GPL i would assume
that the whole software _is_ GLPed (which GUILE is not). If putting Guile's
license under the name COPYING feels strange, why not just name it LICENCE
and name the GPL 'GPL-LICENCE'? Just naming the GPL copying out of tradition
even so it's not the legal copying restriction sounds rather odd to me - i think
the whole licence/copyright issue is messy enough, let's try to keep thinks as
'waterproof' as possible (refering to the text of the README file to establish
a legaly binding licence agreement sounds rather risky :-)

   Ralf Mattes
 
>         Neil
> 
> 
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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Jeff Read]

On Sun, May 26, 2002 at 06:59:39PM +0200, rm@fabula.de wrote:
> 
> Hmm, just in my own experience, COPYING is _the_ file i look at to
> determine the licence of the software.

Have the file be called "COPYING" or "LICENSE" or whatever you want. Include the GPL verbatim. Add the special exception to the top, with a "cut here" line of dashes to separate the text of the excpetion from the GPL itself.

This seems to me to be the best way to do this.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

rm@fabula.de writes:

> i think the whole licence/copyright issue is messy enough, let's try
> to keep thinks as 'waterproof' as possible (refering to the text of
> the README file to establish a legaly binding licence agreement
> sounds rather risky :-)

This is not how it works.  The license of a file is specified by the
individual file itself.  Most files in Guile refer to COPYING as a
'subroutine' when spelling out their license terms.  Most also have
the exception (that is repeated in the README for convenience, only),
but not all may.

So, to avoid confusion when using the standard GNU license statement
("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
..."), we should not modify the file COPYING.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[rm]

On Mon, May 27, 2002 at 10:44:20PM +0200, Marius Vollmer wrote:
> rm@fabula.de writes:
> 
> > i think the whole licence/copyright issue is messy enough, let's try
> > to keep thinks as 'waterproof' as possible (refering to the text of
> > the README file to establish a legaly binding licence agreement
> > sounds rather risky :-)
> 
> This is not how it works.  The license of a file is specified by the
> individual file itself.  Most files in Guile refer to COPYING as a
> 'subroutine' when spelling out their license terms.  Most also have
> the exception (that is repeated in the README for convenience, only),
> but not all may.

Ups, ... so you are saying that i have to check each file of the guile
core distribution to see if i can use it for my needs/together/linked into
my software? Thanks for pointing this out to me. I allway assumed that 
there's _one_ licence for guile (why then all that hassle with the readline
libs?).

 
> So, to avoid confusion when using the standard GNU license statement
> ("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
> ..."), we should not modify the file COPYING.

I actually never sugested that. My points:

 - iff there is a file called copying i'd expect it to be the
   copyright statement for guile (i just lesrned there's notyhing like
   that).

 - If the GPL is included (and i really think it should), call it so,
   GPL.  

What's actually the common practise with other modified/extended/weakened
software? Maybe i'm to much used to Debian systems, but there you usually
find a file copyright that either holds the text of the copyright licence
for the package or points to the system location of the (L)GPL.

  Ralf 

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Rob Browning]

If I'm understanding Marius' position correctly, his two main
presumptions are currently that:

  (1) People are used to FSF/GNU projects having a file named COPYING,
      and that COPYING contains the GPL.  If people see a file named
      COPYING, they may just presume it contains the GPL, and if they
      look and COPYING doesn't contain the GPL, they'd be confused.

  (2) As a practical matter, if we wanted to change COPYING to contain
      the full Guile licensing terms, including the exception, we'd
      have to edit a whole bunch of files if we wanted everything to
      be "just right" since many (if not all) of the source files
      refer to COPYING with the expection (given the verbage used)
      that COPYING == GPL.

WRT to (1), I'm not super-concerned by it, but I can see Marius'
point.  WRT to (2), I don't mind doing all the work to change the
files if that's the "right thing to do".

So the question is, what *is* the right thing to do?  The FSF
"standards" info pages have a little relevant info, but nothing
definitive:

   The `README' file should also refer to the file which contains the
   copying conditions.  The GNU GPL, if used, should be in a file
   called `COPYING'.  If the GNU LGPL is used, it should be in a file
   called `COPYING.LIB'.

So I've filed a bug against the GNU standards package.  Let's see what
they say...

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[rm]

On Mon, May 27, 2002 at 11:36:07PM -0500, Rob Browning wrote:
> [...]

Thanks for the clarification.
 
> So the question is, what *is* the right thing to do?  The FSF
> "standards" info pages have a little relevant info, but nothing
> definitive:
> 
>    The `README' file should also refer to the file which contains the
>    copying conditions.  The GNU GPL, if used, should be in a file
>    called `COPYING'.  If the GNU LGPL is used, it should be in a file
>    called `COPYING.LIB'.

Ah, licences with namespaces ;-) So why not COPYING.GUILE and GPL?
I have to admit that i didn't see the amount of work required to rename
the files (never rename base classes).

> So I've filed a bug against the GNU standards package.  Let's see what
> they say...

Delegate ...

 Thanks, Ralf

> Rob Browning
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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Rob Browning]

rm@fabula.de writes:

>> So I've filed a bug against the GNU standards package.  Let's see what
>> they say...
>
> Delegate ...

So Bradley Kuhn got back to me and said that he encourages the
creation of a LICENSE file which goes goes alongside COPYING and
details which files are covered under which license.  Of course each
source file should still mention the full licensing terms (with
suitable references to COPYING COPYING.LIB, etc. as appropriate, I
presume).

Given this approach, we'd still have COPYING as is, but we'd also have
LICENSE which I presume would contain something like this:

  Unless otherwise noted, all files in Guile are covered under the
  terms of the GPL as described in COPYING, but with the following
  additional exception: ...

  Files in Guile covered by other licenses:

    ./guile-readline/* -- covered under the GPL, see COPYING.

etc.

This approach seems OK to me.  How does everyone else feel about it?

Thanks

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

> Given this approach, we'd still have COPYING as is, but we'd also have
> LICENSE which I presume would contain something like this:
> 
>   Unless otherwise noted, all files in Guile are covered under the
>   terms of the GPL as described in COPYING, but with the following
>   additional exception: ...
> 
>   Files in Guile covered by other licenses:
> 
>     ./guile-readline/* -- covered under the GPL, see COPYING.
> 
> etc.

Yes, that's how I interpret this as well.

> This approach seems OK to me.  How does everyone else feel about it?

It is basically what Neil proposed, only with LICENSE instead of
COPYING-GUILE.  Since "LICENSE" could be a standard file in the
future, present in many packages, while COPYING-GUILE can not (because
of the -GUILE suffix which is package specific), I'd say let's go with
LICENSE.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.ping.de> writes:

> [...] I'd say let's go with LICENSE.

Err, who is going to do this?  If nobody jumps forward, I'll do it as
time permits.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Rob Browning]

Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.ping.de> writes:

> Err, who is going to do this?  If nobody jumps forward, I'll do it as
> time permits.

Doesn't matter to me.  If you want to, great, otherwise I'll get to
it.  Is there much to do other than creating a LICENSE file with
(fairly brief) contents, and updating README to refer to it?

AFAIK, most of the text in the source files should be just fine since
they already include the exception and the reference to COPYING, and
from what Bradley said, it didn't sound like anything other than the
README needed to reference LICENSE directly.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

> Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.ping.de> writes:
> 
> > Err, who is going to do this?  If nobody jumps forward, I'll do it as
> > time permits.
> 
> Doesn't matter to me.  If you want to, great, otherwise I'll get to
> it.  Is there much to do other than creating a LICENSE file with
> (fairly brief) contents, and updating README to refer to it?

No, that should be it.

> AFAIK, most of the text in the source files should be just fine since
> they already include the exception and the reference to COPYING, and
> from what Bradley said, it didn't sound like anything other than the
> README needed to reference LICENSE directly.

Right.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Rob Browning]

Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.ping.de> writes:

>> Doesn't matter to me.  If you want to, great, otherwise I'll get to
>> it.  Is there much to do other than creating a LICENSE file with
>> (fairly brief) contents, and updating README to refer to it?
>
> No, that should be it.

This may be a little more work than I thought.  I'll probably commit
an initial LICENSE, and then we can work from there to flesh it out.

From an initial rough pass, using the following command, I can see
that we have a substantial number of non GPL+exception files (do we
have any files not covered under either the GPL or GPL+exception?)

There's also at least one file, libguile/mkstemp.c, that's not covered
under the exception that probably should be :/

  find -type f | xargs grep -l 'General Public License' | sort > gpl.lst
  cat gpl-list | xargs grep -l 'As a special exception' | sort > gpl+except.lst
  diff -u gpl.lst gpl+except.lst  | egrep '^\-' | cut -b 2-

Looks like there are about 100 files not covered under the exception.
Though we may want to explicitly list them in LICENSE, we may also
want a passage in there about the overall *intent* of the exception,
i.e. that it's supposed to be safe to link even non-gpled apps against
Guile in most cases, or similar.

Also, as opposed to explicit individual file listing, we might be able
to substantially simplify the contents of LICENSE if we're willing to
stick to some policies wrt non-GPL+exception files that we can list
like:

  All .h or .c files outside of srfi or libguile are GPL.
  All Makefile.am files are GPL.
  All example .c and .h files are GPL

This would limit the number of individual files we have to list.

Thoughts?

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

> This may be a little more work than I thought.  I'll probably commit
> an initial LICENSE, and then we can work from there to flesh it out.

Ok, thanks!

> From an initial rough pass, using the following command, I can see
> that we have a substantial number of non GPL+exception files (do we
> have any files not covered under either the GPL or GPL+exception?)

Yes, qthreads and (the original) psyntax.ss are not covered by the
GPL, for example.

> There's also at least one file, libguile/mkstemp.c, that's not covered
> under the exception that probably should be :/

Yes, good catch.

> Looks like there are about 100 files not covered under the exception.
> Though we may want to explicitly list them in LICENSE, we may also
> want a passage in there about the overall *intent* of the exception,
> i.e. that it's supposed to be safe to link even non-gpled apps against
> Guile in most cases, or similar.

The intent is more important than the list of files without the
exception, I'd say.  The LICENSE file is only there to inform users in
a broad and global way, the details can be left to the individual
files.

> Also, as opposed to explicit individual file listing, we might be able
> to substantially simplify the contents of LICENSE if we're willing to
> stick to some policies wrt non-GPL+exception files that we can list
> like:
> 
>   All .h or .c files outside of srfi or libguile are GPL.
>   All Makefile.am files are GPL.
>   All example .c and .h files are GPL
> 
> This would limit the number of individual files we have to list.

Yes, that's a good alternative.  We should make it clear, however,
that LICENSE is not the definite license statement of these files.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[rm]

On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 07:45:06PM +0200, Marius Vollmer wrote:
>
> [...]
> 
> The intent is more important than the list of files without the
> exception, I'd say.  The LICENSE file is only there to inform users in
> a broad and global way, the details can be left to the individual
> files.

As i said before, this is not going to work if guile's intent is being 
used as an embedeable scripting language. If i install libguile9 and
libguile-dev on Debian i simply don't _get_ the source files. Requesting
users of type 2 (programmers who embed guile in their application) to
always scan the sources (and do that regulary) doesn't seem to be a valid
solution. 

 Ralf Mattes

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Rob Browning]

rm@fabula.de writes:

> As i said before, this is not going to work if guile's intent is being 
> used as an embedeable scripting language. If i install libguile9 and
> libguile-dev on Debian i simply don't _get_ the source files. Requesting
> users of type 2 (programmers who embed guile in their application) to
> always scan the sources (and do that regulary) doesn't seem to be a valid
> solution. 

As long as we make sure that all libs and headers are covered by the
exception, and that linking an app against Guile really does mean that
the exception applies across the board, and we mention this clearly in
LICENSE, I would think we'd be fine.  Of course we also have to make
sure that the "official" text in the source files matches what LICENSE
says.

IANAL, but it has been my impression that legally speaking, it may be
what's in each individual source file that actually matters.  i.e. it
might not matter whether or not we want LICENSE to be comprehensive
and official because that may not be how copyright law actually works.
Dunno, but as long as LICENSE and the actual files agree, we don't
have to worry about it.

-- 
Rob Browning
rlb @defaultvalue.org, @linuxdevel.com, and @debian.org
Previously @cs.utexas.edu
GPG=1C58 8B2C FB5E 3F64 EA5C  64AE 78FE E5FE F0CB A0AD

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

rm@fabula.de writes:

> On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 07:45:06PM +0200, Marius Vollmer wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> > 
> > The intent is more important than the list of files without the
> > exception, I'd say.  The LICENSE file is only there to inform users in
> > a broad and global way, the details can be left to the individual
> > files.
> 
> As i said before, this is not going to work if guile's intent is being 
> used as an embedeable scripting language. If i install libguile9 and
> libguile-dev on Debian i simply don't _get_ the source files. Requesting
> users of type 2 (programmers who embed guile in their application) to
> always scan the sources (and do that regulary) doesn't seem to be a valid
> solution. 

We do not request them to always scan the sources.  We can not change
the fact that it is the individual file itself that determines its
license, if I understand this right.  The file LICENSE can only show
our intent, and a deviation from this intent by any individual file
(that is, a file that is missing the exception) is a bug and needs to
be fixed.  But legally, LICENSE can not change the license of any
individual file.

So, you wouldn't need to scan all files just to find out what our
intent is, but you would have to do this if you want to be find any
bugs in the licensing statements.

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Re: Release status 1.6.1 (2002-05-16)

[Marius Vollmer]

rm@fabula.de writes:

> Ups, ... so you are saying that i have to check each file of the guile
> core distribution to see if i can use it for my needs/together/linked into
> my software?

If you want to be really sure, yes.  However, we of course intend to
license all of the Guile core with GPL-exception, and people should be
able find this out without having to scan each file.

I agree that having the exception in README and the manual might not
be obvious enough.  The LICENSE file idea looks very reasonable.

> Thanks for pointing this out to me. I allway assumed that there's
> _one_ licence for guile (why then all that hassle with the readline
> libs?).

There is one license (GPL+exception) for all of libguile, but not all
files necessarily use GPL+exception.  For example, the support tools
like guile-snarf might use the full GPL (without affecting the license
of libguile).

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