Re: Guile 1.8 / Viper System Interface

[Michael Tiedtke <michele.titke@o2online.de>]

On 29/06/2015 09:55, David Kastrup wrote:
> Marco Maggi <marco.maggi-ipsu@poste.it> writes:
>
>> Michael Tiedtke wrote:
>>
>>> Today the first successful clean room build of Viper's System
>>> Interface (still heavily recognizable as Guile 1.8) compiled
>>> successfully and ran for the first time.
>> Excuse me, I step in as a foreigner.   If you do an unofficial fork of a
>> GNU project: are you  not required to change the name  of the project to
>> comply with the GPL?
> How do you get that?
>
> GUILE 1.8.8 is released under LGPL 2.1.  The respective clause does not
> call for a renaming of the project.  Here is the section for
> modification:

Legal can take a break. Justice is not a goddess but only an allegory 
and has to pause once again.

Renaming is the first of many substantial changes and fair use 
considering the original distribution networks.


>
>    2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Library or any portion
> of it, thus forming a work based on the Library, and copy and
> distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
> above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
>
>      a) The modified work must itself be a software library.
LGPL: "A "library" means a collection of software functions and/or data
prepared so as to be conveniently linked with application programs
(which use some of those functions and data) to form executables."

Viper's System Interface (abbreviated VSI) will be available to the 
intended "audience" (i.e. public after publication) as a segmented text 
called source code. The LGPL will only apply to the collection of these 
segments in files which fulfill the cited criteria of a "library" and 
comply to the intentions of the original authors choosing that library. 
Additionally provided transformed mutations (aka binary or executable 
files) are not prohibited and if technically possible - can be "linked" 
against with the usual methods if supported by the system.
  Many libraries are executable binaries themselves (include the GNU C 
Library) but not every binary is suitable for every method of linking. 
(Whatever the undefined term "link" should mean).

Example:
mt@nPong:/lib64$ ./libc.so.6
GNU C Library (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.21-0ubuntu4) stable release version 2.21, 
by Roland McGrath et al.
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Compiled by GNU CC version 4.9.2.
Available extensions:
     crypt add-on version 2.1 by Michael Glad and others
     GNU Libidn by Simon Josefsson
     Native POSIX Threads Library by Ulrich Drepper et al
     BIND-8.2.3-T5B
libc ABIs: UNIQUE IFUNC
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glibc/+bugs>.



>
>      b) You must cause the files modified to carry prominent notices
>      stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

That's an unfair restriction of fair use considering the "open" 
mechanics of the distribution original distribution networks as well as 
the lack of such notices by the maintainers and distributers themselves 
which are not the original authors. Copyright holder is an undefined 
term. With substantial changes to the file it even might result in a 
copyright notice like the following excerpt from goops.scm

;;;; This software is a derivative work of other copyrighted softwares; the
;;;; copyright notices of these softwares are placed in the file COPYRIGHTS
;;;;
;;;; This file is based upon stklos.stk from the STk distribution by
;;;; Erick Gallesio <eg@unice.fr>.
;;;;


>
>      c) You must cause the whole of the work to be licensed at no
>      charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

That is an impossible restriction of my freedom to trade even into the 
domain of my own texts. Trading wars ... don't even try it.


>
>      d) If a facility in the modified Library refers to a function or a
>      table of data to be supplied by an application program that uses
>      the facility, other than as an argument passed when the facility
>      is invoked, then you must make a good faith effort to ensure that,
>      in the event an application does not supply such function or
>      table, the facility still operates, and performs whatever part of
>      its purpose remains meaningful.
>
>      (For example, a function in a library to compute square roots has
>      a purpose that is entirely well-defined independent of the
>      application.  Therefore, Subsection 2d requires that any
>      application-supplied function or table used by this function must
>      be optional: if the application does not supply it, the square
>      root function must still compute square roots.)
>
>

There is a license but no licensing agreement because of the original 
publication process onto next to zero effort copying networks.
The will of the original authors will be respected but not necessarily 
by letters as interpreted by any third party.

Further publication of the derived work onto similar networks is granted 
by the original license. But there is no "anonymous" or other agreement 
on these networks especially if the software text is provided free of 
charge to the public. Thus third party licensing issue requests will be 
ignored, in the best case. Please consider reverting to the original 
distribution networks or others.

We do not have be friends and can still get along in life. But if 
Justice' robbers and child pirates try they might end up where ...

Viper (Guile/GOOPS) itself is tagged as with a "simplified BSD" on 
Launchpad which only should reflect my intentions as the original 
author. Initial releases of VSI will be recognizable as Guile and carry 
the original copyright notices as long as no substantial changes are 
made to the respective files.

As an initial change the new directory hierarchy seems to reflect the 
directory layout of the original software package before it had become a 
library. Guile's current source tree can be considered broken or at 
least crippled with respected to common expectations about software 
package source code directory layout and feasability of modifications.

(VSI (VSI-core VSI-srfi VSI-oop VSI-C) (trash (blurbs (LICENSE ...))) )