From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 50883 invoked by alias); 22 Jan 2016 19:58:11 -0000 Mailing-List: contact cygwin-apps-help@cygwin.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk Sender: cygwin-apps-owner@cygwin.com List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Mail-Followup-To: cygwin-apps@cygwin.com Received: (qmail 50747 invoked by uid 89); 22 Jan 2016 19:58:09 -0000 Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; auth=none X-Virus-Found: No X-Spam-SWARE-Status: No, score=-94.2 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,KAM_LAZY_DOMAIN_SECURITY,KHOP_DYNAMIC,RCVD_IN_BRBL_LASTEXT,RCVD_IN_PBL,RDNS_DYNAMIC,USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=no version=3.3.2 spammy=angle, Maintainer, radar, conscious X-HELO: calimero.vinschen.de Received: from ipbcc05c50.dynamic.kabel-deutschland.de (HELO calimero.vinschen.de) (188.192.92.80) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.93/v0.84-503-g423c35a) with ESMTP; Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:58:08 +0000 Received: by calimero.vinschen.de (Postfix, from userid 500) id 8D13BA803D5; Fri, 22 Jan 2016 20:58:06 +0100 (CET) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:58:00 -0000 From: Corinna Vinschen To: cygwin-apps@cygwin.com Subject: Re: Changing Setup's license to GPLv3+ Message-ID: <20160122195806.GA3268@calimero.vinschen.de> Reply-To: cygwin-apps@cygwin.com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin-apps@cygwin.com References: <20160121104928.GA30823@calimero.vinschen.de> <20160122165417.GA23147@calimero.vinschen.de> <56A27F3A.2010909@redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="d6Gm4EdcadzBjdND" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <56A27F3A.2010909@redhat.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.24 (2015-08-30) X-SW-Source: 2016-01/txt/msg00037.txt.bz2 --d6Gm4EdcadzBjdND Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-length: 3955 On Jan 22 12:12, Eric Blake wrote: > On 01/22/2016 11:57 AM, Warren Young wrote: > > On Jan 22, 2016, at 9:54 AM, Corinna Vinschen > > wrote: > > I think you=E2=80=99d still have to get permission from all people who = still > > have code in the current setup.exe sources. >=20 > Or rather, if a relicensing requires explicit permission, it must be > granted by the respective copyright holders (not necessarily the > original contributor, if the original contributor assigned copyright to > someone else). >=20 > But I think the "or later" clause means that we don't need explicit > permission. Right. Let's start with a clarification. When I write "we" or "our" below, it's "we, the hackers actively contributing to the Cygwin setup tool". We (see above) would certainly need permission from all copyright holders when switching to a non-GPL license. But the '+' implies that we can go forward with the license for any new version of setup at our bunch of die-hards at cygwin.com discretion. And why should this be a problem? The installer is not a library. It's just a complete, self-contained executable. There are no dependencies on the tool, other than we need it to install Cygwin. No other tool will be in any kind of trouble because the license of setup.exe changes. > > I suspect it is not kosher to intermix v2+ and v3+ code in the same > > file, but putting the v3+ code copied from the DLL into a separate > > file and calling out to it from the v2 code as if it were a library > > may be okay. I don't think the library comparison is valid if the source code is an integral part of the sources and the resulting binary. But... > That may be overly paranoid, but it is also easy enough to do. I'm also > fine if we keep original code with v2+ labels, add new v3+ code in > separate files, link it all together, and slap GPLv3+ on the final > resulting executable. That is the only license with which we can ship > the final product (due to v3 code being present, we have to exercise the > "or later" clause of all linked-in v2 code), whether or not the > individual source files still state v2+. ...admittedly I hadn't thought about this detail. I agree with Eric. We can keep the license of existing code at v2+ if that comforts people, but adding v3+ code in a v3+'ed source file bumps the license of the entire tool, our project's installer, to v3+. > > I could be wrong, in which case this is another argument against > > GPLv3. The thing is viral even to past versions of itself. > >=20 > > FWIW, I=E2=80=99m no zealot. I=E2=80=99ve got GPL=E2=80=99d and LGPL= =E2=80=99d code out in the > > world. I=E2=80=99m just pointing out that restrictive licenses (=E2=80= =9Cfree,=E2=80=9D > > hah!) bring along a bag of problems. GPLv3 adds a bunch more > > restrictions. No offense, but you're looking at it from the wrong angle, as so many developers do. The GPL is *not* written in the first place to keep developers happy. If you choose to publish code under the GPL you are supposed to make a conscious decision to protect the *user*. The GPL is written to protect the user from not having a chance to inspect the code. The GPLv3 specificially adds wording to protect the user additionally from not being able to tweak a device running GPLed code (tivoisation), and from patent discrimination. These points make the GPLv3 partially incompatible with GPLv2, but they try to fix real problems which simply were not on the radar back in, what, 1992 or so. There's more, like compatibility with other licenses. The FUD spread in terms of that are very disappointing, but wrong. The GPLv3 *adds* compatibility with licenses GPLv2 was incompatible with, not the other way around. Well, there's more, but I hope you get my point. Corinna --=20 Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Maintainer cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat --d6Gm4EdcadzBjdND Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-length: 819 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJWoonOAAoJEPU2Bp2uRE+giF8P/0nihL+3PGuu2LpmCZwLOl/s 7izGVAWvX/08Qda9R6AU8i/g3RpImQ0aln3fgLmyBK/cB3Zrc4Mprr9uTpG6thGE 3AfKtxlymxApm+DevgsQ1zYUZqZAWd4C5a8HedZ+UflM+ytUaRmWFhdOV1F/3veT WHvN0DJMEzeANZAhMTatWLMJFnZC+tLq4RaH3NdewYDXifveznjmZDia27Byq2jI N8xmlJu8+yPbkdlpjLCDiDG29zcRsnmkhyW/6IL4BQkUvRo/AxZQAdUDC//kGPLz XhUBLifvfd8zgXRpXt9MyuoQRPfPDEFaSWOL4rku+l7KZz4QpfVuv40azZr3n4pD htbahaUq54DBquZyAlL0siQCK7Ei+66mY7TiPYGR7yKrUNmvGyEmud6h0tBIgLuu 9mzFNp0WXj8bbfdXxMyFzeDYcAQI/QWdBaXSUhP3IPUBWo1rudt4gun1r+jNx+5G 4sU7pA5GqBcBdLH+Cdb+FFuI9dQrVa1ag3/prhrBlSgjzJvxN9SJ7a5lY6KiFO2j I28hYHcF93HfwnjdaG7YBJjxqSIaUkGOD5F6ztUmZJTGQe536712TugrCvE0/Jiv O0b8oQlIv5+RfNrLMyjJk/W1lxIwHLJVPMEGZsy8QOs8oCZe0GbytH6FkaCmZ53J 9ttuxaiLSeR1Ku7w/BfN =Y4Np -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --d6Gm4EdcadzBjdND--