Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.

[Ciaran McCreesh <ciaranm@ciaranm.org>]

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On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:58:49 -0700
Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > It would be an interesting question, though, to prove that someone
> > wrote a from-scratch ebuild via looking only at the documentation,
> > and without basing any parts off of already existing ebuilds in the
> > tree, no?
> 
> How likely is this?

I know for a fact that people have already done it and are
redistributing works created that way without a Foundation copyright or
any "Based upon blah, which is copyright Gentoo blah" notice. I'm not
aware of any non-GPL-2 ebuilds being distributed, but if it is claimed
that all ebuilds are derived works of skel.ebuild then there's still a
copyright issue here.

> Let me put it another way.  I write ebuilds all the time.  I don't
> need to look at the documentation or any other ebuilds to write a new
> one. However, any ebuild I write is a derived work of previous
> ebuilds.  Why? Because I used skel.ebuild and other ebuilds already
> in the tree as the basis for the ebuilds I originally wrote.  Because
> I no longer need to actually *look* at other ebuilds doesn't change
> that my entire knowledge base for ebuild writing is derived from
> other ebuilds, which were based on other ebuilds before them. 

Getting an idea or knowledge from somewhere doesn't subject something
to copyright or licence requirements. There may be patent and
non-disclosure issues, but neither are applicable here.

> Also, I would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to write an
> ebuild that is even slightly complex without using the eclasses, at
> all. Sure, it is *possible* that someone is capable of writing an
> ebuild entirely from scratch, but the likelihood is pretty much
> nonexistent.

As I understand it, merely using an eclass doesn't force GPL-2 on an
ebuild because there's no linkage involved.

> We could just end this really quickly and require all ebuilds
> submitted be done under GPLv2.

Sure, but what about third party ebuilds? Claiming that all ebuilds are
derived work of a Gentoo-copyrighted ebuild effectively requires all
ebuilds that don't have Gentoo copyright to include a statement like:

# Based upon skel.ebuild, which is Copyright 1999-2007 Gentoo Foundation

There are quite a few things out there that do not currently comply with
this requirement. If the Foundation truly believes that all ebuilds are
derived works, they should issue some kind of statement saying so.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh


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