[gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Richard Yao]

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I wrote sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod (bug 410199) while studying
Gentoo/FreeBSD as part of an attempt to port gptzfsloader to Gentoo
Linux. naota wrote an improvement that would be useful to send upstream.
However, the GPL-2 license poses a problem according to conversations
that I had in #gentoo-dev.

While I have asked naota for permission to upstream the line he wrote,
this poses a more general issue for collaboration, especially if I port
more kernel modules from FreeBSD Ports.

Would it be possible to relicense sys-freebsd/* under terms of the BSD-2
license?


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Alexis Ballier]

On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:34:26 -0400
Richard Yao <ryao@cs.stonybrook.edu> wrote:

> I wrote sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod (bug 410199) while studying
> Gentoo/FreeBSD as part of an attempt to port gptzfsloader to Gentoo
> Linux. naota wrote an improvement that would be useful to send
> upstream. However, the GPL-2 license poses a problem according to
> conversations that I had in #gentoo-dev.
> 

if he wrote the improvement, he can send it upstream under whatever
license he wants; generally, it is implicit that a patch follows the
same license as the code it applies to, esp. when the author himself
agrees to share it with upstream.

> While I have asked naota for permission to upstream the line he wrote,
> this poses a more general issue for collaboration, especially if I
> port more kernel modules from FreeBSD Ports.
> 
> Would it be possible to relicense sys-freebsd/* under terms of the
> BSD-2 license?
> 

what do you mean by 'relicense' ? for ebuilds, you'll have to ask
permission to all contributors to this area, and, afaik, the foundation
owns copyrights so it has a word to say too.
if you mean the 'LICENSE' field of ebuilds, then this is not the right
place to ask.

A.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Richard Yao]

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On 03/30/12 13:34, Alexis Ballier wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:34:26 -0400
> Richard Yao <ryao@cs.stonybrook.edu> wrote:
> 
>> I wrote sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod (bug 410199) while studying
>> Gentoo/FreeBSD as part of an attempt to port gptzfsloader to Gentoo
>> Linux. naota wrote an improvement that would be useful to send
>> upstream. However, the GPL-2 license poses a problem according to
>> conversations that I had in #gentoo-dev.
>>
> 
> if he wrote the improvement, he can send it upstream under whatever
> license he wants; generally, it is implicit that a patch follows the
> same license as the code it applies to, esp. when the author himself
> agrees to share it with upstream.

The improvement is to the ebuild itself. It is a variable containing a
list of directories upon which the module's build system depends.

I spoke to naota and he doesn't have any problem sending this upstream,
so I sent an email to the FreeBSD maintainer offering him the improvement.

>> While I have asked naota for permission to upstream the line he wrote,
>> this poses a more general issue for collaboration, especially if I
>> port more kernel modules from FreeBSD Ports.
>>
>> Would it be possible to relicense sys-freebsd/* under terms of the
>> BSD-2 license?
>>
> 
> what do you mean by 'relicense' ? for ebuilds, you'll have to ask
> permission to all contributors to this area, and, afaik, the foundation
> owns copyrights so it has a word to say too.
> if you mean the 'LICENSE' field of ebuilds, then this is not the right
> place to ask.
> 
> A.
> 

I am referring to the ebuilds themselves. Right now, all ebuilds in the
tree are GPL-2 licensed. This makes contributing FreeBSD-specific
improvements to FreeBSD Ports upstream difficult.

I want sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod to be BSD-2 licensed, but I do not expect
the version that enters the portage tree to be BSD-2 licensed unless
people clarify that it is okay to license ebuilds under something other
than the GPL-2.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Jon Portnoy]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 01:52:18PM -0400, Richard Yao wrote:
> 
> The improvement is to the ebuild itself. It is a variable containing a
> list of directories upon which the module's build system depends.
> 
> I spoke to naota and he doesn't have any problem sending this upstream,
> so I sent an email to the FreeBSD maintainer offering him the improvement.
> 

I would argue that a trivial change like that is unlikely to be substantial 
enough to constitute a copyrightable work at all.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Richard Yao]

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On 03/30/12 14:00, Jon Portnoy wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 01:52:18PM -0400, Richard Yao wrote:
>>
>> The improvement is to the ebuild itself. It is a variable containing a
>> list of directories upon which the module's build system depends.
>>
>> I spoke to naota and he doesn't have any problem sending this upstream,
>> so I sent an email to the FreeBSD maintainer offering him the improvement.
>>
> 
> I would argue that a trivial change like that is unlikely to be substantial 
> enough to constitute a copyrightable work at all.
> 

I brought this to the list specifically because the line between a work
being trivial or not is poorly defined. I would prefer something more
concrete for the purpose of enabling collaboration with FreeBSD upstream.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Richard Yao]

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On 03/30/12 13:52, Richard Yao wrote:
> I want sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod to be BSD-2 licensed, but I do not expect
> the version that enters the portage tree to be BSD-2 licensed unless
> people clarify that it is okay to license ebuilds under something other
> than the GPL-2.

To clarify, I would like the upstream developers to consider
improvements in Gentoo/FreeBSD for inclusion to make collaboration
easier. I view the GPL-2 to be an issue, particularly because I had to
ask naota for permission to contribute his improvement to an ebuild I
wrote to the upstream developers.

I do not expect the upstream maintainers to familiarize themselves with
the intricacies of what they can take and what they cannot take, so I
would prefer to relicense all ebuilds in sys-freebsd/* under the terms
of the BSD-2 license.

It is much easier to say to the upstream developers that everything in
portage's sys-freebsd/* category is available to them under the license
that they use than it is expect them to learn a list of rules.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Fri, 30 Mar 2012, Richard Yao wrote:

>> what do you mean by 'relicense' ? for ebuilds, you'll have to ask
>> permission to all contributors to this area, and, afaik, the
>> foundation owns copyrights so it has a word to say too.
>> if you mean the 'LICENSE' field of ebuilds, then this is not the
>> right place to ask.

> I am referring to the ebuilds themselves. Right now, all ebuilds in
> the tree are GPL-2 licensed. This makes contributing FreeBSD-specific
> improvements to FreeBSD Ports upstream difficult.

> I want sys-freebsd/virtio-kmod to be BSD-2 licensed, but I do not
> expect the version that enters the portage tree to be BSD-2 licensed
> unless people clarify that it is okay to license ebuilds under
> something other than the GPL-2.

I fail to understand what the license of the ebuild has to do with the
license of the package itself.

Ebuilds in the Portage tree must be licensed under the GPL. This is
part of the Gentoo Social Contract [1], so I guess it won't change
anytime soon.

And IMHO, we would be ill-advised to allow different licenses for
ebuilds in the tree, because that would imply that we cannot copy code
from one ebuild to another (or from ebuild to eclass) any more.

Ulrich

[1] <http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/contract.xml>

Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 2:47 PM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Ebuilds in the Portage tree must be licensed under the GPL. This is
> part of the Gentoo Social Contract [1], so I guess it won't change
> anytime soon.
>
> And IMHO, we would be ill-advised to allow different licenses for
> ebuilds in the tree, because that would imply that we cannot copy code
> from one ebuild to another (or from ebuild to eclass) any more.
>

Speaking as an individual trustee, I tend to agree.

If there are specific pains associated with not being able to submit
patches upstream or such, please do point them out and I'm sure we'll
consider what can be done to accommodate this.  However, if this
really is a one-off situation then we're probably better-off if we
just ask individual contributors to re-license when needed.

I'd think the only thing in the portage tree upstream would be
interested in would be patches (including sed operations).

Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Richard Yao]

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On 03/30/12 15:12, Rich Freeman wrote:
> If there are specific pains associated with not being able to submit
> patches upstream or such, please do point them out and I'm sure we'll
> consider what can be done to accommodate this.  However, if this
> really is a one-off situation then we're probably better-off if we
> just ask individual contributors to re-license when needed.

I have already handled this specific case by talking to naota. I will
revive the issue on the list should this become a repeat occurrence.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Richard Yao]

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On 03/30/12 14:47, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> I fail to understand what the license of the ebuild has to do with the
> license of the package itself.

It has nothing to do with the license of the package. That is completely
separate. This has to do with the license of the ebuild itself.

FreeBSD Ports inspired Daniel Robbins to create Portage. The issue that
is our ability to share FreeBSD-specific improvements between ebuilds in
portage and Makefiles in FreeBSD ports.

The issues that are similar for both. Collaboration on FreeBSD-specific
things in sys-freebsd/* would make life easier for both portage ebuild
maintainers and FreeBSD port maintainers.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Alec Warner]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Richard Yao <ryao@cs.stonybrook.edu> wrote:
> On 03/30/12 14:47, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>> I fail to understand what the license of the ebuild has to do with the
>> license of the package itself.
>
> It has nothing to do with the license of the package. That is completely
> separate. This has to do with the license of the ebuild itself.
>
> FreeBSD Ports inspired Daniel Robbins to create Portage. The issue that
> is our ability to share FreeBSD-specific improvements between ebuilds in
> portage and Makefiles in FreeBSD ports.
>
> The issues that are similar for both. Collaboration on FreeBSD-specific
> things in sys-freebsd/* would make life easier for both portage ebuild
> maintainers and FreeBSD port maintainers.
>

I doubt you can get the content "re-licensed" under a different
license. You may be able to convince folks to add an additional
license (|| (GPL-2 BSD-2)). That way Gentoo keeps its GPL-2 and
freebsd can have the code as BSD-2.

-A

Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Richard Yao]

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On 03/30/12 16:19, Alec Warner wrote:
> I doubt you can get the content "re-licensed" under a different
> license. You may be able to convince folks to add an additional
> license (|| (GPL-2 BSD-2)). That way Gentoo keeps its GPL-2 and
> freebsd can have the code as BSD-2.

Dual-licensing is fine by me.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Joshua Kinard]

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On 03/30/2012 15:36, Richard Yao wrote:

> It has nothing to do with the license of the package. That is completely
> separate. This has to do with the license of the ebuild itself.
> 
> FreeBSD Ports inspired Daniel Robbins to create Portage. The issue that
> is our ability to share FreeBSD-specific improvements between ebuilds in
> portage and Makefiles in FreeBSD ports.
> 
> The issues that are similar for both. Collaboration on FreeBSD-specific
> things in sys-freebsd/* would make life easier for both portage ebuild
> maintainers and FreeBSD port maintainers.


I would figure that since each is written in its own language (ebuilds in
bash, FBSD in Make), that all you have to do is share the idea of the fix.
Ideas themselves can't be licensed, but implementations can, and the idea
can be implemented in Makefile syntax in Ports under BSD-2, and in Portage
in Bash syntax under GPLv2.

That said, sometimes you just find entire chunks of BSD code in Linux,
complete with only the BSD copyright block:
See drivers/scsi/aic7xxx/queue.h

-- 
Joshua Kinard
Gentoo/MIPS
kumba@gentoo.org
4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us.  And
our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between."

--Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic


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