Re: [Stellarium-pubdevel] Stellarium - request for adding an exception to the GPL license

[Fabien C. <fab...@go...>]

PS: it seems that the french association website is experiencing a
problem, so here is what you should see when you click on the link:
-------------
Association : STELLARIUM.ORG.
No de parution : 20090020
Département (Région) : Paris (Île-de-France)
Lieu parution : Déclaration à la préfecture de police.
Type d'annonce : ASSOCIATION/CREATION
Déclaration à la préfecture de police. STELLARIUM.ORG. Objet :
création, promotion et diffusion de logiciels et de données
scientifiques libres ayant notamment trait à l’astronomie. Siège
social : 2, place Sainte-Opportune, 75001 Paris. Site Internet :
http://stellarium.org. Date de la déclaration : 17 avril 2009.
------------

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 11:25, Fabien Chéreau
<fab...@go...> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 10:05, Fabien Chéreau
> <fab...@go...> wrote:
>> Dear all,
>> Following this email from Peter, I forward part of the discussion to
>> the developer's mailing list where we should continue discussing the
>> topic, especially since the discussion becomes more general.
>> Fabien
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Peter Mousley <scr...@mo...>
>> Date: Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 03:21
>> Subject: Re: Stellarium - request for adding an exception to the GPL license
>> To: Fabien Chéreau <fab...@go...>
>> Cc: Matthew Gates <mat...@gm...>, Johannes Gajdosik
>> <joh...@gm...>, Rob Spearman <ro...@di...>,
>> Johan Meuris <joh...@gm...>, Bogdan Marinov
>> <dag...@gm...>, Timothy Reaves <tr...@si...>,
>> Diego Marcos Segura <die...@gm...>, Lone Hiker
>> <lon...@ho...>, Nigel Kerr <nig...@gm...>, Mike
>> Storm <oop...@gm...>, beo...@us...,
>> ast...@us..., ra...@us..., Andras
>> Mohari <and...@gm...>, rus...@us...,
>> tbf...@us...,
>> pma...@us...,
>> nev...@us..., Lippo Huhtala
>> <lip...@me...>, cos...@us...,
>> ov...@us..., nui...@us...,
>> fly...@us..., cm...@us...,
>> dan...@us..., d.henderson@m.cc.utah.edu, Khalid
>> AlAjaji <ka...@gm...>, Bernhard Reutner-Fischer
>> <rep...@gm...>, Barry Gerdes <bar...@ho...>,
>> faluco <bor...@gm...>, Georg Zotti
>> <geo...@un...>, Serge Ziryukin <ftr...@gm...>,
>> Mathis Ahrens <Mat...@gm...>, David Fox <dfo...@gm...>,
>> Jeong Tae-Min <jt...@ch...>, cl...@sh...
>>
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I've been thinking about this for a few days, trying to get
>> comfortable with the idea.  But I feel uneasy with the proposals.
>>
>> Like everyone else who has responded, I would like for Fabien to get
>> some return on his investment - we all need to eat.  So with regard to
>> the minor contributions I've thus far made to the core code, I don't
>> mind it being used in this instance.  But there are a lot of
>> unanswered questions and I don't think the potential ramifications,
>> especially over the longer term, have been fully considered or
>> discussed.
>
> Thanks Peter, I think a good discussion between contributors is indeed
> needed so that everyone understands the topic, and that good decisions
> can be taken. I am myself not completely sure about everything, and
> would accept to change my mind if it appears that the stellarium
> project is going to suffer from that.
>
>> N900 Licensing:
>> From my understanding of the GPL, I think Johannes has it about right;
>> so long as the copyright holders agree, the code can be re-licensed,
>> not under something called 'GPL + exemption' but under a new
>> 'Stellarium licence' (the wording of which would essentially be GPL +
>> exemption for N900, but you can't call it 'GPL').  But there's a
>> problem...  You're only talking about changing the license for 'core'
>> code, but the GPL-licensed plugins link to that code for non-N900
>> versions - you can't link GPL code to the 'Stellarium-licensed' core.
>> So, to me, it would have to be a dual license - 'GPL' or 'Stellarium
>> N900', where the N900 license is specific to compilation for and use
>> on the N900 by Fabien.
>
> I think GPL + exception is more liberal than GPL (but less than LGPL
> since it applies only to the Stellarium mobile project) and therefore
> it is completely GPL-compatible. This means that there shouldn't be
> any problem linking GPL code with this exception license.
> I just want to remind that my original idea was to move the Stellarium
> core to LGPL, but this didn't satisfied some developers who don't want
> people other than me to create commercial binaries based on their own
> code.
>
>> I think there also needs to be a specified
>> date when the dual licensing would be revoked and the code returned to
>> GPL only (for example, the N900-specific license should state
>> something like, "this license is only valid until 31 December 2011
>> after which time the GPL shall apply" - change date as appropriate).
>
> Again, if GPL + exception is "compatible" with GPL, you never have to
> revert to GPL since it always was GPL. Such a specified date would
> only imply that I have to release the N900 specific GUI code on that
> date.
>
>> I know a couple people have raised the issue about the licensing of
>> data that is used by Stellarium and if that can be used commercially,
>> but has there been a definitive answer about that yet?  Is it legal to
>> use all data/image/etc with this proposed commercial use of
>> Stellarium?
>
> If you look at the README file, you'll see that most data can be used
> including in commercial applications. Some nebula textures license
> have to be clarified though.
>
>> Other licensing:
>> Timothy Reaves raised a good point - if this exemption is granted for
>> the N900, what happens when Fabien (or someone else) wants an
>> exemption for Android?  Or PalmOS?  Or iPad?
>
> Actually my wish is to get the exception for Stellarium Mobile
> application, not only for N900. In a couple of months N900 will
> disapear and be replaced/merged by MeeGO, and I would like to make the
> port for it as well.
>
>> Or (playing devil's advocate here) is this why we were asked to hand-over copyright to the
>> stellarium.org association?  Then the code could be re-licensed at any
>> time to suite a particular commercial use...
>>
>> Public domain and Stellarium Association:
>> What is the "stellarium.org association"?  I don't see how anyone can
>> agree to hand over code to something they know nothing about (and a
>> Google search came up empty).  Also, changing to public domain is a
>> huge change from GPL and will have a lot of ramifications for future
>> development.
>
> OK, you're right that clarification is needed, especially for new
> comers to the project: a bit more than 1 year ago we decided with
> Matthew to create the stellarium.org association in order to get a
> legal status, which in turn potentially allowed us to get free server
> hosting by the free.fr association (for build bot and hosting sky
> images). It turned out that although we got an old server hardware for
> free, we never managed to get the hosting set up..
> Even though it was kind of useless, we did created officially a french
> non-profit association (loi 1901) called stellarium.org. It statuses
> can be found there:
> http://www.journal-officiel.gouv.fr/association/index.php?&WHAT=stellarium
>
> As you can read in the statuses (if you speak french..), the goal is
> to promote free (open) software and data related to astronomy. The
> postal address is the one of a friend Tangui who did the
> administrative work and had the contact for getting the server. The
> current bureau of the association is composed of me and Tangui. I
> attach the full statuses for the one interested. Note that the current
> functioning of the association is not very democratic, and this is
> because the only goal was to get a legal status to get a server and
> wanted to keep things simple.
> So if you want to give your rights to the association it doesn't mean
> much (it does only if you trust me!), but at least the association is
> non-profit. Basically you should do that only if you have done small
> contributions, or if you don't care. In the future, if we start to use
> this association to manage the code collectively, then it would make
> more sense to adopt a democratic process and integrate the main
> contributors to the members.
>
>> I don't like the idea of open-source, 'community' projects like
>> Stellarium being essentially privatised.  Which really raises the
>> question - 'is' Stellarium a 'community' project now and, if so, will
>> it remain so in the future?
>
> The word privatised is i think really exaggerated, the only thing I
> request here is to have a license closer to LGPL..
>
>> Future development:
>> I am concerned about the future of the project - existing code is GPL
>> and can always be used as such, but what about future contributions?
>> First, I think there needs to be a very clear statement on the
>> Stellarium website about this licensing discussion.  I also think all
>> of this discussion should be conducted on the mailing list so it is
>> public - it is not fair for other developers to be working on code
>> only to later find out that the license is changing (or has already
>> changed by the time they want to commit).  Transparency is a wonderful
>> thing...
>
> I completely agree. I already started the subject on the mailing list
> soe months ago, but as there was nothing very concrete, it was hard to
> discuss about it.
>
>> Second, how will these changes affect new code contributions?  I
>> wanted to give something back to the open-source community so I chose
>> to contribute to a GPL project that I've used for a long time.  If I
>> were to come along now and see that Stellarium is not a
>> community-owned GPL project, I would have second thoughts about
>> getting involved.  I worry that future (and current?) developers may
>> be lost if the licensing is changed.
>>
>> Third, and very importantly, what about developers getting important
>> changes or additions into the core code now and in future?  Is there
>> resistance to add contributed code to core because of these licensing
>> issues?  Is the project development being restricted because new code
>> can't be added to core given that the developer may not agree to their
>> contribution being re-licensed?  As an example, I have been doing some
>> work with the Ocular and Telescope Control plugins that would benefit
>> by new code in core - but is that ever going to be possible given I
>> may not want it to be dual licensed or to have the copyright given to
>> some organisation?
>
> As far as I understand, there no implication to the code not part of the core.
> Secondly if you want to contribute to the core and don't agree with
> the exception, you can suppress the exception part of the license from
> the file, and you end up with a normal GPL. In this case I cannot link
> your code to a closed source Stellarium Mobile app anymore.
>
>> Other options:
>> I think there are some very important questions above that need
>> answering.  But I think other options should also be considered before
>> becoming too focused on licensing; is there another alternative for
>> Fabien to receive some return on his investment that does not require
>> licensing changes?  For example, how much is received via donations to
>> the project?
>
> Currently not much, sometimes I receive through sourceforge some
> donations (usually 10$) and store them on the paypal account. Some of
> the money was used to buy hardware and books to developers. We have
> however money left (more than 3000 EUR left) from the contest
> "Trophees du libre" that we won in 2006.
>
>> (which I'm sure could be increased at least a little if
>> the donation link were more obvious on the Stellarium website...)  If
>> there were to be a 'stellarium association', could it be that some
>> money could be used to pay for development?
>
> Yes in theory, but it makes things legally a bit more complicated
> since the association is non-profit. Normally being part of the bureau
> forbid me to be employee of the association otherwise it becomes a
> for-profit company (but I need to double check that).
>
>> Could there be a
>> 'donation' link provided at install time for the N900 version?
>
> I thought of something like that, but if the code is completely open
> source, nothing prevent other developers to re package the program
> without this part, and just put in the normal apt-get repos from Maemo
> (and this seems to be more likely than I originally thought). And
> adding pop ups or things like that in the real program is quite
> annoying, especially for the ones who already donated..
> For info, I also want to add the package in Nokia OVI store for a
> price around 5 EUR (unfortunately it's not possible to ask for freely
> set price on the store).
>
>> Perhaps for all versions?  So long as there is transparency in the
>> process, I think people will be open-minded about this issue.  So,
>> hopefully there are some ideas that can be proposed.
>
> Yes, we could do much better on this aspect. I was basically too busy
> with my normal job to take care of that, if some people are intersted
> it would be very nice to get help. Note that donations currently given
> to the Stellarium project are ending up on my personal paypal account,
> but I don't consider the money to be mine. Managing this money was
> also one of the reasons to create the association, even though I (and
> others) never had time to take care of that.
>
>> @Fabien: Again, I'm supportive of what you are trying to achieve, but
>> I think there are a lot of questions to be answered and that there
>> needs to be openness and transparency about the whole project.
>
> Sure,
>
>> Otherwise, I am concerned about what may happen to this fantastic
>> program in the future.  And perhaps next time you will raise these
>> issues 'before' you spend time on developing something for which you
>> will require the support of others ;)
>
> I did! But it was apparently too early to have a proper discussion like now!
>
> Thanks for your comments. I have to say that since a couple of months
> I am struggling to try to find an ethically correct way to make money
> from my work after I leave ESO, so any suggestions are very welcome!
>
> Cheers,
> Fabien
>
>> Peter
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28/07/2010 7:19, Fabien Chéreau wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>> I contact you because you have been the author of a contribution to
>>> the Stellarium project. Thanks a lot for that!
>>>
>>> As some of you may have read on the mailing list, my contract at ESO
>>> is going to expire in 2 months, and I would therefore like to try
>>> starting a business by selling a commercial version of an adaptation
>>> of Stellarium for mobile phone.
>>> In the last months I have been developing a plugin (called Stellarium
>>> Mobile) providing a special GUI tailored for the N900 touch screen
>>> devices and made many modifications to the core to use OpenGL ES2 and
>>> to increase the performances. All the changes to the core have been
>>> committed to the VCS, but I would like to keep the N900-specific GUI
>>> plugin closed source so that I can sell it to at least cover the
>>> development expenses.
>>>
>>> My plan is to distribute the closed N900 binary package for a price
>>> freely set by the user until my initial development investment is paid
>>> back. After that, I will suppress the exception and release the whole
>>> code under the normal GPL (and still accept donations to finance
>>> further development and maintenance). After discussing the problem
>>> with many developers, It seems that the most accepted solution is to
>>> add a linking exception to the GPL allowing me to link the stellarium
>>> core library with a commercial Stellarium Mobile plugin. The
>>> additional text is the following:
>>>
>>> "Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
>>> making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and
>>> conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
>>> combination.
>>> As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library gives
>>> the permission to link this library with the Stellarium Mobile plugin
>>> to produce an executable distributed under a commercial license. If
>>> you modify this library, you may extend this exception to your version
>>> of the library, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish
>>> to do so, delete this exception statement from your version."
>>>
>>> So my question is:
>>> - Do you accept to add this exception to the GPL license of the files
>>> from the stellarium core (in src/core/*) that you contributed to?
>>> (Yes/No)
>>>
>>> Additionally, we are starting an effort to clarify and simplify
>>> copyright ownership for Stellarium. So especially if you contributed a
>>> small patch, we would like to know:
>>> - Do you accept to release your contribution in the public domain, or
>>> to transfer you copyrights to the non-profit stellarium.org
>>> association? (Yes/No)
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot, I am looking for your replies,
>>> Fabien Chéreau
>>>
>>
>