From: Robert R. <ri...@li...> - 2004-07-22 08:53:44
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Hello again, I am in the process of making my 'htdig' package (the one based on 3.1.6) lintian-clean (Lintian is a special program that checks for conformance of the package to the debian packaging guidelines). I found the following licenses (which I need to list in copyright): Berkeley DB Sleepycat license (4 clause BSD license listed in the code, the current sleepycat license is 3 clause BSD) your extensions to Berkeley DB no idea (3 clause BSD?) Config.guess/ Config.sub GPL Version 2 htdig (3.1.6) GPL Version 2 Config.guess/Config.sub are used to compile the Berkeley DB. Also, what exactly are your extensions to Berkeley DB (that prevent replacing that version with something more recent?). I also replaced Config.guess/Config.sub with a more current version (2004). At the moment, the program still compiles with gcc/g++ 3.3, with deprecation warnings. I don't know whether it will still compile with gcc-3.4 yours Robert |
From: Gilles D. <gr...@sc...> - 2004-07-22 16:24:44
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According to Robert Ribnitz: > I am in the process of making my 'htdig' package (the one based on 3.1.6) > lintian-clean (Lintian is a special program that checks for conformance > of the package to the debian packaging guidelines). > > I found the following licenses (which I need to list in copyright): > > Berkeley DB Sleepycat license (4 clause BSD license listed in the > code, the current sleepycat license is 3 clause BSD) > > your extensions > to Berkeley DB no idea (3 clause BSD?) > > Config.guess/ > Config.sub GPL Version 2 > > htdig (3.1.6) GPL Version 2 My understanding, though I may be wrong (Geoff Hutchison could provide the definitive answer), is that the 3.1.x code base does not include any extensions or customisations to the Sleepycat Berkeley DB code, so it should be possible to update to a newer DB version (and license) with minimal difficulty. Exactly what licenses can now be applied to the old version of DB bundled with 3.1.6 is probably more a question for Sleepycat than for us, as I don't believe we've changed it. It is also my understanding that Sleepycat's license for DB is compatible with GPL, but not LGPL. It's a whole other ball of wax for the 3.2 code base. There, Neal negotiated a special license with Sleepycat that allows us to distribute our modified DB code with the LGPL'ed 3.2 ht://Dig code, provided the bundled DB code is used only for ht://Dig or libhtdig. If it's unbundled, it reverts to Sleepycat's standard license. Neal and Geoff, please chime in if you have anything to add. > Config.guess/Config.sub are used to compile the Berkeley DB. Also, what > exactly are your extensions to Berkeley DB (that prevent replacing that > version with something more recent?). > > I also replaced Config.guess/Config.sub with a more current version (2004). > > At the moment, the program still compiles with gcc/g++ 3.3, with > deprecation warnings. I don't know whether it will still compile with > gcc-3.4 Our standard advice for compiling 3.1.6 under gcc/g++ 3.x is in http://www.htdig.org/FAQ.html#q3.8 I don't know if replacing Config.guess/Config.sub makes those environment variables unnecessary or not, but they are supposed to suppress the deprecation warnings (unless there are new warnings in 3.3 or 3.4). Keep us posted on how that all turns out. Thanks. -- Gilles R. Detillieux E-mail: <gr...@sc...> Spinal Cord Research Centre WWW: http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/ Dept. Physiology, U. of Manitoba Winnipeg, MB R3E 3J7 (Canada) |
From: Geoff H. <ghu...@ws...> - 2004-07-23 14:01:09
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On Jul 22, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Gilles Detillieux wrote: > My understanding, though I may be wrong (Geoff Hutchison could provide > the definitive answer), is that the 3.1.x code base does not include > any extensions or customisations to the Sleepycat Berkeley DB code, This is correct. Over the 3.1.x series I think I made one update to the Sleepycat code when there were some significant bug fixes and it would not break database compatibility. In the 3.1.x series, the db/ directory is a completely unmodified Berkeley DB distribution. The ChangeLog should give information on which version has been used, but I seem to remember it's something around version 3 of the Sleepycat releases. > It is also my understanding that Sleepycat's license for DB is > compatible > with GPL, but not LGPL. That is correct. > It's a whole other ball of wax for the 3.2 code base. There, Neal > negotiated a special license with Sleepycat that allows us to > distribute > our modified DB code with the LGPL'ed 3.2 ht://Dig code, provided the > bundled DB code is used only for ht://Dig or libhtdig. If it's > unbundled, > it reverts to Sleepycat's standard license. Correct. So if you're looking at the licenses for htdig-3.1.x, and wonder about the licenses in the db/ directory, you should contact Sleepycat with questions or check the Debian Berkeley DB packaging for that particular version. At one point, I believe the Debian htdig package simply required the appropriate BDB version and linked against the shared library rather than compile htdig with the db/ directory. The main reasons we packaged the two together in the 3.1.x releases were that: a) At the time, not as many people had the Berkeley DB code and it would be a bit of a pain to grab another package, install it, then install htdig. (This of course is much easier with packaging systems.) b) It ensured that everyone running htdig was using the same version of the BDB and so we wouldn't have to do lots of extra testing for any bugs that cropped up with newer BDB versions and/or the interface code. -Geoff |
From: Neal R. <ne...@ri...> - 2004-07-26 21:45:50
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Robert, Thanks for your efforts here! We have little contact from the other Linux distros.... which tells me that Debian is more on-the-ball on License audits of code that is included. > It is also my understanding that Sleepycat's license for DB is compatible > with GPL, but not LGPL. Yep. > It's a whole other ball of wax for the 3.2 code base. There, Neal > negotiated a special license with Sleepycat that allows us to distribute > our modified DB code with the LGPL'ed 3.2 ht://Dig code, provided the > bundled DB code is used only for ht://Dig or libhtdig. If it's unbundled, > it reverts to Sleepycat's standard license. > > Neal and Geoff, please chime in if you have anything to add. [This next part applies only to HtDig 3.2.x] Note that for 3.2 the HtDig license is LGPL. If a 'LGPLed 3.2 HtDig + custom DBD with custom Sleepycat License' causes you license indigestion for Debian..... feel free to make the whole thing GPL and remove the special Sleepycat/BDB License Exception in your source package. If you do this, we would kindly ask that any patches you submit to us for HtDig 3.2.x be LGPLed by you so we can include them in the stock HtDig 3.2.x tree. I know this is a bit wierd, but it's legit since the HtDig group is allowed by copyright law (as copyright holders of our code) to interpret the LGPL as we see fit. And Sleeycat did the same by making a HtDig specific exception to their license to allow us to move to the LGPL and still use BDB. FYI: It looks like for HtDig 4.0 we MAY be abandoning BDB, and be replacing it with an LGPL'd Lucene/CLucene.. so the wierd licensing issue goes away. Thanks again. Neal Richter Knowledgebase Developer RightNow Technologies, Inc. Customer Service for Every Web Site Office: 406-522-1485 |
From: Robert R. <ri...@li...> - 2004-07-28 10:31:15
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Neal Richter wrote: >Robert, > > Thanks for your efforts here! We have little contact from the other >Linux distros.... which tells me that Debian is more on-the-ball on >License audits of code that is included. > > Side note: it needs to be, since it is the only distribution i know of that rigurously distinguishes between 'free', 'free but depending on non-free stuff' (they call it contrib), and 'non-free'. This distinction is mainly a question of licensing. > > >>It is also my understanding that Sleepycat's license for DB is compatible >>with GPL, but not LGPL. >> >> > > Yep. > > > >>It's a whole other ball of wax for the 3.2 code base. There, Neal >>negotiated a special license with Sleepycat that allows us to distribute >>our modified DB code with the LGPL'ed 3.2 ht://Dig code, provided the >>bundled DB code is used only for ht://Dig or libhtdig. If it's unbundled, >>it reverts to Sleepycat's standard license. >> >>Neal and Geoff, please chime in if you have anything to add. >> >> > >[This next part applies only to HtDig 3.2.x] > > Note that for 3.2 the HtDig license is LGPL. > > If a 'LGPLed 3.2 HtDig + custom DBD with custom Sleepycat License' >causes you license indigestion for Debian..... feel free to make the whole >thing GPL and remove the special Sleepycat/BDB License Exception in your >source package. > > If you do this, we would kindly ask that any patches you submit to us >for HtDig 3.2.x be LGPLed by you so we can include them in the stock HtDig >3.2.x tree. > > I know this is a bit wierd, but it's legit since the HtDig group is >allowed by copyright law (as copyright holders of our code) to interpret >the LGPL as we see fit. > > And Sleeycat did the same by making a HtDig specific exception to their >license to allow us to move to the LGPL and still use BDB. > > FYI: It looks like for HtDig 4.0 we MAY be abandoning BDB, and be >replacing it with an LGPL'd Lucene/CLucene.. so the wierd licensing issue >goes away. > >Thanks again. > >Neal Richter >Knowledgebase Developer > > Hello Neal, Hello Developers' list, At the moment I am still in the process of cleaning up the 3.1.6 package, which will be released (and included in sarge) as 'htdig' (Version 1:3.1.6-8 or later). Htdig 3.2.0b6 (or later) will go into the tree as 'htdig-3.2' (and might not be included in sarge, who knows). At the moent the idea is to have the two packages conflict with each other, but thats really my problem. Alll this was done to remedy the speed issues 3.2.0b6 still has compared to 3.1.6. To come back to the point: As a debian developer I am required to summarize the licensing situation in a file called 'copyright' in the debian-tree of the package. All the following applied to 3.1.6 only: - I was able to remove the 'db' folder (Berkely DB V.2.6.2) and replace it with the stock libdb2(-dev) package of Debian. In that process, I also got from a 4-clause BSD-Style license from Sleeepycat et al. to a 3-Clause BSD-Style license. Since,however, this license is part of the package I link against, I no longer need to worry about it. You link a GPL package against libdb2, which seems to be fair enough (countless other debian packages also do it). What I still need to do is to adapt the debian installation and maintenance scripts a little; so i guess my 'htdig' 3.1.6-8 package will enter the archive about the end of this week: (Excerpt from the changelog) > * Patched htfuzzy so that it does not die on words of non-alpha > characters > only when searching for numbers is enabled and a soundex search is > performed. Thanks to Alex Kiesel for this patch. This is a patch > provided > by the Ht://Dig developer team. > * Patched htnotify race condition. Htnotify would sit there eating up > memory, appending newlines to an empty string. As Martin Kraemer > discovered, an additional check fixes the problem. This patch is also > provided by the Ht://Dig developer team. > * Added a patch that allows the correct skipping of JavaScript code. > Work > attributed to Gilles Detillieux. Patch provided by upstream. > * Have external parsers check for the maximal Document size > (max_doc_size). > Work attributed to Gilles Detillieux. Patch provided by upstream > * Fixed the rating of percent values. For some unknown reason, > including a > percent value would rate the document higher than it should. Patch > provided by upstream (and not attributable to a person). > * A set of patches brings the HTML documentation up to date, fixing > errors > and clearing ambinguities. Thanks to Gilles Detillieux for these > patches. > Also provided by the upstream developers. So when htdig-3.1.6 is out (might be on of the last debian revisions to it), I'll focus all my attention on the 3.2.0 branch. Robert |