[Notion-devel] Licensing questions (was: Re: Is any of the notion@sf.net admins around?)

[Arnout E. <no...@bz...>]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 12:57:04AM +0200, M Rawash wrote:
> On Sun, 2010-08-22 at 19:53 +0200, Arnout Engelen wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 07:38:58AM +0200, M Rawash wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2010-08-20 at 05:23 +0000, Olof Johansson wrote:
> > > > On 2010-08-20 04:56, M Rawash wrote:
> > > > > I'd suggest that we have a separate license file (let's say 
> > > > > LICENSE-notion) which we can refer to instead of Tuomo's made-up 
> > > > > license this way we will at least look like we're trying to
> > > > > make it "free" (also, doesn't put us at odds with the LGPL; continuing
> > > > > the (ab)use of Tuomo's license does!)
> > > > 
> > > > It's Tuomo's code, he decides the rules. It's not an abuse, even
> > > > though you might not like it.
> > > 
> > > I'm not questioning Tuomo's right to license his work under whatever
> > > license he pleases, but the fact remains that it's still an abuse of the
> > > LGPL, see: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL
> > 
> > I don't think this is accurate.
> > 
> > The section of the FAQ you quote applies to distributing *modified* versions 
> > of the LGPL text: for example, actually changing some of the terms and 
> > wordings of the license text.
> > 
> > What Tuomov did, instead, is including the 'official' unmodified LGPL 
> > verbatim, and stating his additional terms separately. Afaics this is OK.
> 
> Well, not exactly, Tuomo _did_ modify the LGPL (in addition to "stating
> his additional terms separately"), by both changing the meaning and
> implication of some words (i.e. "this license") and omitting entire
> sections (i.e. "Sections 3 and 13"). whether this actually counts as a
> modification (with legal implications) or Tuomo was simply exploiting a
> loophole in the way the (L)GPL is copyrighted, is debatable, and that's
> why i said it was an "abuse" of the LGPL, rather than outright illegal.

I don't really think this is a loophole or 'abuse'.

> On the other hand, Tuomo clearly states that this is a "modified"
> version of the LGPL in the first paragraph of the license itself: 
> 
> "[...]this software is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public
> License, version 2.1 ("LGPL", reproduced below), extended and
> __modified__ with the following terms[...]"
> 
> i rest my case :)

I still feel this is a different kind of 'modification' than is meant in the
FAQ. The restrictions in the FAQ mostly seem to be intended to prevent 
mis-representing something that isn't LGPL as LGPL. We/Tuomov clearly don't
do/does that.

> > > how is using a different license for _our_ code an abuse? doesn't that 
> > > contradict what you just said?
> > 
> > It's not entirely clear to me whether it'd be legal to directly mix code that's
> > under the LGPL and code that's under the 'LGPL-extended'.
> 
> From my understanding of both the LGPL (including Tuomo's "extended"
> version) and the the FSF "gpl-faq", i'd say it's OK to mix differently
> licensed code (in this particular case) as long as the 'whole' work is
> licensed under the original license (i.e. Tuomo's "extended" license),
> read Section 2 of the LGPL.

I'm not so sure we wouldn't be violating contributors' rights by relicensing
their LGPL'ed code under the 'extended' version. Though it *might* be legal, 
in any case it seems like good form to explicitly ask them if they're OK with
it.

> This, btw, also means, that we can *never* change the way notion will be
> licensed, even if 99% of the code was no longer Tuomo's, as it will
> always be considered a "derived work".

Seems likely.

> > To be on the safe side, I think we should simply ask contributors to 
> > dual-license their contributions (so they're available under both the LGPL and
> > the 'LGPL-extended'), and indicate this in the respective source files.
> 
> Well, i would have been for this, if Tuomo hadn't included a copyright
> notice at the top of his extended license (which we cannot modify!), I
> guess this means that by referring to 'that' license we are
> unequivocally transferring all copyrights to "Tuomo Valkonen"!

Copyright assignment isn't an issue here - every author keeps the copyright on
his code, even if the code is (also) released under Tuomov's license. 

> We should definitely have this talk now, rather than later, i hope more
> people can get in on this.

It seems most of our problems are 'practical' questions (about what we can/must
legally do) rather than 'fundamental' questions. Perhaps we should just ask the
GNU legal team to clarify things? I'd be willing to prepare a mail explaining 
the situation. If I remember correctly they have a mailing list for this kind 
of thing.


Regards,

Arnout