2:17 p.m.
Hi,
In a private communication with Stephen J. Turnbull related to the
release and sync of Hyperbole 5.0.1 to the package tree we came into the
subject of Copyrights and GPLv3 that is of a broader interest. So I move
the discussion to the list ...
BTW, Stallman just announced on emacs-devel that Emacs is going to
start moving to GPL v3 as soon as it's approved by the FSF, so you
should probably check if that distribution was under the "or later"
clause, or (like Linux) only v2.
According to the copyright statements in the README and the texinfo
manual it is the "or later" variant.
In case it's not obvious, the first synch of v3 code will flip
all of
XEmacs to v3. Also, this is not a surprise, we've known it is coming
for over a year now. But we do need to think about how to respond.
Hmm.. Well I was just about to start working on 5.0.2 for getting a
v3-version out. What is the problem? This is a package. How can that
"flip all of XEmacs"?
Yours
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1:59 a.m.
Mats Lidell writes:
Hmm.. Well I was just about to start working on 5.0.2 for getting a
v3-version out. What is the problem? This is a package. How can that
"flip all of XEmacs"?
In principle, it doesn't. I was thinking about core code such as
font-lock. For that, we just want to make sure that we keep pretty
up-to-date on their CVS so that we can have the freshest possible v2
technology. (Until we decide we want to go v3, which is not quite a
no-brainer. Personally, I agree with Linus, I don't need no steenkin'
GPLv3, but it's not like we regularly share code with him. So there
probably is very little v2-only code out there that we care about.)
In practice, that depends on Stallman. If he decides to claim that
legally the package distribution is part of XEmacs, do you really want
to fight the FSF in court? He's quite capable of doing such a thing
in my view, depending on the advice he gets from FSF Legal.
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8:58 a.m.
>>>> "Stephen" == Stephen J Turnbull
<stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
Stephen> For that [code in core], we just want to make sure that we keep
Stephen> pretty up-to-date on their CVS so that we can have the freshest
Stephen> possible v2 technology. (Until we decide we want to go v3, [...])
I'm afraid that I'm a little lost on all of this WRT syncs.
I understand that at some point all of Emacs CVS is going to be
re-licenced v3. Code present in Emacs up to that point we can sync with
freely, but syncing with code after that point would cause XEmacs to be
re-licenced v3 as a consequence. The re-licensing is a problem because
we haven't decided yet if we want to use v3 at all.
Have I understood this correctly?
Malcolm
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10:59 a.m.
Malcolm Purvis writes:
I understand that at some point all of Emacs CVS is going to be
re-licenced v3. Code present in Emacs up to that point we can sync with
freely, but syncing with code after that point would cause XEmacs to be
re-licenced v3 as a consequence. The re-licensing is a problem because
we haven't decided yet if we want to use v3 at all.
Have I understood this correctly?
Yes.
Except that there's a theoretical possibility they can relicense
everything in CVS retroactively, despite the notices in old CVS
versions, and it might stand up in court. They can't do that if we
already have a copy. They probably won't, but I'd like to have the
option to stick with GPLv2 for a while. It's not like there isn't
plenty of stuff in v22 to keep us busy sync'ing. :-( Or :-)
Glass-half-full-vs-glass-half-empty-ly y'rs,
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10:51 p.m.
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
Malcolm Purvis writes:
> I understand that at some point all of Emacs CVS is going to be
> re-licenced v3. Code present in Emacs up to that point we can
> sync with freely, but syncing with code after that point would
> cause XEmacs to be re-licenced v3 as a consequence. The
> re-licensing is a problem because we haven't decided yet if we
> want to use v3 at all.
>
> Have I understood this correctly?
Yes.
Except that there's a theoretical possibility they can relicense
everything in CVS retroactively, despite the notices in old CVS
versions, and it might stand up in court.
This is not entirely accurate: they can't either license or relicense
anything in CVS: the license is what covers the _conveyence_ of a
copy, not its existence. What is in their CVS is, essentially, not
yet licensed to anybody.
They can change the conditions for accessing their CVS, yes: if you
get your copy _after_ that time from _their_ CVS, regardless of what
the old license notices _in_ the CVS say, the whole kaboodle might be
available to you _only_ under GPLv3. So get your mirror _today_, and
keep the log.
They can't do that if we already have a copy.
Correct.
They probably won't, but I'd like to have the option to stick
with
GPLv2 for a while.
The GPLv3 change for Emacs is going to be quite abrupt. While you
probably have enough things to sort out in connection with the license
change, I should warn you that the GNU projects have been notified and
asked to go GPLv3 fast. For my own Emacs-related projects, I have
told Richard that I don't see it making sense to relicense AUCTeX
under GPLv3 before there is a GPLv3 released Emacs.
It would appear, however, that the copies of Emacs 22.1 available from
the FSF (without an actual update to 22.2) will get relicensed quite
fast, as well as the CVS. It is to be expected that at least
GNU-project related separate packages will follow quite close on foot.
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11:31 a.m.
David Kastrup writes:
This is not entirely accurate: they can't either license or
relicense
anything in CVS: the license is what covers the _conveyence_ of a
copy, not its existence. What is in their CVS is, essentially, not
yet licensed to anybody.
Sure. And when you dance with angels on the head of a pin, do you
waltz or polka? ;-)
The GPLv3 change for Emacs is going to be quite abrupt. While you
probably have enough things to sort out in connection with the license
change, I should warn you that the GNU projects have been notified and
asked to go GPLv3 fast.
Thank you for the head's-up!
fast, as well as the CVS. It is to be expected that at least
GNU-project related separate packages will follow quite close on foot.
Yeah, Michael Albinus has already told us that. I expected they
would.
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8:15 p.m.
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
David Kastrup writes:
> This is not entirely accurate: they can't either license or relicense
> anything in CVS: the license is what covers the _conveyence_ of a
> copy, not its existence. What is in their CVS is, essentially, not
> yet licensed to anybody.
Sure. And when you dance with angels on the head of a pin, do you
waltz or polka? ;-)
Since doing a semblance of polka on one spot would be quite worse, the
English waltz would be more appropriate when pinned.
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9:31 a.m.
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen(a)xemacs.org> writes:
In principle, it doesn't. I was thinking about core code such
as
font-lock. For that, we just want to make sure that we keep pretty
up-to-date on their CVS so that we can have the freshest possible v2
technology. (Until we decide we want to go v3, which is not quite a
no-brainer. Personally, I agree with Linus, I don't need no steenkin'
GPLv3, but it's not like we regularly share code with him. So there
probably is very little v2-only code out there that we care about.)
That means also XEmacs won't get updates of some external packages.
I'm going to relicense Tramp to GPL v3 next days; until this has been
accepted by XEmacs I cannot sync with the XEmacs repository any longer.
Best regards, Michael.
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11:44 a.m.
Stephen J. Turnbull writes:
Until we decide we want to go v3, which is not quite a no-brainer.
Not going with v3 will, I guess, cause problems with package syncs, new
code and possibly more. So there must be a downside as well, Could you
please elaborate on the problems we need to address.
Yours
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3:52 a.m.
Mats Lidell writes:
Stephen J. Turnbull writes:
> Until we decide we want to go v3, which is not quite a
no-brainer.
Not going with v3 will, I guess, cause problems with package syncs,
new
code and possibly more. So there must be a downside as well, Could you
please elaborate on the problems we need to address.
There are no "problems" *we* can address; we either accept the GPLv3
or we don't. From a pragmatic standpoint, as you point out, we have
been made an offer we can't refuse. That's why I say it's a
no-brainer.
The "almost" is pure "I don't use .0 versions of software, and I
don't
want to use .0 versions of legal documents, either, until they've been
field-tested." The GPLv2 has many nitpicky legal problems, starting
from the fact that it is as much a manifesto as it is a license. The
GPLv3 hasn't really improved on those problems, and adds *lots* more,
including language that is void on the face of it (para 1 of sec 3 and
sec 17). The language is generally much more obscure than GPLv2 was;
that cannot be good, not as law and not for the movement.
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4:24 a.m.
It was announced on the autoconf mailing list today that they've
switched to GPL v3. I'm I right in assuming that we shouldn't
distribute a configure script built with next release of autoconf until
such time that we move to GPL v3 ourselves?
Malcolm
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8:26 a.m.
Malcolm Purvis wrote:
It was announced on the autoconf mailing list today that they've
switched to GPL v3. I'm I right in assuming that we shouldn't
distribute a configure script built with next release of autoconf until
such time that we move to GPL v3 ourselves?
http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/html_node/Distributing.html
19.1 Distributing configure Scripts
What are the restrictions on distributing configure
scripts that Autoconf generates? How does that affect my
programs that use them?
There are no restrictions on how the configuration scripts that
Autoconf produces may be distributed or used. In Autoconf version 1,
they were covered by the GNU General Public License. We still
encourage software authors to distribute their work under terms like
those of the GPL, but doing so is not required to use Autoconf.
Of the other files that might be used with configure, config.h.in is
under whatever copyright you use for your configure.ac. config.sub and
config.guess have an exception to the GPL when they are used with an
Autoconf-generated configure script, which permits you to distribute
them under the same terms as the rest of your package. install-sh is
from the X Consortium and is not copyrighted.
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