> Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2022 at 2:20 PM
> From: "Mihai Moldovan" <io...@ionic.de>
> To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: linuxcnc licensing issues
>
> Hello Adam
>
>
> Thank you for pointing out such issues and providing context.
>
> * On 12/1/22 13:38, Adam Ant wrote:
> > Large portions of the core code base are labeled as LGPL-2 - There is no
> > such
> > licence. It is either GPL-2 or LGPL-2.1
>
> Technically, there is a LGPL 2.0 license, although deprecated, so if that is
> what was meant, it would be correct. Looking at the source code, the authors
> really specified "LGPL-2", which the packager just copied verbatim.
>
> Now, the COPYING.more file contains a copy of the LGPL 2.1. It is very likely
> this standard license was meant to be referenced, but the author was
> inexperienced in how to specify it (note that the source files also omit the
> standard short notice that is customary to include for such licenses) and has
> simply messed up. The packager, maybe also inexperienced, did not catch and
> rectify it.
>
> I suggest you file one or multiple bug reports to:
> - change the license string to a standard Debian or SPDX (compatible)
> identifier in both debian/copyright and the source files
> - add the standard short notice for the different licenses to source files.
>
>
> > A bit of history:
> > Linuxcnc was forked from a National Institue of Standards & Technology
> > project
> > called the Enhanced Machine Control (EMC).
> >
> https://www.nist.gov/publications/enhanced-machine-controller-architecture-overview
> > As part of the project NIST released code in to the public domain free from
> > copyright or licence - This code base was then munged for the want of a
> > better
> > word by a few individuals outside of NIST and additional code added. The
> > munged
> > code had copyright & licence notices added without the consent of NIST.
> Here, things get a lot more complicated. First, let me point you to
> https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses#Public_Domain which provides a short FAQ
> about public domain.
>
> While code released under public domain is DFSG-free, not all jurisdictions
> have
> such a concept. While technically PD disclaims ownership of and does not
> explicitly license the code, that is only true for jurisdictions which do have
> the notion of things in the public domain. In others, authorship and ownership
> are retained, as far as I know. My personal suggestion is to avoid placing
> software into public domain and to explicitly choose a standard free software
> license instead, preferably one that has been tried and tested in a lot of
> jurisdictions already. However, it is moot for the original EMC1 code, which
> has
> obviously already been put into public domain.
>
> The other part is more concerning. You are claiming that the original EMC1
> code
> was taken, modified, relicensed without the original authors's permission and
> then published as linuxcnc.
>
> Relicensing is a highly complicated matter. I have only experienced one
> project
> doing it and they were very meticulous in their approach, requiring consent
> (or
> dissent) from all past contributors.
>
> In the linuxcnc case, it probably was meant well, but that does not mean that
> it
> was done well. Stuffing a different license (or, for that matter, any license
> to
> begin with) onto work for which does not have authorship rights and without
> asking the original author for permission does not feel legal.
>
> However, I have no idea how code in the public domain would interact with
> that.
> Given that placing code into the public domain explicitly dismisses author's
> rights, would one not be free to do anything with it, including relicensing it
> freely? Probably not, but I really do not know.
>
> Personally, I would view linuxcnc as a problematic piece of software and would
> not even want to include it in Debian until such issues are resolved, but I
> also
> have to stress that my opinion has no weight whatsoever.
Also have grave concerns here. Questionable claims of copyright are not just
limited
to the PD portions of the code base. As an example:
https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/rtapi/procfs_macros.h
The original file can be found here:
http://svn.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/rtai/magma/base/include/rtai_proc_fs.h?view=markup
With this particular example, the licence remains the same (GPL2+), but not the
author.
Perhaps a well intentioned assignment, but I wouldn't like to speculate.
> > Whilst public domain code can be used in a FOSS licenced project, without
> > copyright (which by its very nature, public domain code is free from), any
> > licence becomes unenforcable.
> This is true for jurisdictions that have exactly this notion of public domain.
> For others (and, frankly, probably MOST others), author's rights and
> copyrights
> cannot be dismissed, even if the author intended to do so. This would
> certainly
> make the relicensing illegal at worst, unenforceable at best.
>
>
> > There is also the moral question of taking public domain code and claiming
> copyright over it.
> This is not something I wish to discuss.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
>
> Mihai
>
