On 12/24/05, Brian Harring <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > License in question... > > http://bugs.gentoo.org/attachment.cgi?id=35862&action=view > > On Sat, Dec 24, 2005 at 06:11:53PM -0800, Bret Towe wrote: > > earily today i updated the ebuilds for mac and xmms-mac, > > for those that dont know their applications for monkey's audio (.ape files), > > and got them submited to bug 94477[1] which was closed > > due to the way the licence was done > > Original license really sucks... doesn't matter if someone has grabbed > the code and labeled it lgpl2, it still is under the monkey license. > > > > my issue is i think the ebuilds should be commited to portage > > as i dont see how the licence or issues that app has anything todo > > with a gentoo ebuild as all the ebuild does is fetch and install > > and its only told todo so upon the user requesting it to be so > > hence its the users choice to deal with the licence rather than > > the developers desiding for that user > > We're not deciding what licenses users should use (despite pushes from > both extremes looking to enforce their license view on others). > > That said, it's not actually the issue at hand. Issue at hand is > violating someone else's license (clarified below). > > > i can understand putting proper warning in the ebuild if the dev > > thinks that its worth the user really noting the issues surrounding > > it, not forcing their ideals onto the user > > if i wanted that i would run debian > > See above, and drop the rhetoric please.
im sorry for attempting to get my idea across > > > > for those that havent figured it out yet from reading the above > > i dont care the politics of the issue with the licence all i want > > is the functionality of the ebuild concerned > > Politics do suck. > > That said, lawyers crawling up your ass sucks worse. > > Bluntly, you're asking a collection of devs, who have their own > contributions protected by licenses, to ignore a source base's > license. That's going to be one hard sell. ;) > i thought i was asking how commiting this can even affect the devs or gentoo in general > > if it is the case that the devs believe the user is totally incapable > > of making choices for themselfs then i suggest putting up > > somewhere noting it as such > > Again, ixnay rhetoric; if we violate the license (which we would be > doing), we're responsible (along with user who uses it). how does that work? an ebuild is a script or do you mean by the dev testing it they also perform the same action as the user would? > It doesn't matter if someone else has picked up the source and labeled > it as lgpl, unless the new project has *express* permission from the > original author, they're not even allowed to screw with the source- > the new project could be viewed as a new program. > > Barring the new program angle, there still is the requirement all > fixes/changes be contributed back to the original upstream. > > Original upsream being dead means it's effectively impossible to > improve the source. orignal doesnt matter as long as someone is > This is why the original license is a major issue. Effectively, > the codebase cannot be improved/fixed without the original author, due > to restrictions keeping the code bound to him/her. If he/she goes > mia, the project is dead developmentally due to the restrictions, > which makes putting the package into portage an even harder sell. > > Jakub responded in this thread about shipping a crap license... imo, > that's not the issue. > > The issue is that we would be knowingly violating a license (however > horrid the license is). > > Two routes out of this- clean room reimplementation of the codec, or > someone manages to track down the original author and gets the code > converted to a different license. Latter still is tricky, since any > contributions to the project, you would need all authors to sign off > on the new license- this is assuming the project doesn't do > centralized copyright, and assuming people have actually contributed > to it beyond original author. > ~harring i think that is beyond the scope of this list :) and again i am sorry if i seem to repeat myself a bit but i find people i talk to ether dont get what im talking about or dont listen so i end up going in circles trying to beat what im saying into their head -- gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
