Thank you, Ibrahim, for your comments. I can see where my suggestions do not make sense. It is too difficult a challenge for the communities to envisage. If no one can envisage it, then no one can do it.
Vic On Mon, May 13, 2024, at 12:52, ibrahim wrote: > On Monday, 13 May 2024, at 5:09 AM, Jacob Moody wrote: >> When people suggest tossing that all out for a minimally patched 4e, I think >> some people > rightfully feel a bit annoyed. That's a lot of baby that goes out with > that bathwater. > > It's Davids decission what he includes as patches for the 4th edition > but I would toss everything out of 9legacy which isn't part of the 4th > edition or contributed by the team members at Bell Labs from their > archives as enhancements. > > The reasoning is simple : p9f owns the rights for the final release and > Nokia has made this release available under a MIT license. Every one > who uses plan9 not only to toy around or his/her personal use but also > as a system which he/she distributes like I do can't afford risks with > code integrated from sources like 9front. There are some libraries > taken from 9front derived from other open source projects like freetype > (truetype) where copyright notices are absent and this isn't the only > library where in code comments the sources are named but the original > copyright notices are absent. > > plan9 as represented by p9f has a clear license all parts which are not > MIT licensed are marked as such but code back ported from other forks > like 9front contain code where I have doubts if those are really under > an MIT license as you state in your documentation cause deriving from a > different license or taking large amounts of code doesn't remove viral > licenses like LGPL or GPL. > > It would be in the interest of plan9 and all who professionally use it > in embedded systems or as a distributed operating system to keep > suspicious code out of the 9legacy CD. If really necessary to provide > such contributions or back ports I wouldn't place them in the system > folders but as it was in the past in contrib folders for additional > download. The risks to infect a clearly licensed system gifted by Nokia > to all of us to make best use of it for free commercial private > embedded ... solutions are to high and I would really prefer it when > nothing from forks like 9front would take its way into the 9legacy CD > ROM which is defined as : > > Plan 9 archives, reference releases of Plan 9. > > 9legacy, Plan 9 with many useful patches applied. Download > page has an > installation CD image including 386, amd64, and arm kernels > and binaries; > a bootable USB image for 386; a bootable SD card image for > Raspberry Pi; > and virtual disk images for QEMU and GCE. > > The 4th Edition distribution from Bell Labs: > live CD/install CD/USB image, installation notes, > browse the source, additional software > > I respect your fork 9front but I won't and can't use it. 9front isn't > plan9 from my perspective. Plan 9 is the final release with patches for > the files from sources I can be sure that those aren't taken from open > source projects by copy and paste. The moment I and others who use > plan9 for distribution or embed it on systems we have to be absolutely > sure about the sources of the code. I can trust Bell Labs, Nokia, p9f > but I won't trust some guys who toy around with their fork of plan9. > The moment FSF or another organisation starts to suit me because they > recognized that some guy at any forked system has copy pasted code from > a viral licensed project I am the one who has to take the consequences. > > The first thing I am doing after downloading an iso from 9 legacy is to > remove all files which were not part of the final plan9 release. The > second thing I have always to do is removing all patches from the iso > which came from sources I can't be sure if they really followed > licensing rules. The third thing I have to do before distributing my > fork of plan9 is to remove fonts ghostscript diff page and other parts > of the system which would infect the distribution media to make sure > the created system is not depending on viral licensed code. > > My fork isn't the only one which gets distributed. I'm sure there exist > millions of devices with plan9 integrated without anyone noticing > except for those who look into the documentation where the MIT licensed > copyright is placed. > > If people from forks like 9front are talking about numbers of their > users I always have to laugh. My fork is right now used by about 500 > people per semester more users. And be assured this is an unimportant > number. > > Not a single developer who uses plan9 for distributed systems, > commercial products will dare to use a system like 9front as the > sources. The reason is quite simple : > > You ignore copyrights as you please and distributed 9front under an MIT > license long before Nokia as the owner of it decided to do so. You did > that at a time when plan9 was placed under GPL. > > 9front is a fork your fork I respect your work. But all your commits > and enhancements are absolutly useless for people who intend or use > plan9 not only to play around with this system but make professional > use of it. The first thing such people have to check is the way you > handle licenses. > > Therefore 9front is a fork but p9f's provided final release is the real > thing with a clear ownership and license. 9legacy would be the right > choice as the current plan9 but it contains code from sources which > bare the risk of infecting a MIT licensed plan9 if no measures are > taken regarding these problems. > ------------------------------------------ 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tcf128fa955b8aafc-Mf8ced8e46318f0636a7e580d Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
