(somehow I failed to hit send on this last night) On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 1:15 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu <[email protected]> wrote: > Do you have a response for the existing precedents in which valuable work > has been wasted?
My understanding is that in each case, work was wasted because it was under license A which couldn't be converted to license B. Boost converts to everything else happily, which is why it was picked. Therefore this problem does not exist with boost. > More generally (and for everyone), and please don't take this the wrong way > as it comes from someone who knows next to nothing about this: I see there's > considerable discussion here; what is the larger issue that seems to go > unstated? It's entirely fine to want to maintain copyright of one's work, > but on the face of it OSS seems to be a poor vehicle for that. It's not about wanting to maintain my copyright, it's about removing an unnecessary hurdle to contribution. For example, if we require copyright assignment I can't submit code that I don't own the copyright to, even if it's licence compatible. Since the move to boost means we don't need it, we shouldn't have it. > > Andrei > > > On 6/23/14, 3:42 AM, Daniel Murphy via dmd-internals wrote: >> >> You don't need to deal with it in the future, because boost allows you >> to change to a more restrictive license if necessary. eg We could >> change it to BSD or GPL _without_ needing copyright assignment. This >> is only a problem if we want to remove restrictions, and there doesn't >> seem to be any point to doing that. >> >> Also, AIUI we will not be able to change the license of phobos and >> druntime anyway, since there is no copyright assignment for those. >> We're 'stuck' with boost either way. >> >> On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 3:34 PM, Walter Bright <[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 6/22/2014 8:14 PM, Daniel Murphy wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Those are all problems with incompatible licenses, and boost is >>>> supposed to solve these. Now that the frontend is boost, why do we >>>> still need copyright assignment? >>> >>> >>> >>> Maybe, maybe not. I don't know what kind of issues will come up in the >>> future, and how could I deal with it if major contributors are no longer >>> available? What if there's some legal nit with Boost and it needs to be >>> adjusted? GPL and BSD licenses have undergone revisions, would we want to >>> get stuck forever with an obsolete Boost? >>> >>> Like I said, we've already had this problem more than once - and the >>> resolution was abandonment of valuable work. >>> >>> >>>> >>>> I think for the frontend we're in good shape now without copyright >>>> assignment. >>>> >>>> On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 12:28 PM, Walter Bright via dmd-internals >>>> <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 6/22/2014 2:15 PM, David Nadlinger via dmd-internals wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On 22 Jun 2014, at 20:38, Walter Bright via dmd-internals wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It's still a good idea, as I'm not sure what issues may come up about >>>>>>> it >>>>>>> in the future. We've had contributors disappear before, questions >>>>>>> come >>>>>>> up, >>>>>>> and we were forced to abandon their contributions as a result. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Putting aside all the other reasons why I think requiring copyright >>>>>> assignment now is a really bad idea: >>>>>> >>>>>> 1. What instance of troubles are you referring to, specifically? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Jascha Wetzel wrote a Windows debugger in D, for example. His license >>>>> was >>>>> incompatible, he disappeared, his project was abandoned as a result. >>>>> Then >>>>> there's the case of the Tango code, such as the excellent XML parser - >>>>> can't >>>>> be incorporated into dmd because of the license. All that value got >>>>> abandoned; nobody benefited from it. What a waste. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 2. How would a dubious copyright assignment give you any more security >>>>>> than licensing a contribution under Boost? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> If issues come up that only the copyright holder can resolve, we will >>>>> be >>>>> completely unable to resolve them. For example, I needed assignments in >>>>> order to change the license to Boost. If one major contributor had >>>>> refused, >>>>> then where would we be? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Also note that systematically requiring copyright assignment before >>>>>> merging a change on GitHub is not something we are currently doing. I >>>>>> was >>>>>> just not sure whether it is something you want to start doing. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I don't think it's critical for smallish contributions, as they can be >>>>> worked around if necessary. For larger ones, yes. >>>>> >>>>> You say you're worried about something with this - can you explain? >>>>> What's >>>>> "really bad" about it? >>>>> >>>>> _ >>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> dmd-internals mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/dmd-internals >> > _______________________________________________ dmd-internals mailing list [email protected] http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/dmd-internals
