Bug#784565: [pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code
On Thu, 14 May 2015 05:55:42 + Mike Gabriel mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de wrote: TL;DR; So here comes my actual question: are you (Brian Pane, Zachary Vonler, Gian Filippo Pinzari) ok with retroactively regarding pre-3.8.1 code of DXPC (that you probably all worked on at that time) as BSD-2-clause? Are you ok with others having taken or taking the pre-3.8.1 DXPC code and distribute it in a modified form? A yes from all of you as DXPC copyright holders is essential for the continuation of nx-libs development under a free license. This may also possibly be an issue for NXv4 in case parts of it have been derived from DXPC. Yes, I am fine with considering the license change to be retroactive to cover the time I was the maintainer. I have no objections to others distributing modified versions of that code. Zach
Bug#784565: [pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code
By the way, poking around the interwebs I find there is an archive of the old DXPC mailing list available at: http://marc.info/?l=dxpcr=1w=2 I think you will find this of particular interest: http://marc.info/?l=dxpcm=93093790813555w=2 List: dxpc Subject:Re: future tecnologies From: Brian Pane brianp () cnet ! com Date: 1999-07-02 16:42:18 [Download message RAW] Kevin Vigor kvi...@eng.ascend.com wrote: On 01-Jul-99 d...@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu wrote: Speaking of licensing, are you putting your 3.8.0 changes to the dxpc code itself under GPL, or are they going to use the original dxpc's licensing? No, as you can probably guess, I am no fan of the GPL. For stuff on this level, where my hacking is pretty simple and probably devoid of commercial value, I'll just release my changes to the public domain and give up even a copyright interest in them. Your and Zach's copyrights still stand, of course. I *think* that fact that we use the LZO library and API, but do not directly incorporate the code, allows us to escape the clutch of the GPL virus. btw, is there an original dxpc license? I haven't seen anything but a copyright notice, which to my non-lawyerly mind translates as free to all the world as is, negotiate with copyright owner if modifying or including in some other product. The copyright banner in the Readme is all the documentation there's ever been. My intent was to allow _any_ distribution, use, and modification of the source, without imposing restrictions on the licensing style of any system into which others might incorporate the code. We probably should start stating this clearly in the distributions. -brian [prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-rc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#784565: [pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code
Hi Kevin, hi Zach, hi Francesco, hi all, @Francesco, please review the recent posts and sum up what to do next. - Original message - By the way, poking around the interwebs I find there is an archive of the old DXPC mailing list available at: http://marc.info/?l=dxpcr=1w=2 I think you will find this of particular interest: http://marc.info/?l=dxpcm=93093790813555w=2 List: dxpc Subject: Re: future tecnologies From: Brian Pane brianp () cnet ! com Date: 1999-07-02 16:42:18 [Download message RAW] Kevin Vigor kvi...@eng.ascend.com wrote: On 01-Jul-99 d...@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu wrote: Speaking of licensing, are you putting your 3.8.0 changes to the dxpc code itself under GPL, or are they going to use the original dxpc's licensing? No, as you can probably guess, I am no fan of the GPL. For stuff on this level, where my hacking is pretty simple and probably devoid of commercial value, I'll just release my changes to the public domain and give up even a copyright interest in them. Your and Zach's copyrights still stand, of course. I *think* that fact that we use the LZO library and API, but do not directly incorporate the code, allows us to escape the clutch of the GPL virus. btw, is there an original dxpc license? I haven't seen anything but a copyright notice, which to my non-lawyerly mind translates as free to all the world as is, negotiate with copyright owner if modifying or including in some other product. The copyright banner in the Readme is all the documentation there's ever been. My intent was to allow _any_ distribution, use, and modification of the source, without imposing restrictions on the licensing style of any system into which others might incorporate the code. We probably should start stating this clearly in the distributions. -brian [prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] @Kevin: You are very awesome! @Francesco: that old post from Brian should be the statement we need, right? As Brian has not answered back, so far, does that post suffice? I also had a mail from Zach in my mailbox this morning. I managed to get hold of him via phone over the weekend. He posted his agreement to this Debian bug (as message #77) [1] earlier today. @Zach: thanks a lot for that!!! @Francesco: by looking at [2], I cannot see any hint for Gian Filippo Pinzari being a copyright holder of DXPC. This is stated in the NoMachine files at at least one place, but not in the latest DXPC upstream release. I am on my mobile right now, need to check old versions of DXPC, but if Gian Filippo Pinzari is not listed in the DXPC 3.7.0 release (where nxcomp obviously got forked from), then I think that we don't require his feedback, right? To my opinion, this issue can be settled. We have direct feedback from Kevin and Zach and Kevin dug out an old post from Brian stating the retroactive nature of the BSD-2-clause while Gian Filippo probably not being a real copyright holder of the original DXPC code. Right? light+love, Mike [1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?msg=77;att=0;bug=784565 [2] http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/README -- DAS-NETZWERKTEAM mike gabriel, herweg 7, 24357 fleckeby fon: +49 (1520) 1976148 GnuPG Key ID 0x25771B13 mail: mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de, http://das-netzwerkteam.de -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-rc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#784565: [pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code
On 05/16/15 03:19, Mike Gabriel wrote: As I have not heard back neither from Brian Pane, Zachary Vonler nor Gian Filippo Pinzari (we had Ascension Day and maybe a prolonged weekend that people used for going on VAC), I will try looking at the DXPC changes between 3.7.0 and 3.8.1. Obviously, NoMachine forked NXCOMP from DXPC some time between DXPC 3.7.0 and DXPC 3.8.0. Questions to Kevin: o Is there any SVN upstream repo still online (I saw it in one of the tarballs, that SVN was used for 3.9.0). I'm afraid not. There was never an online repo available, and if I used one personally it is lost to the mists of time. o Do you have any tarballs documenting the changes between 3.7.0 and 3.8.0? Do you also have the 3.8.1 tarball? I have the source tarballs to each of those (including the 3.8.1 version). The 3.8.0 release includes a README-3.8.0 file which documents the changes between 3.7.0 and 3.8.0 reasonably well. As will be (unfortunately) obvious from examining the deltas between 3.7.0 (the last release by Brian and/or Zachary) and 3.8.0 (the first release by me), I inherited a significant majority of the code. o Did the 3.8.0 version of DXPC break proto compatibility (i.e., you could not use client 3.7.0 and server 3.8.0 and vice versa with each other)? Yes, minor version number bumps were used to indicate compatibility. 3.8.x was incompatible with 3.7.x (and also with 3.9.x). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-rc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#784565: [pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code
On Mon, 18 May 2015 23:48:51 +0200 Mike Gabriel wrote: [...] @Francesco: that old post from Brian should be the statement we need, right? As Brian has not answered back, so far, does that post suffice? Yes, I am under the impression that it may be considered as evidence that Brian had always meant to grant permission to modify, despite not being overly clear until DXPC version 3.8.1. In other words, it seems that the re-licensing was more intended to be a clarification, rather than a change of mind. I also had a mail from Zach in my mailbox this morning. I managed to get hold of him via phone over the weekend. He posted his agreement to this Debian bug (as message #77) [1] earlier today. @Zach: thanks a lot for that!!! This is really great! @Francesco: by looking at [2], I cannot see any hint for Gian Filippo Pinzari being a copyright holder of DXPC. This is stated in the NoMachine files at at least one place, but not in the latest DXPC upstream release. I am on my mobile right now, need to check old versions of DXPC, but if Gian Filippo Pinzari is not listed in the DXPC 3.7.0 release (where nxcomp obviously got forked from), then I think that we don't require his feedback, right? If it is confirmed that Gian Filippo contributed to the forking of DXPC within the NoMachine project, but not directly to DXPC, then I think that he made his contributions available under the terms of the GPL v2 of the NoMachine project. If this is the case, no feedback should be required from his side. To my opinion, this issue can be settled. We have direct feedback from Kevin and Zach and Kevin dug out an old post from Brian stating the retroactive nature of the BSD-2-clause while Gian Filippo probably not being a real copyright holder of the original DXPC code. Right? Yes, I agree with this analysis. The only missing check is the one about Gian Filippo's involvement (as explained above). Thanks a lot to everyone involved in this license fixing effort! Bye. [1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?msg=77;att=0;bug=784565 [2] http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/README -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/ There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgpce2romx0bm.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#784565: [pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code
On 5/18/2015 4:14 PM, Francesco Poli wrote: If it is confirmed that Gian Filippo contributed to the forking of DXPC within the NoMachine project, but not directly to DXPC, then I think that he made his contributions available under the terms of the GPL v2 of the NoMachine project. If this is the case, no feedback should be required from his side. I can confirm that Gian Fillippo never contributed directly to DXPC. You'll note his name does not appear in the DXPC README, and never has. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-rc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#784565: [pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code
Hi all, esp. Kevin, On Do 14 Mai 2015 06:58:09 CEST, Mike Gabriel wrote: I looked at dxpc releases (I obtained upstream tarballs from snapshot.debian.org). I currently have: [mike@minobo dxpc.nxrebase (upstream-nxrebase)]$ git log commit 0676a768a96383641a73a72ecd2e1083322e6abe Author: Mike Gabriel mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de Date: Sat May 16 10:52:24 2015 +0200 Imported Upstream version 3.9.2 commit 4ccf34b2c4763dfb01dceb8588b204b0d029cc3d Author: Mike Gabriel mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de Date: Sat May 16 10:51:04 2015 +0200 Imported Upstream version 3.9.1 commit dd8f60ce63c70ed605a2e1717feb7128e59fb8e6 Author: Mike Gabriel mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de Date: Sat May 16 10:49:19 2015 +0200 Imported Upstream version 3.9.0 commit 01c990099aea802405f8d39c0b819ee1742c185c Author: Mike Gabriel mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de Date: Sat May 16 10:32:06 2015 +0200 Imported Upstream version 3.8.2 commit 48df60b3b946a08541ee48371634f074e875adda Author: Mike Gabriel mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de Date: Sat May 16 10:31:57 2015 +0200 Imported Upstream version 3.8.0 commit 11d81444d0f86a67f9b8483cbfa33343714b26e9 Author: Mike Gabriel mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de Date: Sat May 16 10:31:53 2015 +0200 Imported Upstream version 3.7.0 commit e4f550abd4cd49ecc2381e717a55a9940087a376 Author: Mike Gabriel mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de Date: Sat May 16 10:31:44 2015 +0200 Imported Upstream version 3.5.0 @Kevin: I will take you off this mail thread's Cc: field with my next post. Feel free to follow-up via #784565 [1] on the Debian bug tracker. Thanks a lot for being so responsive and generous with providing information. With this post I actually reincluded you because it becomes technical from here on and I probably will need your expertise on DXPC. Not sure if you have time or prio or are willing to provide that. Would you be open for answering technical questions on DXPC and esp. the changes between 3.7.0 and 3.8.1/3.8.2? I'd highly appreciate that. As I have not heard back neither from Brian Pane, Zachary Vonler nor Gian Filippo Pinzari (we had Ascension Day and maybe a prolonged weekend that people used for going on VAC), I will try looking at the DXPC changes between 3.7.0 and 3.8.1. Obviously, NoMachine forked NXCOMP from DXPC some time between DXPC 3.7.0 and DXPC 3.8.0. Questions to Kevin: o Is there any SVN upstream repo still online (I saw it in one of the tarballs, that SVN was used for 3.9.0). o Do you have any tarballs documenting the changes between 3.7.0 and 3.8.0? Do you also have the 3.8.1 tarball? o Did the 3.8.0 version of DXPC break proto compatibility (i.e., you could not use client 3.7.0 and server 3.8.0 and vice versa with each other)? Any help on this is appreciated. Thanks. Mike -- DAS-NETZWERKTEAM mike gabriel, herweg 7, 24357 fleckeby fon: +49 (1520) 1976 148 GnuPG Key ID 0x25771B31 mail: mike.gabr...@das-netzwerkteam.de, http://das-netzwerkteam.de freeBusy: https://mail.das-netzwerkteam.de/freebusy/m.gabriel%40das-netzwerkteam.de.xfb pgpqd0Hs9b4Ol.pgp Description: Digitale PGP-Signatur
Bug#784565: [pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code
Dear Brian, dear Zachary, dear Gian Filippo, (Find a TL;DR; at the end of this mail...) I am contacting you on a licensing issue related to the DXPC code that you worked on at the end of the nineties. I'd highly appreciate it if you could take a little time to read this mail and get back to me, either privately or in public. [I have actually Cc:ed quite a number of people in this mail (thread). All of them will be affected by the outcome of this license issue to some lesser or greater extent. If you feel inconvenient with replying to so many people you don't know, really don't hesitate to get back to me in private first, so that we can sort things out. Thank you.] Before I continue, let me shortly introduce myself. My name is Mike Gabriel, I work for the Debian project [1.1, 1.2] (which brings forth one of the major GNU/Linux distributions world-wide. I am also the upstream code maintainer of a software project called nx-libs [2]. The nx-libs code has been derived from several of NoMachine's NXv3 [11] components (namely: nx-X11, nxagent, nxcomp, nxcompext and nxcompshad). A member of the Debian legal team [3] (Francesco Poli) made us (i.e., the nx-libs developers, users, package maintainers) aware of an issue [4] in the nx-libs component NXCOMP (which has been derived from DXPC [5]). Please read Message #5 of the brought up issue on the Debian bug tracker (#784565) [4] before you continue reading. Thanks. I will now jump into the below quoted mail and continue inline... On Di 12 Mai 2015 23:40:48 CEST, Francesco Poli wrote: On Tue, 12 May 2015 17:41:55 +0200 Mike Gabriel wrote: Hi Kevin, Hello Mike, hello Kevin, hello to all the other recipients. First of all, I wish to express my gratitude to Kevin for his prompt, kind and generous response. thanks for your feedback. Let us wait for Francesco, our expert on license issues, and see what he thinks about your feedback. I think that this is an important first step to solve this issue for the best. Kevin Vigor is one of the copyright owners of the code that was forked before the re-licensing. We now know that he intended the re-licensing to be retroactive and this is really good. We are currently in the process of contacting all DXPC related copyright holders mentioned in the NXCOMP license file [6]. We already received some feedback from Kevin Vigor [7], but we also need to address you (Brian, Zachary, Gian Filippo) with this. (The mail address I have from Zachary may be outdated, so any current contact address is highly welcome, in case the mail address being used will bounce back). At the moment, NXCOMP (and thus nx-libs, but also NoMachine's NXv3 code) cannot be considered as fully free software, until this issue is settled. The DXPC license before DXPC v3.8.1 was an ancient BSD style license that failed in explicitly mentioning, that it is allowed to modify the DXPC code in derivative works. In 2002, DXPC 3.8.1 got released [12], using a more compliant license (BSD-2-clause). As Kevin told us, this license change [8,9] was done after the FSF [10] had contacted the DXPC developers. However, the NXCOMP code in NXv3 got forked from DXPC before 2002, as it seems. So unfortunately, the modifications of DXPC as found in NoMachine's NXCOMP product are not compliant with the pre-3.8.1 license of DXPC. I think that now it would be useful to ascertain that the other copyright owners (Brian Pane, Zachary Vonler, Gian Filippo Pinzari) are also OK with this interpretation of the re-licensing operation. TL;DR; So here comes my actual question: are you (Brian Pane, Zachary Vonler, Gian Filippo Pinzari) ok with retroactively regarding pre-3.8.1 code of DXPC (that you probably all worked on at that time) as BSD-2-clause? Are you ok with others having taken or taking the pre-3.8.1 DXPC code and distribute it in a modified form? A yes from all of you as DXPC copyright holders is essential for the continuation of nx-libs development under a free license. This may also possibly be an issue for NXv4 in case parts of it have been derived from DXPC. Thanks to all of you for taking your time. light+love Mike [1.1] http://www.debian.org [1.2] https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=sunweaver%40debian.org [2] https://github.com/ArcticaProject/nx-libs [3] https://www.debian.org/legal/ [4] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=784565#5 [5] http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/ [6] https://github.com/ArcticaProject/nx-libs/blob/3.6.x/nxcomp/LICENSE#L32 [7] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=784565#40 [8] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=72020 [9] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=142028 [10] http://www.fsf.org/ [11] https://www.nomachine.com/version-3 [12] http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/CHANGES -- DAS-NETZWERKTEAM mike gabriel, herweg 7, 24357 fleckeby fon: +49 (1520) 1976 148 GnuPG Key ID 0x25771B31 mail:
