Re: Freeness of vague Synopsys license
Andreas Bombe writes: > I'm now unsure whether I should keep the Synopsys libraries which > found some wider use before its features were finally offered by the > VHDL language standard. > > Here is the copyright statement and license from one of the files in > its entirety: Thank you for naming the specific work, and for presenting the text of the license grant and conditions. I agree with you that the question of “does this grant of license permit modification and redistribution”. > | Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1992 by Synopsys, Inc. All rights reserved. > | > | This source file may be used and distributed without restriction > | provided that this copyright statement is not removed from the file > | and that any derivative work contains this copyright notice. > > It offers use and distribution without restriction, but technically > not explicitly modification. However, if permission of modification > weren't intended, the requirement of keeping the copyright statement > would be pointless. We have a stronger argument in favour of this license granting permission to modify and redistribute. The license states specifically what the recipient must do with “any derivative work”. I think a fair interpretation of “provided […] that any derivative work contains this copyright notice” in the conditions, is that the license grants permission to redistribute a modified version of the work — what copyright law typically calls a “derived work”. It is not as clear as it should be, though. The mere ability of some people to find an interpretation that coincides with our wishes, is a poor guide to whether the license will actually be found to grant those permissions when tested. We should not eagerly take our interpretation as the right one. You might contact the copyright holders, and ask them to release a version of the work with the wording changed to that of the Expat license https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:Expat>. This is a well-understood license text, widely acknowledged to result in a free work. This would remove the doubts raised by the current unclear wording. -- \ “Faith is the determination to remain ignorant in the face of | `\ all evidence that you are ignorant.” —Shaun Mason | _o__) | Ben Finney
Re: Freeness of vague Synopsys license
Andreas Bombe writes ("Freeness of vague Synopsys license"):
> I am currently working on reintroducing GHDL into Debian. It is a VHDL
> compiler/simulator that includes non-standard VHDL libraries from
> various vendors and I have to throw out most of them (unlike before, it
> now comes with the core standard libraries reimplemented under a free
> license). I'm now unsure whether I should keep the Synopsys libraries
> which found some wider use before its features were finally offered by
> the VHDL language standard.
>
> Here is the copyright statement and license from one of the files in its
> entirety:
>
> | Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1992 by Synopsys, Inc. All rights reserved.
> |
> | This source file may be used and distributed without restriction
> | provided that this copyright statement is not removed from the file
> | and that any derivative work contains this copyright notice.
>
> It offers use and distribution without restriction, but technically not
> explicitly modification. However, if permission of modification weren't
> intended, the requirement of keeping the copyright statement would be
> pointless. Therefore I am leaning towards permission of modification
> being implied.
I agree with your interpretation.
The implication you are imputing is necessary for the wording to make
sense. At least all the common law jurisdictions I'm familiar with
would take the same approach to interpretation of legal language as
you have done.
> Keeping these files would be "nice to have" but not a requirement. Users
> with legacy VHDL projects using Synopsys libraries would need to find
> and install these libraries themselves if they were removed.
Even better: that means that in the very unlikely even that someone
would disagree with our interpretation, we could simply remove these
files again without having to untangle a lot of within-Debian
rdepends.
But even if that weren't the case I think the necessarily implication
is that permission was granted (and the copyrightholders are likely to
be estopped from claiming otherwise because everyone has been relying
on that implied permission for, presumably, years).
Ian.
--
Ian JacksonThese opinions are my own.
If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.
Re: Freeness of vague Synopsys license
On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 11:11:28AM +, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Andreas Bombe writes ("Freeness of vague Synopsys license"):
> > Keeping these files would be "nice to have" but not a requirement. Users
> > with legacy VHDL projects using Synopsys libraries would need to find
> > and install these libraries themselves if they were removed.
>
> Even better: that means that in the very unlikely even that someone
> would disagree with our interpretation, we could simply remove these
> files again without having to untangle a lot of within-Debian
> rdepends.
>
> But even if that weren't the case I think the necessarily implication
> is that permission was granted (and the copyrightholders are likely to
> be estopped from claiming otherwise because everyone has been relying
> on that implied permission for, presumably, years).
Thank you (and Ben). I think I'll go with leaving it in and letting
ftpmasters decide.
A bigger problem were the core IEEE libraries that received a
more-but-insufficiently permissive license in the years since the last
ghdl upload to Debian (from "written permission required for basically
everything" to "free to distribute and use but explicitly no changes
except those permitted in the VHDL standard"). But thankfully there's
now GPL reimplementations for those.
Andreas
