Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Wed, Aug 18, 2004 at 10:02:01AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
> Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:
>
> > On Mon, Aug 16, 2004 at 12:22:38PM -0400, Walter Landry wrote:
> >> Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> >> > On Tue, Aug 10, 2004 at 10:36:22PM -0400, Walter Landry wrote:
> >> > > Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> >> > > > Hello,
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Ok, find attached the new ocaml licence proposal, which will go into
> >> > > > the ocaml 3.08.1 release, which is scheduled for inclusion in sarge.
> >> > > > As said previously, it fixes the clause of venue problem, and the
> >> > > > clause QPL 6c problem.
> >> > >
> >> > > Great!
> >> > >
> >> > > > The problems concerning QPL 3 remain,
> >> > >
> >> > > Not so great.
> >> > >
> >> > > > but consensus about it has been much more dubious,
> >> > >
> >> > > I haven't seen anyone seriously dispute my analysis in
> >> > >
> >> > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg01705.html
> >> > >
> >> > > that there is a fee involved (you questioned whether it was an
> >> > > acceptable fee, not whether it was a fee at all). Matthew Palmer
> >> >
> >> > Bah, i am just sick to deal with this.
> >>
> >> You are free to move ocaml to non-free if you don't want to deal with
> >> legal issues anymore.
> >
> > Sure, whatever. This only proves that debian-legal is not to be thrusted, and
> > a big time looser. See Brian suggesting we move X out of main and into
> > non-free. And the release is at hand, there is no time to loose by endulging
> > in extended flamewar here, which are futile in the hend, so please don't
> > propose such aberhations.
>
> Sven, please stop lying about me. I never made such a suggestion.
> Shown something I thought was a new MIT/X11-like license and a claim
> that it was non-free, I tried to explain why that claim would happen.
> When told that much of X was under that license, I went off to do more
> research.
Well, you declared something that was an almost verbatim copy of one of the X
licences non-free, so where is the difference ? It clearly shows that what was
considered free back then when the DFSG was crafted, is considered non-free by
a vocal part of the debian-legal folk, so ...
> Your intemperate nature makes it very difficult to work with you
> towards a painless solution here.
Well, i take it very badly when i get folk here who think that the QPL 3 is
the epithom of evilness, while i am busy building kernel packages, and
otherwise making sure sarge is a release of quality. I would be happy to come
back here once the release is over, and i have another week or so of time to
loose.
> > It would be different if debian-legal could be thrusted, but it can not. What
> > i see here, is that roughly half of the people who had troubles with the
> > original problem are more or less satisfied by now, while the other half is
> > not. What i ask you is to put a stop on this right now, sarge will ship with
> > load of non-free stuff after all, and let me work on making this and my
> > remaining packages, including the kernel packages i co-work, ready for sarge.
> >
> > Or do you prefer i lose another week or two fighting you here and stop all
> > work on the remaining of my packages ?
>
> I think what we'd prefer is that you stop fighting, acknowledge the
> problems with QPL 3, and fix the bug in your package. We've all got
I clearly prefer that you stop fighting, and acknowledge that the QPL 3 is no
problem whatsoever, or at least that it is not more a problem than other
problematic packages in sarge right now and which will be released next month.
> better things to do than fight this out with you too, and it's
> painfully annoying that you make it so difficult.
Well, this whole issue was painfully annoying. I proposed we let this be for
sarge, and told you my believe, backed by an upstream post, that there may be
good chances that the ocaml licence will change anyway for the next release of
ocaml which will probably happen next year. But no, that was too difficult a
compromise to make, wasn't it ? And this time, i didn't see any consensus,
only grossly a handfull of debian-legale-folk continuing to pick on it.
> >> I fail to see how requiring modifiers to contribute to proprietary
> >> software helps free software.
> >
> > Because the proprietary version can only happen if the _SAME_ patch is also
> > applied to the QPLed version.
>
> To *some* QPL'd version. It doesn't have to be the public one.
Well, ok. But the same happens on the GPL, no ? And in general, upstream would
not want to maintain a forked version, which is exactly why he chose this
licence, so ...
> > Also, this clause allow upstream to apply the patch to his tree
> > without over burdening him to keep two separate trees.
>
> What's burdening him is his desire to have a proprietary version, not
> a contribution of free software for him to use in other free software.
And ? Is that so wrong ? Will you declare the BSD non-free too ?
> > So this means that more patches can be incorporated, and thus the community
> > benefits from it. The fact that there is a proprietary version which is _THE
> > SAME_ as the QPLed one, is hardly even noticeable, especially in the ocaml
> > case, where i doubt there is any significant business going around the
> > proprietary version.
>
> It's not the same. It has extra features -- anything from the free
Maybe in the Qt case, but not in the ocaml case.
> software community goes into both, but INRIA's own work or paid work
> for paying supporters can go into the private one alone. And if
The aim is to provide a version of the code base to the ocaml consortium team
members, which has a less restrictive licence, in order for them to do their
own in-house variant or whatever. Or simply because their hierarchy is
frivolous with open source stuff. All the ocaml-team based development is
going into the open source version, except maybe some highly experimental
stuff that never got released.
> there's no business being helped by this clause, then what's the harm
> in removing QPL 3?
Well, i would much prefer that they change licence wholy to something more
acceptable, that they continue this "our code is under the QPL, but <insert
long list of exception>.
> > Now, this is much better than the BSD situation, where any code can be made
> > proprietary without restrictions, and the BSD is free.
>
> But the BSD license doesn't *force* a proprietary version; it just
> allows it. The QPL forces modifiers to grant permission for a
> proprietary version.
So ?
> That force is what makes it non-free.
How is your freedom to use the program diminished in any way ? You can do with
the software anything you could without the QPL 3 clause, and if upstream is
incorporating their stuff in a proprietary version, you probably won't even
notice. How can you consider something a fee, if you are not in the slightest
affected by it ?
> > And ? Did i not say that the ocaml team was considering moving the licence to
> > the little brother of the CECILL family ? And that we should postpone the
> > debate right now until those are released, and upstream is ready to make the
> > change, probably for the next version. I even provided the link and quoted
> > upstream on this two times here, but nobody seems to have cared.
>
> You have not posted a link to a new CECILL-like license that I've
Stop being obtuse, and go read the archive. I posted it two times, not a link
to this new CECILL licence, but a post of Xavier, where he claimed the
possibility of ocaml moving to such a licence, if it was declared non-free by
debian and others.
> seen. In any case, if this is a plausible solution for you, then why
> not move OCaml to non-free for Sarge, then move it back when it's
> under a Free license?
Don't be ridicoulous, will you. Moving ocaml to non-free for sarge, means
moving over 70 packages to non-free that depend on it, including some debian
administrative stuff, like i think cdbs, or some of the subversion dependency
chain, or coq 8, which was recently freed too. It is totally irresponsable to
suggest this mere days before the sarge freeze, and only shozs you have no
grasp on the realities of debian release management.
And i have not seen consensus on this issue here, so ...
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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