svn commit: r356142 - in head/sys: dev/ofw sys

[Rodney W. Grimes]

> 
> On Fri, 27 Dec 2019, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> 
> > [ Charset UTF-8 unsupported, converting... ]
> >>
> >> On 2019-12-27 23:24, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> >>> [ Charset UTF-8 unsupported, converting... ]
> >>>> On 2019-12-27 22:16, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> >>>>>> Author: pfg
> >>>>>> Date: Sat Dec 28 02:58:30 2019
> >>>>>> New Revision: 356142
> >>>>>> URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/356142
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Log:
> >>>>>>   SPDX: update some tags with two licenses.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Modified:
> >>>>>>   head/sys/dev/ofw/openfirm.h
> >>>>>>   head/sys/sys/sched.h
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Modified: head/sys/dev/ofw/openfirm.h
> >>>>>> ==============================================================================
> >>>>>> --- head/sys/dev/ofw/openfirm.h	Sat Dec 28 02:11:41 2019	(r356141)
> >>>>>> +++ head/sys/dev/ofw/openfirm.h	Sat Dec 28 02:58:30 2019	(r356142)
> >>>>>> @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
> >>>>>>  /*	$NetBSD: openfirm.h,v 1.1 1998/05/15 10:16:00 tsubai Exp $	*/
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>  /*-
> >>>>>> - * SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-4-Clause
> >>>>>> + * SPDX-License-Identifier: (BSD-4-Clause AND BSD-2-Clause-FreeBSD)
> >>>>>>   *
> >>>>>>   * Copyright (C) 1995, 1996 Wolfgang Solfrank.
> >>>>>>   * Copyright (C) 1995, 1996 TooLs GmbH.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Modified: head/sys/sys/sched.h
> >>>>>> ==============================================================================
> >>>>>> --- head/sys/sys/sched.h	Sat Dec 28 02:11:41 2019	(r356141)
> >>>>>> +++ head/sys/sys/sched.h	Sat Dec 28 02:58:30 2019	(r356142)
> >>>>>> @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
> >>>>>>  /*-
> >>>>>> - * SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-4-Clause
> >>>>>> + * SPDX-License-Identifier: (BSD-4-Clause AND BSD-2-Clause-FreeBSD)
> >>>>>>   *
> >>>>>>   * Copyright (c) 1996, 1997
> >>>>>>   *      HD Associates, Inc.  All rights reserved.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> This situation should not of occured, and leads to an ambigous license state.
> >>>> It actually happens a lot (I mean two or more licenses in the same
> >>>> file): SPDX explicitly uses AND (not OR) for cases like this.
> >>>>
> >>>>> What code is under license 2 clause and what under 4 clause?
> >>>> Anyone redistributing the file has to respect both licenses. If you are
> >>>> lucky enough to have access to version control you may be able to
> >>>> discern the author and the corresponding license, otherwise you are
> >>>> trapped with both.
> >>> So the 2 clause add is null, so why have it there?
> >>
> >> So that eventually, when the project gets to a point where sufficient
> >> part of the code is rewritten they can opt to change the license to the
> >> simpler form. There are ways to relicense projects gradually, and its
> >> nothing new, in fact it is very much in the BSD spirit to gradually
> >> replace more restricted UNIX code.
> >
> > The only changing we have done to BSD licenses as in thost cases
> > that the Regents requested/granted the right to change to lesser
> > clauses.  Until you get HD & Associtates (in this one case) to
> > grant that right your walking on a grey edge I would rather not
> > walk on.
> >
> > The reference to BSD spirit and replacing more restricted UNIX (tm)
> > code is way off base in this context.  This is not an AT & T
> > license we are talking about here.  And again you can not just
> > modify the existing 4 clause licensed file by slapping a 2 clause
> > license into it, or the project would of done that everyplace
> > ages ago.
> >
> > What is done here in this file is a mistake, and should be corrected.
> > Can you point me to other files that actually have multiple BSD
> > licenses in them?
> 
> It seems to be the prevailing theory that headers are not even 
> really copyrightable.  This has even been tested in court a few times 
> (bsd, java).

Yes, also true of scripts and Makefiles, which are generally
considered under the recipts concept, yet we still have many
which people are claiming copyright to.

> 
> http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0301.1/0362.html
> 
> The original definitions from this file were part of posix.1b and so it's 
> hard to argue they are anything but public.  Coincidentally I know Greg 
> and I'm sure he would not object to reducing the whole file to a two 
> clause license.

Then lets make life very simple in this one case, and I agree with
your intuition about Greg, shoot an email off to him and ask to
drop his licence to 2 clause.

> However, I'm not so certain as you are that it is not possible to have two 
> copyrights in the same file so long as they are compatible.  In many cases 
> we have multiple authors attributed to an individual file.  There are 
> cases where software is purposefully licensed under multiple licenses.

Ok, first off understand that Copyrights and Licenses are 2 very different
things.  You can have N Copyrights in a file, having 2 or more licenses
in a file without stating when which applies is frought with legal
nightmares.  If you clearly state that you can use EITHER license,
then it is ok, if you state that both licenses apply your in legal
limbo if in anyway the joint set is ambigous or in conflict.

Copyright != License.

> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing
> 
> This is not an identical situation but it is a common one. 
 
Agreed, what is in that is not this situation, though it does
clearly state there that the ONLY the copyright holder(s) can alter
the license.  One could argue that adding a second license is infact
altering the license, and hence legally a risky thing to do.

> I called my 
> brother who is an IP lawyer and spoke with him about it today.  He 
> believes this is sufficiently nuanced that we would need a proper legal 
> opinion to determine that.
So he seems to agree to me that this is legally a grey area,
Im happy for that.

> 
> I wrote the original file 17 years ago and placed a two clause copyright 
> in it.  trhodes combined sys/posix4/sched.h with sys/sched.h 13 years ago 
> in the following commit: 
> https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/sys/sys/sched.h?revision=164185&view=markup
> 
> So the original license was in fact two clause.

That I did not know, thanks for the aditional information.

> 
> If a mistake was made, it was made 13 years ago and it is almost 
> guaranteed to be legally harmless. 
> It has nothing to do with what Pedro 
> committed today.
Agreed, what he did was just correct the SPDX to reflect what is present.

> I don't trust the armchair lawyering of software 
> engineers and so to resolve this we would need to ask the foundation to 
> pay their lawyers to pursue it.

As some software engineer did the commit that lead to this state,
which I do not trust either.  It is simply something that I did
not realize existed in the FreeBSD source code.
It was put out for review with a commit stating "silence from -arch -standards.

> 
> In my opinion, this has already wasted everyone's time with an irrelevant 
> nit-picking argument.

Legal stance of copyright and licenses should NEVER be considered
nit-picking arguments, they are the fundemantal premise that allow
the project to do what it does and is infact the prima face mission
of the foundation to preserve.

It saddens me that a core team member would consider such issues
as irrelevant.

> The onus is not on Pedro to chase this down just so 
> he can add SPDX tags.  If this is important to you then you are welcome to 
> go sort out the details and then post patches for review.  I'm sure myself 
> and greg would be happy to do so.  However it seems that this wasn't even 
> worth reading the revision history for you to begin lecturing.

I pointed it out as an issue, some tried to defend it as not an issue,
I responded to there assertions, call it as you wish.

> Jeff
> 
> >
> >>
> >> It may be a long shot but it has happened on other projects as well:
> >> libdialog (in our tree) was rewritten and relicensed from GPL to LGPL.
> >>
> >>
> >>>>> It looks to me as if this was done by Jeff Robinson as the 2 clause is
> >>>>> attached to his copyright and we should probably just ask him to relax
> >>>>> that back to the files existing 4 clause license, and or go after Greg
> >>>>> Ansley of HD associtates to get them to relax the 4 clause.
> >>>>>
> >>>> No, Jeff (or anyone else, as I said there are many cases in our tree) is
> >>>> entitled to choose his own license as long as it is compatible with the
> >>>> pre-existing licensing.
> >>> I was specifically sighting this one file, sys/sys/sched.h.
> >>>
> >>> Actually that might be a grey area, no place does the BSD license grant
> >>> you rights to modify the terms of the license, and that is in effect
> >>> what adding this second license does.
> >>
> >> No one is modifying the original license: it is there and applies to the
> >> original code.
> >>
> >>
> >>> You can choose your own license for original work, sure, but obliterating
> >>> parts of an existing license by applying a second license which is in
> >>> conflict is probably a poor idea.
> >>
> >>
> >> We don't do that at all: pretty clearly there is no conflict between
> >> both licenses as you can comply with both.
> >
> > The only way to comply with both is to comply with the full 4
> > clause license.  Hense the 2 clause is pointless in being there
> > and can never apply until all 4 clause authors agree to change
> > to 2 clause.
> >
> >> Pedro.
> > Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org
-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org