svn commit: r327368 - head/sbin/ccdconfig

[Pedro Giffuni]

On 30/12/2017 11:58, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
>>
>> On 12/30/17 11:10, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
>>> [ Charset UTF-8 unsupported, converting... ]
>>>> On 12/30/17 10:11, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
>>>>>> Author: pfg
>>>>>> Date: Sat Dec 30 00:22:47 2017
>>>>>> New Revision: 327368
>>>>>> URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/327368
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Log:
>>>>>>      ccdconfig: Update licensing terms to match NetBSD.
>>>>>>      
>>>>>>      The code originated in NetBSD which has since removed Clauses 3 and 4.
>>>>>>      
>>>>>>      Approved by:	phk (concerning his own copyright)
>>>>>>      Obtained from:	NetBSD (CVS ccdconfig.c 1.47, ccdconfig.8 1.24)
>>>>> I am a bit on edge about these "license" changes that are occuring,
>>>>> before what you had been doing was adding "SPDX" tags which are just
>>>>> an advisory item, now your actually changing the text of licenses
>>>>> and doing so without second or third eyes and in a way that for me
>>>>> is a bit questionable.
>>>> That is correct.
>>>>
>>>> I will be glad to move to "code review" mode from now on. I agree it is
>>>> important to have more eyes on such changes. It just happens that even
>>>> copyright owners sometimes don't want to look at these changes.
>>> True that copyright holders often dont want to change the terms
>>> and/or copyright that they have already applied.  Its just extra
>>> work they probably see as an unnecessary time consumer.
>>>
>>>
>>>>> Part of the problem comes that if you go back and pull a licence change
>>>>> from NetBSD that was done in 2000 and apply it to our code because it
>>>>> was dervied from there your ignoring the fact that someone else may
>>>>> of made changes between 2000 and today, and technically those changes
>>>>> fall under the licence that was inplace when they made those changes.
>>>> It is not as simple as that, I did check the changes that are relevant
>>>> for us in NetBSD before the license changes. I might have missed
>>>> something though, so yes I agree on having more eyes.
>>> It is not just the changes in NetBSD, the problem I am trying to
>>> bring out is any changes made to OUR files are being done under
>>> an N clause licence, your now removing those clauses without
>>> permission from any of the people who made those changes to our
>>> code independent of what happened in NetBSD.
>>>
>> Well, phk was the only author that added his copyright to the file in
>> question. He approved the change and made a further blank statement CC'd
>> to core.
>>
>> Other people have made changes to the file and from my reading of the
>> Berne convention they have authorship rights over the file, how much of
>> that is copyrightable is uncertain but they can certainly add their own
>> copyright if they feel strongly.
> Copyright != License, there is both a copyright and a license here,
> you can not apply the Berne convention to the license, its not a
> copyright.

Both are closely related: if you are not an author you have no say on 
the license.

>>>>> Also the NetBSD license change may of been athorized directly, as in
>>>>> this case here where you got direct permission from phk, and I have not
>>>>> seen any notes about that in your prior commits.  Also note that if
>>>>> someone authorized NetBSD to make a license change, that authorization
>>>>> is NOT global in nature, it is for NetBSD to make that change, not
>>>>> *BSD.
>>>> Authorization from NetBSD would be necessary if we were including code
>>>> from NetBSD that was not meant to be covered by the license change. I
>>>> didn't find any evidence of that, but feel free to point out any such
>>>> case so that we can take it to the NetBSD guys.
>>> And authorization from FreeBSD commiter(s) is needed to change the license
>>> on those files.  Understand that they made those changes to that file
>>> under the terms of that license, they may not want the other clauses
>>> removed (unlikely, but possilbe).
>> Aha.. interesting point but irrelevant to this case.
>> We are removing copyright clauses that are specific to NetBSD:
> No, your altering the license clauses not the copyright, you must
> seperate the two as different laws apply.
No, you just don't want to lose the argument for whatever reason.

>>   ??? ? * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this
>> software
>>   ??? ? *??? must display the following acknowledgement:
>>   ??? ? *??????? This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
>>   ??? ? *??????? Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.
>>   ??? ? * 4. Neither the name of The NetBSD Foundation nor the names of its
>>   ??? ? *??? contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
>>   ??? ? *??? from this software without specific prior written permission.
>>
>>
>> If TNF doesn't want their name to be included anymore,? other copyright
>> owners cannot force such condition.
> Again, your trying to mix 2 different sets of law.   And actually I would
> have to defer to an attorny on if it is safe to alter this license without
> due consideration, independent of what NetBSD did to there file, not sure
> that NetBSD can assert a request to alter a license that has been adopted
> by another person by inclusing on top of thier work.  They can give permission
> to alter there "licensed file", but not sure how that carries forward to
> a derived work.

It is basically not possible to contact all copyright holders and one 
has to apply some common sense: Asami, for example, is not available 
anymore but he upstreamed his changes to the NetBSD guys so it is 
reasonable to assume we don't have to contact him again. It is also not 
reasonable to contact someone just because he fixed some compilation 
error. We have to draw a line somewhere and then, as you are proving, 
common sense is the least common of senses.

Committers fixing bugs on FreeBSD are not looking into the license for 
the code they are fixing and hoping to add more restrictions. The fact 
that the mayor contributors to the code are willing to remove some 
restrictions is something positive for both projects: it means whenever 
we want to submit or take changes to/from upstream we can both share 
changes without concerns.

If your concern is that FreeBSD may eventually become free from the so 
called "advertisement" clause, then fear no more: we have more than 650 
files still covered and there is no chance we will be able to change 
most of them, including some critical ones.

Pedro.