Subject: [[email-masked]: Re: Notice of copyright problems in a submission to MetaLab]

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 16:57:03 +0100

----- Forwarded message from Miles Efron <[email-masked]> -----

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 10:01:27 -0500 (EST)
From: Miles Efron <[email-masked]>
To: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Notice of copyright problems in a submission to MetaLab

this is fine by me.  unfortunately, however, our archiving software is
liable to bark at you each time you upload with multiple licenses.  if you
don't mind, we don't either.

-miles

__________________________________
Miles Efron
Linux Archivist, Harmless Drudge
[email-masked]

On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Dominik Vogt wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 01, 1999 at 04:38:33PM -0500, Miles Efron wrote:
> > The package described by the LSM file(s) fvwm.lsm
> > does not appear to have one of the standard open-source copyrights. 
> > Please consult http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/LICENSES
> > and try to find a standard copyright that fits your desires.  This will
> > make it easier for archive users to know what they can and cannot do 
> > with your software.
> 
> There's no chance to change this. It took me quite a while to reduce
> our copyright statement to these few lines. Unfortunately the
> fvwm distribution contains a number of modules each with different
> copyrights, so there's no possibility to put the whole package under
> one of the open source licenses :( Believe me, I tried to do it.
> 
> Bye
> 
> Dominik
> 
> --
> Dominik Vogt, [email-masked]
> Reply-To: [email-masked]
> 
> 

----- End forwarded message -----

Bye

Dominik

--
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From: Steve Robbins <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 18:51:21 -0500 (EST)

Hey Dominik or whoever uploads to the-site-formerly-known-as-sunsite, note
that their guidelines state:

	So please, whenever possible, try to fill the Copying-Policy field
	with one of the values in the table below. If your software has
	parts covred by different licenses, list the most restrictive
	license. 

	[ ... ]
	restricted
	      Less free than any of the above

We could just stick "restricted" in the field to shut up the archiver.

---

From: Bob Woodside <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 20:22:10 -0500

Steve Robbins <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hey Dominik or whoever uploads to the-site-formerly-known-as-sunsite...
> ...

	I uploaded it. Since the sequence of messages showed that it ended up
in the right directory (the one where the lsm claims that it's located),
I didn't worry about it.

	I don't mind the occasional squawk from keeper, but I suppose we don't
need to spam the whole mailing list (and the archives) with it.

	Anyone else have an opinion? I've got a couple of other nitpicking
changes pending for the lsm to satisfy the LSM itself, so I'll hold off
committing them till we decide on the "restricted" suggestion.

- Bob

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:42:11 +0100

> committing them till we decide on the "restricted" suggestion.

That's OK by me.

Bye

Dominik

---

From: Steve Robbins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 09:40:31 -0500 (EST)

> need to spam the whole mailing list (and the archives) with it.

I don't mind the occasional squawk either.  It's not like we're uploading
all the betas there!

I thought at first, it would be useful to be in one of their recognized
categories.  But on second thought, it might not be good for us to be in
the same category as commercial demos or something quite non open source.
It would be too easy for automated tools to just skip over FVWM.

So perhaps being exceptional is not a bad idea.  It would force a human to
make a decision about the package.  ;-)

I'm happy with it either way, restricted or not.

--
Steve Robbins                              <[email-masked]>

Standing on the beach with a gun in my hand
staring at the sea, staring at the sand ...

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 05 Mar 1999 10:36:10 -0500

%% Steve Robbins <[email-masked]> writes:

  sr> Hey Dominik or whoever uploads to
  sr> the-site-formerly-known-as-sunsite, note that their guidelines
  sr> state:

  sr> 	So please, whenever possible, try to fill the Copying-Policy field
  sr> 	with one of the values in the table below. If your software has
  sr> 	parts covred by different licenses, list the most restrictive
  sr> 	license. 

  sr> 	[ ... ]
  sr> 	restricted
  sr> 	      Less free than any of the above

  sr> We could just stick "restricted" in the field to shut up the archiver.

I think we can list under GPL.  I just checked and all the licenses seem
to be essentially subsets of the requirements of the GPL.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <[email-masked]>         Network Management Development
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 13:56:27 +0100

> to be essentially subsets of the requirements of the GPL.

Where did you check this? Fvwm can never have GPL unless we rewrite
it completely (and most of the modules). We have licenses that allow
more than GPL (most files), less than GPL (some of the modules that only
had a copyright statement), exactly GPL (like FvwmAnimate) and so on :(
Don't look at the COPYING file. It only lists the most basic permissions
that all files and modules have in common.

Bye

Dominik

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 06 Mar 1999 22:50:08 -0500

%% Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]> writes:

  dv> Where did you check this?

I examined the various statements in the COPYING document, of course.

  dv> Fvwm can never have GPL unless we rewrite it completely (and most
  dv> of the modules). We have licenses that allow more than GPL (most
  dv> files),

That's fine.  You can always re-release using a less-restrictive
license.  It's perfectly OK to write GPL'd code that depends on X, for
example, because X's license is a strict subset (or superset, depending
on your point of view, I guess :) of the terms of the GPL.

  dv> less than GPL (some of the modules that only had a copyright
  dv> statement),

Eh?  If that's true, we have no permissions to redistribute them at all;
without a license we have only basic copyright, which doesn't allow any
duplication or distribution.

If the authors can't be reached for clarification, then either we must
remove these immediately, or we have to assume that in the absence of
any statement to the contrary they are distributed under the same terms
as basic fvwm itself.

  dv> exactly GPL (like FvwmAnimate) and so on :( Don't look at the
  dv> COPYING file. It only lists the most basic permissions that all
  dv> files and modules have in common.

Hm.  I'm not sure how you mean that.  If you mean that the permissions
listed in COPYING are truly basic across all the modules, and that none
of the modules deny any of the permissions listed in COPYING, then
that's fine; as I've said all of those look as liberal as the GPL or
more so to me (and I've spent a lot of years in and around
gnu.misc.dicuss, "discussing" these kinds of licensing issues :).

If you mean that some of the modules place _more_ restrictions on
redistribution than is listed in COPYING, then I think that's a bad
thing and we should rectify that.  The entire distribution can only be
distributed in a manner consistent with its most restrictive license,
and we should make clear in COPYING what that is.

If some of the modules have a more restrictive licenses we should
seriously consider removing them from the fvwm dist and perhaps
releasing them separately.

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 15:34:39 +0100

> That's fine.  You can always re-release using a less-restrictive

No, we can't since we're not the copyright holders and the
licenses sometimed do explicitly state that we can't do it.

> It's perfectly OK to write GPL'd code that depends on X, for

I worked hard to get permission to distribute the stuff for all our
files. Unfortunately this doesn't include the permission to modify
the files (except for us).

> any statement to the contrary they are distributed under the same terms

Then we'll probably have to remove fvwmperl, fvwmpython, FvwmRearrange
and FvwmPipe. I've talked to the authors and most of them do
not like the idea of relicensing their software.

> gnu.misc.dicuss, "discussing" these kinds of licensing issues :).

No, really, look at the modules mentioned above. They are much more
strict than GPL.

> thing and we should rectify that.

No.

> releasing them separately.

Why not? Good idea.

Bye

Dominik

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 08 Mar 1999 01:39:21 -0500

>> duplication or distribution.

  dv> I worked hard to get permission to distribute the stuff for all our
  dv> files. Unfortunately this doesn't include the permission to modify
  dv> the files (except for us).

This means that fvwm, as a whole, isn'g even OpenSource and cannot be
distributed with, say, Debian Linux distributions.

This is very bad.  These modules (IMO) _MUST_ be removed from the dist
if their licenses cannot be made Open Source-compatible.

  >> any statement to the contrary they are distributed under the same terms

  dv> Then we'll probably have to remove fvwmperl, fvwmpython, FvwmRearrange
  dv> and FvwmPipe. I've talked to the authors and most of them do
  dv> not like the idea of relicensing their software.

You're right.  The licenses for these modules as written clearly violate
at least Clause 3 of the Open Source guidelines.

I vote we check with these authors again, and if we can't get some
license which is OpenSource-compatible then we immediately release a
2.2.1 with these modules removed.

We can make them a separate dist, if we like.

I note that Barry Warsaw owns the copyright to fvwmpython; I find it
very hard to believe he, at least, wouldn't agree to some kind of OS
license.

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 10:46:45 +0100

On Mon, Mar 08, 1999 at 01:39:21AM -0500, Paul Smith wrote:
> This means that fvwm, as a whole, isn'g even OpenSource

Yes, exactly.

> and cannot be distributed with, say, Debian Linux distributions.
> 

Well, the modules concerned are not this important. I have no objections
against splitting them off.

Bye

Dominik

-- 
Dominik Vogt, Hewlett-Packard GmbH, Dept. BVS
Herrenberger Str.130, 71034 Boeblingen, Germany
phone: 07031/14-4596, fax: 07031/14-3883, [email-masked]
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From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 01:55:07 +0100

> very hard to believe he, at least, wouldn't agree to some kind of OS

Well, I asked him and he didn't like the idea of using GPL. He told
me he was working on some kind of new license and that he'd contact me
when it was ready. Seems he has forgotten me.

Bye

Dominik

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 09 Mar 1999 00:41:55 -0500

dv> Well, I asked him and he didn't like the idea of using GPL. He told
  dv> me he was working on some kind of new license and that he'd contact me
  dv> when it was ready. Seems he has forgotten me.

Well, it certainly doesn't have to be GPL: we don't need to require that.
Any Open Source license is fine w/ me.  Best would be something that is
GPL-compatible (modified BSD/X license, or the basic FVWM license) or
even a dual-license such as Perl is released under.

Do you want to re-contact these folks?

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 10:40:34 +0100

> Do you want to re-contact these folks?

If you know him better I would prefer if you would contact Barry and
perhaps Andrew Veliath too.

Bye

Dominik

---

From: Steve Robbins <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 09:32:06 -0500 (EST)

> 2.2.1 with these modules removed.

It might be useful to note that we have not been distributing fvwmperl nor
fvwmpython since back in October or November.  [Nobody has missed them so
far, it appears.]  They are still in the CVS tree only because of sloth &
inertia.

Moreover, FvwmPerl's functionality is contained in FvwmCommand.  In my
recent proposal to promote "extras" to "modules", there was no
disagreement to the idea of dropping it.

I intend to soon move the extras over to modules, and these three would be
dropped in the process.  That leaves only FvwmRearrange to deal with. 

I was looking back to see
if you were looking back at me
to see me looking back at you.

---

From: Jason L Tibbitts III <[email-masked]>
Date: 09 Mar 1999 09:32:58 -0600

>>>>> "SR" == Steve Robbins <[email-masked]> writes:

SR> That leaves only FvwmRearrange to deal with.

This confuses me.  Isn't Rearrange a relatively new module?  (cvsweb says
it went in four months ago.)  How on earth did it we let it into the tree
with a copyright like the one it has?  We don't even have permission to
modify it.

Andrew Veliath is a list member; perhaps he'll comment.

 - J<

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 09 Mar 1999 11:21:28 -0500

%% Jason L Tibbitts III <[email-masked]> writes:

  jlt> This confuses me.  Isn't Rearrange a relatively new module?
  jlt> (cvsweb says it went in four months ago.)  How on earth did it we
  jlt> let it into the tree with a copyright like the one it has?  We
  jlt> don't even have permission to modify it.

FvwmRearrange is the combination of two other modules (FvwmCascade and
something else); I assume that when Dominik merged them into one new
module he had to keep the original license.

---

From: Jason L Tibbitts III <[email-masked]>
Date: 09 Mar 1999 10:43:40 -0600

>>>>> "PDS" == Paul D Smith <[email-masked]> writes:

PDS> FvwmRearrange is the combination of two other modules (FvwmCascade and
PDS> something else); I assume that when Dominik merged them into one new
PDS> module he had to keep the original license.

Right, but the original license does not permit changing even one character
in the file.  If Dominik did the merging, then he violated the license to
do it.

Using cvsweb I can see the original copyright for FvwmCascade:

/*************************************************************************
 * FvwmCascade.c -- fvwm module to cascade windows
 *
 * See man page for usage.
 *
 * Written by Andrew Veliath
 * Copyright 1996
 * 
 * $Id: FvwmCascade.c,v 1.3 1998/11/06 02:22:59 steve Exp $
 ************************************************************************/

So we don't even have permission to distribute it.

FvwmTile has the same copyright.  It looks like not only were re not
allowed to distribute either of these modules, but we weren't allowed to
modify them in any way and the combination into FvwmRearrange was pure
copyright violation unless Andrew did it himself.

We have three choices:

Remove FvwmRearrange from the distribution entirely.
Reimplement FvwmRearrange from scratch with a new license (this is shaky)
Get Andrew Veliath to relicense the code.

The latter is of course preferable.  I'm sure this is all a
misunderstanding and that not putting this code under an open license was
just an oversight, but it needs to be cleared up ASAP.

 - J<

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 09 Mar 1999 12:08:19 -0500

jlt> Right, but the original license does not permit changing even one
  jlt> character in the file.  If Dominik did the merging, then he
  jlt> violated the license to do it.

I think he said he contacted the author and got the current license
applied.  Of course, the _current_ license doesn't allow anyone
(including us) to change it, either, it only allows redistribution (the
old one didn't even allow that!)  Dominik said he got permissions for
the fvwm-workers to modify it, but that's definitely not reflected in
the license (and what does that mean, anyway, that anyone subscribed to
the list can modify it?  Anyone with write permissions to the CVS tree?
Weird. :)

I agree we need to do something about it ASAP.

---

From: Jason L Tibbitts III <[email-masked]>
Date: 09 Mar 1999 13:18:30 -0600

>>>>> "PDS" == Paul D Smith <[email-masked]> writes:

PDS> Dominik said he got permissions for the fvwm-workers to modify it, but
PDS> that's definitely not reflected in the license (and what does that
PDS> mean, anyway, that anyone subscribed to the list can modify it?
PDS> Anyone with write permissions to the CVS tree? Weird. :)

And in any case it's still not an adequate license.  For inclusion into,
say, RedHat or Debian, you must allow the distribution of modified
versions.  I think there's an exception relating to distributing patches
used to generate modified versions, but that's academic.  The point is that
it really should be GPL or something freer (X, BSD with no advertising
clause, etc.)

PDS> I agree we need to do something about it ASAP.

I think that if we can't get anything worked out in a couple of days, we
must cut 2.2.1 without this module.

 - J<

---

From: [email-masked] (Andrew T. Veliath)
Date: 09 Mar 1999 14:54:02 -0500

.........----------------==================----
..--==-  09 Mar 1999 13:18:30 -0600,
..--==-  Jason L Tibbitts (JLT) discussed:

 )))))) "PDS" == Paul D Smith <[email-masked]> writes:
 PDS)  Dominik said he got permissions for the fvwm-workers to modify it, but
 PDS)  that's definitely not reflected in the license (and what does that
 PDS)  mean, anyway, that anyone subscribed to the list can modify it?
 PDS)  Anyone with write permissions to the CVS tree? Weird. :)

 JLT)  And in any case it's still not an adequate license.  For inclusion into,
 JLT)  say, RedHat or Debian, you must allow the distribution of modified
 JLT)  versions.  I think there's an exception relating to distributing patches
 JLT)  used to generate modified versions, but that's academic.  The point is that
 JLT)  it really should be GPL or something freer (X, BSD with no advertising
 JLT)  clause, etc.)

 PDS)  I agree we need to do something about it ASAP.

 JLT)  I think that if we can't get anything worked out in a couple of days, we
 JLT)  must cut 2.2.1 without this module.

I would change the license to whatever is needed, however I can
neither maintain nor improve my old modules code in fvwm2 without CVS
write access.  However, consider the license for FvwmRearrange to be
fully modifiable, which I would change immediately if you guys can get
me CVS access this week.  I can send you a crypted login and password
if necessary.

Andrew ([email-masked], [email-masked])

-- 
Andrew  	I'm successful because I'm lucky. The harder I work,
		the luckier I get.

---

From: Jason L Tibbitts III <[email-masked]>
Date: 09 Mar 1999 13:56:46 -0600

>>>>> "ATV" == Andrew T Veliath <[email-masked]> writes:

ATV> I would change the license to whatever is needed, however I can
ATV> neither maintain nor improve my old modules code in fvwm2 without CVS
ATV> write access.

CVS is yours for the asking, unless someone else objects.  (Andrew's done
plenty of code so I see no reason why he shouldn't have access.)  Send me a
login name and crypted password at your convenience.  Use this to crypt a
password, if you wish.

perl -e 'print crypt("yourpass",join("",((a..z,A..Z,0..9)[rand(62),rand(62)]))), "\n"'

 - J<

---

From: [email-masked] (Andrew T. Veliath)
Date: 09 Mar 1999 15:00:34 -0500

.........----------------==================----
..--==-  09 Mar 1999 10:43:40 -0600,
..--==-  Jason L Tibbitts (JLT) discussed:

 JLT)  FvwmTile has the same copyright.  It looks like not only were re not
 JLT)  allowed to distribute either of these modules, but we weren't allowed to
 JLT)  modify them in any way and the combination into FvwmRearrange was pure
 JLT)  copyright violation unless Andrew did it himself.

Dominik had my permission to modify the license--clearly it was not
enough modification (and I'd like to correct some misspellings).  The
original license was more out of ignorance than anything--it is
already a few years later and quite a number of things have changed
since when I was involved when Chuck was around (I've also come to
realize the importance of proper license wording ;-).

-- 
Andrew  	I just got out of the hospital after a speed reading
		accident. I hit a bookmark. -- Steven Wright
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---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 09 Mar 1999 15:14:33 -0500

jlt> CVS is yours for the asking, unless someone else objects.

Fine w/ me.

---

From: Dan Espen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 15:20:24 -0500

> login name and crypted password at your convenience.  Use this to crypt a

Welcome to the party!

--
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Piscataway, NJ 08854                     Phone: (732) 699-5570
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From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 23:46:37 +0100

> with a copyright like the one it has?  We don't even have permission to

This was created by merging FvwmTile and FvwmCascade recently (since
they shared lots of code). Andrew wrote these and I merged them. He
didn't object, so I think it's ok.

Bye

Dominik