You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to dev@netbeans.apache.org by Matthias Bläsing <mb...@doppel-helix.eu> on 2018/06/17 19:10:23 UTC
[Mentors] Re: What is nbbuild/licenses/ for? Too many files there.
Hi,
Am Sonntag, den 17.06.2018, 14:57 -0400 schrieb Emilian Bold:
> But the 'License:' header already represents a 'family'. That's why
> MIT-validator should not exist in nbbuild/licenses: it's just the
> plain MIT license with a particular author.
beware! The file from licenses is used for the summary license for the
release. So if you only include the generic text, you are dropping
essential information from the license.
Many licenses have no varying parts (ALv2, GPLv2, CDDL 1.0 and 1.1),
for these you can use a generic file, but for the MIT case, the
Copyright line is from my understanding part of the license and we
can't just drop that.
BUT I'm not a lawyer, it is just my interpretation. So it would be
great if others could chime in.
Greetings
Matthias
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
Re: [Mentors] Re: What is nbbuild/licenses/ for? Too many files there.
Posted by Emilian Bold <em...@protonmail.ch.INVALID>.
There is a mix of concerns here and we are talking about different things.
It's quite possible that we end up doing mistakes during our IP clearance so if a super-defensive company wants to use NetBeans they might as well decide to re-do the IP clearance themselves.
If our template license file is "Copyright __year__ __author__ Some legalese" and we have 2 concrete license files where only the Copyright line is changed then I don't need a degree in US IP Law to conclude it's the same license with different authors.
Obviously we can ask LEGAL about something tricky but we are talking about something basic here.
Now, we have all the *original* licenses in the externa/-license.txt files for each external dependency. We add to that -license.txt file a 'License:' header which is purposely designed to allow you to group licenses by family. Because a lawyer will not care if we have 20 different authors using MIT, will only care that our dependencies are MIT.
And this is the other concern: what's that 'License:' header supposed to represent? When would we add a new file in nbbuild/licenses and when will we refer to an existing license?
And finally: how do we build the final LICENSE file out of these disparate files?
Honestly I believe NetBeans already has very good IP management. We seem to be scolded a lot and forced to maintain a very high standard but this seems to be much higher than other Apache projects (historically) held. Also, since our codebase is so large we just have more to look at.
--emi
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On 18 June 2018 4:55 AM, Tim Boudreau <ni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The way I see it nbbuild/licenses are 'families'. And the 'License:'
> >
> > header in external/*-license.txt points to a family. A changing author line
> >
> > doesn't change the license itself / the license family.
>
> > You and I are not the target audience for it - lawyers are. If that's what
>
> gets combined into the license agreement dialog, by far the safest bet is
>
> to include them unaltered from their origin, and if that means two files
>
> with a minor diff, so be it.
>
> For a big company that wants to use NetBeans or the platform, they are
>
> likely to actually have their lawyers review all the licenses involved.
>
> Question 1 is, are these really all the exact licenses. If the answer to
>
> that is no, some have been altered but are are almost the same plus or
>
> minus this text or that, the only responsible course of action is for the
>
> lawyer to find all the original libraries and review the real original
>
> licenses one by one. Most likely they give an estimate of how many hours
>
> that will take, and the company decides not to use NetBeans - lawyers
>
> aren't cheap.
>
> So I get it - but a lawyer would not be able to use "it's this family of
>
> license" because it could have an alteration that materially changes the
>
> terms, and without seeing the original they can't guarantee that.
>
> -Tim
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://timboudreau.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
Re: [Mentors] Re: What is nbbuild/licenses/ for? Too many files there.
Posted by Tim Boudreau <ni...@gmail.com>.
> The way I see it nbbuild/licenses are 'families'. And the 'License:'
> header in external/*-license.txt points to a family. A changing author line
> doesn't change the license itself / the license family.
> You and I are not the target audience for it - lawyers are. If that's what
gets combined into the license agreement dialog, by far the safest bet is
to include them unaltered from their origin, and if that means two files
with a minor diff, so be it.
For a big company that wants to use NetBeans or the platform, they are
likely to actually have their lawyers review all the licenses involved.
Question 1 is, are these really all the exact licenses. If the answer to
that is no, some have been altered but are are almost the same plus or
minus this text or that, the only responsible course of action is for the
lawyer to find all the original libraries and review the real original
licenses one by one. Most likely they give an estimate of how many hours
that will take, and the company decides not to use NetBeans - lawyers
aren't cheap.
So I get it - but a lawyer would not be able to use "it's this family of
license" because it could have an alteration that materially changes the
terms, and without seeing the original they can't guarantee that.
-Tim
--
http://timboudreau.com
Re: [Mentors] Re: What is nbbuild/licenses/ for? Too many files there.
Posted by Emilian Bold <em...@protonmail.ch.INVALID>.
My main point is that I assumed that nbbuild/licenses files are licenses of license *variants*.
For example, if we see a variation of MIT that has one extra clause we invent some MIT-example file with the clause.
So, the files is nbbuild/licenses are not about authors but about plain licenses and variations we see in the wild. Basically, taxonomy.
All the talk about ant tasks is just derived from talking about those files, I wasn't concerned with that at all initially until you mentioned we use them.
--emi
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On 18 June 2018 11:00 PM, Matthias Bläsing <mb...@doppel-helix.eu> wrote:
> Hi Emilian,
>
> Am Sonntag, den 17.06.2018, 15:24 -0400 schrieb Emilian Bold:
>
> > 1. The files in external/*-license.txt have everything we need. They
> >
> > also have the 'License:' header. I don't know why the files from
> >
> > nbbuild/licenses are used for the summary when we could use the files
> >
> > from external dependencies -license.txt.
> >
>
> what is your main point? If it is, that we duplicate the license text
>
> (including the copyright info), then I agree, we don't need the info in
>
> the licenses directory and the "external/-license.txt". We can eitherdrop the license text from the "external/-license.txt" file or remove
>
> the file from the "nbbuild/licenses" directory.
>
> This would mean, that the ant tasks, that merge the license info need
>
> to be adjusted for the situation. If for example the file in
>
> "nbbuild/licenses" is removed, the task would need to extract the
>
> license info from the "external/-license.txt" and ensure, that samelicenses are merged and that different licenses end up in differentfiles.Removing the license text from the "external/-license.txt" files would
>
> mean, that most probably the verification task needs to be updated.
>
> Greetings
>
> Matthias
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
>
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
>
> For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit:
>
> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
Re: [Mentors] Re: What is nbbuild/licenses/ for? Too many files
there.
Posted by Matthias Bläsing <mb...@doppel-helix.eu>.
Hi Emilian,
Am Sonntag, den 17.06.2018, 15:24 -0400 schrieb Emilian Bold:
> 1. The files in external/*-license.txt have everything we need. They
> also have the 'License:' header. I don't know why the files from
> nbbuild/licenses are used for the summary when we could use the files
> from external dependencies -license.txt.
what is your main point? If it is, that we duplicate the license text
(including the copyright info), then I agree, we don't need the info in
the licenses directory and the "external/*-license.txt". We can either
drop the license text from the "external/*-license.txt" file or remove
the file from the "nbbuild/licenses" directory.
This would mean, that the ant tasks, that merge the license info need
to be adjusted for the situation. If for example the file in
"nbbuild/licenses" is removed, the task would need to extract the
license info from the "external/*-license.txt" and ensure, that same
licenses are merged and that different licenses end up in different
files.
Removing the license text from the "external/*-license.txt" files would
mean, that most probably the verification task needs to be updated.
Greetings
Matthias
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
Re: [Mentors] Re: What is nbbuild/licenses/ for? Too many files there.
Posted by Emilian Bold <em...@protonmail.ch.INVALID>.
1. The files in external/*-license.txt have everything we need. They also have the 'License:' header. I don't know why the files from nbbuild/licenses are used for the summary when we could use the files from external dependencies -license.txt.
2. MIT might be special, but nbbuild/licenses/BSD-INRIA is also plain BSD (except the 'Copyright' line, of course).
Really, I don't understand:
1. What is the purpose of the 'License:' header we have in external/*-license.txt files?
2. What is the purpose of nbbuild/licenses/ files vs external/*-license.txt files. Why the duplicates?
The way I see it nbbuild/licenses are 'families'. And the 'License:' header in external/*-license.txt points to a family. A changing author line doesn't change the license itself / the license family.
--emi
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On 17 June 2018 10:10 PM, Matthias Bläsing <mb...@doppel-helix.eu> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Am Sonntag, den 17.06.2018, 14:57 -0400 schrieb Emilian Bold:
>
> > But the 'License:' header already represents a 'family'. That's why
> >
> > MIT-validator should not exist in nbbuild/licenses: it's just the
> >
> > plain MIT license with a particular author.
>
> beware! The file from licenses is used for the summary license for the
>
> release. So if you only include the generic text, you are dropping
>
> essential information from the license.
>
> Many licenses have no varying parts (ALv2, GPLv2, CDDL 1.0 and 1.1),
>
> for these you can use a generic file, but for the MIT case, the
>
> Copyright line is from my understanding part of the license and we
>
> can't just drop that.
>
> BUT I'm not a lawyer, it is just my interpretation. So it would be
>
> great if others could chime in.
>
> Greetings
>
> Matthias
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
>
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
>
> For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit:
>
> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@netbeans.incubator.apache.org
For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists