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Posted to dev@harmony.apache.org by Etienne Gagnon <eg...@sablevm.org> on 2006/03/13 00:28:55 UTC
[Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
[Message bounced->I subscribed->here it is...]
Hi Archie (and Harmony developers),
I see that the public discussion has actually started. I would have
rather liked to settle all this quietly. :-/
First, let me say that I admire the cleverness of Archie, when it comes
to develop code. I respect him a lot. I simply think that he lacked a
little knowledge about Copyright at the time he contributed code to the
Harmony project. From Geir's answer to my email, I am confident we can
resolve the issue.
See a few comments below.
> A little background: copyright covers the "expression" of an idea.
> To cover the idea itself, a patent is required. This issue is about
> copyright; nobody is claiming that SableVM has exclusive rights to
> any algorithms AFAIK.
I think that this is where you are in error. "Expression" has a larger
extent than you think.
I cannot translate a book into another language and claim "full
copyright" on the translation. I can only claim "co-ownership" on the
translated copy. Yet, the translated book might actually not share a
single word with the original. And, if the original author doesn't
agree to it, I won't be able to publish my translation.
Copyright goes even further. It does cover "characters" in novels,
movies, cartoons. You can't make another "James Bond" movie without the
consent of its copyright owners, even though you are not copying an
existing movie or book. Copyright covers the combination of the name,
the psychological traits, the profession [spy], his "Bond, James Bond"
way of presenting himself, etc. Copyright, unlike trademark, does NOT
actually restrict you from creating another character that shares one or
two traits, yet it does restrict you from copying the "character" as a
whole. Of course, only a judge gets to decide of border-line cases.
"Expression" is thus a large thing. This is why companies put a lot of
effort to maintain "clean room" status in their strategic projects.
JCVM is clearly based on SableVM. You do acknowledge that fact, but you
fail to acknowledge that this makes JCVM/JCHEVM a derivative work. This
is where we disagree.
Had JCVM simply reused a few "ideas" as explained at a relatively
high-level in my Ph.D. thesis (where I simply describe the important
aspects of some algorithms and data structures), then I would have said
nothing. But, JCVM borrowed much more. The exception mechanism,
locking, object layout, etc. Even the "stop-the-world" (quite tricky)
mechanism is copied almost line to line (with only cosmetic changes).
Only one little similarity => you can claim a "random accident". Tens
(or even hundreds?) of similarities => you cannot claim "independent work".
Once JCVM is built as a derivative work of SableVM, further JCVM
development does not erase history and make JCVM not a derivative,
unless some very radical change occurs, like a complete re-write. Even
then, the "derivation" doubt would persist, as your very intimate
knowledge of SableVM's source code makes it impossible to claim "clean
room", or even "arm's length" distance from SableVM's source code.
JCVM really looks similar to SableVM is many ways. Had you been taking
a distance from SableVM's source code before writing it, you would not
have written so similar code. This is why I claim that your work is a
derivative work.
> 1. As for "credit", clearly JCVM uses and reimplements many ideas and
> ...
> per-class loader memory allocation, and thread management. In fact,
> without SableVM as an example to work from this project would probably
> have never been attempted. Of course, any errors in translation are mine.
>
> Whether credit is due is not in question.
I know that you acknowledged credit. In the peril of misquoting you a
little, I would venture say that you "admit translating". Yet,
translation is covered under Copyright laws.
> The truth is apparently no one really knows for sure. How "different"
> does some software have to be before the copyright no long applies?
> (Rhetorical question)
Actually, most courts do take into account the process used to get to
the final product. This is helpful to determine if there was "copying"
during development or if some simple "accidental similarity" happened.
Can you claim that you didn't study closely the SableVM source code as
an "inspiration" to re-write this code in JCVM?
> There is a spectrum between cut and paste (clear violation) and
> completely different implementation of the same idea or algorithm
> (clearly allowed as long as there is no patent). In between people
> can have different opinions of where the line is drawn of course.
Studying the development process can help, though.
> 3. So what do we do? My wish is to give SableVM the benefit of the doubt.
> If there's something in there they claim is "theirs", we can take it out
> and replace it. I'd rather do that than argue about it. We should
> remember that JCVM owes SableVM a debt of gratitude and respect their
> wishes.
The problem is identifying "what", if anything, is "untainted" is
JCHEVM. This might be a difficult, given your apparent "tainting" at
the time you developed it.
You should read Geir's text at:
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200506.mbox/%3c43F59F7E-56A8-4447-96A6-7E57646365A1@apache.org%3e
3) Taint
...
With those activities in mind, have you done any of the following
to an implementation of one or more of the components you listed in
item (2) above :
- Read some or all the source code for an implementation?
- Fixed defects or performed other maintenance activity on an
implementation?
- Enhanced the source code for an implementation with additional
function, performance or other qualities of service?
...
If you have answered yes to any question above, you may not be
an contributor to the related component of Apache Harmony unless...
What is your answer to these questions?
> There's also the possibility that SableVM folks could give their blessing
> and donate their code, but that might have practical difficulties because
> all the SableVM contributors would have to agree to the new license
> (though I'm one of them, so my vote would be easy :-)
If I understand clearly, unlike the GNU project, the ASF does not ask
for Copyright assignment; this can simplify things a lot, as Copyright
assignment would practically be impossible.
On the other hand, licensing SableVM under the Apache License can be
feasible. I will have to get in touch with other SableVM contributors.
The most important contributors (in terms of lines of code) were my
students; I do not anticipate problems there (hoping so, at least). If
I can't get in touch with some minor contributors, I could simply remove
their code from the re-licensed SableVM. Anyway, most non-student
contributors only contributed patches to the class libraries, not to
SableVM itself, making it a non-issue in such case.
The question is, should it be licensed under the Apache license, or
dual-licensed: Apache License + GNU LGPL? Personally, I would prefer
dual licensing, to ensure GPL compatibility (at least, until GPL 3 comes
out, as it seems it will be compatible to the Apache License). We would
also have to check all of SableVM's dependencies... (talking to self):
I think there are dependencies on GNU Lib C. Is that a problem?
So, if the Harmony project has no problem acknowledging the shared
Copyright of SableVM authors on JCHEVM, I will get in touch with these
authors to get their consent to a license change.
Actually, we could get in further sharing. SableVM already has many
things in it (or awaiting in developer "sandboxes" to be migrated into
the development trunk):
1- Invocation interface support.
2- generational/incremental precise garbage collector.
3- JVMDI/JDWP implementation.
4- High portability: Works on many, many platforms.
5- etc.
Regards,
Etienne
--
Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D. http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
SableVM: http://www.sablevm.org/
SableCC: http://www.sablecc.org/
--
Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D. http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
SableVM: http://www.sablevm.org/
SableCC: http://www.sablecc.org/
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Chris Gray <ch...@kiffer.be>.
On Monday 13 March 2006 15:22, Dalibor Topic wrote:
> On a Harmony-unrelated side note, if you are interested in seeing your
> port in the Kaffe.org CVS tree, and your contract allows for it, feel
> free to send me the patch. :)
I'm afraid it's lost in the mists of time, Dali - last century was a long time
ago. Plus the port was originally done by Transvirtual for a company which
has since gone bankrupt, so there could be some difficulties in getting the
necessary clearances ...
Cheers,
Chris
--
Chris Gray /k/ Embedded Java Solutions BE0503765045
Embedded & Mobile Java, OSGi http://www.k-embedded-java.com/
chris.gray@kiffer.be +32 3 216 0369
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Dalibor Topic <ro...@kaffe.org>.
On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 06:50:44PM -0500, Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
>
>
> Dalibor Topic wrote:
>
> >
> >On a Harmony-unrelated side note, if you are interested in seeing your
> >port in the Kaffe.org CVS tree, and your contract allows for it, feel
> >free to send me the patch. :)
> >
>
>
> On a harmony-related note, are you interested in looking at Weldon's
> glue layer to see if Kaffe can also run Hello World using Harmony Classlib?
Sure. I must have missed it going in, I'll give it a go on the weekend
and report back.
cheers,
dalibor topic
>
> geir
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@pobox.com>.
Dalibor Topic wrote:
>
> On a Harmony-unrelated side note, if you are interested in seeing your
> port in the Kaffe.org CVS tree, and your contract allows for it, feel
> free to send me the patch. :)
>
On a harmony-related note, are you interested in looking at Weldon's
glue layer to see if Kaffe can also run Hello World using Harmony Classlib?
geir
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Dalibor Topic <ro...@kaffe.org>.
Chris Gray wrote:
>>The key change is "and that implementation is not available under a
>>recognized Open Source license" - because except for copying, which we
>>don't allow, any ideas found in open-source-licensed source code are not
>>trade secrets and therefore able to be re-implemented by others in
>>independent, differently-licensed implementations.
>
>
> I do hope this is correct, because otherwise the pool of potential VM
> developers is even smaller than we thought it was.
Free software comes with the freedom to study it. It would be a sad
world if it was otherwise. Everyone would have to pick a single open
source project to ever work on in their whole life, etc. :)
The change is there because we want to avoid dealing with trade secrets,
NDAs, non-competition clauses, and similar legal minefields often found
in proprietary source code licenses. Those things are hard to deal with
in many, many ways.
Compared to that, free software is a walk in the park. Disagreements on
the authorship of works, like this one, should be easy to resolve
amicably, and I am glad everyone is making such a good effort towards
resolving it.
> Heaven help me (and Wonka)
> if Dalibor finds out that for a few weeks at the end of the last century I
> worked on a port of Kaffe ...
I am no fan of the legal theory of a copyright without any boundaries,
and Kaffe comes under a free software license allowing study & all that,
just like Harmony. :)
On a Harmony-unrelated side note, if you are interested in seeing your
port in the Kaffe.org CVS tree, and your contract allows for it, feel
free to send me the patch. :)
cheers,
dalibor topic
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Chris Gray <ch...@kiffer.be>.
Stefano,
I think we should take Geir's advice and pipe down a bit. Those whose task it
is to resolve this issue are by now pretty aware of the issues involved, and
our "explanations" to eachother serve only to increase entropy.
Meanwhile we may meditate on Jorge Luís Borges' story _Pierre Menard, Author
of Don Quixote_:
<http://charleswjohnson.name/essays/can-don-quixote-tilt-at-william-james>
:-)
Chris
--
Chris Gray /k/ Embedded Java Solutions BE0503765045
Embedded & Mobile Java, OSGi http://www.k-embedded-java.com/
chris.gray@kiffer.be +32 3 216 0369
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Chris Gray wrote:
> Hi Etienne,
>
>> A little clarification. I don't claim that you can't study another's
>> Free/Open Source (F/OS) VM source code, or that you can't contribute to
>> multiple VMs over time. I claim that this does not allow you to COPY
>> one VM's source code into another one without respecting the Copyright.
>
> This is clear. I was a bit alarmed though by your reference to "clean room"
> conditions - clean room conditions are enforced in order to eliminate all
> possibility of taint, because there is a presumption that the owner of the
> copyright in A will sue the developers of B if they think they have even a
> chance of proving taint. In the open-source world the presumption is usually
> the other way around - that developer A will not sue developer B unless there
> is evidence of blatant plagiarism (and maybe not even then).
>
> I prefer to think that I can look at, say, Kaffe or Classpath to se how they
> approach certain issues without worrying that Dalibor or Mark or the FSF will
> use the mere fact that I have admitted to doing so in order to argue that
> anything I create in the way of core libraries or VM is somehow derived from
> their work. I would like that think that I can look at SableVM in the same
> way, provided I do just that: look, add the ideas to the broth already
> steaming in my head, and forget the details (the last bit comes very easy).
> That's something I don't allow myself to do with Sun's published code,
> because of the different presumption that applies. (For the record, up until
> now am untainted by SableVM, although I did pick up some interesting ideas
> from a talk you gave at JVM01 (and for which you won a prize, IIRC)).
Chris,
from what I understand, Etienne claims that Archie has done more than
simply looking at the code to get inspiration and then wrote his own
code with that inspiration in mind. He is not claiming, as far as I
understood, that if you look at somebody else's source code you are
tainted for life.
If Archie did cut and paste and then modified the for loops into whiles,
moved the if/then/else around and changed the variable names, it would
be way more than taking inspiration and in that case Etienne would be
correct in claiming copyright infringement.
If Archie did not do such thing and he has such a wonderful memory that
allowed him to simply rewrite the concept and algorithms (upon which
Etienne does not have a patent, therefore cannot prohibit him to use)
and came out with the current code, Etienne's claim would not be correct.
The matter of fact is: even if Archie did use cut/paste, he could claim
the opposite and nobody would be able to prove him wrong. Archie could
also claim he didn't and Etienne could claim he doesn't believe him.
Again, there is no way to prove who's right and who's wrong.
There are two ways to get out of such an 'impasse':
#1 throw away the offending code and have somebody else write it in a
clean room fashion.
#2 avoid the resolution of the infringement claim by making the
licensing of the pieces of code in question (or, even better, the entire
SableVM) compatible with the Harmony licensing terms and apply Etienne's
copyright on the stuff that was created with strong inspiration from it.
We are currently working toward #2, but if that, for whatever reason
would fail, we would probably go down the #1 route instead of trying to
go to court to prove that Harmony did not violate Etienne's copyright.
Even if we were proven right, the value of such a result would be very
minimal compared to the economical costs and ecosystem damage.
NOTE: neither the ASF, the ASF incubator nor the Apache Harmony project
are admitting that Archie infringed Etienne's copyright and resolving
with either #1 or #2 above would not be a claim that such a copyright
violation was in place. We simply want to avoid dealing with the issue
as much as we can since we know it's so hard to determine.
--
Stefano.
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Chris Gray <ch...@kiffer.be>.
Hi Etienne,
> A little clarification. I don't claim that you can't study another's
> Free/Open Source (F/OS) VM source code, or that you can't contribute to
> multiple VMs over time. I claim that this does not allow you to COPY
> one VM's source code into another one without respecting the Copyright.
This is clear. I was a bit alarmed though by your reference to "clean room"
conditions - clean room conditions are enforced in order to eliminate all
possibility of taint, because there is a presumption that the owner of the
copyright in A will sue the developers of B if they think they have even a
chance of proving taint. In the open-source world the presumption is usually
the other way around - that developer A will not sue developer B unless there
is evidence of blatant plagiarism (and maybe not even then).
I prefer to think that I can look at, say, Kaffe or Classpath to se how they
approach certain issues without worrying that Dalibor or Mark or the FSF will
use the mere fact that I have admitted to doing so in order to argue that
anything I create in the way of core libraries or VM is somehow derived from
their work. I would like that think that I can look at SableVM in the same
way, provided I do just that: look, add the ideas to the broth already
steaming in my head, and forget the details (the last bit comes very easy).
That's something I don't allow myself to do with Sun's published code,
because of the different presumption that applies. (For the record, up until
now am untainted by SableVM, although I did pick up some interesting ideas
from a talk you gave at JVM01 (and for which you won a prize, IIRC)).
All the best,
Chris
--
Chris Gray /k/ Embedded Java Solutions BE0503765045
Embedded & Mobile Java, OSGi http://www.k-embedded-java.com/
chris.gray@kiffer.be +32 3 216 0369
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Etienne Gagnon <eg...@sablevm.org>.
Hi Chris,
A little clarification. I don't claim that you can't study another's
Free/Open Source (F/OS) VM source code, or that you can't contribute to
multiple VMs over time. I claim that this does not allow you to COPY
one VM's source code into another one without respecting the Copyright.
Mainly, I was was arguing about one specific case at hand. (Experience
tells me that theoretical discussions of hypothetic cases can lead to
endless flame wars). Please have a look at the files pointed to by
Archie Cobbs. You will see there similarities that go well beyond the
general idea you get by reading another F/OS VM's source code.
So, in most cases, it shouldn't be a problem to read another
implementation's code. Yet, I would warn the Harmony "class library"
developers to be careful on how they "study" other class libraries such
as GNU Classpath. It is OK to *occasionally* read the source code of
GNU Classpath and see how they resolved *some* of the problems, yet it
would be wrong if Harmony started copying (or "re-writing similarly", if
that's clearer to you) GNU Classpath. Let say that taking a few days
after reading the source code to work on something else, before coming
back to the problem and think about some "independent"
solution/implementation, would be highly recommended so that the code
you write doesn't end up being an "intelligent copy" of other's code.
Anyway, this is simply my little personal recommendation about it.
Anyway, as I am not a Copyright holder of either class libraries, so you
can take my opinion with a grain of salt. ;-)
Note that as long as you are the Copyright holder, you can copy your
code as much as you want, unless you assigned it to somebody else, in
which case you should respect the rules of your assignment contract.
Have fun!
Etienne
Chris Gray wrote:
> I do hope this is correct, because otherwise the pool of potential VM
> developers is even smaller than we thought it was. Heaven help me (and Wonka)
> if Dalibor finds out that for a few weeks at the end of the last century I
> worked on a port of Kaffe ...
--
Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D. http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
SableVM: http://www.sablevm.org/
SableCC: http://www.sablecc.org/
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Chris Gray <ch...@kiffer.be>.
Geir,
> Note that the last snippet that you quote has been evolved to :
>
> If you have answered yes to any question above, and that
> implementation is not available under a recognized Open
> Source license, you may not be an contributor to the
> related component of Apache Harmony unless the copyright
> owner of that implementation either:
>
> The key change is "and that implementation is not available under a
> recognized Open Source license" - because except for copying, which we
> don't allow, any ideas found in open-source-licensed source code are not
> trade secrets and therefore able to be re-implemented by others in
> independent, differently-licensed implementations.
I do hope this is correct, because otherwise the pool of potential VM
developers is even smaller than we thought it was. Heaven help me (and Wonka)
if Dalibor finds out that for a few weeks at the end of the last century I
worked on a port of Kaffe ...
Chris
--
Chris Gray /k/ Embedded Java Solutions BE0503765045
Embedded & Mobile Java, OSGi http://www.k-embedded-java.com/
chris.gray@kiffer.be +32 3 216 0369
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Dalibor Topic <ro...@kaffe.org>.
On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 07:28:54AM -0800, Leo Simons wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 09:38:00AM -0500, Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
> > Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> > >Leo Simons wrote:
> > >>Thanks for your clarifications! Since Geir has informed me that some
> > >>of the conversation related to this issue is currently also proceeding
> > >>outside of the public forum (I must say I personally find that a shame
> > >>-- all of the open source community can learn from things like this if
> > >>the discussion happens in public), I'll respect the desire for a little
> > >>privacy and refrain from commenting further here, below, except to note
> > >>that,
> > >
> > >While it is not my objective to eliminate transparency from the
> > >discussion, I really felt that it would be much easier to work out a
> > >solution in private, where I don't feel the pressure of hundreds of eyes
> > >reading each of my words, specially that the heat is on me, as the SVN
> > >access to JCHEVM has been blocked.
> >
> > Please don't feel pressure there.
>
> +1. No-one wants to exercise any kind of pressure. Pressure tends to just
> frustrate progress. I understand how you feel about all of this publicness.
> No worries.
+1.
The measures taken are not meant to put pressure on someone claiming
infringement. They are an attempt to protect people from potentially getting
in trouble themselves for as long as is needed to find a mutually agreeable
resolution to the infringement claim.
A copyright infringement claim is a serious matter, and I appreciate the way
all involved parties are handling it, and working openly and honestly on a
resolution. Good work, everyone.
cheers,
dalibor topic
>
> > You brought up a claim that was at
> > first blush legitimate, and it was *our* decision to aggressively lock
> > down SVN while we sorted things out - you never made any such demand,
> > and I appreciate your sensitivity to this.
>
> +1. I very much admire the level of detail, clarity and honesty in your
> e-mails so far and also the speediness of your replies and I suspect the
> entire harmony community feels the same way. We all dislike all this
> worrying about IP and licensing but it is in no way your fault that there
> is anything to worry about and you should not feel any kind of guilt.
> We're all very appreciative of the effort you're putting in.
>
> You should feel more than free to take all the time you want and/or need
> to think about things or talk about them or just put the issue in a freezer
> for a few days because you have other important things to do with your time.
> Not everything has to happen in "internet time".
>
> cheers!
>
> Leo
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Leo Simons <ma...@leosimons.com>.
On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 09:38:00AM -0500, Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
> Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> >Leo Simons wrote:
> >>Thanks for your clarifications! Since Geir has informed me that some
> >>of the conversation related to this issue is currently also proceeding
> >>outside of the public forum (I must say I personally find that a shame
> >>-- all of the open source community can learn from things like this if
> >>the discussion happens in public), I'll respect the desire for a little
> >>privacy and refrain from commenting further here, below, except to note
> >>that,
> >
> >While it is not my objective to eliminate transparency from the
> >discussion, I really felt that it would be much easier to work out a
> >solution in private, where I don't feel the pressure of hundreds of eyes
> >reading each of my words, specially that the heat is on me, as the SVN
> >access to JCHEVM has been blocked.
>
> Please don't feel pressure there.
+1. No-one wants to exercise any kind of pressure. Pressure tends to just
frustrate progress. I understand how you feel about all of this publicness.
No worries.
> You brought up a claim that was at
> first blush legitimate, and it was *our* decision to aggressively lock
> down SVN while we sorted things out - you never made any such demand,
> and I appreciate your sensitivity to this.
+1. I very much admire the level of detail, clarity and honesty in your
e-mails so far and also the speediness of your replies and I suspect the
entire harmony community feels the same way. We all dislike all this
worrying about IP and licensing but it is in no way your fault that there
is anything to worry about and you should not feel any kind of guilt.
We're all very appreciative of the effort you're putting in.
You should feel more than free to take all the time you want and/or need
to think about things or talk about them or just put the issue in a freezer
for a few days because you have other important things to do with your time.
Not everything has to happen in "internet time".
cheers!
Leo
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Matt Benson <gu...@yahoo.com>.
--- Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
> Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> > Hi Leo,
> >
> > Leo Simons wrote:
> >> Thanks for your clarifications! Since Geir has
> informed me that some
> >> of the conversation related to this issue is
> currently also proceeding
> >> outside of the public forum (I must say I
> personally find that a shame
> >> -- all of the open source community can learn
> from things like this if
> >> the discussion happens in public), I'll respect
> the desire for a little
> >> privacy and refrain from commenting further here,
> below, except to note
> >> that,
> >
> > While it is not my objective to eliminate
> transparency from the
> > discussion, I really felt that it would be much
> easier to work out a
> > solution in private, where I don't feel the
> pressure of hundreds of eyes
> > reading each of my words, specially that the heat
> is on me, as the SVN
> > access to JCHEVM has been blocked.
>
> Please don't feel pressure there. You brought up a
> claim that was at
> first blush legitimate, and it was *our* decision to
> aggressively lock
> down SVN while we sorted things out - you never made
> any such demand,
> and I appreciate your sensitivity to this.
Agreed. As an interested (thus far non-contributing)
observer, I can assure you, Etienne, that you have not
come across as unreasonable. Your name is respected
in the community and no less so now, given your
willingness to work with Geir, Archie et al on this
matter.
So the "opener" the better! ;)
-Matt
>
> geir
>
>
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Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@pobox.com>.
Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> Hi Leo,
>
> Leo Simons wrote:
>> Thanks for your clarifications! Since Geir has informed me that some
>> of the conversation related to this issue is currently also proceeding
>> outside of the public forum (I must say I personally find that a shame
>> -- all of the open source community can learn from things like this if
>> the discussion happens in public), I'll respect the desire for a little
>> privacy and refrain from commenting further here, below, except to note
>> that,
>
> While it is not my objective to eliminate transparency from the
> discussion, I really felt that it would be much easier to work out a
> solution in private, where I don't feel the pressure of hundreds of eyes
> reading each of my words, specially that the heat is on me, as the SVN
> access to JCHEVM has been blocked.
Please don't feel pressure there. You brought up a claim that was at
first blush legitimate, and it was *our* decision to aggressively lock
down SVN while we sorted things out - you never made any such demand,
and I appreciate your sensitivity to this.
geir
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Stefano Mazzocchi <st...@apache.org>.
Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> Hi Leo,
>
> Leo Simons wrote:
>> Thanks for your clarifications! Since Geir has informed me that some
>> of the conversation related to this issue is currently also proceeding
>> outside of the public forum (I must say I personally find that a shame
>> -- all of the open source community can learn from things like this if
>> the discussion happens in public), I'll respect the desire for a little
>> privacy and refrain from commenting further here, below, except to note
>> that,
>
> While it is not my objective to eliminate transparency from the
> discussion, I really felt that it would be much easier to work out a
> solution in private, where I don't feel the pressure of hundreds of eyes
> reading each of my words, specially that the heat is on me, as the SVN
> access to JCHEVM has been blocked.
>
> It is much easier to discuss calmly with somebody that won't jump at
> every sentence I miswrote, and that will try to figure out why I am
> making a claim, what my claim is, and how it can all be resolved
> peacefully. Even though most people on this list are trying to do the
> same, it can only feel different, as it is intimidating to be "one" to
> answer to "many" people's questions.
Etienne,
that is understandable and I respect your feelings in this regard.
Please understand that we are not trying to do things in public to apply
peer pressure on you to solve the issue faster or to bend your opinion,
but simply and only to have public and world-wide-replicated (therefore
unforgeable and legally valuable) record that we do care and we do
respect intellectual property, copyright and, most important, the people
involved and their wishes, in order the keep the Harmony project as free
as we can from frustration and friction that we consider unnecessary.
We (as a community) will make mistakes, we know and expect that, it
can't be avoided. But we can only hope to correct those mistakes
promptly and in a respectful way: we value interpersonal relationships
and the open development ecosystem around Harmony *much* more than we
value pieces of codes or algorithms, no matter how clever or hard to
write they are.
> I am sure that Geir will explain on this list, transparently, the
> outcome of our amicable discussions, when we get there (very soon, I hope).
>
> Thanks for your understanding,
Thank you for your peaceful and amicable tone.
Let's all hope for a future of Harmony where all legal/IP/copyright
disputes will work themselves thru with....ehm.. such harmony :-)
--
Stefano.
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Etienne Gagnon <eg...@sablevm.org>.
Hi Leo,
Leo Simons wrote:
> Thanks for your clarifications! Since Geir has informed me that some
> of the conversation related to this issue is currently also proceeding
> outside of the public forum (I must say I personally find that a shame
> -- all of the open source community can learn from things like this if
> the discussion happens in public), I'll respect the desire for a little
> privacy and refrain from commenting further here, below, except to note
> that,
While it is not my objective to eliminate transparency from the
discussion, I really felt that it would be much easier to work out a
solution in private, where I don't feel the pressure of hundreds of eyes
reading each of my words, specially that the heat is on me, as the SVN
access to JCHEVM has been blocked.
It is much easier to discuss calmly with somebody that won't jump at
every sentence I miswrote, and that will try to figure out why I am
making a claim, what my claim is, and how it can all be resolved
peacefully. Even though most people on this list are trying to do the
same, it can only feel different, as it is intimidating to be "one" to
answer to "many" people's questions.
I am sure that Geir will explain on this list, transparently, the
outcome of our amicable discussions, when we get there (very soon, I hope).
Thanks for your understanding,
Etienne
--
Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D. http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
SableVM: http://www.sablevm.org/
SableCC: http://www.sablecc.org/
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Leo Simons <ma...@leosimons.com>.
Hi Etienne,
Thanks for your clarifications! Since Geir has informed me that some
of the conversation related to this issue is currently also proceeding
outside of the public forum (I must say I personally find that a shame
-- all of the open source community can learn from things like this if
the discussion happens in public), I'll respect the desire for a little
privacy and refrain from commenting further here, below, except to note
that,
* IIUC The Apache Software Foundation (as a legal entity) has not
acknowledged anything but the receipt of a claim. In general it
should be rather clear when "the ASF" acknowledges something or acts
in an official capacity (speaking through one of its Officers), but
people talking on mailing lists or in private conversation in
general do not represent the ASF as a legal entity.
* both the ASF as an organisation and harmony as an incubating project
at Apache respect copyrights and other IP rights of all
parties (of course including you). We even try and go a little further
than that and also "give credit where credit is due" which often goes
above and beyond IP rights.
I hope it all works out.
best regards,
Leo
On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 05:51:27PM -0500, Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> Hi Dalibor, Leo, and all,
>
> Archie wrote:
> 3. So what do we do? My wish is to give SableVM the benefit of the
> doubt. If there's something in there they claim is "theirs", we
> can take it out and replace it. I'd rather do that than argue
> about it. We should remember that JCVM owes SableVM a debt of
> gratitude and respect their wishes.
>
> Etienne wrote:
> So, if the Harmony project has no problem acknowledging the shared
> Copyright of SableVM authors on JCHEVM, I will get in touch with these
> authors to get their consent to a license change.
>
> Geir answered:
> That's excellent! I see no problem with that. We traditionally give
> credit where credit is due for anything we redistribute.
>
>
> So, just to make things Cristal clear:
>
> 1- I do claim shared copyright on JCVM/JCHEVM. I do not and will not
> back down from this.
>
> 2- As far as I can tell from the above, both the ASF and Archie Cobbs
> seem to agree to acknowledge this shared copyright.
>
> 3- The only "obscure area" that is left (i.e. an area where there is no
> explicit agreement between all involved) is: which exact parts can be
> claimed "independent" work and which cannot not. It seems easier to
> agree to simply state the shared copyright on JCHEVM and leave the
> detail of exact files and lines out. Personally, I claim co-ownership
> on the whole derivative of SableVM. I am sure Archie Cobbs would do the
> reverse. Unfortunately, it would probably be quite difficult to settle
> this out of court. Do you really want this to escalate that far?
>
> 4- Once this shared copyright is acknowledged, there is a license issue
> to solve. The ASF has not been given a permission by SableVM authors to
> distribute the derivative work, namely JCHEVM, under the Apache License.
> This is where I am amicably proposing a hopefully elegant solution: to
> ask SableVM authors to give such permission, so that we can all go on
> with our lives and continue development. Anyway, I have made SableVM
> Free/Opens Source so that people can copy, share and derive code from
> it; I see no reason not to let people do so. All I am asking for is a
> little respect of my copyright on software to which I have dedicated
> years of work.
>
> Regards,
>
> Etienne
>
> --
> Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D. http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
> SableVM: http://www.sablevm.org/
> SableCC: http://www.sablecc.org/
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@pobox.com>.
Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> Hi Dalibor, Leo, and all,
>
> Archie wrote:
> 3. So what do we do? My wish is to give SableVM the benefit of the
> doubt. If there's something in there they claim is "theirs", we
> can take it out and replace it. I'd rather do that than argue
> about it. We should remember that JCVM owes SableVM a debt of
> gratitude and respect their wishes.
>
> Etienne wrote:
> So, if the Harmony project has no problem acknowledging the shared
> Copyright of SableVM authors on JCHEVM, I will get in touch with these
> authors to get their consent to a license change.
>
> Geir answered:
> That's excellent! I see no problem with that. We traditionally give
> credit where credit is due for anything we redistribute.
>
>
> So, just to make things Cristal clear:
>
> 1- I do claim shared copyright on JCVM/JCHEVM. I do not and will not
> back down from this.
In interpret this claim to be for some number of specific areas, such as
threading and locking, and some others which we haven't quite nailed
down yet.
>
> 2- As far as I can tell from the above, both the ASF and Archie Cobbs
> seem to agree to acknowledge this shared copyright.
No. I hope this doesn't appear to be harsh, and I'll explain after, but
I need to make this clear :
The ASF does not at this time acknowledge the validity of your claim of
shared copyright. We acknowledge that you have made a claim, have taken
the step of immediately ceasing any distribution of the disputed code,
and are making our best effort to get to the bottom of the problem with
the intention of arriving at an amicable and mutually agreeable solution.
When I said "That's excellent!...." that was my "run for the airport"
message - I meant that if you dual-licensed the code, we'd have no
problem in acknowledging the authors of code we redistributed or made a
derived work from. Sorry if I was confusing.
>
> 3- The only "obscure area" that is left (i.e. an area where there is no
> explicit agreement between all involved) is: which exact parts can be
> claimed "independent" work and which cannot not. It seems easier to
> agree to simply state the shared copyright on JCHEVM and leave the
> detail of exact files and lines out. Personally, I claim co-ownership
> on the whole derivative of SableVM. I am sure Archie Cobbs would do the
> reverse. Unfortunately, it would probably be quite difficult to settle
> this out of court. Do you really want this to escalate that far?
No one wishes to escalate anything - I'm sure you don't, and I'm sure
that we don't.
>
> 4- Once this shared copyright is acknowledged, there is a license issue
> to solve. The ASF has not been given a permission by SableVM authors to
> distribute the derivative work, namely JCHEVM, under the Apache License.
> This is where I am amicably proposing a hopefully elegant solution: to
> ask SableVM authors to give such permission, so that we can all go on
> with our lives and continue development. Anyway, I have made SableVM
> Free/Opens Source so that people can copy, share and derive code from
> it; I see no reason not to let people do so. All I am asking for is a
> little respect of my copyright on software to which I have dedicated
> years of work.
And we are certainly working to do that.
Suppose we do this (and this is me just throwing out solutions for
discussion...)
Instead of you having to go through the labor of finding all the
contributors to SableVM to make such a licensing statement, why not do
it for the thread and lock code? Do it under a license such as MIT so
it's compatible with the LGPL (or dual LGPL + AL ) and then we will give
credit to the authors and the project.
If that's ok, and further, that makes you comfortable to drop #3 above,
does this solve it for all?
geir
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Leo Simons <ma...@leosimons.com>.
Hi Archie!
On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 06:15:41PM -0600, Archie Cobbs wrote:
> Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> >1- I do claim shared copyright on JCVM/JCHEVM. I do not and will not
> >back down from this.
> >
> >2- As far as I can tell from the above, both the ASF and Archie Cobbs
> >seem to agree to acknowledge this shared copyright.
>
> Um, I think I agree... so what is the practical import?
>
> In other words, if JCVM/JCHEVM can be licensed under the
> Apache license, then I'm satisfied. I don't plan on ever
> trying to take this stuff "closed source" or whatever.. so
> anyone else sharing copyright shouldn't matter (to me) right?
I think I somewhat understand your feelings (I myself don't usually give
a rat's ass about copyright on my original works, I care about sharing,
getting credit for what I do, having fun working with others, and not
getting sued anywhere in the process), but as I understand the positions
involved and the dialogue so far, the difference *does* matter (if not to
you, to the SableVM contributors, the harmony project, our users, and to
the ASF, and to you as "person who has signed a CLA and is bound by the
agreements in it").
If (in general) you acknowledge copyright of any third party on the works
you contribute to the ASF we automatically have a serious problem, even if
that third party is, for example, me (I'm an example of someone who has
signed an ASF CLA and doesn't usually care much for keeping my own
copyrights but has not sent in a harmony ACQ and has not contributed
code nor any kind of IP to the harmony project), if I did not seperately
contribute my stuff myself. At that point we need things like a code grant.
Unfortunately, "copyright" has become this tricky thing that you can't just
"agree to share with everyone and just get along with your life". You can do
things like assign it to another party, grant other people licenses, etc.,
but you have to be very careful even when you do stuff like that.
> >3- The only "obscure area" that is left (i.e. an area where there is no
> >explicit agreement between all involved) is: which exact parts can be
> >claimed "independent" work and which cannot not. It seems easier to
> >agree to simply state the shared copyright on JCHEVM and leave the
> >detail of exact files and lines out. Personally, I claim co-ownership
> >on the whole derivative of SableVM. I am sure Archie Cobbs would do the
> >reverse. Unfortunately, it would probably be quite difficult to settle
> >this out of court. Do you really want this to escalate that far?
>
> I agree it would be messy to try to separate it out, even though
> most of JCVM is not derivative (e.g., the garbage collector, weak and
> phantom reference support, finalization support, bytecode interpreter,
> ZIP file reader, class file parser, class loader and resolution code,
> class file dump tool, javah tool, JAR file launcher, heap structure,
> Thread.interrupt support, reflection support, signal handler, etc.).
If in the sentence above you mean "not derivative" as being opposed to
"derivative" in the sense of that word in the legal phrase "derivative
work" then that's an important difference from what you've asserted
previously. If you mean "derivative" as in "inspired by" or as in "based
on ideas from" then that's fine. It is precisely this difference which is
very important (legally), so weigh your words carefully!
cheers,
Leo
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Archie Cobbs <ar...@dellroad.org>.
Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> 1- I do claim shared copyright on JCVM/JCHEVM. I do not and will not
> back down from this.
>
> 2- As far as I can tell from the above, both the ASF and Archie Cobbs
> seem to agree to acknowledge this shared copyright.
Um, I think I agree... so what is the practical import?
In other words, if JCVM/JCHEVM can be licensed under the
Apache license, then I'm satisfied. I don't plan on ever
trying to take this stuff "closed source" or whatever.. so
anyone else sharing copyright shouldn't matter (to me) right?
> 3- The only "obscure area" that is left (i.e. an area where there is no
> explicit agreement between all involved) is: which exact parts can be
> claimed "independent" work and which cannot not. It seems easier to
> agree to simply state the shared copyright on JCHEVM and leave the
> detail of exact files and lines out. Personally, I claim co-ownership
> on the whole derivative of SableVM. I am sure Archie Cobbs would do the
> reverse. Unfortunately, it would probably be quite difficult to settle
> this out of court. Do you really want this to escalate that far?
I agree it would be messy to try to separate it out, even though
most of JCVM is not derivative (e.g., the garbage collector, weak and
phantom reference support, finalization support, bytecode interpreter,
ZIP file reader, class file parser, class loader and resolution code,
class file dump tool, javah tool, JAR file launcher, heap structure,
Thread.interrupt support, reflection support, signal handler, etc.).
-Archie
__________________________________________________________________________
Archie Cobbs * CTO, Awarix * http://www.awarix.com
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Etienne Gagnon <eg...@sablevm.org>.
Hi Dalibor, Leo, and all,
Archie wrote:
3. So what do we do? My wish is to give SableVM the benefit of the
doubt. If there's something in there they claim is "theirs", we
can take it out and replace it. I'd rather do that than argue
about it. We should remember that JCVM owes SableVM a debt of
gratitude and respect their wishes.
Etienne wrote:
So, if the Harmony project has no problem acknowledging the shared
Copyright of SableVM authors on JCHEVM, I will get in touch with these
authors to get their consent to a license change.
Geir answered:
That's excellent! I see no problem with that. We traditionally give
credit where credit is due for anything we redistribute.
So, just to make things Cristal clear:
1- I do claim shared copyright on JCVM/JCHEVM. I do not and will not
back down from this.
2- As far as I can tell from the above, both the ASF and Archie Cobbs
seem to agree to acknowledge this shared copyright.
3- The only "obscure area" that is left (i.e. an area where there is no
explicit agreement between all involved) is: which exact parts can be
claimed "independent" work and which cannot not. It seems easier to
agree to simply state the shared copyright on JCHEVM and leave the
detail of exact files and lines out. Personally, I claim co-ownership
on the whole derivative of SableVM. I am sure Archie Cobbs would do the
reverse. Unfortunately, it would probably be quite difficult to settle
this out of court. Do you really want this to escalate that far?
4- Once this shared copyright is acknowledged, there is a license issue
to solve. The ASF has not been given a permission by SableVM authors to
distribute the derivative work, namely JCHEVM, under the Apache License.
This is where I am amicably proposing a hopefully elegant solution: to
ask SableVM authors to give such permission, so that we can all go on
with our lives and continue development. Anyway, I have made SableVM
Free/Opens Source so that people can copy, share and derive code from
it; I see no reason not to let people do so. All I am asking for is a
little respect of my copyright on software to which I have dedicated
years of work.
Regards,
Etienne
--
Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D. http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
SableVM: http://www.sablevm.org/
SableCC: http://www.sablecc.org/
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Dalibor Topic <ro...@kaffe.org>.
On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 09:04:49AM -0800, Leo Simons wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I am not a laywer. I don't play one on TV, though I've played one on
> stage a few weeks ago.
>
> If I understand correctly, determining whether codebase A is a derivative
> work of codebase B is somewhat hard work. We have a codebase B in the
> Harmony tree and a contributor to codebase A asserting that codebase B is
> a derivative of codebase A, with codebase A under a
> non-apache-license-compatible license.
>
> We have therefore closed off all access to codebase B but have not verified
> this assertion. There is some history here with codebase A and B which is
> becoming clearer through mailing list discussion.
>
> On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 10:44:56PM -0500, Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> > See below.
> >
> > >> So, if the Harmony project has no problem acknowledging the shared
> > >> Copyright of SableVM authors on JCHEVM, I will get in touch with these
> > >> authors to get their consent to a license change.
> > >
> > > That's excellent! I see no problem with that. We traditionally give
> > > credit where credit is due for anything we redistribute.
> >
> > Great! Then I'll get on with that task. Please understand, though,
> > that it might take one or two weeks to resolve (hoping I am not too
> > optimistic). Some copyright holders might be difficult to reach. I
> > will do it as fast as I can.
>
> Do I understand correctly that rather than go through the motions of
> actually having to go through the painful route of proving or disproving
> this derivative work assertion, we are going to try and make codebase A a
> contribution under an apache-license-compatible license?
>
> I must say it sounds very tempting (I really don't want us to waste time
> and energy on (dis)proving something if we don't have to. Writing code
> is just much more fun) but I don't fully understand if this is enough
> "due dilligence" on the ASF side. Can we leave this infringement claim
> "hanging around" and just jump to "fixing the problem even if it might
> not actually be one, since it has some nice side effects"?
As far as I parse the discussion, Etienne agrees to do the necessary work
to contribute his & his codevelopers' codebase to us, so I believe the
simplest "due dilligence" solution for the ASF would be for the
infringement claim to be withdrawn, so that codebase B can be unblocked
now, while the paperwork on codebase A is being finished.
Alternatively, we could also keep codebase B locked down until we have
the paperwork for the codebase A submission, which would also be simple,
but not my favourite choice.
Finally, we could do the painful thing, but I am sure nobody needs that.
cheers,
dalibor topic
>
>
> cheers,
>
>
> Leo
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Leo Simons <ma...@leosimons.com>.
Hi everyone,
I am not a laywer. I don't play one on TV, though I've played one on
stage a few weeks ago.
If I understand correctly, determining whether codebase A is a derivative
work of codebase B is somewhat hard work. We have a codebase B in the
Harmony tree and a contributor to codebase A asserting that codebase B is
a derivative of codebase A, with codebase A under a
non-apache-license-compatible license.
We have therefore closed off all access to codebase B but have not verified
this assertion. There is some history here with codebase A and B which is
becoming clearer through mailing list discussion.
On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 10:44:56PM -0500, Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> See below.
>
> >> So, if the Harmony project has no problem acknowledging the shared
> >> Copyright of SableVM authors on JCHEVM, I will get in touch with these
> >> authors to get their consent to a license change.
> >
> > That's excellent! I see no problem with that. We traditionally give
> > credit where credit is due for anything we redistribute.
>
> Great! Then I'll get on with that task. Please understand, though,
> that it might take one or two weeks to resolve (hoping I am not too
> optimistic). Some copyright holders might be difficult to reach. I
> will do it as fast as I can.
Do I understand correctly that rather than go through the motions of
actually having to go through the painful route of proving or disproving
this derivative work assertion, we are going to try and make codebase A a
contribution under an apache-license-compatible license?
I must say it sounds very tempting (I really don't want us to waste time
and energy on (dis)proving something if we don't have to. Writing code
is just much more fun) but I don't fully understand if this is enough
"due dilligence" on the ASF side. Can we leave this infringement claim
"hanging around" and just jump to "fixing the problem even if it might
not actually be one, since it has some nice side effects"?
cheers,
Leo
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Etienne Gagnon <eg...@sablevm.org>.
See below.
>> So, if the Harmony project has no problem acknowledging the shared
>> Copyright of SableVM authors on JCHEVM, I will get in touch with these
>> authors to get their consent to a license change.
>
> That's excellent! I see no problem with that. We traditionally give
> credit where credit is due for anything we redistribute.
Great! Then I'll get on with that task. Please understand, though,
that it might take one or two weeks to resolve (hoping I am not too
optimistic). Some copyright holders might be difficult to reach. I
will do it as fast as I can.
Etienne
--
Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D. http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
SableVM: http://www.sablevm.org/
SableCC: http://www.sablecc.org/
Re: [Fwd: Re: [jchevm] JCHEVM discussion]
Posted by Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@pobox.com>.
I'm about to run for the airport, but there's one thing I wished to
point you to just so there's no misunderstanding, and a comment...
Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> [Message bounced->I subscribed->here it is...]
>
>
> Hi Archie (and Harmony developers),
>
>
> I see that the public discussion has actually started. I would have
> rather liked to settle all this quietly. :-/
Oh, the public discussion is just because unless it's something
personal, we like to do things with the most transparency as possible.
We respect the concerns you raised, and by discussing here, everyone is
aware and can help work towards the peaceful and amicable resolution.
[SNIP]
I'll respond to the snipped out part later - I just want to clarify
something around the following :
>
> The problem is identifying "what", if anything, is "untainted" is
> JCHEVM. This might be a difficult, given your apparent "tainting" at
> the time you developed it.
>
> You should read Geir's text at:
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-harmony-dev/200506.mbox/%3c43F59F7E-56A8-4447-96A6-7E57646365A1@apache.org%3e
>
> 3) Taint
> ...
> With those activities in mind, have you done any of the following
> to an implementation of one or more of the components you listed in
> item (2) above :
>
> - Read some or all the source code for an implementation?
>
> - Fixed defects or performed other maintenance activity on an
> implementation?
>
> - Enhanced the source code for an implementation with additional
> function, performance or other qualities of service?
> ...
> If you have answered yes to any question above, you may not be
> an contributor to the related component of Apache Harmony unless...
>
> What is your answer to these questions?
Note that you quoted an early version of the contributor questionniare -
since we do everything (or as much as we can in public) we bring these
forward to get feedback as we are developing them.
The version that is being used is here :
http://incubator.apache.org/harmony/auth_cont_quest.html
Note that the last snippet that you quote has been evolved to :
If you have answered yes to any question above, and that
implementation is not available under a recognized Open
Source license, you may not be an contributor to the
related component of Apache Harmony unless the copyright
owner of that implementation either:
The key change is "and that implementation is not available under a
recognized Open Source license" - because except for copying, which we
don't allow, any ideas found in open-source-licensed source code are not
trade secrets and therefore able to be re-implemented by others in
independent, differently-licensed implementations.
Of course, this isn't an attempt to side-step the issue of copying, but
I did wish to inform you of the document that is currently operational.
>
>> There's also the possibility that SableVM folks could give their blessing
>> and donate their code, but that might have practical difficulties because
>> all the SableVM contributors would have to agree to the new license
>> (though I'm one of them, so my vote would be easy :-)
>
> If I understand clearly, unlike the GNU project, the ASF does not ask
> for Copyright assignment; this can simplify things a lot, as Copyright
> assignment would practically be impossible.
That is correct. We do not wish for copyright assignment. You the
author are free to re-license your work under any other license after
(or before) you have granted the ASF a copyright license to your work
under the Apache License.
>
> On the other hand, licensing SableVM under the Apache License can be
> feasible. I will have to get in touch with other SableVM contributors.
> The most important contributors (in terms of lines of code) were my
> students; I do not anticipate problems there (hoping so, at least). If
> I can't get in touch with some minor contributors, I could simply remove
> their code from the re-licensed SableVM. Anyway, most non-student
> contributors only contributed patches to the class libraries, not to
> SableVM itself, making it a non-issue in such case.
>
> The question is, should it be licensed under the Apache license, or
> dual-licensed: Apache License + GNU LGPL? Personally, I would prefer
> dual licensing, to ensure GPL compatibility (at least, until GPL 3 comes
> out, as it seems it will be compatible to the Apache License). We would
> also have to check all of SableVM's dependencies... (talking to self):
> I think there are dependencies on GNU Lib C. Is that a problem?
>
>
> So, if the Harmony project has no problem acknowledging the shared
> Copyright of SableVM authors on JCHEVM, I will get in touch with these
> authors to get their consent to a license change.
That's excellent! I see no problem with that. We traditionally give
credit where credit is due for anything we redistribute.
>
> Actually, we could get in further sharing. SableVM already has many
> things in it (or awaiting in developer "sandboxes" to be migrated into
> the development trunk):
> 1- Invocation interface support.
> 2- generational/incremental precise garbage collector.
> 3- JVMDI/JDWP implementation.
> 4- High portability: Works on many, many platforms.
> 5- etc.
Yes - we are very interested in modularizing both the classlibrary and VM.
This seems to be going in a healthy direction! Thanks!
geir