SVN licensing (was: Re: CVS update: ...)

[Greg Stein <gs...@lyra.org>]

Two comments on this:

1) You [CollabNet] are effectively the owner of the Copyright on Subversion.
   If you're comfortable with referential license, then we can definitely do
   it that way.

2) Personally, I feel it is more than sufficient to use that approach:

   a) The file asserts a Copyright. By virtue of Copyright law, a person
      cannot make any copies at all. The license is what gives them those
      rights, so a strict reading of the file itself (without reference to
      the LICENSE file) will give them NO rights.

   b) A reference in the file to the LICENSE is what provides the ability to
      make copies.

      However, Roy has a point here about "what happens when the file is
      outside of the package with the LICENSE file?" Even worse, what
      happens if somebody repackages with a LICENSE that states something
      funny?
      
      Answer: don't refer to a *file*. Refer to a URL that contains the
      license. As the sole owner/admin of that URL space, you can make sure
      that the URL always contains the proper license.

I would also recommend versioning the license URL. I do this with mod_dav,
referring people to http://www.webdav.org/mod_dav/license-1.html. Should I
desire to change the license in the future, I can change it to
license-2.html and release the software with the new reference. Anybody with
the old software still refers to license-1.html and can work with it under
that license.

Note: I started on the license updating below because I found some files in
subversion/client/ that had the *wrong* license. Not just typos or tweaks,
but flat out wrong. I wrote a script to find all the problematic files and
have been tweaking those; just not at the client files yet.

In any case, I'll continue with the tweaking of the licenses until I hear
that you would prefer a reference-style of license (which I believe is a
Good Thing and would recommend).

Cheers,
-g

On Thu, Nov 16, 2000 at 03:55:44PM -0800, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
> 
> Thanks tons, Greg.
> 
> I'd certainly be fine with putting the license in a single file and
> referring to that at the top of each source file, instead of duplicated
> elsewhere; Roy Fielding argued against this with Apache code because it'd
> make it easier for someone to accidentally not follow the license, he
> claimed (imagine someone getting a .c file but not a copy of
> LICENSE).  Thoughts?
> 
> 	Brian
> 
> On Thu, 16 Nov 2000, Greg Stein wrote:
> > Look for more license fixups in a while. Stepping out for some errands now.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > -g
> > 
> > On Thu, Nov 16, 2000 at 11:00:53PM -0000, gstein@tigris.org wrote:
> > >   User: gstein  
> > >   Date: 00/11/16 15:00:53
> > > 
> > >   Modified:    subversion/tests-common svn_test_editor.c
> > >                subversion/libsvn_ra_dav commit.c fetch.c ra_session.h
> > >                         session.c
> > >                subversion/libsvn_ra_dav/tests ra-dav-test.c
> > >                subversion/libsvn_client add.c apply_edits.c checkout.c
> > >                         client.h commit.c delete.c status.c update.c
> > >   Log:
> > >   fix URL in license. should be: http://www.Collab.Net/
> > 
> > 
> 
> -- 
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> CollabNet     |    open source    |    do what's right    |     now hiring
> 

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

Re: SVN licensing (was: Re: CVS update: ...)

[Brian Behlendorf <br...@collab.net>]

On Thu, 16 Nov 2000, Greg Stein wrote:
>       Answer: don't refer to a *file*. Refer to a URL that contains the
>       license. As the sole owner/admin of that URL space, you can make sure
>       that the URL always contains the proper license.
> 
> I would also recommend versioning the license URL. I do this with mod_dav,

Excellent ideas.  I'm asking our legal now if there's any reason not to do
this.  Of course, the question of "what happens if the URL goes away" may
become relevant.  =)

	Brian