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Posted to legal-discuss@apache.org by Chris Anderson <jc...@apache.org> on 2010/01/20 06:28:55 UTC
Wikipedia pseudocode
Legal folks,
CouchDB has a potential contribution that's raised some interesting questions.
We currently rely on Erlang's crypto libraries (which use OpenSSL) but
our contributor Jonathan couldn't get them to build on an embedded
device. He wrote a native Erlang replacement library, based on the
algorithms as shown on Wikipedia.
There's a case to be made that this is just fine and Jonathan can
grant us this code under the Apache license. There's also a case that
Wikipedia's license applies, so we can't accept the contribution. The
alternative would be to have someone do a port based on APR or another
known safe source.
The patch and ticket are here:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-625
There is a dev@ discussion of licensing here:
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/couchdb-dev/201001.mbox/%3c3D7E6279-A9B8-4EAA-BDA6-F62E4E1DB3BA@bbc.co.uk%3e
We're looking for anyone who can shed light on this grey area.
Thanks,
Chris
--
Chris Anderson
http://jchrisa.net
http://couch.io
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Re: Wikipedia pseudocode
Posted by Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net>.
On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 1:46 AM, Henri Yandell <hy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I disagree with Dirk on the point of CC-by-SA being equivalent with
> Apache License 2.0. The Attribution
> licenses sure, but SA is Share-Alike and more akin to CDDL/MPL - plus
> it's very focused on "literary or artistic works" which makes reading
> it a bit hard from a software point of view.
>
> However I agree with Dirk on his 3rd point (though I wouldn't use the
> word fudge :) ). Reading pseudo-code in Wikipedia is akin to reading
> pseudo-code in a book. It's knowledge the book is imparting and
> recreation is the intent. Equally this concerns implementing a spec
> (and not one with dodgy licensing at that) and I suspect from looking
> at the Wikipedia page that sane implementations are all generally
> going to look that way.
Agree with Henri.
I don't believe that a link to the Wikipedia page is absolutely
required; but may be helpful both to people who are attempting to
understand the code or how the code was created.
> My 2c.
>
> Hen
- Sam Ruby
> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 9:28 PM, Chris Anderson <jc...@apache.org> wrote:
>> Legal folks,
>>
>> CouchDB has a potential contribution that's raised some interesting questions.
>>
>> We currently rely on Erlang's crypto libraries (which use OpenSSL) but
>> our contributor Jonathan couldn't get them to build on an embedded
>> device. He wrote a native Erlang replacement library, based on the
>> algorithms as shown on Wikipedia.
>>
>> There's a case to be made that this is just fine and Jonathan can
>> grant us this code under the Apache license. There's also a case that
>> Wikipedia's license applies, so we can't accept the contribution. The
>> alternative would be to have someone do a port based on APR or another
>> known safe source.
>>
>> The patch and ticket are here:
>>
>> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-625
>>
>> There is a dev@ discussion of licensing here:
>>
>> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/couchdb-dev/201001.mbox/%3c3D7E6279-A9B8-4EAA-BDA6-F62E4E1DB3BA@bbc.co.uk%3e
>>
>> We're looking for anyone who can shed light on this grey area.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> --
>> Chris Anderson
>> http://jchrisa.net
>> http://couch.io
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>>
>>
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
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Re: Wikipedia pseudocode
Posted by Henri Yandell <hy...@gmail.com>.
I disagree with Dirk on the point of CC-by-SA being equivalent with
Apache License 2.0. The Attribution
licenses sure, but SA is Share-Alike and more akin to CDDL/MPL - plus
it's very focused on "literary or artistic works" which makes reading
it a bit hard from a software point of view.
However I agree with Dirk on his 3rd point (though I wouldn't use the
word fudge :) ). Reading pseudo-code in Wikipedia is akin to reading
pseudo-code in a book. It's knowledge the book is imparting and
recreation is the intent. Equally this concerns implementing a spec
(and not one with dodgy licensing at that) and I suspect from looking
at the Wikipedia page that sane implementations are all generally
going to look that way.
My 2c.
Hen
On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 9:28 PM, Chris Anderson <jc...@apache.org> wrote:
> Legal folks,
>
> CouchDB has a potential contribution that's raised some interesting questions.
>
> We currently rely on Erlang's crypto libraries (which use OpenSSL) but
> our contributor Jonathan couldn't get them to build on an embedded
> device. He wrote a native Erlang replacement library, based on the
> algorithms as shown on Wikipedia.
>
> There's a case to be made that this is just fine and Jonathan can
> grant us this code under the Apache license. There's also a case that
> Wikipedia's license applies, so we can't accept the contribution. The
> alternative would be to have someone do a port based on APR or another
> known safe source.
>
> The patch and ticket are here:
>
> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-625
>
> There is a dev@ discussion of licensing here:
>
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/couchdb-dev/201001.mbox/%3c3D7E6279-A9B8-4EAA-BDA6-F62E4E1DB3BA@bbc.co.uk%3e
>
> We're looking for anyone who can shed light on this grey area.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Chris Anderson
> http://jchrisa.net
> http://couch.io
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: legal-discuss-unsubscribe@apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: legal-discuss-help@apache.org
>
>
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