Re: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

Thomas S Hatch

6 Feb 2011 6 Feb '11

7:38 p.m.

Eric Waller wrote:

...
I am not a lawyer and I generally tune out all license flame wars. That said, PKGBUILDS generally do not contain copyright or license declarations. Unless I am mistaken, that means someone who comes into possession of a PKGBUILD does not have the right to republish it.

As a minimum, I think Arch should get a nod from the creator of a PKGBUILD prior to absorbing it into the colective -- It might help avoid any misunderstandings.

What is the legal status of files submitted to the AUR? I have always assumed that anything uploaded to the AUR is automatically licensed under the GPL or something similar, in the same way that content contributed to the wiki is.

I can't find anything that states this on the AUR site, which is a

You raise a good point, I would think that we would need to post something on the submit page stating the copyright nature. My brothers are lawyers, I will check with them as to what the right thing to do is. -Thomas S Hatch On Feb 6, 2011 10:49 AM, "Xyne" wrote: potentially

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calamitous legal oversight.

The legal issue should be cleared up. If we needed to obtain explicit permission from every contributor then the AUR would cease to be useful. You would not be able to adopt and update PKGBUILDs without permission, and you would need to enable users to delete their own PKGBUILDs when they decide to withdraw permission.

Show replies by date

Ray Rashif

6 Feb 6 Feb

8:47 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On 7 February 2011 02:38, Thomas S Hatch wrote:

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You raise a good point, I would think that we would need to post something on the submit page stating the copyright nature. My brothers are lawyers, I will check with them as to what the right thing to do is.

...
Eric Waller wrote:

...
I am not a lawyer and I generally tune out all license flame wars. That said, PKGBUILDS generally do not contain copyright or license declarations. Unless I am mistaken, that means someone who comes into possession of a PKGBUILD does not have the right to republish it.

As a minimum, I think Arch should get a nod from the creator of a PKGBUILD prior to absorbing it into the colective -- It might help avoid any misunderstandings.

What is the legal status of files submitted to the AUR? I have always assumed that anything uploaded to the AUR is automatically licensed under the GPL or something similar, in the same way that content contributed to the wiki is.

I can't find anything that states this on the AUR site, which is a

-Thomas S Hatch On Feb 6, 2011 10:49 AM, "Xyne" wrote: potentially

...
calamitous legal oversight.

The legal issue should be cleared up. If we needed to obtain explicit permission from every contributor then the AUR would cease to be useful. You would not be able to adopt and update PKGBUILDs without permission, and you would need to enable users to delete their own PKGBUILDs when they decide to withdraw permission.

Err..it is as relaxed as the wiki. I don't see why any question about ownership should arise. If someone wants to claim ownership and not be willing to share then so be it (don't even upload to AUR then). She will have a bad reputation, not our problem.

Cédric Girard

8:58 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 8:47 PM, Ray Rashif wrote:

...

Err..it is as relaxed as the wiki. I don't see why any question about ownership should arise. If someone wants to claim ownership and not be willing to share then so be it (don't even upload to AUR then). She will have a bad reputation, not our problem.

You can't say that. If someone decide to claim ownership to the PKGBUILD he wrote and nothing has been done to clear the ownership issue before, the reputation of this guy would be the last thing to worry about for Arch Linux. Considering the wiki, it is clearly stated as being under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2. Regards, -- Cédric Girard

Ray Rashif

9:20 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

2011/2/7 Cédric Girard :

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On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 8:47 PM, Ray Rashif wrote:

...
Err..it is as relaxed as the wiki. I don't see why any question about ownership should arise. If someone wants to claim ownership and not be willing to share then so be it (don't even upload to AUR then). She will have a bad reputation, not our problem.

You can't say that. If someone decide to claim ownership to the PKGBUILD he wrote and nothing has been done to clear the ownership issue before, the reputation of this guy would be the last thing to worry about for Arch Linux.

Considering the wiki, it is clearly stated as being under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.

Sorry, bad comparison, then. I'm not really sure what to compare it with. We've never had to talk about things like this before (so probably the time has come you would say). First of all, we've never had people claiming "rights" to PKGBUILDs.

Xyne

7 Feb 7 Feb

12:21 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

Ray Rashif wrote:

...

Sorry, bad comparison, then. I'm not really sure what to compare it with. We've never had to talk about things like this before (so probably the time has come you would say). First of all, we've never had people claiming "rights" to PKGBUILDs.

I agree that it is unlikely to be a problem, but the best thing to do is deal with the eventuality rather than continue with naive optimism. What needs to be done, imo: * decide on a permissive license or public domain for submitted files * add a clearly visible notification * add a note concerning the submission of files that cannot be redistributed, e.g. a copyrighted icon included in the upload * hope that no previous author ever shows up to claim copyright before the addition of the notice

Eric Waller

1:32 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

Well, I was reluctant to start this -- As I stated, I tend to tune out long philosophical license debates. I am pleased in reading this thread that we are all in violent agreement. Arch is good -- Sharing is good -- Protecting our community is good -- giving credit where credit is due is good. I am in favor of any mechanism that supports these. I am pleased with the rational, professional attitudes all the way around. Kudos to all...

Ray Rashif

2:33 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On 7 February 2011 07:21, Xyne wrote:

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Ray Rashif wrote:

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Sorry, bad comparison, then. I'm not really sure what to compare it with. We've never had to talk about things like this before (so probably the time has come you would say). First of all, we've never had people claiming "rights" to PKGBUILDs.

I agree that it is unlikely to be a problem, but the best thing to do is deal with the eventuality rather than continue with naive optimism.

What needs to be done, imo: * decide on a permissive license or public domain for submitted files * add a clearly visible notification * add a note concerning the submission of files that cannot be redistributed, e.g. a copyrighted icon included in the upload * hope that no previous author ever shows up to claim copyright before the addition of the notice

Here is what Gentoo does for all their official ebuilds [1]: # Copyright 1999-2011 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 This also appears in all third-party ebuilds [2], so I would assume one written by an individual and distributed by itself would contain this same license note. In order for something like this to work for Arch, aside from official and third-party repositories, the AUR needs to (1) reject PKGBUILDs without the license header, (2) inject the header to every submitted PKGBUILD, or (3) display a note and assume contributors will take the initiative. None of those appeal to me, personally, but as far as this subject is concerned I abstain :) [1] http://gentoo-portage.com/ [2] http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/List_of_overlays

Lukáš Jirkovský

11:06 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

I think Creative Commons is a good choice for PKGBUILDs in AUR. It can be almost as permissible as public domain while still valid in most jurisdictions (actually I don't know any where it isn't). Or on a less serious side WTFPL [1] or Poetic License [2] can be used [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL [2] http://genaud.net/2005/10/poetic-license/

Sebastian Wiesner

11:22 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

2011/2/7 Lukáš Jirkovský :

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I think Creative Commons is a good choice for PKGBUILDs in AUR. It can be almost as permissible as public domain while still valid in most jurisdictions (actually I don't know any where it isn't).

Creative Commons itself does not recommend CC licences for software [1], and – being written in bash – PKGBUILDs arguably qualify as "software". [1] http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Commons_license_for...

Lukáš Jirkovský

11:38 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On 7 February 2011 11:22, Sebastian Wiesner wrote:

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2011/2/7 Lukáš Jirkovský :

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I think Creative Commons is a good choice for PKGBUILDs in AUR. It can be almost as permissible as public domain while still valid in most jurisdictions (actually I don't know any where it isn't).

Creative Commons itself does not recommend CC licences for software [1], and – being written in bash – PKGBUILDs arguably qualify as "software".

[1] http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Commons_license_for...

I think most PKGBUILDs are too simple to be considered software. Even then the fact CC is not recommend for software doesn't mean it's prohibited. In my opinion the license should be as permissive as possible. Given the fact some already mentioned using public domain suggests I'm not the only one who thinks so. The problem is that public domain isn't valid in many jurisdictions. CC is. Lukas

Ray Rashif

11:58 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

2011/2/7 Lukáš Jirkovský :

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I think most PKGBUILDs are too simple to be considered software.

Simple or not, PKGBUILDs are scripts, and hence software. IMNSHO if you must apply a license to PKGBUILDs, it should be that of makepkg's OR the distribution's (for another distribution using makepkg and similar buildscripts they will have the copyright). Magnus Therming mentioned this on another thread, and I believe he makes a valid statement when he says the buildscripts are assumed to inherit GPL and so need no mention of it.

Lukáš Jirkovský

12:18 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On 7 February 2011 11:58, Ray Rashif wrote:

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2011/2/7 Lukáš Jirkovský :

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I think most PKGBUILDs are too simple to be considered software.

Simple or not, PKGBUILDs are scripts, and hence software.

I don't think it matters whether PKGBUILDs are software or not.

...

Magnus Therming mentioned this on another thread, and I believe he makes a valid statement when he says the buildscripts are assumed to inherit GPL and so need no mention of it.

That sounds to me like saying "all bash scripts have to be under GPL, because BASH is licensed under GPL".

Ray Rashif

12:23 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

2011/2/7 Lukáš Jirkovský :

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I don't think it matters whether PKGBUILDs are software or not.

It never did, but now it does :)

...

That sounds to me like saying "all bash scripts have to be under GPL, because BASH is licensed under GPL".

If you want to look at it that way, then sure.

Peter Lewis

12:59 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Monday 07 February 2011 11:23:01 Ray Rashif wrote:

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2011/2/7 Lukáš Jirkovský :

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I don't think it matters whether PKGBUILDs are software or not.

It never did, but now it does :)

...
That sounds to me like saying "all bash scripts have to be under GPL, because BASH is licensed under GPL".

If you want to look at it that way, then sure.

Yeah, I can't see that there's any such /requirement/ for PKGBUILDs to be GPL just because bash is, but it does make sense to me that they should be. Most other Arch owned stuff is GPL, right? This also avoids the need to transfer ownership of the copyright to Arch, although doing so would make it easier to (for example) relicence under GPL 4 or somesuch at a later date. The FSFE developed the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) just for this kind of thing: http://fsfe.org/projects/ftf/fla.en.html As an aside, I wonder how many people can really claim to be the original authors of the work in the PKGBUILD? I for sure usually copy and paste the software's build instructions from upstream's website or README, and then modify it to work with Arch / fit in the PKGBUILD functions. This sounds like derivative work anyway, to me. But then, which insane upstream person is going to put any restrictions on people sharing instructions for building their software? My vote would just be for using GPL or BSD for them (possibly with an FLA- style copyright assignment). GPL seems sensible, because everything else is GPL too. The problem with assigning ownership to Arch without an explicit agreement about how, is that technically Arch could then stop the submitter of the PKGBUILD from distributing what he wrote :-/ The FLA avoids this, AFAICT. Pete.

Magnus Therning

2:42 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 11:59, Peter Lewis wrote:

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On Monday 07 February 2011 11:23:01 Ray Rashif wrote:

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2011/2/7 Lukáš Jirkovský :

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I don't think it matters whether PKGBUILDs are software or not.

It never did, but now it does :)

...
That sounds to me like saying "all bash scripts have to be under GPL, because BASH is licensed under GPL".

If you want to look at it that way, then sure.

Yeah, I can't see that there's any such /requirement/ for PKGBUILDs to be GPL just because bash is, but it does make sense to me that they should be. Most other Arch owned stuff is GPL, right?

My argument, or rather food for thought, was that PKGBUILDs are modules for makepkg; they intimately integrate with makepkg so far as that they aren't useful without it (or a complete re-implementation of its API). Not completely the same, but still similar to how kernel modules integrate with the kernel. There are no easily drawn lines in such an argument though, so I think it would be better to explicitly state the license in the individual PKGBUILDs.

...

This also avoids the need to transfer ownership of the copyright to Arch, although doing so would make it easier to (for example) relicence under GPL 4 or somesuch at a later date. The FSFE developed the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) just for this kind of thing:

Transferring copyright ownership is complicated and is likely to just add a barrier for people who want to contribute. I think it'd be deeply ironic if Arch/AUR required people to transfer copyright in order to contribute to a distro that held KISS as its most important principle :-) /M -- Magnus Therning OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4 email: magnus@therning.org jabber: magnus@therning.org twitter: magthe http://therning.org/magnus

PyroPeter

3:09 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On 02/07/2011 11:06 AM, Lukáš Jirkovský wrote:

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I think Creative Commons is a good choice for PKGBUILDs in AUR. It can be almost as permissible as public domain while still valid in most jurisdictions (actually I don't know any where it isn't).

There is a CC-license that waives all rights, and thus is pretty near to the public domain. (But works in every jurisdiction) http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ Regards, PyroPeter -- freenode/pyropeter ETAOIN SHRDLU

Bernardo Barros

12:13 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

2011/2/6 Ray Rashif :

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# Copyright 1999-2011 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

But Arch is a legal entity? Can we put "Arch" as the copyright holder?

Bernardo Barros

12:15 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

2011/2/7 Bernardo Barros :

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2011/2/6 Ray Rashif :

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# Copyright 1999-2011 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

But Arch is a legal entity? Can we put "Arch" as the copyright holder?

Whoever name is there, GPL seems just right, I think.

Xyne

10 Feb 10 Feb

12:28 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On 2011-02-07 09:13 -0200 (06:1) Bernardo Barros wrote:

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2011/2/6 Ray Rashif :

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# Copyright 1999-2011 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

But Arch is a legal entity? Can we put "Arch" as the copyright holder?

That would make it possible for Arch to prevent packagers from distributing their own packages. It would almost certainly never happen, but naive optimism is a bad thing. I have seen OSS projects sell out to corporations before. That's also why I remove the "or any later version" clause from anything that I release under the GPL. No one can guarantee that there will never be a major loophole in a future version, or that all future versions will be in the same spirit.

Michael Schubert

1:25 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

I think there is one issue most people are overlooking: licensing is *not* the same as ownership. Ownership allows you to release your code under any license you want and other users are able to use it under the terms of the license. Do not make the error of wanting to transfer ownership instead of just a license release. Also, I fully agree with Peter Lewis' sentiments 2 posts ago: it is dull, but important to get right. Adding to that, a license on an individual PKGBUILD may not be enforcable (since it is unlikely to reach the complexity threshold), however, given the vast amount of scripts in the AUR database as a whole, they will be. Thus I would propose an "uploads are licensed under [...]" next to the submit button, which should sufficiently cover the issue. My general thoughts: - PKGBUILDs should be freely distributable - Attribution of the previous authors should be mandatory - Commercial exploitation (i.e., using/modifying without giving anything back) should not be possible These points are all covered by the GPL. Plus it would be simple since most of Arch is already under that license. BSD won't cover the third. Public domain won't cover points 2 and 3. Thus, I think GPL would be the (only) right choice. 2011/2/10 Xyne

...

On 2011-02-07 09:13 -0200 (06:1) Bernardo Barros wrote:

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2011/2/6 Ray Rashif :

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# Copyright 1999-2011 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

But Arch is a legal entity? Can we put "Arch" as the copyright holder?

That would make it possible for Arch to prevent packagers from distributing their own packages. It would almost certainly never happen, but naive optimism is a bad thing. I have seen OSS projects sell out to corporations before.

That's also why I remove the "or any later version" clause from anything that I release under the GPL. No one can guarantee that there will never be a major loophole in a future version, or that all future versions will be in the same spirit.

Smartboy

2:01 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

...

I think there is one issue most people are overlooking: licensing is *not* the same as ownership. Ownership allows you to release your code under any license you want and other users are able to use it under the terms of the license. Do not make the error of wanting to transfer ownership instead of just a license release.

Also, I fully agree with Peter Lewis' sentiments 2 posts ago: it is dull, but important to get right.

Adding to that, a license on an individual PKGBUILD may not be enforcable (since it is unlikely to reach the complexity threshold), however, given the vast amount of scripts in the AUR database as a whole, they will be. Thus I would propose an "uploads are licensed under [...]" next to the submit button, which should sufficiently cover the issue.

My general thoughts: - PKGBUILDs should be freely distributable - Attribution of the previous authors should be mandatory - Commercial exploitation (i.e., using/modifying without giving anything back) should not be possible

These points are all covered by the GPL. Plus it would be simple since most of Arch is already under that license. BSD won't cover the third. Public domain won't cover points 2 and 3. Thus, I think GPL would be the (only) right choice.

2011/2/10 Xyne

...
On 2011-02-07 09:13 -0200 (06:1) Bernardo Barros wrote:

...
...
# Copyright 1999-2011 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 But Arch is a legal entity? Can we put "Arch" as the copyright holder? That would make it possible for Arch to prevent packagers from distributing

2011/2/6 Ray Rashif: their own packages. It would almost certainly never happen, but naive optimism is a bad thing. I have seen OSS projects sell out to corporations before.

That's also why I remove the "or any later version" clause from anything that I release under the GPL. No one can guarantee that there will never be a major loophole in a future version, or that all future versions will be in the same spirit.

What I do not like about the GPL is that it forces people to republish derivative works under the GPL license, rather than under another

On 02/10/2011 04:25 AM, Michael Schubert wrote: license. As long as the maintainer (aka copyright holder) are allowed to specify their own license then I'd be fine with it, though. Smartboy

Michael Schubert

2:17 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

...

As long as the maintainer (aka copyright holder) are allowed to specify their own license then I'd be fine with it, though.

Copyright holders are always allowed to publish their work under any additional license. No issue there. 2011/2/10 Smartboy

...

On 02/10/2011 04:25 AM, Michael Schubert wrote:

...
I think there is one issue most people are overlooking: licensing is *not* the same as ownership. Ownership allows you to release your code under any license you want and other users are able to use it under the terms of the license. Do not make the error of wanting to transfer ownership instead of just a license release.

Also, I fully agree with Peter Lewis' sentiments 2 posts ago: it is dull, but important to get right.

Adding to that, a license on an individual PKGBUILD may not be enforcable (since it is unlikely to reach the complexity threshold), however, given the vast amount of scripts in the AUR database as a whole, they will be. Thus I would propose an "uploads are licensed under [...]" next to the submit button, which should sufficiently cover the issue.

My general thoughts: - PKGBUILDs should be freely distributable - Attribution of the previous authors should be mandatory - Commercial exploitation (i.e., using/modifying without giving anything back) should not be possible

These points are all covered by the GPL. Plus it would be simple since most of Arch is already under that license. BSD won't cover the third. Public domain won't cover points 2 and 3. Thus, I think GPL would be the (only) right choice.

2011/2/10 Xyne

...
Bernardo Barros wrote:

2011/2/6 Ray Rashif:

...
...
# Copyright 1999-2011 Gentoo Foundation # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

But Arch is a legal entity? Can we put "Arch" as the copyright holder?

That would make it possible for Arch to prevent packagers from distributing their own packages. It would almost certainly never happen, but naive optimism is a bad thing. I have seen OSS projects sell out to corporations before.

That's also why I remove the "or any later version" clause from anything that I release under the GPL. No one can guarantee that there will never be a major loophole in a future version, or that all future versions will be in the same spirit.

What I do not like about the GPL is that it forces people to republish derivative works under the GPL license, rather than under another license. As long as the maintainer (aka copyright holder) are allowed to specify

On 2011-02-07 09:13 -0200 (06:1) their own license then I'd be fine with it, though.

Smartboy

Pierre Chapuis

11 Feb 11 Feb

5:42 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:17:29 +0000, Michael Schubert wrote:

...

...
As long as the maintainer (aka copyright holder) are allowed to specify their own license then I'd be fine with it, though.

Copyright holders are always allowed to publish their work under any additional license. No issue there.

Well, except when you adopt a package. Then there are two copyright holders and things get ugly. I think this discussion is pointless anyway: PKGBUILDs are build recipes, not code. They usually do not contain enough information to be license-able. So even if someone stuck a copy of the GPL at the top of a PKGBUILD I would simply ignore it, because he had no right to put a license on "./configure; make; make install" or something similar in the first place. -- Pierre 'catwell' Chapuis

Ronald van Haren

6:45 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

Op 11 feb. 2011 17:35 schreef "Pierre Chapuis" het volgende:

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On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:17:29 +0000, Michael Schubert

...

...
...
As long as the maintainer (aka copyright holder) are allowed to specify

their

...
own license then I'd be fine with it, though.

Copyright holders are always allowed to publish their work under any additional license. No issue there.

Well, except when you adopt a package. Then there are two copyright holders and things get ugly.

I think this discussion is pointless anyway: PKGBUILDs are build recipes, not code. They usually do not contain enough information to be

wrote: license-able.

...

So even if someone stuck a copy of the GPL at the top of a PKGBUILD I would simply ignore it, because he had no right to put a license on "./configure; make; make install" or something similar in the first place.

-- Pierre 'catwell' Chapuis

I agree, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to license a few simple build instructions. Applied patches could be licensed but they should be compatible with the original license of the package. If someone adds a license to a PKGBUILD I woukd just simply rewrite it from scratch. It is not that it is very difficult in almost all of the cases. Ronald

Thomas S Hatch

6:58 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

My understanding was that PKGBUILDs in the Arch distribution would fall under the same licence as Arch, and be part of the larger Arch Linux codebase. With that said, I think that this can be resolved with a statement on the AUR submit page that simply reads: Any package information submitted to the Arch Linux AUR can be included in the main Arch Linux distribution at any time as deemed proper by an Arch Linux Developer or Trusted User. By submitting package information to the Arch Linux AUR you agree to the aforementioned possibility. Or something to that effect, licencing the individual PKGBUILDS will end in tears and legal madness, it will be a long term disaster! We just need the users to understand that if their stuff is awesome, we will most likely use it. And that Arch reserves the right to use it. -Thomas S Hatch

Michael Witten

7 Feb 7 Feb

3:28 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 14:20, Ray Rashif wrote:

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2011/2/7 Cédric Girard :

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On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 8:47 PM, Ray Rashif wrote:

...
Err..it is as relaxed as the wiki. I don't see why any question about ownership should arise. If someone wants to claim ownership and not be willing to share then so be it (don't even upload to AUR then). She will have a bad reputation, not our problem.

You can't say that. If someone decide to claim ownership to the PKGBUILD he wrote and nothing has been done to clear the ownership issue before, the reputation of this guy would be the last thing to worry about for Arch Linux.

Considering the wiki, it is clearly stated as being under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.

Sorry, bad comparison, then. I'm not really sure what to compare it with. We've never had to talk about things like this before (so probably the time has come you would say). First of all, we've never had people claiming "rights" to PKGBUILDs.

See my gcc-svn PKGBUILD: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24849 Nobody likes it anyway, so who cares! :-)

Kaiting Chen

4:29 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Michael Witten wrote:

...

See my gcc-svn PKGBUILD:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24849

Nobody likes it anyway, so who cares! :-)

Dude please don't try to make any policy decisions on your own. We still haven't decided what the policy will be regarding PKGBUILD licenses uploaded to the AUR. --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/

Michael Witten

8:47 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 09:29, Kaiting Chen wrote:

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On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Michael Witten wrote:

...
See my gcc-svn PKGBUILD:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24849

Nobody likes it anyway, so who cares! :-)

Dude please don't try to make any policy decisions on your own. We still haven't decided what the policy will be regarding PKGBUILD licenses uploaded to the AUR. --Kaiting.

I made that decision nearly 2 years ago, long before any of you even thought of starting this discussion. Besides, I was merely providing a counterexample to Ray Rashif's statement: 'First of all, we've never had people claiming "rights" to PKGBUILDs.'

Ray Rashif

8:52 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On 8 February 2011 03:47, Michael Witten wrote:

...

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 09:29, Kaiting Chen wrote:

...
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Michael Witten wrote:

...
See my gcc-svn PKGBUILD:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24849

Nobody likes it anyway, so who cares! :-)

Dude please don't try to make any policy decisions on your own. We still haven't decided what the policy will be regarding PKGBUILD licenses uploaded to the AUR. --Kaiting.

I made that decision nearly 2 years ago, long before any of you even thought of starting this discussion.

Besides, I was merely providing a counterexample to Ray Rashif's statement: 'First of all, we've never had people claiming "rights" to PKGBUILDs.'

But you kept quiet, you see. That's the point.

Gordon JC Pearce

8 Feb 8 Feb

8:36 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Mon, 2011-02-07 at 13:47 -0600, Michael Witten wrote:

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On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 09:29, Kaiting Chen wrote:

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On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Michael Witten wrote:

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See my gcc-svn PKGBUILD:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24849

Nobody likes it anyway, so who cares! :-)

Dude please don't try to make any policy decisions on your own. We still haven't decided what the policy will be regarding PKGBUILD licenses uploaded to the AUR. --Kaiting.

I made that decision nearly 2 years ago, long before any of you even thought of starting this discussion.

Besides, I was merely providing a counterexample to Ray Rashif's statement: 'First of all, we've never had people claiming "rights" to PKGBUILDs.'

I'm going to jump in and say that you may consider any of my PKGBUILDs to be under the WTFPL (google it, text may not be worksafe if they object to Anglo-Saxon epithets. I'm sure you get the idea). Gordon MM0YEQ

Kaiting Chen

6:03 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 2:36 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:

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I'm going to jump in and say that you may consider any of my PKGBUILDs to be under the WTFPL (google it, text may not be worksafe if they object to Anglo-Saxon epithets. I'm sure you get the idea).

Speaking of which I never understood how it was possible for a jurisdiction to not have the concept of a 'public domain' (thus necessitating the WTFPL). For example, where does a patented process go after the expiration of the patent? Oh and once again I vote we public domain (or as close as possible) all PKGBUILD's in the AUR. And one last point I want to bring up. Often PKGBUILD's are distributed with patches or other works not written by the author of the PKGBUILD. I'm not an expert but it seems to me that the license on the PKGBUILD would have to be compatible with the license on each such bundled work. --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/

Felix Kaiser

7:42 p.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On 02/08/2011 06:03 PM, Kaiting Chen wrote:

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On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 2:36 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:

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I'm going to jump in and say that you may consider any of my PKGBUILDs to be under the WTFPL (google it, text may not be worksafe if they object to Anglo-Saxon epithets. I'm sure you get the idea).

Speaking of which I never understood how it was possible for a jurisdiction to not have the concept of a 'public domain' (thus necessitating the WTFPL). For example, where does a patented process go after the expiration of the patent?

Oh and once again I vote we public domain (or as close as possible) all PKGBUILD's in the AUR.

And one last point I want to bring up. Often PKGBUILD's are distributed with patches or other works not written by the author of the PKGBUILD. I'm not an expert but it seems to me that the license on the PKGBUILD would have to be compatible with the license on each such bundled work. --Kaiting.

For example, here in Germany, there is a public domain where things go if their copyright expires or they don't reach the threshold of originality. You just can't waive your rights and release something into it directly. How is this possible? Well: someone sat down and wrote a law. (Note that patents and copyright don't have much to do with each other, I'm talking about copyright here. There are no software patents here.) WRT licenses, I too think BSD would be a good choice for obvious reasons (permissive, short/simple, widely used, unversioned, compatible to most other licenses). That is, if we need a license at all. This licensing stuff always gets in the way, I wish there was a way we could avoid it. I am not a lawyer. Felix

Peter Lewis

9 Feb 9 Feb

10:35 a.m.

New subject: [aur-general] AUR & Copyright

On Tuesday 08 February 2011 18:42:15 Felix Kaiser wrote:

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WRT licenses, I too think BSD would be a good choice for obvious reasons (permissive, short/simple, widely used, unversioned, compatible to most other licenses). That is, if we need a license at all. This licensing stuff always gets in the way, I wish there was a way we could avoid it.

I agree that it can be a bit dull, but "this licensing stuff" is what has given all this wonderful software and it's usually worth getting it right. Some very clever people had quite a bit of foresight when they designed (e.g.) the GPL, in my opinion. Pete.

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participants (19)

Bernardo Barros
Cédric Girard
Eric Waller
Felix Kaiser
Gordon JC Pearce
Kaiting Chen
Lukáš Jirkovský
Magnus Therning
Michael Schubert
Michael Witten
Peter Lewis
Pierre Chapuis
PyroPeter
Ray Rashif
Ronald van Haren
Sebastian Wiesner
Smartboy
Thomas S Hatch
Xyne