Occasionally I visit Ohloh.net to satisfy my stats addiction.
One of the things Ohloh analyses in the source code is license information[1]. On the Ohloh MediaWiki page[2] an analysis summary is displayed. It contains the following warnings (number of files added by me from [1]):
# Mozilla Public License 1.0 may conflict with GPL (253 files) # PHP License may conflict with GPL (7 files) # Apache Software License may conflict with GPL (1 file) # Artistic License may conflict with GPL (7 files) # Common Development and Distribution License may conflict with GPL (1 file) # Apache License 2.0 may conflict with GPL (7 files)
I am wondering if any of these warnings can really point out a licensing issue. If they do, I think we need to persue this, and get it sorted out.
Anyone who can shed some light on this?
Cheers! Siebrand
[1] http://www.ohloh.net/p/mediawiki/analyses/latest [2] http://www.ohloh.net/p/mediawiki
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Siebrand Mazeland:
Anyone who can shed some light on this?
the report is pretty useless, since it doesn't seem to tell which files are covered by which licenses. apart from that, it seems to cover the entire repository, which is quite different from "MediaWiki". just because there's some unrelated code in SVN covered by the CDDL doesn't mean it conflicts with MW's license.
- river.
Siebrand Mazeland wrote:
Occasionally I visit Ohloh.net to satisfy my stats addiction.
One of the things Ohloh analyses in the source code is license information[1]. On the Ohloh MediaWiki page[2] an analysis summary is displayed. It contains the following warnings (number of files added by me from [1]):
# Mozilla Public License 1.0 may conflict with GPL (253 files) # PHP License may conflict with GPL (7 files) # Apache Software License may conflict with GPL (1 file) # Artistic License may conflict with GPL (7 files) # Common Development and Distribution License may conflict with GPL (1 file) # Apache License 2.0 may conflict with GPL (7 files)
I am wondering if any of these warnings can really point out a licensing issue. If they do, I think we need to persue this, and get it sorted out.
Anyone who can shed some light on this?
The GPL restriction on linking with non-GPL code is irrelevant for a non-compiled language, when all we're distributing is the source code. I could find nothing in the GPL that contradicts this interpretation.
Even for mixed-license projects written in C, it's legal to distribute the source code, just not the compiled binaries.
-- Tim Starling
On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
The GPL restriction on linking with non-GPL code is irrelevant for a non-compiled language, when all we're distributing is the source code. I could find nothing in the GPL that contradicts this interpretation.
Even for mixed-license projects written in C, it's legal to distribute the source code, just not the compiled binaries.
If that is infact the case then its a bug that should be fixed in a later version of the license. GPL is intended to be copyleft. You ought not be able to make material enhancements to the internals of copylefted software under a non-copyleft license. If the fact that PHP is conventionally used as 'source' dodges the restriction in the GPL thats an oversight.
If the intention is for mediawiki to not be copylefted, why is it using the GPL at all? Better to not rely on a dodgy corner case of the license.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
If the intention is for mediawiki to not be copylefted, why is it using the GPL at all? Better to not rely on a dodgy corner case of the license.
I suppose you mean copyleft as in the viral clause, thus excluding BSD-style licenses and PD. Lee Daniel Crocker and Erik Moeller explicitly gave all their work on MediaWiki to PD, and I prefer a less restrictive license for new projects. Copyleft isn't "the intention", it's the lowest common denominator. All direct contributors are happy for their work to be distributed under the GPL, and many are happy for it to be distributed without any restriction. Many indirect contributors have a similar policy.
FCKEditor, for example, seems to be the source of most of the reported 253 MPL files. But its standard file header is actually a multiple licensing statement, with GPL, LGPL and MPL.
A PHP license header is put on the top of PHP extension files automatically by the skeleton generator, complete with a bogus copyright claim "Copyright (c) 1997-2003 The PHP Group". It generally doesn't reflect a deliberate choice by the author.
I haven't been able to find the purported Apache License, Artistic License or CDDL files.
The GPL, being by far the most restrictive free license, seems to be for people who have reservations about giving their code away. The GPL seeks to maintain a sense of ownership and control, by restricting many kinds of derivative reuse and by mandating attribution. I'm not going to be bullied into making it my preferred license for new code.
-- Tim Starling
On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
The GPL, being by far the most restrictive free license, seems to be for people who have reservations about giving their code away. The GPL seeks to maintain a sense of ownership and control, by restricting many kinds of derivative reuse and by mandating attribution. I'm not going to be bullied into making it my preferred license for new code.
Well, it would be nice if you at least specified the license. ImageMap, for instance, has no license specified at all. Presumably it's intended to be licensed under something that's at least GPL-compatible, but it's not clear what. This is problematic given that other people have modified it, and how they intended to license their contributions isn't necessarily clear if there's no license anywhere in the text of the code. I can't see any good reason to not specify a license.
Aryeh Gregor wrote:
On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
The GPL, being by far the most restrictive free license, seems to be for people who have reservations about giving their code away. The GPL seeks to maintain a sense of ownership and control, by restricting many kinds of derivative reuse and by mandating attribution. I'm not going to be bullied into making it my preferred license for new code.
Well, it would be nice if you at least specified the license. ImageMap, for instance, has no license specified at all. Presumably it's intended to be licensed under something that's at least GPL-compatible, but it's not clear what. This is problematic given that other people have modified it, and how they intended to license their contributions isn't necessarily clear if there's no license anywhere in the text of the code. I can't see any good reason to not specify a license.
I haven't yet found a license that I like enough to support in that way. Here's a statement of my position on licenses:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Tim_Starling#Source_code_license
-- Tim Starling
2009/3/28 Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org:
The GPL restriction on linking with non-GPL code is irrelevant for a non-compiled language, when all we're distributing is the source code. I could find nothing in the GPL that contradicts this interpretation.
Even for mixed-license projects written in C, it's legal to distribute the source code, just not the compiled binaries.
I would say RMS would think otherwise. I guess http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-und... is quite similar.
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]
On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Siebrand Mazeland s.mazeland@xs4all.nl wrote:
One of the things Ohloh analyses in the source code is license information[1]. On the Ohloh MediaWiki page[2] an analysis summary is displayed. It contains the following warnings (number of files added by me from [1]):
# Mozilla Public License 1.0 may conflict with GPL (253 files) # PHP License may conflict with GPL (7 files) # Apache Software License may conflict with GPL (1 file) # Artistic License may conflict with GPL (7 files) # Common Development and Distribution License may conflict with GPL (1 file) # Apache License 2.0 may conflict with GPL (7 files)
Is it including all of trunk/ here, or just trunk/phase3/? There's almost certain to be no problem if it covers all of trunk; it's probably random tools that aren't directly connected to MediaWiki. It doesn't seem to say what it thinks the conflict is . . .
On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
The GPL restriction on linking with non-GPL code is irrelevant for a non-compiled language, when all we're distributing is the source code. I could find nothing in the GPL that contradicts this interpretation.
The license doesn't contain the word "link" anywhere in it, and draws no distinction between compiled and interpreted code (except that you have to provide the source code regardless). Section 2 of the GPLv2 states "You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions . . .". No modification or distribution of modifications (in source or binary form) is allowed except under the terms of that section. Moreover, it goes on to say:
"These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it."
I.e., as long as we're distributing the whole thing as MediaWiki, it all has to be GPL-compatible, whether released in source form or binary form. If there are some bits that have more *lenient* licenses, that's okay, but you can't have terms that prohibit you from distributing them under the GPL.
Note that our README file has long stated that all modifications (including extensions) must be GPL-compatible:
"The contributors hold the copyright to this work, and it is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later[1] (see http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html). Derivative works and later versions of the code must be free software licensed under the same or a compatible license. This includes "extensions" that use MediaWiki functions or variables; see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins for details."
Even for mixed-license projects written in C, it's legal to distribute the source code, just not the compiled binaries.
This doesn't appear to be the case from my reading of the license, or of the FSF's FAQ on it. The only additional requirement for binaries is that you have to provide source code as well.
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