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GNU LibreJS blocks several Javascript sources around Wikipedia. I was sent to this list by Kirk Billund. My issue as well as Kirk's replies follows. I hope you are okay to read it in this form.
03/05/2013 11:16 - Alexander Berntsen wrote:
GNU LibreJs[0] reports that several of the Javascript sources embedded by different parts of Wikipedia are proprietary[1]. Is this a conscious anti-social choice[2], or have you merely not set up your source files to properly show their licence[3]?
If the latter is the case, please remedy this. If the former is the case... please remedy this. It is extremely important.[4] In any event I hope to get a reply, as the distinction is important to me.
[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware
[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html
[3] https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.html
[4] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html
On 05/03/13 11:38, Wikipedia information team wrote:
All of the MediaWiki[1] code base that Wikipedia is licensed under the GPL[2], including the JavaScript. Also included in that is the freely-licensed (MIT) jQuery[3] library. However some code is actually written by the invidual users, like English Wikipedia's custom javascript[4], which is licensed as CC-BY-SA-3.0 since all content pages are automatically licensed that way[5].
Additionally, our JavaScript is minified[6] so adding comments is not possible. If you have further concerns, you can either respond to me, email the general Wikimedia technical list[7] or a general Mediawiki help list[8].
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/License [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.js [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights [6] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ResourceLoader [7] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l [8] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
03/05/2013 11:16 - Alexander Berntsen wrote:
Is it not possible to insert the licence as part of your build process? What I do with compiled or minified Javascript is to build everything, and then insert the licence to all files using BASH.
On 05/03/13 12:41, Wikipedia information team wrote:
Unfortunately I don't fully understand how the minification process works, so it would probably be better if you asked your question on our technical mailing list https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l and someone there would be able to give you a more specific answer.
- -- Alexander alexander@plaimi.net http://plaimi.net/~alexander
If you mean that we have to insert that huge chunk of comments from [1] into every page, the answer is no because we'll have to include several licenses here, making it ridiculously long. All JS run on Wikimedia sites is free, and if some software believes otherwise, that software needs to be fixed.
----- [1] http://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.html
On 05.03.2013, 15:56 Alexander wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
GNU LibreJS blocks several Javascript sources around Wikipedia. I was sent to this list by Kirk Billund. My issue as well as Kirk's replies follows. I hope you are okay to read it in this form.
03/05/2013 11:16 - Alexander Berntsen wrote:
GNU LibreJs[0] reports that several of the Javascript sources embedded by different parts of Wikipedia are proprietary[1]. Is this a conscious anti-social choice[2], or have you merely not set up your source files to properly show their licence[3]?
If the latter is the case, please remedy this. If the former is the case... please remedy this. It is extremely important.[4] In any event I hope to get a reply, as the distinction is important to me.
[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware
[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html
[3] https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.html
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On 05/03/13 13:18, Max Semenik wrote:
If you mean that we have to insert that huge chunk of comments from [1] into every page, the answer is no because we'll have to include several licenses here, making it ridiculously long.
Please see the JavaScript Web Labels section of the article[0]. Is this a possibility?
All JS run on Wikimedia sites is free, and if some software believes otherwise, that software needs to be fixed.
Do you have ideas on how to fix it?
[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/free-your-javascript.html - -- Alexander alexander@plaimi.net http://plaimi.net/~alexander
On 05/03/13 14:07, Alexander Berntsen wrote:
On 05/03/13 13:18, Max Semenik wrote:
If you mean that we have to insert that huge chunk of comments from [1] into every page, the answer is no because we'll have to include several licenses here, making it ridiculously long.
Please see the JavaScript Web Labels section of the article[0]. Is this a possibility?
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/javascript-labels.html
Yes, it would be. I expect the generated page to be insanely huge, but if LibreJS loads a page so big that blocks your browser, it's not our fault at all :)
I see however that it tries to confirm that the source js matches the minified version, which may be quite hard.
Furthermore, the resourceloader can multiple modules in one request, producing apparently different urls, so if we had to create all possible urls, expect a factorial growth.
On 5 March 2013 11:56, Alexander Berntsen alexander@plaimi.net wrote:
03/05/2013 11:16 - Alexander Berntsen wrote:
GNU LibreJs[0] reports that several of the Javascript sources embedded by different parts of Wikipedia are proprietary[1]. Is this a conscious anti-social choice[2], or have you merely not set up your source files to properly show their licence[3]?
Yeah, calling people antisocial when you ask them for something is definitely the approach to take. Let us know how it works out for GNU LibreJS.
- d.
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On 05/03/13 14:38, David Gerard wrote:
Yeah, calling people antisocial when you ask them for something is definitely the approach to take. Let us know how it works out for GNU LibreJS.
I did not call anyone antisocial. Furthermore I am not affiliated with GNU LibreJS. - -- Alexander alexander@plaimi.net http://plaimi.net/~alexander
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 8:56 AM, Alexander Berntsen alexander@plaimi.net wrote:
On 05/03/13 11:38, Wikipedia information team wrote:
All of the MediaWiki[1] code base that Wikipedia is licensed under the GPL[2], including the JavaScript. Also included in that is the freely-licensed (MIT) jQuery[3] library. However some code is actually written by the invidual users, like English Wikipedia's custom javascript[4], which is licensed as CC-BY-SA-3.0 since all content pages are automatically licensed that way[5].
Is that really the case? See e.g.: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2012/08#Does...
Helder
On 3/5/13 5:53 AM, Helder . wrote:
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 8:56 AM, Alexander Berntsen alexander@plaimi.net wrote:
On 05/03/13 11:38, Wikipedia information team wrote:
All of the MediaWiki[1] code base that Wikipedia is licensed under the GPL[2], including the JavaScript. Also included in that is the freely-licensed (MIT) jQuery[3] library. However some code is actually written by the invidual users, like English Wikipedia's custom javascript[4], which is licensed as CC-BY-SA-3.0 since all content pages are automatically licensed that way[5].
Is that really the case? See e.g.: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2012/08#Does...
Yes, that's really the case. We took JSMin out of MediaWiki because of it's stupid evil license.
Ryan Kaldari
On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 12:56:23PM +0100, Alexander Berntsen wrote:
GNU LibreJS blocks several Javascript sources around Wikipedia. I was sent to this list by Kirk Billund. My issue as well as Kirk's replies follows. I hope you are okay to read it in this form.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36866
We have this issue reported, it's on our radar, and I, at least, intend to fix it in the future.
The user JavaScript and CSS might be an issue. I'm not sure how to handle that. I guess we could indicate in the license headers that some parts of the code are under the CC-BY-SA license, or whatever is set to the default license for the wiki. That should be possible, if not trivial.
The minification process, however, does *not* cause a problem. We can simply add the comments to the file(s) after the minification. It does mean we'll need to include, potentially, multiple license headers in one HTTP response, but that shouldn't cause much issue. Alternatively we could use a "mixed" license header, and link to the texts of multiple licenses, or link to multiple files' source code.
See the linked bug (above) for more discussion of the technical problems presented, and a few proposed suggestions. It looks like the best way to do it would be the "bang comment" syntax, suggested by Timo (Krinkle), which would allow each script to be tagged on its own, and that way each script authour would be responsible for their own licensing.
I hope that helps, and that the bug discussion is a little more kind than wikitech has seemed :)
I don't see the purpose of adding a licence string back on to JavaScript post-minification. Any recipient wanting to create a derivative work or redistribute those files is going to go back to the much more readable source files.
It would be good form to add licence information to all the JS files in the same way we do for all the PHP files. Many or all of them are missing that now. Given they have a consistent licence, making that clear in each file is just grunt work.
I don't see the need for that to survive minificaiton though. If somebody wants to auto verify licence status with software, they can run it on the original JS source before it get's minified. As others have implied regardless of whether you think satisfying the FSF is important, satisfying an automated tool is a concern that can be delegated to the tool owner.
The licence status of on wiki user JavaScript is a separate issue, and possibly much more complicated. CC-BY-SA-3.0 is not an ideal licence for software, and it seems likely that there will be code pasted into some user JavaScript pages that is licensed under an incompatible licence.
Luke Welling
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Mark Holmquist mtraceur@member.fsf.orgwrote:
On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 12:56:23PM +0100, Alexander Berntsen wrote:
GNU LibreJS blocks several Javascript sources around Wikipedia. I was sent to this list by Kirk Billund. My issue as well as Kirk's replies follows. I hope you are okay to read it in this form.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36866
We have this issue reported, it's on our radar, and I, at least, intend to fix it in the future.
The user JavaScript and CSS might be an issue. I'm not sure how to handle that. I guess we could indicate in the license headers that some parts of the code are under the CC-BY-SA license, or whatever is set to the default license for the wiki. That should be possible, if not trivial.
The minification process, however, does *not* cause a problem. We can simply add the comments to the file(s) after the minification. It does mean we'll need to include, potentially, multiple license headers in one HTTP response, but that shouldn't cause much issue. Alternatively we could use a "mixed" license header, and link to the texts of multiple licenses, or link to multiple files' source code.
See the linked bug (above) for more discussion of the technical problems presented, and a few proposed suggestions. It looks like the best way to do it would be the "bang comment" syntax, suggested by Timo (Krinkle), which would allow each script to be tagged on its own, and that way each script authour would be responsible for their own licensing.
I hope that helps, and that the bug discussion is a little more kind than wikitech has seemed :)
-- Mark Holmquist Software Engineer Wikimedia Foundation mtraceur@member.fsf.org https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:MHolmquist
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 8:23 AM, Luke Welling WMF lwelling@wikimedia.org wrote:
I don't see the purpose of adding a licence string back on to JavaScript post-minification. Any recipient wanting to create a derivative work or redistribute those files is going to go back to the much more readable source files.
It would be good form to add licence information to all the JS files in the same way we do for all the PHP files. Many or all of them are missing that now. Given they have a consistent licence, making that clear in each file is just grunt work.
I don't see the need for that to survive minificaiton though. If somebody wants to auto verify licence status with software, they can run it on the original JS source before it get's minified. As others have implied regardless of whether you think satisfying the FSF is important, satisfying an automated tool is a concern that can be delegated to the tool owner.
I think this makes the most sense. Files that don't have licenses should have them, and they'd be shown in non-minified mode.
Serving license headers in minified mode is kind of silly (it defeats part of the point)--and I think that "web labels" idea is equally silly.
-Chad
I would just like to note that while it may be "silly" or "useless" to insert licenses into minified JavaScript, it is nonetheless *legally required* to do so, regardless of the technical aspect of it. And it is not a question of whether we want to support some labeling program that reads JavaScript licenses; both the GPL and CC licenses have requirements that when you convey source code or binaries through any medium that the license be prominently displayed. I strongly doubt that a company is going to sue the WMF for something like this, but even so it's not a good idea to specifically ignore legal requirements for a third-party software.
*--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
On 03/05/2013 12:22 PM, Tyler Romeo wrote:
it is nonetheless *legally required* to do so, regardless of the technical aspect of it
I think that determination needs to be made by Counsel, not on a guess. I've quite some knowledge of copyright myself, and I know enough that the matter is subtle enough that this declaration is, at best, an oversimplification that cannot possibly reflect reality.
-- Marc
Yes. There seems little value in unqualified people debating if it is legally required.
The mainstream FOSS licences all predate minification and seem to have been written with compiled languages in mind, not interpreted languages. Most have language that requires the licence in the source version, but not the binary version. Deciding whether minified JavaScript is technically or in spirit a binary form seems like something best left to experts.
My conscience would certainly be clear if we only had a licence in our source distribution.
Luke
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
On 03/05/2013 12:22 PM, Tyler Romeo wrote:
it is nonetheless *legally required* to do so, regardless of the technical aspect of it
I think that determination needs to be made by Counsel, not on a guess. I've quite some knowledge of copyright myself, and I know enough that the matter is subtle enough that this declaration is, at best, an oversimplification that cannot possibly reflect reality.
-- Marc
______________________________**_________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikitech-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
I think that determination needs to be made by Counsel, not on a guess.
I've quite some knowledge of copyright myself, and I know enough that the matter is subtle enough that this declaration is, at best, an oversimplification that cannot possibly reflect reality.
Agreed, but even without legal training it's pretty clear this is a requirement. Quoting from CC-BY-SA:
You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this
License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform. [...] ou must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties.
And then in the GPL:
b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released
under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.
Later in the license it specifies that also binary forms of the work that are conveyed must also comply with these restrictions.
-- Tyler Romeo Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part. For every file or other object that makes up the page to all contain the licensing information would be pretty unusual.
It's like taking a file out of a page and then complaining that it has no licensing information when said information was in the page text right under it.
On 05/03/13 17:36, Tyler Romeo wrote:
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
I think that determination needs to be made by Counsel, not on a guess.
I've quite some knowledge of copyright myself, and I know enough that the matter is subtle enough that this declaration is, at best, an oversimplification that cannot possibly reflect reality.
Agreed, but even without legal training it's pretty clear this is a requirement. Quoting from CC-BY-SA:
You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this
License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform. [...] ou must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties.
And then in the GPL:
b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released
under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.
Later in the license it specifies that also binary forms of the work that are conveyed must also comply with these restrictions.
-- Tyler Romeo Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Is there a Counsel we can refer this to? On Mar 5, 2013 11:47 AM, "Isarra Yos" zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part. For every file or other object that makes up the page to all contain the licensing information would be pretty unusual.
It's like taking a file out of a page and then complaining that it has no licensing information when said information was in the page text right under it.
On 05/03/13 17:36, Tyler Romeo wrote:
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
I think that determination needs to be made by Counsel, not on a guess.
I've quite some knowledge of copyright myself, and I know enough that the matter is subtle enough that this declaration is, at best, an oversimplification that cannot possibly reflect reality.
Agreed, but even without legal training it's pretty clear this is a requirement. Quoting from CC-BY-SA:
You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this
License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform. [...] ou must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties.
And then in the GPL:
b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released
under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.
Later in the license it specifies that also binary forms of the work that are conveyed must also comply with these restrictions.
-- Tyler Romeo Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com ______________________________**_________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikitech-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- -— Isarra
______________________________**_________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikitech-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 10:10 AM, Caroline E Willis cewillismail@gmail.comwrote:
Is there a Counsel we can refer this to?
Yes. :) This was already on my radar, and I am following this discussion (which has been useful; specifically, I did not know about the bug already filed on the issue).
For those of you who don't know me, I'm new to the foundation, but have been around foss and foss licensing for a while; a good backgrounder on me is here: http://www.mail-archive.com/wikimediaannounce-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg00523...
Luis
On Mar 5, 2013 11:47 AM, "Isarra Yos" zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part. For every file or other object that makes up the page to all contain the licensing information would be pretty unusual.
It's like taking a file out of a page and then complaining that it has no licensing information when said information was in the page text right under it.
On 05/03/13 17:36, Tyler Romeo wrote:
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
I think that determination needs to be made by Counsel, not on a guess.
I've quite some knowledge of copyright myself, and I know enough that the matter is subtle enough that this declaration is, at best, an oversimplification that cannot possibly reflect reality.
Agreed, but even without legal training it's pretty clear this is a requirement. Quoting from CC-BY-SA:
You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for,
this
License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform. [...] ou must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties.
And then in the GPL:
b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released
under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.
Later in the license it specifies that also binary forms of the work
that
are conveyed must also comply with these restrictions.
-- Tyler Romeo Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com ______________________________**_________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l<
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l%3E
-- -— Isarra
______________________________**_________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l<
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l%3E _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 03/05/2013 09:47 AM, Isarra Yos wrote:
The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part. For every file or other object that makes up the page to all contain the licensing information would be pretty unusual.
It's like taking a file out of a page and then complaining that it has no licensing information when said information was in the page text right under it.
What licensing information are you referring to?
Of course, the code is not under the content license (content license being CC-BY-SA currently for Wikimedia).
Matt Flaschen
On 5 March 2013 11:55, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 03/05/2013 09:47 AM, Isarra Yos wrote:
The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part. For every file or other object that makes up the page to all contain the licensing information would be pretty unusual.
It's like taking a file out of a page and then complaining that it has no licensing information when said information was in the page text right under it.
What licensing information are you referring to?
Of course, the code is not under the content license (content license being CC-BY-SA currently for Wikimedia).
I think the point is that https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Magnolia_%C3%97_soulange... have any licence information in it either, though https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magnolia_%C3%97_soulangeana_blossom...., and this is analogous to the output of load.php not having licensing information in it, but the composited page having it.
(And licensing of Gadgets is a complete mess, but that's somewhat orthogonal to the point.)
J.
We should discuss them separately, but this core mediawiki JS is GPL2 https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-core/tree/master/resources
This JS which was mentioned in the forwarded email that started this discussion is available via a wiki page so is probably under a CC-BY-SA-3.0 as it is submitted, edited and accessed like content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_scripts/Scripts#Scri...
Luke
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.orgwrote:
On 03/05/2013 09:47 AM, Isarra Yos wrote:
The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part. For every file or other object that makes up the page to all contain the licensing information would be pretty unusual.
It's like taking a file out of a page and then complaining that it has no licensing information when said information was in the page text right under it.
What licensing information are you referring to?
Of course, the code is not under the content license (content license being CC-BY-SA currently for Wikimedia).
Matt Flaschen
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 03/05/2013 12:29 PM, Luke Welling WMF wrote:
We should discuss them separately, but this core mediawiki JS is GPL2 https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-core/tree/master/resources
I am referring to Isarra's comment:
"The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part."
As far as I can tell, that is not true for the *code* license(s) for core and extensions.
Matt Flaschen
On 05/03/13 21:53, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
On 03/05/2013 12:29 PM, Luke Welling WMF wrote:
We should discuss them separately, but this core mediawiki JS is GPL2 https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-core/tree/master/resources
I am referring to Isarra's comment:
"The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part."
As far as I can tell, that is not true for the *code* license(s) for core and extensions.
Matt Flaschen
Did you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/COPYING ?
On 03/05/2013 02:33 PM, Platonides wrote:
On 05/03/13 21:53, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
On 03/05/2013 12:29 PM, Luke Welling WMF wrote:
We should discuss them separately, but this core mediawiki JS is GPL2 https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-core/tree/master/resources
I am referring to Isarra's comment:
"The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part."
As far as I can tell, that is not true for the *code* license(s) for core and extensions.
Matt Flaschen
Did you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/COPYING ?
Do you really expect people to find that?
We're basically talking about what is visible in the "binary" version of the site.
We all know they can get license information from the source by doing git clones.
I don't think it's realistic that people will successfully guess they can visit that /w/COPYING url. And not all the code is under GPLv2 anyway, though it should all be free on WMF sites.
Matt Flaschen
On 05/03/13 23:45, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
On 03/05/2013 02:33 PM, Platonides wrote:
On 05/03/13 21:53, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
On 03/05/2013 12:29 PM, Luke Welling WMF wrote:
We should discuss them separately, but this core mediawiki JS is GPL2 https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-core/tree/master/resources
I am referring to Isarra's comment:
"The licensing information is on the page itself, of which the minified js winds up a part."
As far as I can tell, that is not true for the *code* license(s) for core and extensions.
Matt Flaschen
Did you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/COPYING ?
Do you really expect people to find that?
We're basically talking about what is visible in the "binary" version of the site.
We all know they can get license information from the source by doing git clones.
I don't think it's realistic that people will successfully guess they can visit that /w/COPYING url. And not all the code is under GPLv2 anyway, though it should all be free on WMF sites.
Matt Flaschen
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Alternately, it's the same as how people can find the license of any of it from the front ('binary') end. The content is specified in the footer and there is a link to mediawiki for platform information, and the resulting javascript is a combination of both of those...
But I guess my point was more that I just find it a little strange that folks would be taking javascript out of that context when such would never be done with other pieces of a page like images, which have a similar process to find their copyright information and yet tend to perhaps be more meaningful out of context than the js.
Although if such images needed to have licensing included in their file headers as well, while that would result in a complete ruddy mess, it might actually prove useful to reusers.
This is based on a flawed reading of the GPL. The GPL covers the distribution of program code. The license specifically states that “The act of running the Program is not restricted”. (Furthermore: “Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.”)
The terms you are all referring to relate to the distribution of the software, not the running of the software. Wikipedia.org, does not distribute the software, that is MediaWiki.org's job. If Wikipedia wanted to, we could remove all licensing information from the software and it would still be completely legal. The GPL *only* comes into effect once you start distributing the software.
This is why other licenses such as the Affero General Public License have been written, to stop people using and modifying software like Mediawiki, but failing to release their modifications back to the community.
The current method of distributing Mediawiki via Mediawiki.org is perfectly complaint with the GPL.
-- Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Grant" chrisgrantmail@gmail.com
This is based on a flawed reading of the GPL. The GPL covers the distribution of program code. The license specifically states that “The act of running the Program is not restricted”. (Furthermore: “Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.”)
The terms you are all referring to relate to the distribution of the software, not the running of the software. Wikipedia.org, does not distribute the software, that is MediaWiki.org's job. If Wikipedia wanted to, we could remove all licensing information from the software and it would still be completely legal. The GPL *only* comes into effect once you start distributing the software.
The problem here, Chris, is "what constitutes 'distributing the software'?"
WP is *sending a copy of the JS from its servers to a client PC, there to be executed*. *We* consider that "incidental", but a court might not; decisions I'm aware of have gone both ways. So that might *be* the distribution step, legally, and trigger the license requirement.
Cheers, -- jra
On Mar 5, 2013, at 6:22 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
I would just like to note that while it may be "silly" or "useless" to insert licenses into minified JavaScript, it is nonetheless *legally required* to do so, regardless of the technical aspect of it. And it is not a question of whether we want to support some labeling program that reads JavaScript licenses; both the GPL and CC licenses have requirements that when you convey source code or binaries through any medium that the license be prominently displayed. I strongly doubt that a company is going to sue the WMF for something like this, but even so it's not a good idea to specifically ignore legal requirements for a third-party software.
Sure, but it depends on your definition of "prominently displayed".
First off, I agree our javascript files should have license headers in form of a code comment on top of the files (like we do for PHP files). But only to clarify their license, not because it is required. Because we already have a general LICENSE in our distribution, which if I recall correctly explicitly states that unless otherwise indicated, all is under said license. We don't have a license header in our release notes, in jpg, png, svg, sql files etc. A good example (to make it more complicated) is our README where we mention certain PNG file (cc icons) and JS files (sajax) are from a different author and license. We don't alter their PNGs and JS files, instead we mention it elsewhere (whether it belongs in README is another question).
However I don't think it makes sense in any way for this to be sent to the browser.
A few examples.
## Media in wiki pages
We don't display the license or attribution of images inside the article near to the image. You go the the image descriptions page (by clicking the image) and there it is.
## Content of wiki pages
We do display the license on the bottom of every page (which is about the wiki content, not the software). But not the authors. You go to the History page of the current article and find a list of contributors there. Note that the user doesn't click on the content here, but on the "History" tab.
## Server-side code in the software
Any program code in our software that is not sent to the client. But its result is sent to the client. Everything you see on the wiki is the result of executing that server-side code. And if you consider HTML to be part of what you "see", then there's actually a significant amount of server-side code being sent to the client, because that is literally or abstractly (Html.php) explicitly written in the code.
## Client-side code in the software
Any program code in our software that is sent to the client (css, javascript). These are commonly combined and minified, which means HTTP headers are not an option (unless you'd implement offsets or delimiters correlating to the content).
## Media in the software
Any interface images and icons in our software. These are commonly embedded as base64 encoded data, which means HTTP headers are not a feasible method for delivery of information.
## Media in print
A photograph used in a magazine or print. It might have the license/attribution over top of the image or closely to it, but it isn't uncommon for there to be a dedicated page for it. That then refers back to the images (by page number, position and/or by title) to disclose the license and attribution. If you'd look at any single spread (e.g. open it on page 3, you see page 3 and 4) you wouldn't have a complete legal picture. The same if you take out a page and "access" it directly. And even more so if you were to take scissors and take out an individual photo, in which case you'd lose the info even if it was printed right next to it.
## Conclusion
So let's take the extremes and sum them up:
* A page can contain multiple pieces of content from different sources (software interface, wiki page content, wiki media embedded) that can all be from different authors under different licenses (some might even be non-free, e.g. when embedding fair use, though lets avoid that can of worms for now).
* Our wiki text source does not have license headers. Instead the platform on which they are primarily displayed (accessing html pages) has a footer. When accessing it from the API you're circumventing the main portal and are expected as a consumer to "check out" the primary access point to find out the license and author.
* Like wise, accessing a multi-media file[1][2] directly does not give you attribution or license information in the file itself or in its headers, not even a link to it. I presume the rationale here is similar to the "Media in print" example. One might argue that because it is accessible over a separate http request it needs to be standalone, but I'm not sure thats justifiable. It is an implementation detail of how the web works. You can't require everything to be in the same web request (imagine MediaWiki ajax loading of article contents, the footer would be there always and you'd be loading the actual content over a separate request). You could also consider an individual page of a book to be a separate "request", again see the "Media in print" section above.
* We certainly aren't going to embed the GFDL legal text in every http request…
So given all that, whilst not having a clue whether all that is legal – I'm assuming so since that's practically how every website in the world operates (both free and non-free websites) – I think it is acceptable for our program code to follow similar guidelines as multimedia and text (since code is text). So it ought to be legal for our software to deliver individual bits and pieces to the browser that are not a complete package with license and all (like pages in a book).
Instead one is expected to know about the colophon page. If you are in a position where you're legally required to have permission to do what you're about to do (e.g. copy our javascript), you go back up the chain and access the complete package. Find the "Powered by MediaWiki" button on the bottom of the page the code was bundled with (the "colophon"). Then, after looking up MediaWiki's license, go and find that code again in the original MediaWiki book and find the helloWorld.js in all its glory on page 42.
Not sure how well that analogy flies,
-- Krinkle
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Baantjegracht_Dokk... [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Baantjegracht_Dokkum_201...
I would just like to note that while it may be "silly" or "useless" to insert licenses into minified JavaScript, it is nonetheless *legally required* to do so, regardless of the technical aspect of it.
My 2 points - during my own research about free licenses, I've decided that for JS, a good license is MPL 2.0: http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/
Its advantages are: 1) It's "strong file-level copyleft". "File-level" is good for JS, because it eliminates any problems of deciding whether a *.js file is or is not a part of a derivative work, and any problems of using together with differently licensed JS. 2) It's explicitly compatible with GPLv2+, LGPLv2.1+ or AGPLv3+. Incompatibility problem of MPL 1.1 caused triple licensing of Firefox (GPL/LGPL/MPL). 3) It does not require you to include long notices into every file. You only "must inform recipients that the Source Code Form of the Covered Software is governed by the terms of this License, and how they can obtain a copy of this License". You may even not include any notice in files themselves provided that you include it in some place "where a recipient would be likely to look for such a notice".
Also, what I've understood also was that CC-BY-SA is not good for source code at all, at least because it's incompatible with GPL. So CC-BY-SA licensed JS may be a problem.
On 3/5/13 1:03 PM, vitalif@yourcmc.ru wrote:
I would just like to note that while it may be "silly" or "useless" to insert licenses into minified JavaScript, it is nonetheless *legally required* to do so, regardless of the technical aspect of it.
My 2 points - during my own research about free licenses, I've decided that for JS, a good license is MPL 2.0: http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/
I license all of my MediaWiki extensions under an MIT license since I want people to be able to reuse the JS code on-wiki, but some people have claimed that even MIT isn't compatible with CC-BY-SA [1]. I've been thinking about switching to CC-Zero instead. It's funny how most "free software" is so burdened with inane incompatible restrictions that we can't legally use it in many situations. What do people think about using CC-Zero as a license? Now that's free software!
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights/Archive_15#CC_BY-SA_...
Ryan Kaldari
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
I license all of my MediaWiki extensions under an MIT license since I want people to be able to reuse the JS code on-wiki, but some people have claimed that even MIT isn't compatible with CC-BY-SA [1]. I've been thinking about switching to CC-Zero instead. It's funny how most "free software" is so burdened with inane incompatible restrictions that we can't legally use it in many situations. What do people think about using CC-Zero as a license? Now that's free software!
I'm not sure that's true at all. The MIT license is pretty much a proper subset of CC-BY-SA, i.e., it has less restrictions and the restrictions it has are in CC-BY-SA anyway. People are lying to you. ;)
*--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
On 5 March 2013 22:08, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Ryan Kaldari rkaldari@wikimedia.org wrote:
I license all of my MediaWiki extensions under an MIT license since I want people to be able to reuse the JS code on-wiki, but some people have claimed that even MIT isn't compatible with CC-BY-SA [1]. I've been thinking about switching to CC-Zero instead. It's funny how most "free software" is so burdened with inane incompatible restrictions that we can't legally use it in many situations. What do people think about using CC-Zero as a license? Now that's free software!
I'm not sure that's true at all. The MIT license is pretty much a proper subset of CC-BY-SA, i.e., it has less restrictions and the restrictions it has are in CC-BY-SA anyway. People are lying to you. ;)
People will say any spurious bollocks in a licence discussion. (You've been on Commons, right?) This is why we have proper lawyers on hand :-)
I appreciate it would be *nice* to put the licence in the JS, Mako makes the point as nicely in the bug as the original poster didn't in this thread. But there must be a method that isn't operationally insane.
- d.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
People will say any spurious bollocks
What's the license on that observation, David? :-)
Cheers, -- jr 'I wanna steal that' a
On 6 March 2013 15:20, Jay Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
People will say any spurious bollocks
What's the license on that observation, David? :-)
WTFPL of course!
- d.
Ryan Kaldari wrote:
What do people think about using CC-Zero as a license? Now that's free software!
The Open Source Initiative doesn't seem to really like the idea: http://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero.
A number of former and current contributors (notably Lee Daniel Crocker) have released their creative works and inventions into the public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lee_Daniel_Crocker.
I've always found CC-Zero and its surrounding arguments to be pretty stupid. I release most of the code I write into the public domain (though most of it lacks sufficient creativity in any case).
MZMcBride
On 2013-03-05 6:29 PM, "MZMcBride" z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Ryan Kaldari wrote:
What do people think about using CC-Zero as a license? Now that's free software!
The Open Source Initiative doesn't seem to really like the idea: http://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero.
A number of former and current contributors (notably Lee Daniel Crocker) have released their creative works and inventions into the public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lee_Daniel_Crocker.
I've always found CC-Zero and its surrounding arguments to be pretty stupid. I release most of the code I write into the public domain (though most of it lacks sufficient creativity in any case).
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I wonder how osi would feel about https://github.com/avar/DWTFYWWI license.
-bawolff
Le 05/03/13 14:28, MZMcBride a écrit :
A number of former and current contributors (notably Lee Daniel Crocker) have released their creative works and inventions into the public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lee_Daniel_Crocker.
Does that include is work on the OCaml tool that generate the math rendering? I am wondering if the rendering result would end up being PD too.
On 2013-03-05 9:17 PM, "Antoine Musso" hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:
Le 05/03/13 14:28, MZMcBride a écrit :
A number of former and current contributors (notably Lee Daniel Crocker) have released their creative works and inventions into the public
domain:
Does that include is work on the OCaml tool that generate the math rendering? I am wondering if the rendering result would end up being PD too.
-- Antoine "hashar" Musso
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
The ocaml tool does security verification from what I understand. The actual rendering is done by TeX.(I think) Also I didnt think the license of a tool extended to its output. I can make non gpl images in the gimp, etc
-bawolff
Antoine Musso wrote:
Le 05/03/13 14:28, MZMcBride a écrit :
A number of former and current contributors (notably Lee Daniel Crocker) have released their creative works and inventions into the public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lee_Daniel_Crocker.
Does that include is work on the OCaml tool that generate the math rendering? I am wondering if the rendering result would end up being PD too.
Sorry, I have no idea. You'd have to ask Lee, I suppose. I think he's still around.
Generated math expressions fall outside of (U.S.) copyright, as I understand it, though. At least the majority of them. I don't imagine you could argue that <math>2+2=4</math> is sufficiently creative to warrant copyright. Though perhaps more advanced math would qualify.
All that said, I don't think Lee has the authority to release (or not release) any possible copyright on generated math expressions. A piano maker surely can't release the copyright on the works of a pianist....
This is why I just release everything into the public domain and flee. ;-)
MZMcBride
MZMcBride wrote:
You'd have to ask Lee, I suppose. I think he's still around.
https://github.com/lcrocker/OneJoker
It seems Lee is alive and well and still waiving his rights. :-)
MZMcBride
----- Original Message -----
From: "MZMcBride" z@mzmcbride.com
The Open Source Initiative doesn't seem to really like the idea: http://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero.
A number of former and current contributors (notably Lee Daniel Crocker) have released their creative works and inventions into the public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lee_Daniel_Crocker.
I've always found CC-Zero and its surrounding arguments to be pretty stupid. I release most of the code I write into the public domain (though most of it lacks sufficient creativity in any case).
My understanding is that CC-Zero exists *because "the public domain" does not exist in the IP law of many countries*.
Cheers, -- jra
The need for minification suggest that maybe the web needs a bytecode format for css / javascript / xml, one designed to save space.
I know text is the tradition in unix, but anyway.
<quote name="Ryan Kaldari" date="2013-03-05" time="14:01:42 -0800">
What do people think about using CC-Zero as a license? Now that's free software!
Relevant link for those interested in more background: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/27081
On 06.03.2013, 2:01 Ryan wrote:
I license all of my MediaWiki extensions under an MIT license since I want people to be able to reuse the JS code on-wiki, but some people have claimed that even MIT isn't compatible with CC-BY-SA [1]. I've been thinking about switching to CC-Zero instead. It's funny how most "free software" is so burdened with inane incompatible restrictions that we can't legally use it in many situations. What do people think about using CC-Zero as a license? Now that's free software!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights/Archive_15#CC_BY-SA_...
My extensions are WTFPL;)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Holmquist" mtraceur@member.fsf.org
The minification process, however, does *not* cause a problem. We can simply add the comments to the file(s) after the minification. It does mean we'll need to include, potentially, multiple license headers in one HTTP response, but that shouldn't cause much issue.
I am neither an engineer, nor a WMF staffer, but I want to throw a flag here anyway.
Yes, it will cause an issue. If that extra data is going in every reply, multiply its size by our replies per day count, won't you? I don't know what that number is, but I'm quite certain it's substantial.
*Every single byte* that goes in a place where it will be included in every reply directly affects our 95%ile data transfer, I should think, and thus our budget. Bytes are not always free.
Cheers, -- jra
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Jay Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
I am neither an engineer, nor a WMF staffer, but I want to throw a flag here anyway.
Yes, it will cause an issue. If that extra data is going in every reply, multiply its size by our replies per day count, won't you? I don't know what that number is, but I'm quite certain it's substantial.
*Every single byte* that goes in a place where it will be included in every reply directly affects our 95%ile data transfer, I should think, and thus our budget. Bytes are not always free.
True, but if it's legally required it's not like we have an option.
*--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tyler Romeo" tylerromeo@gmail.com
Yes, it will cause an issue. If that extra data is going in every reply, multiply its size by our replies per day count, won't you? I don't know what that number is, but I'm quite certain it's substantial.
*Every single byte* that goes in a place where it will be included in every reply directly affects our 95%ile data transfer, I should think, and thus our budget. Bytes are not always free.
True, but if it's legally required it's not like we have an option.
Certainly. But I see no reason to think it's legally required. And while I, too, only play one on the Internet, I've been doing it since 1983.
And I haven't been surprised all that often.
Mr Villa will come up with a more researched decision, certainly, but I am relatively certain that a defensible case can be made that minifying is equivalent to compiling, for the purposes of the license.
And in the unlikely event that's not good enough, the Foundation may well be able to get a codicil license on the relevant libraries, acknowledging that it needn't include the license text in on-the-wire minified copies.
My personal opinion, though, is that the proper approach is that the license be officially interpreted by its issuer to exempt this sort of minification-caused potential violation, as otherwise, minification will negatively affect everyone who uses it, many of whom haven't WMF's budget.
Cheers, -- jra
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Jay Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
Certainly. But I see no reason to think it's legally required. And while I, too, only play one on the Internet, I've been doing it since 1983.
If you read the licenses, it's pretty obvious. Also, popular libraries (such as Google's hosted versions of jQuery and others) always include license headers in the minified versions.
And in the unlikely event that's not good enough, the Foundation may well
be able to get a codicil license on the relevant libraries, acknowledging that it needn't include the license text in on-the-wire minified copies.
But WMF getting a license doesn't help everybody else who uses MW.
*--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tyler Romeo" tylerromeo@gmail.com
But WMF getting a license doesn't help everybody else who uses MW.
Minification is a WMF cluster issue, not a MW software issue, is it not?
Cheers, -- jra
On 2013-03-05 4:28 PM, "Jay Ashworth" jra@baylink.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tyler Romeo" tylerromeo@gmail.com
But WMF getting a license doesn't help everybody else who uses MW.
Minification is a WMF cluster issue, not a MW software issue, is it not?
Cheers,
-- jra
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink
jra@baylink.com
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Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Mediawiki minifies things regardless of if its being run by the WMF or somebody else.
-bawolff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Wolff" bawolff@gmail.com
Minification is a WMF cluster issue, not a MW software issue, is it not?
Mediawiki minifies things regardless of if its being run by the WMF or somebody else.
Ah; thanks. Have not looked at internals lately. Since minification to me as a netadmin is a strategic "size of pipe" issue, I assumed it was something deployed on WMF sites, not something baked into the base package.
Cheers, -- jra
On 03/05/2013 12:27 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tyler Romeo" tylerromeo@gmail.com
But WMF getting a license doesn't help everybody else who uses MW.
Minification is a WMF cluster issue, not a MW software issue, is it not?
No, ResourceLoader and the minification is part of MW core.
Matt Flaschen
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 9:16 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
Also, popular libraries (such as Google's hosted versions of jQuery and others) always include license headers in the minified versions.
That's not what I see. If I look at jQuery as hosted by Google [1], it starts with the following comment (and nothing more):
/*! jQuery v1.9.1 | (c) 2005, 2012 jQuery Foundation, Inc. | jquery.org/license //@ sourceMappingURL=jquery.min.map */
It does link to a license (though it doesn't even mention what the license is directly), but it certainly doesn't contain the whole license itself. And, as I understand it, that's what you claim is required and what others claim would be a waste of bandwidth
[1]: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js
Petr Onderka [[en:User:Svick]]
On 03/05/2013 12:08 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
And in the unlikely event that's not good enough, the Foundation may well be able to get a codicil license on the relevant libraries, acknowledging that it needn't include the license text in on-the-wire minified copies.
If it does turn out we legally *need* more license preservation/disclosure, we should add more license preservation.
Getting a special get out of jail free card for WMF only is not acceptable. Our sites run free software, software that anyone can also run under the same (free) licenses.
It may also not be realistic (many authors probably would not cooperate). But it's something we shouldn't even ask for.
Matt Flaschen
On 05/03/13 21:55, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
If it does turn out we legally *need* more license preservation/disclosure, we should add more license preservation.
Getting a special get out of jail free card for WMF only is not acceptable. Our sites run free software, software that anyone can also run under the same (free) licenses.
It may also not be realistic (many authors probably would not cooperate). But it's something we shouldn't even ask for.
Matt Flaschen
I just checked and there are 73 authors of the resources of MediaWiki core. More than I expected, but not unworkable. We could relicense our css and javascript as MIT, MPL, GPL-with-explicit-exception...
Regarding GPL requisites, it seems clear that minified javascript is “object code” [1], which we can convey per section 6d [2], which is already possible if you know how the RL works, although we should probably provide those “clear directions”. Most problematic would be that you should also obey sections 4 and 5 (although I see a bit of contradiction there, how are you supposed to “keep intact all notices” where most notices are present in comments, designed to be stripped when compiled?)
But are we conveying it?
To “convey” a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.
As javascript is executed in the client, it probably is.
1- «The “source code” for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. “Object code” means any non-source form of a work.» - Section 1 2- «Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no further charge. If the place to copy the object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source. (...)»
On 06/03/13 13:24, Platonides wrote:
I just checked and there are 73 authors of the resources of MediaWiki core. More than I expected, but not unworkable. We could relicense our css and javascript as MIT, MPL, GPL-with-explicit-exception...
I was going to provide the full list:
$ git log --format=format:%an --no-merges resources/ | sort -u Aaron Schulz Alexandre Emsenhuber Alex Monk Amir E. Aharoni Andrew Garrett Antoine Musso Aryeh Gregor aude awjrichards Brad Jorsch Brandon Harris Brian Wolff Brion Vibber Bryan Tong Minh Catrope Chad Horohoe csteipp Daniel Friesen Danny B Derk-Jan Hartman edokter Eranroz Happy-melon Hashar helder.wiki Henning Snater Hoo man Ian Baker Jeremy Postlethwaite jeroendedauw Jeroen De Dauw Joan Creus John Du Hart jrobson Juliusz Gonera Kaldari Kevin Israel Krinkle Leo Koppelkamm Liangent lupo Marius Hoch Mark A. Hershberger Mark Holmquist Matěj Grabovský MatmaRex Matthew Flaschen Matthias Mullie Max Semenik Minh Nguyễn Neil Kandalgaonkar Niklas Laxström Ori Livneh Pavel Selitskas Raimond Spekking Reedy Roan Kattouw Robin Pepermans Rob Lanphier Rob Moen Ryan Kaldari Sam Reed Santhosh Thottingal Siebrand Siebrand Mazeland Szymon Świerkosz Thomas Gries Timo Tijhof Tim Starling Trevor Parscal Tyler Anthony Romeo umherirrender vlakoff
On 03/06/2013 07:30 AM, Platonides wrote:
On 06/03/13 13:24, Platonides wrote:
I just checked and there are 73 authors of the resources of MediaWiki core. More than I expected, but not unworkable. We could relicense our css and javascript as MIT, MPL, GPL-with-explicit-exception...
I was going to provide the full list: [...]
Don't forget the 58 other authors of skins/ (although some commits touching that path might not be to CSS or JS):
$ git log --format=format:%an --no-merges resources/ | sort -u > ../resources.txt $ git log --format=format:%an --no-merges skins/ | sort -u > ../skins.txt $ comm -23 ../skins.txt ../resources.txt Adam Miller Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason Alex Shih-Han Lin Alex Z Anders Wegge Jakobsen ankur Arne Heizmann Benny Situ Charles Melbye Daniel Cannon Daniel Kinzler Erik Moeller Evan Prodromou Gabriel Wicke Guillaume Blanchard Guy Van den Broeck Huji Ilmari Karonen isarra Jack Phoenix Jan Luca Naumann Jan Paul Posma Jens Frank Jimmy Collins Jon Harald Søby Jure Kajzer karun Katie Filbert Laurence Parry Leon Weber Lisa Ridley Lupin Magnus Manske Marcin Cieślak Matt Johnston Michael Dale Mohamed Magdy Nicholas Pisarro, Jr Nick Jenkins Nimish Gautam Patrick Reilly Philip Tzou Platonides Purodha B Blissenbach Remember the dot River Tarnell Rob Church Robert Stojnić Rotem Liss Ryan Schmidt Shinjiman SQL Tobias Tom Gilder Tpt Victor Vasiliev X! Zheng Zhu
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 5:47 PM, Kevin Israel pleasestand@live.com wrote:
On 03/06/2013 07:30 AM, Platonides wrote:
On 06/03/13 13:24, Platonides wrote:
I just checked and there are 73 authors of the resources of MediaWiki core. More than I expected, but not unworkable. We could relicense our css and javascript as MIT, MPL, GPL-with-explicit-exception...
I was going to provide the full list: [...]
Don't forget the 58 other authors of skins/ (although some commits touching that path might not be to CSS or JS):
$ git log --format=format:%an --no-merges resources/ | sort -u > ../resources.txt $ git log --format=format:%an --no-merges skins/ | sort -u > ../skins.txt $ comm -23 ../skins.txt ../resources.txt [...]
Jack Phoenix
[...]
Let me just state this for the record: I find copyright paranoia and associated acts, such as this very thread with 59 (and counting!) messages absurd, ridiculous and a complete waste of time. Please feel free to treat my code contributions as you wish; my code has been Public Domain since 2010 (see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Jack_Phoenix/extensions) and I'm not objected to (re)licensing the unlicensed ones to Public Domain (or alternatively, licensing them under Ævar's awesome Do Whatever The Fuck You Want With It license, the DWTFYWWI, version 1 or any later version at your convenience or whatever the fuck you may prefer).
Global user preferences (bug #14950), for example, would be both very nice and useful to have and certainly a lot more productive than a legalese discussion on who wrote what and what constitutes/doesn't constitute as downloading or whatever. At this rate, we'll soon be debating about the very meaning of the word "is". Now can we please get back to actual development discussion and writing code?
Thanks and regards, -- Jack Phoenix MediaWiki developer
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Phoenix" jack@countervandalism.net
Let me just state this for the record: I find copyright paranoia and associated acts, such as this very thread with 59 (and counting!) messages absurd, ridiculous and a complete waste of time.
We note that you have spoken.
Alas, the other 153 people who own copyright in the code in question haven't and, no offense, Jack, assuming they will have the same outlook you do -- when it's on the record that developers' opinions on this range to both ends -- is probably not a safe enough bet for the foundation.
:-}
Cheers, -- jra
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 1:31 PM, Jay Ashworth jra@baylink.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Phoenix" jack@countervandalism.net
Let me just state this for the record: I find copyright paranoia and associated acts, such as this very thread with 59 (and counting!) messages absurd, ridiculous and a complete waste of time.
We note that you have spoken.
Alas, the other 153 people who own copyright in the code in question haven't and, no offense, Jack, assuming they will have the same outlook you do -- when it's on the record that developers' opinions on this range to both ends -- is probably not a safe enough bet for the foundation.
Jack is not alone. The amount of bikeshedding on this list has reached truly epic proportions in the last couple of weeks...to the point where I've started ignoring the vast majority of the list (and I've always been an advocate for the usefulness of this list).
-Chad
I don't see how the copyright of MediaWiki's code is bike-shedding at all. As a volunteer, I'd like to be damn sure MW is actually an open source project.
There's a reason copyright licenses exist, and it's to provide freedom for developers and users. If MW were completely licensed under the WTFPL, others could copy MW, change it, and then make it proprietary, whereas with the GPL there is a restriction on that. When I contribute my code to this project, I am fully aware and happy with the fact that it will *never* be used in a closed source product.
Just because some people don't care enough about how laws exist in this world and we have to operate under them doesn't mean everybody else should be screwed over. So if we could actually get back on topic rather than bitching and complaining about doing things some of us don't necessarily enjoy.
*--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
I don't see how the copyright of MediaWiki's code is bike-shedding at all. As a volunteer, I'd like to be damn sure MW is actually an open source project.
There's a reason copyright licenses exist, and it's to provide freedom for developers and users. If MW were completely licensed under the WTFPL, others could copy MW, change it, and then make it proprietary, whereas with the GPL there is a restriction on that. When I contribute my code to this project, I am fully aware and happy with the fact that it will *never* be used in a closed source product.
Just because some people don't care enough about how laws exist in this world and we have to operate under them doesn't mean everybody else should be screwed over. So if we could actually get back on topic rather than bitching and complaining about doing things some of us don't necessarily enjoy.
There's a definite difference between caring about how the code is licensed and debating whether or not headers should be included in minified versions or not. I care how our code is licensed (and headers are great for doing this), but wasting 60+ e-mails over where to include these licenses just to satisfy an overzealous tool...that's bikeshedding.
-Chad
Non-lawyers arguing over how to interpret licenses, uses, and other stuff with the minimised code doesn't prevent such screwing over either. It is undoubtedly an open-source project; the question is the legal one of where all things need to be attributed and cited, and at the end of the day pretty much none of us are qualified to answer that in any full capacity. Some speculation can be fine and help people get an idea as to how to proceed, but this is indeed to the point of bikeshedding.
This is not bitching. This is a legitimate complaint that this thread is getting out of hand with little productive value.
On 06/03/13 21:42, Tyler Romeo wrote:
I don't see how the copyright of MediaWiki's code is bike-shedding at all. As a volunteer, I'd like to be damn sure MW is actually an open source project.
There's a reason copyright licenses exist, and it's to provide freedom for developers and users. If MW were completely licensed under the WTFPL, others could copy MW, change it, and then make it proprietary, whereas with the GPL there is a restriction on that. When I contribute my code to this project, I am fully aware and happy with the fact that it will *never* be used in a closed source product.
Just because some people don't care enough about how laws exist in this world and we have to operate under them doesn't mean everybody else should be screwed over. So if we could actually get back on topic rather than bitching and complaining about doing things some of us don't necessarily enjoy.
*--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Well then maybe we could just wait for a response from the counsel in this thread rather than interpreting licenses and then complaining about it...
*--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chad" innocentkiller@gmail.com
Jack is not alone. The amount of bikeshedding on this list has reached truly epic proportions in the last couple of weeks...to the point where I've started ignoring the vast majority of the list (and I've always been an advocate for the usefulness of this list).
While I disagree as to whether minified code needs a human readable embedded license, I don't think it's reasonable to characterize the discussion as bikeshedding, Chad. I care about the licensing on my code. I'm not alone.
Cheers, -- jra
I'm pretty sure I have memories of this exact thread happening when minification was first introduced, With counsel at the time (Mike) weighing in on the matter.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
Since this thread is slowly moving over to a debate as to whether it constitutes bikeshedding or not (and people can't seem to agree on that either), I'm going to unsubscribe to this mailing list by the end of today (in 15 hours or so) as I get way too much email already. I have made my concerns clear.
Thank you for verifying that your intentions are to use free software. If anyone were to CC me in any important emails (decisions regarding licence headers), I would be grateful.
If someone has suggestions for how to make GNU LibreJs[0] accept Wikipedia, please email me about this. The only solution I can think of is using a whitelist -- but this may be dangerous, as developers can just go "oh I don't bother with licences, you can just whitelist my page".
[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/librejs/ - -- Alexander alexander@plaimi.net http://plaimi.net/~alexander
----- Original Message -----
From: "Platonides" Platonides@gmail.com
Regarding GPL requisites, it seems clear that minified javascript is “object code” [1], which we can convey per section 6d [2], which is already possible if you know how the RL works, although we should probably provide those “clear directions”. Most problematic would be that you should also obey sections 4 and 5 (although I see a bit of contradiction there, how are you supposed to “keep intact all notices” where most notices are present in comments, designed to be stripped when compiled?)
But are we conveying it?
To “convey” a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.
As javascript is executed in the client, it probably is.
Perhaps. But HTML is also "executed" in the client, and some legal decisions have gone each way on whether the mere viewing of a page constitutes "copying" in violation of copyright (the trend is towards "no", thankfully. :-)
Cheers, -- jra
On 06/03/13 16:28, Jay Ashworth wrote:
To “convey” a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.
As javascript is executed in the client, it probably is.
Perhaps. But HTML is also "executed" in the client, and some legal decisions have gone each way on whether the mere viewing of a page constitutes "copying" in violation of copyright (the trend is towards "no", thankfully. :-)
Cheers, -- jra
Interesting. Although HTML is presentational, while js is executable.
I wouldn't consider most of our javascript as "significant" -even though we have plenty of usages considered non-trivial by [1]- since it is highly based on MediaWiki classes and ids. However, we also have some "big javascript programs" (WikiEditor, VisualEditor...)
@Alexander: I would consider something like
<script src="//bits.wikimedia.org/www.mediawiki.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20130304T183632Z" license="//bits.wikimedia.org/www.mediawiki.org/load.php?debug=false&lang=en&modules=jquery%2Cmediawiki%2CSpinner%7Cjquery.triggerQueueCallback%2CloadingSpinner%2CmwEmbedUtil%7Cmw.MwEmbedSupport&only=scripts&skin=vector&version=20130304T183632Z&mode=license"></script>
with license attribute pointing to a JavaScript License Web Labels page for that script (yes, that would have to go up to whatwg).
Another, easier, option would be that LibreJS detected the "debug=false" in the url and changed it to debug=true, expecting to find the license information there. It's also a natural change for people intending to reuse such javascript, even if they were unaware of such convention.
@Chad: We use free licenses since we care about the freedom of our cde to be reused, but if the license is not appropiate to what we really intend, or even worse, is placing such a burden that even us aren't properly presenting them, it's something very discussion worthy. Up to the point where we could end up relicensing the code to better reflect our intention, as it was done from GFDL to CC-BY-SA with wikipedia content.
Le 05/03/13 03:56, Alexander Berntsen a écrit :
Is it not possible to insert the licence as part of your build process? What I do with compiled or minified Javascript is to build everything, and then insert the licence to all files using BASH.
PLEASE NO. Let's not start a drama.
The JS are sent to the client in an optimized version. There is Zero technical justification to add the long legal header. The website serving the files is already showing a link to mediawiki.org and our license are pretty clear.
I can understand the legal reasons behind it, but lets stop being too picky on that.
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