Stephen Smoogen has opened a bug about the license in CSS Janus. This needs wider discussion, though, so I'm copying it here.
I am the maintainer of the mediawiki package for Fedora EPEL project. While putting together the package for 1.19 it was found that the license to maintenance/cssjanus is ASL 2.0 and the license for mediawiki is GPL+2.0. The GPL 2. and ASL 2. are not "compatible" to the FSF so I am trying to work out my options and to find out what the mediawiki's projects rationale for bundling the two items together.
1) cssjanus has a GPL exception to its ASL license that mediawiki knows of.
2) we need to look at mediawiki being used as GPL 3.0 even though it is not explicitely licensed that way.
I'll point the bug to the on-list discussion, so please follow up here.
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 11:03 AM, Mark A. Hershberger mah@wikimedia.org wrote:
I am the maintainer of the mediawiki package for Fedora EPEL project. While putting together the package for 1.19 it was found that the license to maintenance/cssjanus is ASL 2.0 and the license for mediawiki is GPL+2.0. The GPL 2. and ASL 2. are not "compatible" to the FSF so I am trying to work out my options and to find out what the mediawiki's projects rationale for bundling the two items together.
1) cssjanus has a GPL exception to its ASL license that mediawiki knows of.
This is an actual problem that we need to fix :\ Either we need some kind of license exception as suggested, or we'll need to find something to replace it that's compatible (or do it ourselves...)
2) we need to look at mediawiki being used as GPL 3.0 even though it is not explicitely licensed that way.
I'm not 100% sure what's being asked here? Is this a request to relicense MediaWiki under GPLv3 instead of v2? Or is this a question of it being mis-licensed under v3 when we actually specify v2? Clarification is needed :)
-Chad
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 5:41 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
2) we need to look at mediawiki being used as GPL 3.0 even though it is not explicitely licensed that way.
I'm not 100% sure what's being asked here? Is this a request to relicense MediaWiki under GPLv3 instead of v2? Or is this a question of it being mis-licensed under v3 when we actually specify v2? Clarification is needed :)
I believe the point is that the ASL is compatible with GPLv3, and that MediaWiki is GPLv2 or any later version.
On 11 May 2012 16:41, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not 100% sure what's being asked here? Is this a request to relicense MediaWiki under GPLv3 instead of v2? Or is this a question of it being mis-licensed under v3 when we actually specify v2? Clarification is needed :)
If it's an intact application that's included in the maintenance directory, does that make it (sufficiently plausibly) part of a mere aggregation? (that's a question for lawyers)
- d.
I think this is a solvable problem without changing our current licensing. Let's not have a big legal discussion on-list about this (or if we must hash this out publicly, let's do it on a list that deals with legal issues rather than tech issues).
I've assigned the bug to myself, and I'll be consulting with our legal staff. Before I say much more, I'd like to talk to them.
Rob
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 8:03 AM, Mark A. Hershberger mah@wikimedia.org wrote:
Stephen Smoogen has opened a bug about the license in CSS Janus. This needs wider discussion, though, so I'm copying it here.
From https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/36747:
I am the maintainer of the mediawiki package for Fedora EPEL project. While putting together the package for 1.19 it was found that the license to maintenance/cssjanus is ASL 2.0 and the license for mediawiki is GPL+2.0. The GPL 2. and ASL 2. are not "compatible" to the FSF so I am trying to work out my options and to find out what the mediawiki's projects rationale for bundling the two items together.
1) cssjanus has a GPL exception to its ASL license that mediawiki knows of.
2) we need to look at mediawiki being used as GPL 3.0 even though it is not explicitely licensed that way.
I'll point the bug to the on-list discussion, so please follow up here.
-- Mark A. Hershberger Bugmeister Wikimedia Foundation mah@wikimedia.org
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think this is a solvable problem without changing our current licensing. Let's not have a big legal discussion on-list about this (or if we must hash this out publicly, let's do it on a list that deals with legal issues rather than tech issues).
Hi folks,
I commented here: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/36747
...but haven't followed up on list, so I'll do that now. MediaWiki is "GPLv2 or later," allowing licensees to comply with either GPL v2 or v3. So someone who wants to distribute the code can comply by conforming to the terms of the Apache-compatible GPL v3. This means we don't have to explicitly move to GPL v3 only. Alternately, anyone who wants to comply only with GPL v2 can retain the option of excising the ASL code.
We may still wish to explore the possibility of explicitly moving to the GPL v3 (with similar "or later" clause), but there's nothing about including Apache-licensed code that forces that conversation.
Rob
On 11 May 2012 09:03, Mark A. Hershberger mah@wikimedia.org wrote:
Stephen Smoogen has opened a bug about the license in CSS Janus. This needs wider discussion, though, so I'm copying it here.
From https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/36747:
I am the maintainer of the mediawiki package for Fedora EPEL project. While putting together the package for 1.19 it was found that the license to maintenance/cssjanus is ASL 2.0 and the license for mediawiki is GPL+2.0. The GPL 2. and ASL 2. are not "compatible" to the FSF so I am trying to work out my options and to find out what the mediawiki's projects rationale for bundling the two items together.
1) cssjanus has a GPL exception to its ASL license that mediawiki knows of.
2) we need to look at mediawiki being used as GPL 3.0 even though it is not explicitely licensed that way.
I'll point the bug to the on-list discussion, so please follow up here.
Another question that came up in the review was the code for
skins/common/wikibits.js => says:
" Written by Jonathan Snook, http://www.snook.ca/jonathan Add-ons by Robert Nyman, http://www.robertnyman.com Author says "The credit comment is all it takes, no license. Go crazy with it!:-)" From http://www.robertnyman.com/2005/11/07/the-ultimate-getelementsbyclassname/ "
While the license sounds like it is "Public Domain" that can cause problems in various places. Also in trying to find the code that is referenced.. (snook.ca) I could not find a copy to see what its license was. The second site doesn't recommend that code anymore but recommends a GPL2+ updated version.
On 12/05/12 00:18, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
While the license sounds like it is "Public Domain" that can cause problems in various places. Also in trying to find the code that is referenced.. (snook.ca) I could not find a copy to see what its license was. The second site doesn't recommend that code anymore but recommends a GPL2+ updated version.
It looks more like WTFPL with attribution clause. I don't see why such license would be a problem.
On 13 May 2012 06:36, Platonides Platonides@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/05/12 00:18, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
While the license sounds like it is "Public Domain" that can cause problems in various places. Also in trying to find the code that is referenced.. (snook.ca) I could not find a copy to see what its license was. The second site doesn't recommend that code anymore but recommends a GPL2+ updated version.
It looks more like WTFPL with attribution clause. I don't see why such license would be a problem.
As far as I know it is not a problem if it is clear. It is when the license isn't clear that it can become a problem.. especially when the author put one thing down and meant something else. It may only occur in 100 times, but that become more problems than being clear in the first place.
On 12/05/12 00:18, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
Also in trying to find the code that is referenced.. (snook.ca) I could not find a copy to see what its license was. The second site doesn't recommend that code anymore but recommends a GPL2+ updated version.
I see http://snook.ca/archives/javascript/your_favourite_1 and http://snook.ca/archives/quick_links/quick_link_the_1 refering to Robert Nyman changes at http://robertnyman.com/2005/11/07/the-ultimate-getelementsbyclassname/
Then we added a number of changes ourselves.
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