What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to have to work with their products.

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 9:36 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:

Very briefly, GPL 3 adds restrictions on using software patents and DRM with the programs that use it. I'm not even entirely sure what these restrictions are.

My very wild guess us that MediaWiki probably can go the GPL 3 way. MediaWiki mostly runs on servers, so DRM is probably not an issue. Maybe it could be an issue on iPhones, but our iPhone app is not GPL anyway, because Apple really hates having GPL software in its AppStore. ____________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

TBH as open source developer I don't feel like publishing kernel sources makes it any easier for me to create applications for their platform.

If I want to create an application for android, I can download android studio and run it on Windows, Linux or Mac. The studio itself is open source and programs are easy to package.

If I want to create an application for iPhone, I have to own a Mac, because even if I wanted to buy OS only and install it on non-apple hardware, it wouldn't work and xcode is not available for any other platform than Mac. This is blocker for any open source developer who wants to create non-profit software and isn't willing to put money into something that is never gonna be useful for them, so that they can create software that others can freely use.

This is case of all apple products, even if I wanted to create a program for Windows, which is commercial platform, I can easily do that on linux and compile with mingw compiler that can build .exe files on linux. But in case of apple you can only dream of that.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Antoine Musso hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:

Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :

...

What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to have to work with their products.

You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/

Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/

FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html

The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions. So it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by respecting the license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 apps. They just make sure the license is respected.

-- Antoine "hashar" Musso

---

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Regarding AGPL: please no

That would not just kill nearly all commercial usage of mediawiki, but it would also introduce insane requirements to most of small wiki maintainers who would have to start distributing the source code of their customized wikis to public somehow + in case they wouldn't be good php programmers and made some security bugs in software themselves, they would make it much easier for hackers to find them.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:

I don't really understand if apple provides their OS for free, why they can't create a lightweight version that would run in virtual box, for open source developers only... But that's their choice. Let's go back to original topic. GPL v 3 is a good idea :) I am just not sure if you don't need permissions from other developers who contributed the code in order to change the license.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:53 PM, Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:

...

TBH as open source developer I don't feel like publishing kernel sources makes it any easier for me to create applications for their platform.

If I want to create an application for android, I can download android studio and run it on Windows, Linux or Mac. The studio itself is open source and programs are easy to package.

If I want to create an application for iPhone, I have to own a Mac, because even if I wanted to buy OS only and install it on non-apple hardware, it wouldn't work and xcode is not available for any other platform than Mac. This is blocker for any open source developer who wants to create non-profit software and isn't willing to put money into something that is never gonna be useful for them, so that they can create software that others can freely use.

This is case of all apple products, even if I wanted to create a program for Windows, which is commercial platform, I can easily do that on linux and compile with mingw compiler that can build .exe files on linux. But in case of apple you can only dream of that.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Antoine Musso hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:

...

Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :

...

What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to have to work with their products.

You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/

Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/

FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html

The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions. So it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by respecting the license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 apps. They just make sure the license is respected.

-- Antoine "hashar" Musso

---

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I share your opinion, but: back to topic, please :)

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: wikitech-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] Im Auftrag von Petr Bena Gesendet: Sonntag, 8. Februar 2015 17:56 An: Wikimedia developers Betreff: Re: [Wikitech-l] GPL upgrading to version 3

I don't really understand if apple provides their OS for free, why they can't create a lightweight version that would run in virtual box, for open source developers only... But that's their choice. Let's go back to original topic. GPL v 3 is a good idea :) I am just not sure if you don't need permissions from other developers who contributed the code in order to change the license.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:53 PM, Petr Bena benapetr@gmail.com wrote:

TBH as open source developer I don't feel like publishing kernel sources makes it any easier for me to create applications for their platform.

If I want to create an application for android, I can download android studio and run it on Windows, Linux or Mac. The studio itself is open source and programs are easy to package.

If I want to create an application for iPhone, I have to own a Mac, because even if I wanted to buy OS only and install it on non-apple hardware, it wouldn't work and xcode is not available for any other platform than Mac. This is blocker for any open source developer who wants to create non-profit software and isn't willing to put money into something that is never gonna be useful for them, so that they can create software that others can freely use.

This is case of all apple products, even if I wanted to create a program for Windows, which is commercial platform, I can easily do that on linux and compile with mingw compiler that can build .exe files on linux. But in case of apple you can only dream of that.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Antoine Musso hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:

...

Le 08/02/2015 15:26, Petr Bena a écrit :

...

What can I say, I always had a feeling that apple hates open source and likes to block open source devs in all possible ways, this just ensures me in this feeling. One more reason for me to be happy not to have to work with their products.

You have wrong feelings really: http://opensource.apple.com/

Even the kernel (XNU) is published under an open source license:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/

FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0 https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.en.html

The AppStore terms of service is not compatibe with GPLv2 since they restrict distribution and use in addition of the GPLv2 restrictions. So it is not surprising that Apple acts as a good citizen by respecting the license and thus preventing people from adding GPLv2 apps. They just make sure the license is respected.

-- Antoine "hashar" Musso

---

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It also has it here http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html on reasons why to upgrade version 3.

On Saturday, 7 February 2015, 22:21, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

I’ve been meaning to make this thread for a while. I also believe we should switch over to GPL 3.

== Reasons to switch ==

First, to address the reason of why, there are a couple of reasons.

Reference: https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2014/SFLC-Guide_to_GPL_Compliance_...

=== Language changes ===

Much of the language of the license has been rewritten or changed. Specifically so that:

a) it is more international and not using US-specific wording (e.g., “conveying”); and b) certain things have been clarified due to changes in the Internet and technology over time.

As an example, GPLv2 requires that when distributing software that the source code be provided *on a physical medium*. The GPLv3 relaxes this and allows an offer of providing source code via network transmission, as we are doing right now.

=== License compatibility ===

The GPLv3 was adjusted so that it is compatible with more free software licenses. The Apache 2.0 license and the XFree86 license are only compatible with the GPLv3, not v2.

=== Termination upon infringement ===

This is actually a pretty important one. The GPLv2 has a clause that upon a licensee violating the GPL, their entire license is immediately terminated, and may only be reissued by the licensor. This is obviously a troublesome legal situation in FOSS projects because now a licensee has to seek permission to use the software from the possibly hundreds of contributors, each of whom is an individual and independent licensor for the software.

In GPLv3, this is fixed by allowing infringers to resume distribution of the software if they cease all violations. In other words, while the copyright holder can still, if they so desire, explicitly terminate the license after a violation, in most cases the licensee can make remedies and automatically continue distribution.

=== Addition FOSS protections ===

As other people have previously stated, the GPLv3 adds additional restrictions to protect against trademark law, patent law, and sub-licensing. I won’t go too much into it, because I don’t know the details, but it basically is an attempt to prevent the aforementioned from imposing additional restrictions on redistributors.

== What MediaWiki should do ==

=== Changing our license ===

Just to specifically address the process that would be involved, all our current code can be licensed under the GPLv2 or any later version. Thus it would be trivial to just “redistribute” all of the code under the GPLv3. Yes, all the original code would still be licensed under the GPLv2 as well, since that was what it was contributed under, but any copy obtained from the Wikimedia Foundation would be under v3 since that is what the WMF would be distributing.

In addition, by doing so we’d require all further changes to be contributed under the GPLv3 or a compatible license, which, as aforementioned, is actually more licenses than could be done under the v2.

=== Which license? ===

I’m going to be honest, I think it is non-controversial to change over to GPLv3. It isn’t really more restrictive than v2 (patent law and DRM don’t really apply to us). If anything, it is actually an easier-to-implement license, since now the WMF has less responsibilities in terms of source code offering, etc.

**However**, I’d like to take this opportunity and jump a step further. What would everybody think of switching to the AGPLv3 instead? The advantage that this provides, for those who don’t know, is a single additional restriction: when the software is used over the network, source code must still be provided. In other words, the requirements all remain the same (providing a copy of the source code, ensuring all modifications are also GPLed, etc.). The only difference is that the requirements take effect over the Internet rather than only when the software is distributed in object code form.

The situation this protects against specifically is if a vendor does the following:

1) Download MediaWiki 2) Make a change to the software that they want to keep secret 3) Run the new MediaWiki on their servers, but never give out the source code

Technically, this is compliant with the license, because a distributor only has to provide corresponding source code if a user is given object code, which in the case of a web application, they are not. The AGPL protects against this by requiring provision of source code to the end-user web clients. Of course, the source code can be “provided” in the form of a simple link to another website on which to download the code.

--  Tyler Romeo 0x405D34A7C86B42DF

On February 7, 2015 at 16:08:16, Bartosz Dziewoński (matma.rex@gmail.com) wrote:

MediaWiki is already available under GPL 2 *or any later version*. Why  would we want to disallow distribution under GPL 2?

(Not that it's even possible. We could only state that new changes to  MediaWiki code are only available on GPL 3+, we can't re-license existing  code.)

--  Bartosz Dziewoński

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Assuming they are using unmodified MediaWiki, yes a link to mediawiki.org would probably suffice. I am going to look more into it, but what we have right now (link in the footer and extension information on Special:Version) should fulfill compliance automatically for third parties.

David Gerard <dgerard <at> gmail.com> writes:

What about extensions? Would they count as derivatives of MediaWiki for license purposes? (I suspect they would, given Automattic regards WordPress themes and plugins as derivatives and requires them to be GPL.)

IANAL, but if there is some flexibility here, I would argue that extensions should *not* be considered derivatives. Legally, because extensions do not contain MediaWiki code (beyond using the programming API provided by core classes); in practice, because we have many extensions licensed under licenses that are incompatible with GPL,[1] and I don't think we should require people to choose a GPL-compatible licence should they want to write MediaWiki extensions.

I think switching to AGPL needs more careful consideration. Not everyone may agree with its philosophy, and it'd probably significantly impact some of the biggest users of MediaWiki (Wikia comes to mind).

wctaiwan

[1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:MIT_licensed_extensions

Hi I have uploaded the patch https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/189294/%C2%A0here so which ever license that gets pick the commit can get updated for the new license so if we decide to change to AGPLv3 then the commit can be updated for that license or any other one.

On Saturday, 7 February 2015, 23:49, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

On 7 February 2015 at 23:39, wctaiwan wctaiwan+lists@gmail.com wrote:

IANAL, but if there is some flexibility here, I would argue that extensions should *not* be considered derivatives. Legally, because extensions do not contain MediaWiki code (beyond using the programming API provided by core classes);

Ah, good! Yeah, programming to a provided and documented API should be fine. (With WordPress, themes and plugins are very much programs running in the same process, etc.)

in practice, because we have many extensions licensed under licenses that are incompatible with GPL,[1] and I don't think we should require people to choose a GPL-compatible licence should they want to write MediaWiki extensions. [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:MIT_licensed_extensions

- d.

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Hi could i have some help to resize the image and also optimise it please at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vector-bullet-icon.svg i got it to go full size on ios.

On Sunday, 8 February 2015, 0:00, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

One thing to point out is that:

1) Even right now, under the GPL, if extensions do qualify as “derivative works” or w/e, they do have to be GPL licensed. 2) Source code only has to be provided to users of the program. So presuming this is some private wiki with a secret extension, source code does not have to be provided or published to the general public.

--  Tyler Romeo 0x405D34A7C86B42DF

On February 7, 2015 at 18:49:29, David Gerard (dgerard@gmail.com) wrote:

On 7 February 2015 at 23:39, wctaiwan wctaiwan+lists@gmail.com wrote:

IANAL, but if there is some flexibility here, I would argue that extensions should *not* be considered derivatives. Legally, because extensions do not contain MediaWiki code (beyond using the programming API provided by core classes);

Ah, good! Yeah, programming to a provided and documented API should be fine. (With WordPress, themes and plugins are very much programs running in the same process, etc.)

in practice, because we have many extensions licensed under licenses that are incompatible with GPL,[1] and I don't think we should require people to choose a GPL-compatible licence should they want to write MediaWiki extensions. [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:MIT_licensed_extensions

- d.

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On Feb 8, 2015 8:17 AM, "Tim Landscheidt" tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:

Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

...

One thing to point out is that:

...

1. Even right now, under the GPL, if extensions do qualify as

“derivative works” or w/e, they do have to be GPL licensed.

...

2. Source code only has to be provided to users of the

program. So presuming this is some private wiki with a secret extension, source code does not have to be provided or published to the general public.

...

[...]

And if it is a non-private wiki?

I think the general disadvantage of AGPL is that it forces you in a contract with your audience (who may be evil, or just obnoxious). With the AGPL, you can't just customize or develop extensions without thinking about how to publish it, thus raising the bar for setting a up a wiki with MediaWiki. Even security fixes would need to be published immediately.

Tim

This.

Furthermore i think a not insignificant portion of current reusers make minor modifications to mediawiki core code (no matter how much we discourage it) and dont publish it (because they figure probably nobody cares if you change a single condition check on line 1646 of some file). They would be in violation of an agpl licensed mediawiki.

--bawolff

On February 8, 2015 at 03:47:26, Max Semenik (maxsem.wiki@gmail.com) wrote:

Honestly, I'm no big fan of strongly copyleft licenses, especially AGPL. In addition to scaring off corporate users (yes, even soulless for-profit drones deserve the right to use FLOSS), it creates a lot of uncertainty even for open source users. I would personally prefer something much permissive like MIT style. The GPL does not stop companies from using open source software. It only stops them from modifying open source software and then making it proprietary. There’s no way we’re going to switch to a license like MIT that does not actually support the free software movement. (Also, we actually can’t switch to the MIT license without express permissions from every developer who ever contributed to core anyway.)

--  Tyler Romeo 0x405D34A7C86B42DF

On 8 February 2015 at 11:12, Max Semenik maxsem.wiki@gmail.com wrote:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 2:13 AM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

...

(Also, we actually can’t switch to the MIT license without express permissions from every developer who ever contributed to core anyway.)

Same applies to AGPL.

I believe AGPL counts as an FSF-approved "or later" on GPL 2+.

- d.

I think we should upgrade to GPL 3 because it I more modern only released sometime in 2007 where as GPL 2 was released in 1991 when the internet started to begin. The update to GPL 3 wont cause many issue.

On Sunday, 8 February 2015, 1:17, Ricordisamoa ricordisamoa@openmailbox.org wrote:

I like the GPLv3 and the aforementioned AGPL in general, but I doubt the code base would benefit from them at this point. Changing GPL-2.0+ to GPL-3.0+ is almost one-way, and I'm afraid some unhappy developers could even fork the project to keep it GPL-2.0+.

Il 07/02/2015 20:57, Thomas Mulhall ha scritto:

Hi should we upgrade GPL to version 3 since version 3 is more modern then version 2. Should it be updated in extensions, skins and MediaWiki. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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The GPLv3 is not more restrictive.

As I mentioned, if anything it’s more permissive, since it is compatible with more licenses, and because it allows distributors to add some certain additional clauses to the license at their discretion. If a developer wants to release their personal code under the Apache 2.0 license, they can do so and still contribute to MediaWiki. Or if a distributor wants to offer their own warranty on MediaWiki, they can.

Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to bring up AGPL, because I’ll admit I even have bad feelings about it, especially considering the whole security patch issue.

However, if somebody would like to offer up an actual reason for why upgrading from v2 to v3 is a bad idea, I’m all ears.

(Also, some relevant links, it seems RESTBase is currently under AGPL, so we may eventually be enveloped by it anyway: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78212.) --  Tyler Romeo 0x405D34A7C86B42DF

On February 8, 2015 at 10:40:03, Thomas Mulhall (thomasmulhall410@yahoo.com) wrote:

GPLv3 is not a simple upgrade, it is merely a switch to a more restrictive license.  It is quite unlikely to happen.

Each time the subject has been raised, we ended up with a license flame war and no strong arguments to switch.

Here is http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 this link for any one who wants to read apache license 2.0

On Monday, 9 February 2015, 0:59, Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

The GPLv3 is not more restrictive.

As I mentioned, if anything it’s more permissive, since it is compatible with more licenses, and because it allows distributors to add some certain additional clauses to the license at their discretion.

Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of the GPL)  Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or later" is compatible with.

If a developer wants to release their personal code under the Apache 2.0 license, they can do so and still contribute to MediaWiki. Or if a distributor wants to offer their own warranty on MediaWiki, they can.

Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to bring up AGPL, because I’ll admit I even have bad feelings about it, especially considering the whole security patch issue.

However, if somebody would like to offer up an actual reason for why upgrading from v2 to v3 is a bad idea, I’m all ears.

Two responses: 1.  Because that makes our code incompatible with any GPLv2-only code out there. 2.  Why is it a good idea?

In general, our licensing choices should be driven by goals, and it's unclear what goals are met by moving to GPLv3.  It's also unclear what goals any version of the GPL is actually serving in this particular context (due to the nature of PHP server side code) but relicensing MediaWiki at this late stage (beyond v2->later version) is not really a practical option, so I don't feel the need to belabor this particular point.

(Also, some relevant links, it seems RESTBase is currently under AGPL, so we may eventually be enveloped by it anyway: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78212.)

That decision isn't final, and in fact, as Gabriel noted on that bug, he's working with the other contributors to relicense it under the Apache 2.0 license, per a conversation that a bunch of us had at WMF.

In general, we should think about what goal we're trying to address by using GPLv2+ or GPLv3+ or any other license for that matter.  My personal experience has been that any contribution that has been compelled by license rather than given of enlightened self interest is done grudgingly and in a rather useless fashion.  There are certainly copyleft success stories (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt), but for MediaWiki, it's unclear under what possible scenario we'd want to compel GPL compliance from anyone that wasn't already motivated to work with us as an upstream.

In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward Apache 2.0.  It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.

Rob

any =

On Monday, 9 February 2015, 1:16, Thomas Mulhall thomasmulhall410@yahoo.com wrote:

Hi any even if you say GPL 2.0+ GPL 3 is not compatible with GPL 2.

On Monday, 9 February 2015, 1:15, Thomas Mulhall thomasmulhall410@yahoo.com wrote:

Here is http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 this link for any one who wants to read apache license 2.0

On Monday, 9 February 2015, 0:59, Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

The GPLv3 is not more restrictive.

As I mentioned, if anything it’s more permissive, since it is compatible with more licenses, and because it allows distributors to add some certain additional clauses to the license at their discretion.

Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of the GPL)  Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or later" is compatible with.

If a developer wants to release their personal code under the Apache 2.0 license, they can do so and still contribute to MediaWiki. Or if a distributor wants to offer their own warranty on MediaWiki, they can.

Maybe it was a little presumptuous of me to bring up AGPL, because I’ll admit I even have bad feelings about it, especially considering the whole security patch issue.

However, if somebody would like to offer up an actual reason for why upgrading from v2 to v3 is a bad idea, I’m all ears.

Two responses: 1.  Because that makes our code incompatible with any GPLv2-only code out there. 2.  Why is it a good idea?

In general, our licensing choices should be driven by goals, and it's unclear what goals are met by moving to GPLv3.  It's also unclear what goals any version of the GPL is actually serving in this particular context (due to the nature of PHP server side code) but relicensing MediaWiki at this late stage (beyond v2->later version) is not really a practical option, so I don't feel the need to belabor this particular point.

(Also, some relevant links, it seems RESTBase is currently under AGPL, so we may eventually be enveloped by it anyway: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T78212.)

That decision isn't final, and in fact, as Gabriel noted on that bug, he's working with the other contributors to relicense it under the Apache 2.0 license, per a conversation that a bunch of us had at WMF.

In general, we should think about what goal we're trying to address by using GPLv2+ or GPLv3+ or any other license for that matter.  My personal experience has been that any contribution that has been compelled by license rather than given of enlightened self interest is done grudgingly and in a rather useless fashion.  There are certainly copyleft success stories (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt), but for MediaWiki, it's unclear under what possible scenario we'd want to compel GPL compliance from anyone that wasn't already motivated to work with us as an upstream.

In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward Apache 2.0.  It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.

Rob

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of the GPL) Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or later" is compatible with.

This is not true. The GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible licenses, and if you read the actual license disclaimer, you will see it is not the "functional equivalent" of having our code licensed under both.

Rather, what the disclaimer says is that our code is GPLv2 only, *but*, anybody who modifies or distributes it is free to, at their discretion, change the license to any later version of the GPL. You legally cannot have both the GPLv2 and GPLv3 because they are conflicting in their terms.

This is virtually identical to how the old MPL multi-licensing boilerplate is worded: https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/boilerplate-1.1/

...which is widely considered sufficient for GPL compatibility.

I've already described the numerous changes and fixes that have been made in the GPLv3, specifically easier enforcement due to changed policies on infringement, better international wording, etc. If you'd like to dispute any of the good ideas I've listed, then go ahead, but I think the improvements v3 makes are more than enough of a goal.

My apologies. I'll take those into consideration.

As for your point on it being useless because of the server-side nature of PHP, I semi-agree, which is why I proposed the AGPL, but nonetheless the advantages of the v3 will still help distributors who download MediaWiki from our site. The server-side nature of PHP has nothing to do with it.

My main point about not thinking too hard about GPLv3 specifically is because I'm generally a little skeptical about GPL's general applicability to our use case.

...

In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward Apache 2.0. It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.

That is quite depressing to hear. MediaWiki is supposed to be an open source software movement, so I would think one of the goals of our community would be to preserve that and keep MediaWiki open source, but if the WMF has some future goals to make its software proprietary, then I can understand why we might want to aim toward something that allows that, such as the permissive Apache 2.0.

Please assume good faith.

There is absolutely no intention by the WMF to make our software proprietary. The only reason we'd entertain a switch to a more permissive license is as a means of collaborating with entities (companies, individuals, and organizations) who might steer clear of GPL software but otherwise be good open source collaborators out of enlightened self interest.

Rob

Hi!

I will assume good faith for the WMF. I was just making a quick jab; I know the WMF is not going to make MediaWiki proprietary.

However, I will not assume good faith for every other software company out there that may take MediaWiki, modify it or improve it in some way, and then begin selling it as proprietary software. It's nice to think the world

I'm in the free software world for more than two decades now, and I still fail to understand why this scenario bothers people so much. There are a number of projects that do exactly that, on top of various free software projects (both non-GPL and GPL), and so far I've not seen much problem coming out of it. Let's assume for a minute that we live in a nightmare world where there is a company, say EvilWiki Corp., which improves mediawiki somehow and sells the result. How exactly life in that world substantially worse for us than in ours where EvilWiki Corp. does not exist?

is an ideal place where everybody shares their source code, but unfortunately we are not living in the ideal, and in fact that is the entire reason the GPL was written in the first place: in response to companies acting in bad faith.

It is true that GPL is a response for that. What I am less sure about is that it is the *right* response. There are dozens major successful open source projects that have permissive licenses, or hundreds if you relax the criteria of "major" somewhat. I have hard time remembering one of them that seriously suffered from the nightmare scenario as you describe - maybe there are, but if there would be many, I'd probably hear about them, so I assume such cases, if existing, must be rare (or I am exceptionally ignorant). Some time ago, open source was a weird phenomenon with a shade of crazy - what do you mean give your code to everybody for free? Isn't that some Communist plot? I assume in these times adding some legal power to the movement was a very enticing prospect. Now, open source is a proven thing, everybody does it - Apple does it, Microsoft does it, IBM does it, Google does it, everybody who's anybody does it. It's in fashion. You don't have to force people to follow the fashion. So I wonder if spending time worrying about if the license is strong enough and defensive enough is something worth doing now.

Hi Tyler

More comments inline:

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

Not sure exactly what you mean. The MPL is compatible with both GPL 2.0 and 3.0.

MPL v1.1 was not compatible with any version of the GPL, hence the reason why Mozilla eventually multi-licensed their software under MPL/GPL/LGPL (they pioneered the approach, IIRC). MPL v2 achieves GPL compatibility by specifically naming GPL v2+, LGPL v2.1+, and AGPL v3+ as "Secondary Licenses", and then optionally allowing relicensing (i.e. one-way conversion of the software to GPL/LGPL/AGPL) under section 3.3. It basically bakes multi-licensing into the license itself.

What I'm saying is that GPLv2 to GPLv3 is a one-way direction. Once code is licensed under v3, you cannot go back to v2. The Apache license is only compatible with v3, and code under v2 cannot be combined with Apache code, so the only way to add in Apache code to a GPL project is if the entire project is v3.

By this logic, once MPL-licensed code is relicensed under GPL, you cannot go back to MPL, so the only way to add GPL code to an MPL project is if the entire project is GPL.

The fact that there's an option to upgrade the license to GPLv3 is sufficient for GPLv2+ code to be compatible with Apache 2.0 code, in the same way that the option to relicense MPL code as GPL code is sufficient for GPL compatibility. You don't need to actually perform the relicensing, you merely have to offer the licensee the option to do so if they so desire.

I will assume good faith for the WMF. I was just making a quick jab; I know the WMF is not going to make MediaWiki proprietary.

Thanks for clarifying that.

However, I will not assume good faith for every other software company out there that may take MediaWiki, modify it or improve it in some way, and then begin selling it as proprietary software. It's nice to think the world is an ideal place where everybody shares their source code, but unfortunately we are not living in the ideal, and in fact that is the entire reason the GPL was written in the first place: in response to companies acting in bad faith.

I think my experience is more-or-less in line with Stas, though I think I still have more sympathy for the copyleft approach than he has. I see the copyleft/permissive choice as more of a tactical than a moral choice, and that I think permissive is going to be a more effective long-term tactic to achieve the moral goals also sought by proponents of copyleft. Downstream modifiers of software eventually learn that keeping secret patches to upstream code is more hassle than whatever "secret sauce" benefits they get.

Also, one cost of copyleft licenses is that they are much, much more complicated than permissive licenses. Even though many people feel comfortable with the compliance requirements of most OSI-approved licenses, the permissive licenses can usually stand alone without an FAQ, whereas an FAQ is required for just about all of the copyleft licenses. That simplicity reduces a very real barrier to adoption.

Rob

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 12:01 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

On 9 February 2015 at 04:51, Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Also, one cost of copyleft licenses is that they are much, much more complicated than permissive licenses. Even though many people feel comfortable with the compliance requirements of most OSI-approved licenses, the permissive licenses can usually stand alone without an FAQ, whereas an FAQ is required for just about all of the copyleft licenses. That simplicity reduces a very real barrier to adoption.

Is this statement from anecdote or data? Otherwise you need to explain how LibreOffice (copyleft) has fifteen or so companies contributing, whereas Apache OpenOffice (permissive) has one and even they've given up actually paying people to work on it. The idea that permissive works better for getting contributions seems to me completely unevidenced.

OpenOffice's woes are unrelated to its license, it was already dead by forking when Oracle transferred it to Apache, facilitating a change from GPL+proprietary CLA to the Apache license.

This entire conversation is a bit disappointing, mainly because I am a supporter of the free software movement, and like to believe that users should have a right to see the source code of software they use. Obviously not everybody feels this way and not everybody is going to support the free software movement, but I can assure you I personally have no plans on contributing to any WMF project that is Apache licensed, but at the very least MediaWiki core is still GPLv2, even if it makes things a bit more difficult.

Also, I have no idea how the MPL works, but I can assure you that licensing under the “GPLv2 or any later version” cannot possibly imply it is available under both the v2 and v3. The different GPL versions have conflicting terms. You cannot possibly use the terms of the v2 and v3 simultaneously. It is legally impossible. What is means is that you can use the software under the terms of the v2 *or* the v3. And, as I mentioned, since Apache is only compatible with v3, as long as using the software under the v2 is an option, you cannot combine code that is under Apache.

--  Tyler Romeo 0x405D34A7C86B42DF

On February 9, 2015 at 04:06:54, David Gerard (dgerard@gmail.com) wrote:

On 9 February 2015 at 08:28, Max Semenik maxsem.wiki@gmail.com wrote:

OpenOffice's woes are unrelated to its license, it was already dead by forking when Oracle transferred it to Apache, facilitating a change from GPL+proprietary CLA to the Apache license.

Indeed, but they touted the mythical attractiveness of a permissive license over the bondage of copyleft. And it didn't work that way at all in practice.

Again: data, rather than anecdote or surmise? As far as I can tell, the claim that permissive attracts more contributions than copyleft is entirely a myth.

- d.

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Le 09/02/2015 21:10, Thomas Mulhall a écrit :

Should we create a page on mediawiki and allow people to vote for it or against. And advertise it on Wikimedia wiki so that users know there is a vote going on for GPL3. and we should hold the vote for 2 to 3 months giving time for users to vote and since this would probably be a big update to GPL.

There is no point in voting nor in using mediawiki.org right now. It is too early. Lets use the proven process that makes laws:

- heated discussions and debates - craft proposals - refine until we get good candidates - put the project on vote and apply

We are at the discussion phase :-]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

This entire conversation is a bit disappointing, mainly because I am a supporter of the free software movement, and like to believe that users should have a right to see the source code of software they use. Obviously not everybody feels this way and not everybody is going to support the free software movement, but I can assure you I personally have no plans on contributing to any WMF project that is Apache licensed, but at the very least MediaWiki core is still GPLv2, even if it makes things a bit more difficult.

You're implying that Apache2 licensed software is somehow not part of the free software movement and that's absurd. Apache2 is technically a freer license than GPLv(anything). Like GPL3, it also provides patent protection. In practice it doesn't matter if software is forked and closed if the canonical source isn't. The org that forks must maintain their fork and all of their modifications without help. It's onerous and generally unmaintainable for most orgs, especially if their core business isn't based on the software, or if the canonical source is fast moving.

It's your choice to not participate in any project for any reason, but try to understand that some people (such as myself) much prefer to work on software that's truly free, rather than virally free.

- Ryan

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 12:22 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

I hope you don’t seriously think GPL software is not “truly free”.

Well, it all depends on point of view on what is free. The FSF interpretation is "you can do it your own way if it's done just how I say". Not everyone agrees that more restrictions is more freedom. Note: I don't disagree with Stallmanian coplyleft principles in all cases, I just consider the word "free" highly misleading here.

On Mon Feb 09 2015 at 21:25:16 Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote: [snip]

It's your choice to not participate in any project for any reason, but try to understand that some people (such as myself) much prefer to work on software that's truly free, rather than virally free. I hope you don’t seriously think GPL software is not “truly free”.

I agree with the sentiment that copyleft licenses are not truly free, but only in the sense "you are free to do what you want, but only my way". This is probably a minority view in the free software community, but not one that you should dismiss so easily.

As for my opinion, the more licenses the user can choose, the freeer and the better and I thus support keeping the current GPL 2 or higher license. In fact I would prefer to go to a less restrictive license, but that is probably not worth the fight.

Bryan

I’m still not entirely convinced that the GPLv2 allows more licenses than the v3. Yeah, maybe in the case of extensions it’s OK, but I do not think it is possible to add Apache code into MediaWiki core and still allow licensing MediaWiki under both the v2 and the v3.

Maybe if legal can provide an explanation, but at this point so many people are dying to use a permissive license that I doubt anything is ever going to change.

Also, I understand everybody seems to be worried about using the AGPL in libraries because then the libraries cannot be used by outside companies in proprietary software. But at that point it’s really just a difference in opinion. What is more important: allowing as many people to use our libraries as possible, or protecting against our libraries from being used in proprietary software.

--  Tyler Romeo 0x405D34A7C86B42DF

On February 10, 2015 at 18:23:32, David Gerard (dgerard@gmail.com) wrote:

On 10 February 2015 at 23:19, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:

In fact I would prefer to go to a less restrictive license, but that is probably not worth the fight.

And is also infeasible. For a web service. GPL is effectively weak copyleft already; I think that's quite weak enough. (As I noted, there is no actual evidence that permissive licenses secure more contributions than copyleft, and some evidence the other way; despite fans of permissive licenses repeating the claims ad nauseam over the last fifteen years, they're notably short on examples.)

- d.

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On February 11, 2015 at 11:49:15, Bryan Davis (bd808@wikimedia.org) wrote: On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 8:48 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

What is more important: allowing as many people to use our libraries as possible, or protecting against our libraries from being used in proprietary software.

For me, allowing as many people to use our libraries as possible. For the sake of the discussion, why?

For me, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The advantage of getting more companies to use our libraries is that (maybe) they will contribute back, similar to what Apple does with LLVM. However, on the other side of the same coin, we are allowing the possibility that companies will *not* contribute back, and instead keep their improvements to themselves (to be clear, I am not implying malicious intent).

--  Tyler Romeo 0x405D34A7C86B42DF

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 9:55 AM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

On February 11, 2015 at 11:49:15, Bryan Davis (bd808@wikimedia.org) wrote: On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 8:48 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

...

What is more important: allowing as many people to use our libraries as

possible, or protecting against our libraries from being used in proprietary software.

For me, allowing as many people to use our libraries as possible. For the sake of the discussion, why?

For me, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The advantage of getting more companies to use our libraries is that (maybe) they will contribute back, similar to what Apple does with LLVM. However, on the other side of the same coin, we are allowing the possibility that companies will *not* contribute back, and instead keep their improvements to themselves (to be clear, I am not implying malicious intent).

Companies don't need to give back with GPL either, even if they make mods. They only need to do so if they distribute. There's lots of Apache2 projects that have a very large amount of contribution, so maybe this would happen, but I doubt it. Not having to maintain your own fork is a really strong motivator for most companies.

- Ryan

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 10:48 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

I’m still not entirely convinced that the GPLv2 allows more licenses than the v3.

GPL v2+ is a superset of GPL v3. I don't know why you find that so hard to understand.

[...] I do not think it is possible to add Apache code into MediaWiki core and still allow licensing MediaWiki under both the v2 and the v3.

Yes, that is the case. Accepting Apache code into core should be treated the same as accepting GPL v3-only code into core. Both significantly restrict the licensing of the combined work. --scott

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

And, as a result, since MediaWiki is licensed under the v2+ rather than v3, we cannot accept Apache-licensed code into core.

We cannot. But our users can. And our users can also combine with GPL v2-only code.

The set of acceptable core licenses is thus *more* restrictive ("GPL v2+" and those licenses compatible with it) so that our users have *more* freedom (license combined works under GPLv2, GPLv3, AGPL (maybe), etc). That's how it works. It's not hard. --scott

Hi!

And is also infeasible. For a web service. GPL is effectively weak copyleft already; I think that's quite weak enough. (As I noted, there is no actual evidence that permissive licenses secure more

This is very plausible, as the decision to contribute is rarely driven by the license as a primary factor - you don't say "here's random GPL-licensed project, I don't know anything about its domain, language, goals, community, status or needs, but I feel compelled to contribute because it's GPL!" - or at least, most people won't say that. As long as the license is not completely un-acceptable, I would assume other factors would dominate such decision. However, I know cases where I personally had to write code or otherwise work around GPL libraries because of license incompatibility with other open-source projects. That, of course, can be also counted as "more contributions" but I don't think that's what you meant :)

contributions than copyleft, and some evidence the other way; despite

Out of curiosity, what evidence you mean?

fans of permissive licenses repeating the claims ad nauseam over the last fifteen years, they're notably short on examples.)

You must already know examples of successful projects under permissive licenses. So you probably seeking the examples of why permissive license solicits _more_ contributions that if the same project was under GPL. Such example would require a rather rare occurrence of a project changing the license while at mature stage and measuring the contributions before and after the license change, otherwise we'd be comparing apples to oranges. My personal opinion is, as I described above, that license doesn't matter too much provided it's not unacceptably restrictive. Thus, for me looking for such examples would be a waste of time :)

Ok

On Thursday, 12 February 2015, 14:42, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 12:22 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

On 10 February 2015 at 23:19, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:

...

In fact I would prefer to go to a less restrictive license, but that is probably not worth the fight.

And is also infeasible. For a web service. GPL is effectively weak copyleft already; I think that's quite weak enough. (As I noted, there is no actual evidence that permissive licenses secure more contributions than copyleft, and some evidence the other way; despite fans of permissive licenses repeating the claims ad nauseam over the last fifteen years, they're notably short on examples.)

I am not particularly convinced that for many MediaWiki contributors the

choice of license was a factor when starting to contribute to MediaWiki. In any case, as you state, the GPL as applied to MediaWiki is already very weakly copyleft, leaving us only the disadvantage of incompatibility with non-GPL projects, with the advantages of copyleft non-existent for the MediaWiki case.

Bryan _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

On 09/02/15 20:37, Tyler Romeo wrote:

This entire conversation is a bit disappointing, mainly because I am a supporter of the free software movement, and like to believe that users should have a right to see the source code of software they use.

Obviously

not everybody feels this way and not everybody is going to support the

free

software movement, but I can assure you I personally have no plans on contributing to any WMF project that is Apache licensed, but at the very least MediaWiki core is still GPLv2, even if it makes things a bit

more difficult.

Also, I have no idea how the MPL works, but I can assure you that licensing under the “GPLv2 or any later version” cannot possibly imply it is

available

under both the v2 and v3. The different GPL versions have conflicting

terms.

You cannot possibly use the terms of the v2 and v3 simultaneously. It is legally impossible. What is means is that you can use the software under the terms of the v2 *or* the v3. And, as I mentioned, since Apache is

only

compatible with v3, as long as using the software under the v2 is an

option,

you cannot combine code that is under Apache.

It is *available*. You can use, at your choice either of them (or any later version not yet released). Though your options may be decreased if you combine the work with a different one not compatible with both of them.

Also note we have traditionally held the position of not considering MW extensions derived works (and thus allowing them to be licensed like eg. MIT), which would be arguable.

I wouldn't even be surprised if -supposing we had an AGPL mediawiki- a troll came requesting the full LocalSettings.php contents to be published, password DB included.

I also vote for maintaining the current GPLv2+ license.