Re: [phpGroupWare-developers] Coordination Team

[Dave Hall]

Hi all,

Let me start this by saying IANAL, but ... :)

On Tue, 2008-03-04 at 18:36 +0100, Sigurd Nes wrote:
> Benoit Hamet wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > Sorry to jump into this, but :
> > 
> > Sigurd Nes a écrit :
> >>> From: Dave Hall address@hidden
> >>> Sent: 2008-03-04 15:02:00 CET
> >>> To: address@hidden
> >>> Subject: Re: SV: [phpGroupWare-developers] Coordination Team
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, 2008-03-04 at 14:30 +0100, Sigurd Nes wrote:
> >>>>> From: Dave Hall address@hidden
> >>>>> Sent: 2008-03-04 13:39:41 CET
> >>>>> To: address@hidden
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [phpGroupWare-developers] Coordination Team
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Sat, 2008-02-23 at 10:56 +0100, Sigurd Nes wrote:
> >>>>>> I'm happy with the team - it's just that sometimes I could wish I had
> >>>>>> a vote in decision processes rather than being told afterwards that
> >>>>>> some policy
> >>>>>> has changed.
> >>>>> I am not sure which policies you are referring to.  The policies of the
> >>>>> project and release goals for 0.9.18 haven't really changed for a long
> >>>>> time.  
> >>>> Well - how about licensing GPLv2 vs. GPLv3. (or what about AGPL?)
> >>> GPLv3 is a requirement of being a GNU package and was discussed here
> >>> back in July last year.  The AGPL is a great license for something like
> >>> phpgw, but without rewriting large chunks of code we can't use it.
> >> Could we have things like that in the Developers Guide ?
> > I'm not sure to understand what you mean here ... "things like that" is
> > for the fact that being a GNU package has some well known constraints
> > (and lot's advantages IMHO), or that if you want to put some pieces of
> > code under another Licence than the official one it should be GPLv3
> > Compliant ? Or another thing ?
> >  
> 
> I'm thinking on rules for how to play in general.
> 
> For the xGPL - as I understand it  - the <quote>either version 2 of the 
> License,
> or (at your option) any later version</quote> is GPLv3 compliant.

No, that allows someone to relicense GPLv2 code as GPLv3, but doesn't
make that code automatically GPLv3 licensed.  Also the GPLv2 and v3 are
not compatiable.  We can not distribute code which is a mix of L/GPLv2
and L/GPLv3.  As agreed here and with the FSF we will be moving to
L/GPLv3 for the 0.9.18 release.  All new checkins should contain proper
phpdoc headers with L/GPLv3 licensing


> -Also (still my perception): The rationale behind LGPL, is that where there 
> are
>  alternative libraries available for the proprietary software - it is 
> desirable
> that it is the GNU version that is preferred, and LGPL will allow the
> proprietary software to link to it.
> However, when a library provides a significant unique capability, releasing it
> under the GPL and limiting its use to free programs is preferred to promote 
> the
> GNU variant.
> 
> As I understand it - one can use all variants of the xGPL - not having to 
> choose
> only one.

You can combine all 3 licenses in 1 piece of work, but it is best to
have clear delineation between which license applies to which parts of
code.  If you wish to relicense a module AGPL, the following process
will apply:

* Conduct a code audit to ensure that _all_ code to be relicensed is
covered by a FSF copyright assignment

* Email here with the code audit info, listing who wrote each file - no
matter how small.  We need this to ensure that the code can be
relicensed.

* As the GNU package maintainer I will contact the FSF and discuss a
relicensing, this must be done as the FSF holds the copyright over the
code.

I don't think that having some modules GPL and some AGPL adds much to
the project, and probably adds to confusion and administrative overhead.

I don't support a wholesale relicensing of phpgw as AGPL, as it would
create too much work in terms of code audits and rewriting code, and
provide very little benefit.

> 
> My personal opinion is that the GPL could be replaced with AGPL wherever it is
> used - while LGPL has to stay as is (if appropriate for linking with other 
> parties).

The linking is an interesting issue, but I think these days we could use
GPL for the API too, but I am not going to push for that.  We already
have some GPL code in the API.

I think that licensing discussions can get bogged down very quickly
provide little benefit.  I think we should be focused on a L/GPLv3
0.9.18 release.

Cheers

Dave