Re: [phpGroupWare-developers] Coordination Team

[Sigurd Nes]

Dave Hall wrote:
> 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.
> 

By all means - I'm not pursuing this - the point was to show that the Developers
Guide could be more informative - and could/should be updated when long-standing
policies are settled.

Regards

Sigurd