More licensing followup...

I just posted this reply on chromatic's journal: 

So, the relicensing has two parts:

The first part is directly addressing Allison's worry that asserting a less-restrictve "compilation copyright" than something under the source tree, will invite legal troubles. I responded by disclaiming my compilation copyright.

The second part is my wish to change the src/ tree, which comprises the source for "pugs" executable, to public domain status, by moving all third-party parts out to a separate place (third-party/), and rewriting parts of the contributions where the contributor would like to maintain Artistic2.0b5+GPL license status for their contributions.

All contributions outside the src/ tree remains unaffected.

I thank your contribution in parameter binding and object finalization. Due to the Capture unification and disappearance of References, they need to be rewritten anyway. I regret that you will not participate in the rewrite.

I have also reflected this situation in the Pugs README file.  A summary:

• Disclaiming my compilation-copyright over Pugs does not affect any contributed code.
• Moving third-party code to third-party/ does not affect any contributed code on those third-party code, since they still retain their own license.
• All contributed code outside src/ directory remains unaffected.
• The src/ directory is currently still under Artistic 2.0b5/GPL, but I'd like to relax this restriction, making the "pugs" binary itself public domain software.  This will not take effect until the next release.
• The rationale for the src/ change is that I think the social dynamics of the Pugs src/ tree differs from the intent of restrictions imposed by Artistic2.0b14.
• Also, it is more common for research/prototype project to under BSD  license, MIT  license, or public domain. I'd like to let those projects reuse Pugs's source code, which Artistic2 does not allow.
• Also, it is always possible for TPF (or anybody) to later pick up the public-domain part of Pugs, and redistribute it under Artistic2, or any other license (MPL or BSD, for example).  This ensures the possibility for a "production" version of Pugs later adopted by an organization.
• If you have previously committed into src/, and disagree with making your code available without restrictions, then please inform me, just like chromatic did.

Since chromatic considers public domain equivalent to a no-rights-retained license (e.g. MIT), and he would like his contributions to remain under Artistic/GPL, he wished that the src/ parts be rewritten, remarking that it is easier to do so rather than trying to convince him.  I have since complied with his wish, and rewrote all his code under src/ as of r10068.

Update: It turns out that chromatic thinks MIT license is okay. Pending further communication, maybe there is yet hope of agreement...