Pugs (non)licensing follow-up.

The comment from Garrett prompted this entry, as I'd like to clarify I'm not standing up against Artistic2 at all. :-)

I don't consider Artistic2b14 as restrictive at all (except maybe the TPF-can-update-terms-at-will clause feels a bit strange); it's certainly an improvement over the extremely ambiguous Artistic1. If you agree with the intent of Artistic1 for your previously-released original work, and trusts TPF's continuous licensing direction, then upgrading to Artistic2 is definitely a sane choice.

Re Garrett's Parrot/Artistic2 concerns, Allison noted that the "Copyright by Perl Foundation" header added to each Parrot file does not override the original author's copyright, but instead means that TPF holds the compilation copyright, by which it must be asserted to extend to all files within the Parrot tree, which means Parrot can't contain LGPL parts, or any parts that are more restrictive than Artistic2.

So to solve this problem, I simply disclaim my compilation copyright over Pugs, as well as the tarball that contains third-party (BSD, Artistic/GPL, and possibly LGPL) distributions. This means the receiver must reuse part of the code under whatever license it was originally under.

In addition to disclaiming my right to the compiled work, I also disclaim my original work contained within it, so that the receiver does not need to worry about reusing those parts of the work.  Once all the non-third-party parts are marked as such, then we can say that "the entirety of Pugs is in the public domain". Until that day, it means that the Pugs tarball doesn't impose any licenses at all, beyond the licenses in whatever its subdirectories assert. :-)

Comments

[Garrett]

My apologies for misconstruing your comments on the new licensing scheme.

"Standing up against" was the wrong choice of words. You've certainly bent over backwards in order to avoid licensing conflicts between Artistic 2.0b14, Pugs, and other projects.

This still doesn't sound like much of an endorsement if you feel motivated to move Pugs away from it.

What I understood was that:

1) Inclusion of Artistic code under a LGPL project's tree is okay, but the converse is forbidden

2) You couldn't fully comprehend the legal explanation for this after a long conversation with Allison.

3) Pugs inclusion of LGPL code would be in conflict with Artistic 2.0b14.

This has motivated you to move Pugs away from the Artistic License to a public domain attribution or (non)license.

If you can't understand the legal explanation, then there's going to be a lot more people like myself right behind you.

I don't understand the need for a compilation copyright. And because I don't understand it, I fear it. I'd like an explanation, but your blog probably isn't the right place for that ;)

I feel like a quack saying it, but it sounds like a compilation copyright could be used to make forks illegal. Since the choice, selection, and arrangement of the source tree itself would be copyrighted.

I asked Allison a bunch of questions back in October when she first mentioned it... but received no answers.

I think it is very refreshing that you're considering the (non)license / public domain route. And I still don't understand why Perl needs Yet Another License.

cheers...

[Audrey T]

I think I comprehend the legal explanation now; I updated the previous entry to reflect the new understanding.

I'm not sure that compilation copyright (a novel concept that's avaiable in Taiwan only since 2003) is the right legal venue to assert Artistic2 with, but if I continue to use Artistic2 for Pugs, then TPF's interpretation is certainly to be hounoured.

So, using Artistic2 for your personal/original work is just fine, and it's fine for group-collaborated work (like Parrot) if authors of all parts of them agrees with the scope of restrictions; but I think Pugs's social dynamism doesn't require them, and irrevocable public domain dedications certainly feels much more fun to me . :)

[Humberto Massa]

Hi Audrey. I think I should inform you that "disclaiming one's copyright" or (how it is put sometimes) "putting in the public domain" is not legally possible in a lot of jurisdictions. Everytime I see someone doing that, I feel obligated to inform that there are a number of pitfalls, including that the "disclaim of copyrights" can be overturned by one's heirs after its death. I always recommend, for the purpose you are trying to do that, that people just license their code (and their compilation) under a 2-clause BSD-like license. It's cleaner, it's legally almost bulletproof everywhere, and it does what you mean to do: allows the code to be used in every other program that wants to use it.

[Humberto Massa]

Oops. Somewhat people at wp seem to be proving me wrong. I'll look more unto it... Meanwhile, feel free to ignore me. :-)

[Matt Todd]

In a my recent project, Canvas, a web application development framework for PHP5, I decided to use the MIT license, which is very, very lenient, claiming copyright but also granting, "without limitation, the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software."

More information can be found here: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php