Dear list, For a port I maintain (namely rubber), there are some patches that upstream has not yet included and are provided by the maintainer of the port for pkgsrc. They are now in macports repository and I wonder which license if any is applied to patches (as Trac.macports.org tells people that what they put here is automatically under the Apache or BSD License). Is there a way to credit the author of a patch and to cite the license they may be under? This problem (but is it a problem?) is, I think, not a rare thing: the work of preparing a program to be part of a ports project is very similar between pkgsrc, openBSD, freeBSD and macports (maybe gentoo and other linux source based packages too) and hence reusing patches from others is highly probable. Emmanuel
On 08.11.2007, at 17:58, Emmanuel Hainry wrote:
Dear list,
For a port I maintain (namely rubber), there are some patches that upstream has not yet included and are provided by the maintainer of the port for pkgsrc. They are now in macports repository and I wonder which license if any is applied to patches (as Trac.macports.org tells people that what they put here is automatically under the Apache or BSD License). Is there a way to credit the author of a patch and to cite the license they may be under?
This problem (but is it a problem?) is, I think, not a rare thing: the work of preparing a program to be part of a ports project is very similar between pkgsrc, openBSD, freeBSD and macports (maybe gentoo and other linux source based packages too) and hence reusing patches from others is highly probable.
You only get a copyright for a significant creation, so "stealing" something like a hello-world program*) won't get you to jail. I think many patches would not classify as a significant creation, so borrowing them from other BSD ports collection, etc. is just fine -- as is the other way round. If you want to credit the author of a patch, I would add some lines to beginning of the patchfile, mentioning where the patch came from. If you integrate a significant patch that has a different open source license -- perhaps even a more restrictive than the original one -- you should add a comment to the long_description. If a significant patch is not under a license that allows it's redistribution, you are not allowed to add it to the macports repository. Of course I'm no lawyer and your local law might see things different, but I'd expect this to work in most countries. Not to forget about the goodwill open source people often have. -Markus *) depending on the programming language... ;) --- Markus W. Weissmann http://www.mweissmann.de/
On Nov 8, 2007, at 08:58, Emmanuel Hainry wrote:
Dear list,
For a port I maintain (namely rubber), there are some patches that upstream has not yet included and are provided by the maintainer of the port for pkgsrc. They are now in macports repository and I wonder which license if any is applied to patches (as Trac.macports.org tells people that what they put here is automatically under the Apache or BSD License). Is there a way to credit the author of a patch and to cite the license they may be under?
This problem (but is it a problem?) is, I think, not a rare thing: the work of preparing a program to be part of a ports project is very similar between pkgsrc, openBSD, freeBSD and macports (maybe gentoo and other linux source based packages too) and hence reusing patches from others is highly probable.
For what it's worth, it's my assumption that any patches I write are licensed under the same license as the project. I also do not claim copyright unless the patch is a substantial piece of work. I'd assume this is the general rule, as anything else can quickly run into license complications. -landonf
On Nov 9, 2007, at 15:16, Landon Fuller wrote:
On Nov 8, 2007, at 08:58, Emmanuel Hainry wrote:
Dear list,
For a port I maintain (namely rubber), there are some patches that upstream has not yet included and are provided by the maintainer of the port for pkgsrc. They are now in macports repository and I wonder which license if any is applied to patches (as Trac.macports.org tells people that what they put here is automatically under the Apache or BSD License). Is there a way to credit the author of a patch and to cite the license they may be under?
This problem (but is it a problem?) is, I think, not a rare thing: the work of preparing a program to be part of a ports project is very similar between pkgsrc, openBSD, freeBSD and macports (maybe gentoo and other linux source based packages too) and hence reusing patches from others is highly probable.
For what it's worth, it's my assumption that any patches I write are licensed under the same license as the project.
Er, I should clarify. Licensed under the same license as the project *that I'm patching*. -landonf
On Nov 9, 2007, at 3:24 PM, Landon Fuller wrote:
For what it's worth, it's my assumption that any patches I write are licensed under the same license as the project.
Er, I should clarify. Licensed under the same license as the project *that I'm patching*.
I agree, and think it's a natural assumption. If a patch were covered by different licensing terms, then those terms should have been included in the patch to begin with. - Kevin
On Nov 9, 2007, at 7:28 PM, Kevin Van Vechten wrote:
On Nov 9, 2007, at 3:24 PM, Landon Fuller wrote:
For what it's worth, it's my assumption that any patches I write are licensed under the same license as the project.
Er, I should clarify. Licensed under the same license as the project *that I'm patching*.
I agree, and think it's a natural assumption. If a patch were covered by different licensing terms, then those terms should have been included in the patch to begin with.
Is this something we can make explicit anywhere in any way? I recently wrote the following in the base/HACKING file: Project naming and copyright attribution: * "The MacPorts Project" is the string that shall be used whereever there's a need to reference our project name, such as in copyright notices. * A developer or contributor is adviced to attribute himself a copyright notice if he/she is contributing a full new source file or a full new feature to an already existing source file in the "base" component of our repository. * An exception to this rule is our Portfiles, since they are partly meant for human eyes consumption and the boilerplate header comments should be kept down to a minimum * A copyright notice attributed to our group name, "The MacPorts Project", should also be added to these source files (if not already there) if they're being uploaded to the "base" component of our repository, since as such they are being contributed to the project. But I don't know if we could go as far as requesting/enforcing that submitted patches be under the BSD license. Regards,.... -jmpp
On Nov 12, 2007, at 00:36, Juan Manuel Palacios wrote:
Is this something we can make explicit anywhere in any way? I recently wrote the following in the base/HACKING file:
I thought the decision was to not have a HACKING file and to instead have everything in the web documentation?
Juan Manuel Palacios wrote:
But I don't know if we could go as far as requesting/enforcing that submitted patches be under the BSD license.
A lot of the current *port* patches are under different licenses (such as the GPL license), so that would not be really doable without first checking all the patchfiles and ports. Requesting that patches to *base* is under the same BSD license as the MP code is perfectly good and normal, though. Patches to ports are assumed to be under some Unknown license: http://trac.macports.org/projects/macports/ticket/7493 --anders
On Nov 12, 2007, at 3:13 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
On Nov 12, 2007, at 00:36, Juan Manuel Palacios wrote:
Is this something we can make explicit anywhere in any way? I recently wrote the following in the base/HACKING file:
I thought the decision was to not have a HACKING file and to instead have everything in the web documentation?
Yeah, sure! But documentation guys already have their plates full with man pages and guide, don't want to ask them to start collecting all these miscellaneous files just yet (base/ {HACKING,LICENSE,README,porgtmgr/ReleaseProcess,doc/INTERNALS,doc/ TODO.txt} and others). But it surely is our goal to remove them and have all documentation consolidated in a single place, eventually; in the mean time we need to fill the void somehow ;-) It is my opinion, though, that even after we collect them into trunk/ doc or whatever, we should still keep them around as placeholders with nothing more but links pointing readers to the new location of the information. Regards,.... -jmpp
On Nov 12, 2007, at 5:22 AM, Anders F Björklund wrote:
Juan Manuel Palacios wrote:
But I don't know if we could go as far as requesting/enforcing that submitted patches be under the BSD license.
A lot of the current *port* patches are under different licenses (such as the GPL license), so that would not be really doable without first checking all the patchfiles and ports.
Requesting that patches to *base* is under the same BSD license as the MP code is perfectly good and normal, though. Patches to ports are assumed to be under some Unknown license:
Thanks for the link to that ticket Anders, most useful! And yes, I meant patches against base when I asked about a way to enforce/require a particular license for submitted patches. It would be great to know if it's suitable to ask that, and if so how we can make it clear (ideally the HACKING file for the time being). Anyone care to advise on the proper wording? Hint, the HACKING file already has this: * A copyright notice attributed to our group name, "The MacPorts Project", should also be added to these source files (if not already there) if they're being uploaded to the "base" component of our repository, since as such they are being contributed to the project. Regards,... -jmpp
participants (7)
-
Anders F Björklund
-
Emmanuel Hainry
-
Juan Manuel Palacios
-
Kevin Van Vechten
-
Landon Fuller
-
Ryan Schmidt
-
Weissmann Markus