Copyright arrangements for a web project

(This is a bit off-topic for the Debian list; I hope people won't mind
me asking opinions here though.)

I'm being asked for advice on encouraging contributions by the people
behind a couple of "community-ish" websites which I use regularly.
There's a lot of work to be done to improve the attractiveness to
contributors, and one of the things that needs fixing is the
licensing.

It's my view that a community software project ought to use a copyleft
licence nowadays. But two questions arise:

* It would clearly be sensible to appoint a licence steward in the
GPLv3 sense. If the current project leadership lack free software
credibility, could SPI serve as licence steward ?

What instructions/directions would SPI take ? The goal would have
to include the SPI Board making the value judgement, not just
deferring to the project's leadership - that is, the SPI Board would
make the decision itself in what it sees as the interests of the
project and the free software community.

* Should the project give the licence steward the power to change the
public licence unilaterally in the future in ways other than just
upgrading to newer versions ? I think the answer is probably "yes"
because the licensing landscape for web applications isn't settled
yet. Is this a good idea and how should it be done ?

Ideally it would be good to avoid requiring copyright assignment to
the licence steward. Can this be achieved by some text in the
standard licence rubric eg

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3, or (at your
option) any other general public free software licence publicly
endorsed for PROJECT by Software in the Public Interest Inc
(i.e. SPI is a proxy as described in s14 of the GNU GPLv3 but SPI
is not limited to endorsing only future versions of the GNU GPL).

(Along presumably with some Signed-off-by system for contributions.)

* Personally I'm an AGPLv3 proponent. The system ought to be suitable
for AGPLv3 provided that its submodules are AGPLv3-compatible (and
if they aren't, then we can probably write a licence exception).
(The main program I'm thinking of here is a Ruby on Rails
application.) What are people's feelings about AGPLv3 ?

Thanks,
Ian.

On 12/12/2013 06:44 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
>
> (This is a bit off-topic for the Debian list; I hope people won't mind
> me asking opinions here though.)
>
> I'm being asked for advice on encouraging contributions by the people
> behind a couple of "community-ish" websites which I use regularly.
> There's a lot of work to be done to improve the attractiveness to
> contributors, and one of the things that needs fixing is the
> licensing.
>
> It's my view that a community software project ought to use a copyleft
> licence nowadays. But two questions arise:
>
> * It would clearly be sensible to appoint a licence steward in the
> GPLv3 sense. If the current project leadership lack free software
> credibility, could SPI serve as licence steward ?

What do you mean steward? If you are asking if we should guide them to
use the GPLv3, I would vote against that. SPI (as a corporation) should
not value what Free Software license over another.

If you are asking if we could be the entity that the license denotes as
the licensor, I don't see a problem with that.

>
> What instructions/directions would SPI take ? The goal would have
> to include the SPI Board making the value judgement, not just
> deferring to the project's leadership - that is, the SPI Board would
> make the decision itself in what it sees as the interests of the
> project and the free software community.

I don't think this is a board decision. I think we should empower
members within a committee to make those decisions.

>
> * Should the project give the licence steward the power to change the
> public licence unilaterally in the future in ways other than just
> upgrading to newer versions ? I think the answer is probably "yes"
> because the licensing landscape for web applications isn't settled
> yet. Is this a good idea and how should it be done ?

The licensor can not change the license unless the licensor also owns
the copyright for contributions. Contributions are owned by their
authors. Therefor this is a rather moot point, unless your idea is to
require copyright assignment as well as license assignment ala FSF,
Canonical, MySQL.

>
> Ideally it would be good to avoid requiring copyright assignment to
> the licence steward. Can this be achieved by some text in the
> standard licence rubric eg
>
> This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
> modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3, or (at your
> option) any other general public free software licence publicly
> endorsed for PROJECT by Software in the Public Interest Inc
> (i.e. SPI is a proxy as described in s14 of the GNU GPLv3 but SPI
> is not limited to endorsing only future versions of the GNU GPL).
>

I think this re-defines the point of a license. What I read that to say
is, if I want to use project X, I can use it as any license that project
X likes or GPLv3. However, I am a BSD License advocate, if project X
doesn't like BSD (even though it is a Free license), I can't use it?
That is bogus. I would let the standard license terms stand on their own.

> (Along presumably with some Signed-off-by system for contributions.)
>
> * Personally I'm an AGPLv3 proponent. The system ought to be suitable
> for AGPLv3 provided that its submodules are AGPLv3-compatible (and
> if they aren't, then we can probably write a licence exception).
> (The main program I'm thinking of here is a Ruby on Rails
> application.) What are people's feelings about AGPLv3 ?

It is a license. I don't have feelings about it one way or another.
However, as I noted earlier. I do not think it is SPI's responsibility
to prefer any Free license over another.

JD

--
Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 509-416-6579
PostgreSQL Support, Training, Professional Services and Development
High Availability, Oracle Conversion, Postgres-XC, @cmdpromptinc
For my dreams of your image that blossoms
a rose in the deeps of my heart. - W.B. Yeats

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Ian Jackson
<ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote:
> * It would clearly be sensible to appoint a licence steward in the
> GPLv3 sense. If the current project leadership lack free software
> credibility, could SPI serve as licence steward ?

On this I can not comment.

> What instructions/directions would SPI take ? The goal would have
> to include the SPI Board making the value judgement, not just
> deferring to the project's leadership - that is, the SPI Board would
> make the decision itself in what it sees as the interests of the
> project and the free software community.

>
> Ideally it would be good to avoid requiring copyright assignment to
> the licence steward. Can this be achieved by some text in the
> standard licence rubric eg.

While I understand the value of "or later" clauses, these gives a very
broad degree of power. They allow an entity other than the author to
change the requirements under which the software may be used. I'd be
wary, but would not object entirely.

> This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
> modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3, or (at your
> option) any other general public free software licence publicly
> endorsed for PROJECT by Software in the Public Interest Inc
> (i.e. SPI is a proxy as described in s14 of the GNU GPLv3 but SPI
> is not limited to endorsing only future versions of the GNU GPL).

It is my understanding that one would not be allowed to modify the GPL
preamble because it falls under the copyrighted text. One may be
allowed to add a preamble to the entirety of the GPL.

> * Personally I'm an AGPLv3 proponent. The system ought to be suitable
> for AGPLv3 provided that its submodules are AGPLv3-compatible (and
> if they aren't, then we can probably write a licence exception).
> (The main program I'm thinking of here is a Ruby on Rails
> application.) What are people's feelings about AGPLv3 ?

It is the least-free license currently approved by the OSI.

--
Eitan Adler

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 02:44:19PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> (This is a bit off-topic for the Debian list; I hope people won't mind
> me asking opinions here though.)
>
> I'm being asked for advice on encouraging contributions by the people
> behind a couple of "community-ish" websites which I use regularly.
> There's a lot of work to be done to improve the attractiveness to
> contributors, and one of the things that needs fixing is the
> licensing.
>
> It's my view that a community software project ought to use a copyleft
> licence nowadays. But two questions arise:
>
> * It would clearly be sensible to appoint a licence steward in the
> GPLv3 sense. If the current project leadership lack free software
> credibility, could SPI serve as licence steward ?
>
> What instructions/directions would SPI take ? The goal would have
> to include the SPI Board making the value judgement, not just
> deferring to the project's leadership - that is, the SPI Board would
> make the decision itself in what it sees as the interests of the
> project and the free software community.
>
> * Should the project give the licence steward the power to change the
> public licence unilaterally in the future in ways other than just
> upgrading to newer versions ? I think the answer is probably "yes"
> because the licensing landscape for web applications isn't settled
> yet. Is this a good idea and how should it be done ?
>
> Ideally it would be good to avoid requiring copyright assignment to
> the licence steward. Can this be achieved by some text in the
> standard licence rubric eg
>
> This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
> modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3, or (at your
> option) any other general public free software licence publicly
> endorsed for PROJECT by Software in the Public Interest Inc
> (i.e. SPI is a proxy as described in s14 of the GNU GPLv3 but SPI
> is not limited to endorsing only future versions of the GNU GPL).
>
> (Along presumably with some Signed-off-by system for contributions.)

This is the approach KDE takes (I saw this in NEW a few times) -

/
| Copyright <year> <name of author> <e-mail>
|
| This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
| modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
| published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
| the License or (at your option) version 3 or any later version
| accepted by the membership of KDE e.V. (or its successor approved
| by the membership of KDE e.V.), which shall act as a proxy
| defined in Section 14 of version 3 of the license.
|
| This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
| but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
| MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
| GNU General Public License for more details.
|
| You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
| along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
\

I'd very very much prefer to do something like this for my Debian work,
even so far as to say that it can be used under the terms of any DFSG
free license - but I'm also perfectly cool to use {,A,L}GPL-{2,3}+ for my
work as well.

I trust Debian with license freeness, and I do also trust SPI as well.
I'd be happy to allow them to relicense my work, or even give a list of
licenses that it can be used under.

> * Personally I'm an AGPLv3 proponent. The system ought to be suitable
> for AGPLv3 provided that its submodules are AGPLv3-compatible (and
> if they aren't, then we can probably write a licence exception).
> (The main program I'm thinking of here is a Ruby on Rails
> application.) What are people's feelings about AGPLv3 ?

I like it a lot.

> Thanks,
> Ian.

Cheers,
Paul

--
.''`. Paul Tagliamonte <paultag(at)debian(dot)org> | Proud Debian Developer
: :' : 4096R / 8F04 9AD8 2C92 066C 7352 D28A 7B58 5B30 807C 2A87
`. `'` http://people.debian.org/~paultag
`- http://people.debian.org/~paultag/conduct-statement.txt

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 02:44:19PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> * Personally I'm an AGPLv3 proponent. The system ought to be suitable
> for AGPLv3 provided that its submodules are AGPLv3-compatible (and
> if they aren't, then we can probably write a licence exception).
> (The main program I'm thinking of here is a Ruby on Rails
> application.) What are people's feelings about AGPLv3 ?

I am fine with the stated purpose of the AGPLv3, however I do not think the
actual implementation is compatible with free software.

There have been no official clarification how the AGPLv3 is supposed to work in a lot
of situation and how it is compatible with the plain reading of the license.
Without them, I am wary of declaring the AGPL a free software license.
There is a world of difference between the actual text of the AGPLv3 and how it
is advertised.

But it is probably not the right venue to discuss the AGPLv3.

Cheers,
Bill.

Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> On 12/12/2013 06:44 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > * It would clearly be sensible to appoint a licence steward in the
> > GPLv3 sense. If the current project leadership lack free software
> > credibility, could SPI serve as licence steward ?
>
> What do you mean steward? If you are asking if we should guide them to
> use the GPLv3, I would vote against that. SPI (as a corporation) should
> not value what Free Software license over another.
>
> If you are asking if we could be the entity that the license denotes as
> the licensor, I don't see a problem with that.

I mean that SPI would fulfil the role of the "proxy" as described in
GPLv3 s14.

> > What instructions/directions would SPI take ? The goal would have
> > to include the SPI Board making the value judgement, not just
> > deferring to the project's leadership - that is, the SPI Board would
> > make the decision itself in what it sees as the interests of the
> > project and the free software community.
>
> I don't think this is a board decision. I think we should empower
> members within a committee to make those decisions.

If SPI doesn't already have such a committee it would be silly to
create one just for this. In the past difficult decisions relating to
SPI's copyright or trademark legal powers have been taken by the
board.

Or to put it another way: the purpose of a committee is be delegated
by the board to deal with what would otherwise be an excessive
workload by the board. This advantage has no relevance if the work
needs to be done very rarely. And leaving matters with the board
would provide a greater degree of political robustness because the
board are directly elected.

> The licensor can not change the license unless the licensor also owns
> the copyright for contributions. Contributions are owned by their
> authors. Therefor this is a rather moot point, unless your idea is to
> require copyright assignment as well as license assignment ala FSF,
> Canonical, MySQL.

Have you read GPLv3 s14 ? Do you contend that my proposal below is
legally ineffective somehow ?

> > Ideally it would be good to avoid requiring copyright assignment to
> > the licence steward. Can this be achieved by some text in the
> > standard licence rubric eg
> >
> > This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
> > modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> > published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3, or (at your
> > option) any other general public free software licence publicly
> > endorsed for PROJECT by Software in the Public Interest Inc
> > (i.e. SPI is a proxy as described in s14 of the GNU GPLv3 but SPI
> > is not limited to endorsing only future versions of the GNU GPL).
...
> I think this re-defines the point of a license. What I read that to say
> is, if I want to use project X, I can use it as any license that project
> X likes or GPLv3. However, I am a BSD License advocate, if project X
> doesn't like BSD (even though it is a Free license), I can't use it?
> That is bogus. I would let the standard license terms stand on their own.

I have no idea what you're saying here. What I intend for this is the
same thing as GPLv3 s14 but also allowing the project to transtion to
a completely different licence if that becomes desirable in the
future.

If everyone who contributes to the project provides a Signed-off-by (a
la the Linux kernel), and thereby licences their contribution under
the terms I quote, then if the licence steward approves a new licence
then everyone automatically has the rights granted under the new
licence. The licence change would have to be accompanied by a change
to the rubric, to mention the new licence instead of the GPLv3; that
way the new versions of the project are available only under the new
licence.

The decision to adopt a new licence would hopefully in practice be
made within the project but because the clause mentions SPI, it would
need to be rubber-stamped by SPI (and SPI would resolve any dispute).

Ian.

Eitan Adler writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Ian Jackson
> <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote:
> > * Personally I'm an AGPLv3 proponent. The system ought to be suitable
> > for AGPLv3 provided that its submodules are AGPLv3-compatible (and
> > if they aren't, then we can probably write a licence exception).
> > (The main program I'm thinking of here is a Ruby on Rails
> > application.) What are people's feelings about AGPLv3 ?
>
> It is the least-free license currently approved by the OSI.

Just out of interest, would you describe the GPLv3 as "less free" than
the MIT licence ?

Ian.

Ian,

> * It would clearly be sensible to appoint a licence steward in the
> GPLv3 sense. If the current project leadership lack free software
> credibility, could SPI serve as licence steward ?

On a realistic basis, this would only be practical if you have an active
and engaged liaison who does all of the actual approval etc. work.

> * Should the project give the licence steward the power to change the
> public licence unilaterally in the future in ways other than just
> upgrading to newer versions ? I think the answer is probably "yes"
> because the licensing landscape for web applications isn't settled
> yet. Is this a good idea and how should it be done ?

Even when the steward is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, such a provision would be
strongly discouraging to contributors.

> Ideally it would be good to avoid requiring copyright assignment to
> the licence steward. Can this be achieved by some text in the
> standard licence rubric eg

SPI has never handled or supported copyright assignment before. We'd
first need to have a policy meeting to see if we even support the idea
of copyright assignment, and then see if we have the personnel resources
to actually handle assignment for a specific project.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of copyright assignment, so as a warning
I'd be arguing against SPI supporting this.

Also, you can't modify the text of the GPL and still call it the GPL.
Copyright assignment agreements conventionally exist outside of the
license in any case.

> * Personally I'm an AGPLv3 proponent. The system ought to be suitable
> for AGPLv3 provided that its submodules are AGPLv3-compatible (and
> if they aren't, then we can probably write a licence exception).
> (The main program I'm thinking of here is a Ruby on Rails
> application.) What are people's feelings about AGPLv3 ?

SPI, of course, will accept AGPL-licensed projects since they qualify as
Free Software.

I'm personally not a fan of the AGPL because of how it's used by
technology corporations as a shareware license. I know that's not the
intention of the license, but it is the majority use case.

--Josh Berkus

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Ian Jackson
<ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote:
> Eitan Adler writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
>> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Ian Jackson
>> <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote:
>> > * Personally I'm an AGPLv3 proponent. The system ought to be suitable
>> > for AGPLv3 provided that its submodules are AGPLv3-compatible (and
>> > if they aren't, then we can probably write a licence exception).
>> > (The main program I'm thinking of here is a Ruby on Rails
>> > application.) What are people's feelings about AGPLv3 ?
>>
>> It is the least-free license currently approved by the OSI.
>
> Just out of interest, would you describe the GPLv3 as "less free" than
> the MIT licence ?

Yes: there are more restrictions using GPLv3 software than when using
MIT software. I fear we may be getting into a license flamewar so I
shall only discuss further off-list.

--
Eitan Adler

Paul Tagliamonte writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 02:44:19PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
> > modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> > published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3, or (at your
> > option) any other general public free software licence publicly
> > endorsed for PROJECT by Software in the Public Interest Inc
> > (i.e. SPI is a proxy as described in s14 of the GNU GPLv3 but SPI
> > is not limited to endorsing only future versions of the GNU GPL).
> >
> > (Along presumably with some Signed-off-by system for contributions.)
>
> This is the approach KDE takes (I saw this in NEW a few times) -

Thanks for the report:

> | This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
> | modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> | published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
> | the License or (at your option) version 3 or any later version
> | accepted by the membership of KDE e.V. (or its successor approved
> | by the membership of KDE e.V.), which shall act as a proxy
> | defined in Section 14 of version 3 of the license.

Of course that only applies to future versions of the GNU GPL. It's
not possible to switch from AGPL to GPL (or the other way) with that
wording.

> I trust Debian with license freeness, and I do also trust SPI as well.
> I'd be happy to allow them to relicense my work, or even give a list of
> licenses that it can be used under.

Debian is ill set up to make this decision for other people,
unfortunately. You'd have to nominate someone in particular.

Thanks,
Ian.

Eitan Adler writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Ian Jackson
> <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote:
> > Eitan Adler writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> >> [AGPLv3] is the least-free license currently approved by the OSI.
> >
> > Just out of interest, would you describe the GPLv3 as "less free" than
> > the MIT licence ?
>
> Yes: there are more restrictions using GPLv3 software than when using
> MIT software. I fear we may be getting into a license flamewar so I
> shall only discuss further off-list.

I have heard views such as yours before. I don't think it's necessary
to go into them in any more detail so we can save everyone the
flamewar.

Thanks,
Ian.

Bill Allombert writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> I am fine with the stated purpose of the AGPLv3, however I do not think the
> actual implementation is compatible with free software.
>
> There have been no official clarification how the AGPLv3 is supposed
> to work in a lot of situation and how it is compatible with the
> plain reading of the license. Without them, I am wary of declaring
> the AGPL a free software license. There is a world of difference
> between the actual text of the AGPLv3 and how it is advertised.

Perhaps I haven't looked in the right places but either I don't see
the same concerns as you do, or I haven't seen them, or I don't think
they're relevant for the project I'm thinking of.[1]

Nevertheless your opinion is interesting to me because I want to know
what people in general think of the AGPL. So if you have concerns
that would apply to such a project, which you think are more clearly
expressed or more relevant to me than those I've already seen, I'd be
interested to know.

FYI the project is a substantial database-backed web application,
whose infrastructure could easily accomodate a copy of its own source
code, and with which users interact via web browsers and email.

> But it is probably not the right venue to discuss the AGPLv3.

Perhaps not. But I don't want to use debian-legal whose focus is
on DFSG compatibility and whose on-list consensus judgements don't
always seem to align with the actual decisions of those responsible
for these judgements within Debian.

Ian.

[1] I found these:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2008/08/msg00045.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/11/msg00232.html
http://bugs.debian.org/495721
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/03/msg00380.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/09/msg00032.html

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 06:35:05PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Of course that only applies to future versions of the GNU GPL. It's
> not possible to switch from AGPL to GPL (or the other way) with that
> wording.

Indeed, just a datapoint for what other projects do. I'd be fine to
include in my Debian software headers something to the effect of
granting folks the right to relicense under any license the ftp-masters
consider DFSG free. Of course, this leads to a documentation problem, as
I don't think there's a canoincal list. Either way, doing that leads to
new legal language, which I'm not keen to force (but would be happy to
use)

> > I trust Debian with license freeness, and I do also trust SPI as well.
> > I'd be happy to allow them to relicense my work, or even give a list of
> > licenses that it can be used under.
>
> Debian is ill set up to make this decision for other people,
> unfortunately. You'd have to nominate someone in particular.

Indeed, but the de-jure team that handles this is the ftp-master team,
which I'd be happy to hand control of my code's licensing to. Doubly so
for Debian-related work. Of course, they can be overruled by the
developer body, but saying anything that's been deemed DFSG free by the
project would be good enough for me :)

> Thanks,
> Ian.

Cheers,
Paul

--
.''`. Paul Tagliamonte <paultag(at)debian(dot)org> | Proud Debian Developer
: :' : 4096R / 8F04 9AD8 2C92 066C 7352 D28A 7B58 5B30 807C 2A87
`. `'` http://people.debian.org/~paultag
`- http://people.debian.org/~paultag/conduct-statement.txt

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 07:45:14PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Bill Allombert writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> > I am fine with the stated purpose of the AGPLv3, however I do not think the
> > actual implementation is compatible with free software.
>
> Perhaps I haven't looked in the right places but either I don't see
> the same concerns as you do, or I haven't seen them, or I don't think
> they're relevant for the project I'm thinking of.[1]

I suggest you search in debian-vote. But I do not want to stir old grudge.

> Nevertheless your opinion is interesting to me because I want to know
> what people in general think of the AGPL. So if you have concerns
> that would apply to such a project, which you think are more clearly
> expressed or more relevant to me than those I've already seen, I'd be
> interested to know.

Basically, there are three free software roles:
- Running the software
- Changing the software
- Distributing the software
FSF freedom 0 states that 'Running the software' is not regulated.
Standard free software licenses only regulate 'Distributing the software'. The
AGPL clause regulates 'Changing the software' in a quite ambiguous way.

The problem is that these three roles can be held by three different entities
and having the entity 'Changing the software' liable for the action of the
two other is unfair and dangerous. What happens if the entity 'Running the
software' uses a reverse web proxy that removes all reference to the original
project and source code, dynamically from the HTTP stream ?

> FYI the project is a substantial database-backed web application,
> whose infrastructure could easily accomodate a copy of its own source
> code, and with which users interact via web browsers and email.

Philosophically, I hold that the right to reuse code for completely
unrelated purposes is part of the libre software definition.
A license being suitable for some applications but not others is not free
in that sense.

> > But it is probably not the right venue to discuss the AGPLv3.
>
> Perhaps not. But I don't want to use debian-legal whose focus is
> on DFSG compatibility and whose on-list consensus judgements don't
> always seem to align with the actual decisions of those responsible
> for these judgements within Debian.

Why do you assume I do ?

Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe(at)debian(dot)org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.

Bill Allombert writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 07:45:14PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > Perhaps I haven't looked in the right places but either I don't see
> > the same concerns as you do, or I haven't seen them, or I don't think
> > they're relevant for the project I'm thinking of.[1]
>
> I suggest you search in debian-vote. But I do not want to stir old grudge.

I guess you are referring to this
https://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2009/11/msg00000.html
and the related threads. Thanks for the reference, I had forgotten
that. I will re-read that thread and consider what you and others
have written.

> > Nevertheless your opinion is interesting to me [...]
>
> [explanations]

Thanks for that.

> > > But it is probably not the right venue to discuss the AGPLv3.
> >
> > Perhaps not. But I don't want to use debian-legal whose focus is
> > on DFSG compatibility and whose on-list consensus judgements don't
> > always seem to align with the actual decisions of those responsible
> > for these judgements within Debian.
>
> Why do you assume I do ?

I'm sorry to have apparently offended you. I didn't intend to imply
that you had suggested debian-legal. It seemed to me that
debian-legal was an obvious possible place for this conversation and I
was explaining why I chose not to use it.

Thanks again for your considered responses.

This kind of opposition to the AGPL is certainly not irrelevant to me.
Even though I'm still personally a fan of the AGPL, having seen again
these arguments (and seen that it's still considered a problem by
reasonable people) I'm probably not going to recommend it to the
project I mentioned in my head article.

Ian.

Josh Berkus writes ("Re: Copyright arrangements for a web project"):
> [Ian Jackson:]
> > * Should the project give the licence steward the power to change the
> > public licence unilaterally in the future in ways other than just
> > upgrading to newer versions ? I think the answer is probably "yes"
> > because the licensing landscape for web applications isn't settled
> > yet. Is this a good idea and how should it be done ?
>
> Even when the steward is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, such a provision would be
> strongly discouraging to contributors.

Thanks for your opinion.

> > Ideally it would be good to avoid requiring copyright assignment to
> > the licence steward. Can this be achieved by some text in the
> > standard licence rubric eg
>
> SPI has never handled or supported copyright assignment before. We'd
> first need to have a policy meeting to see if we even support the idea
> of copyright assignment, and then see if we have the personnel resources
> to actually handle assignment for a specific project.

SPI has certainly "supported" copyright assignment in the sense that
SPI has a published policy about how it will handle any copyrights
that it acquires:
http://spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/1998/1998-11-16.iwj.2/

I agree that the CLA paperwork is annoying and best avoided.

> Personally, I'm not a big fan of copyright assignment, so as a warning
> I'd be arguing against SPI supporting this.

The SPI policy discourages it.

> Also, you can't modify the text of the GPL and still call it the GPL.

I don't understand the relevance of that comment. It's certainly not
anything I was proposing.

Ian.

On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 12:32:59PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > Nevertheless your opinion is interesting to me [...]
> >
> > [explanations]
>
> Thanks for that.

If you find clarification of the license that are grounded in the actual
text and written by B. Kuhn or the FSF, please forward them.

> > > > But it is probably not the right venue to discuss the AGPLv3.
> > >
> > > Perhaps not. But I don't want to use debian-legal whose focus is
> > > on DFSG compatibility and whose on-list consensus judgements don't
> > > always seem to align with the actual decisions of those responsible
> > > for these judgements within Debian.
> >
> > Why do you assume I do ?
>
> I'm sorry to have apparently offended you. I didn't intend to imply
> that you had suggested debian-legal. It seemed to me that
> debian-legal was an obvious possible place for this conversation and I
> was explaining why I chose not to use it.

Sorry, I just wanted to warn you that I was far from having the majority
opinion in Debian. (We need to fix debian-legal, but this is another
story.)

Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe(at)debian(dot)org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.