On 23 September 2014 00:04, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Frank Shearar <frank.shearar at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 22 September 2014 20:10, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Nicolas Cellier
>>> <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2014-09-22 17:51 GMT+02:00 David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>> We need positive confirmation that the code derived from that public
>>>>> repository was licensed MIT, or a statement from the original author that
>>>>> is now being released under MIT. I'm sure that the original author will be
>>>>> happy to do that, but we do need a clear statement of license before we
>>>>> can allow the code to be added to trunk.
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sorry  for the late reply.
>>>> I mistakenly assumed the license problem was solved, but after verification,
>>>> there is no mention of a license on the blog nor on the cincom public store
>>>> repository.
>>>> I have sent private e-mail to Travis 2 days ago, but haven't received an
>>>> answer yet.
>>>> I don't know him personnally, so I would welcome any one having a more
>>>> direct channel to contact him.
>>>> Without a clear answer we'll have to retract these commits.
>>>>
>>>> Unless you prefer a preventive retractation right now?
>>>
>>> Travis hasn't been involved with Smalltalk for over 2 years now
>>>
>>>   http://objology.blogspot.com/2012/05/stepping-out-of-balloon.html
>>>
>>> so its very possible you'll get no reply.
>>>
>>> Note that Cincom reprinted his blog post under their own domain,
>>> including the part that encourages to "port it to your own flavor of
>>> Smalltalk".
>>>
>>>    http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/2010/12/tag-sortfunctions/
>>>
>>> If they would object to this being ported, why would they reprint it
>>> and not "clarify" that point?
>>>
>>> To me, it seems clear that this was meant for adoption by the
>>> Smalltalk community at large.  It would be a shame to subvert that by
>>> some (mis)perceived legal technicality.  We are not lawyers, but in
>>> case we get no reply, if we're that concerned about a lawsuit (waged
>>> by Cincom?), the SFC does have a legal resource whom we could ask to
>>> evaluate it.
>>
>> "Port" means "translate into your Smalltalk". It does not have
>> anything at all to do with licences. I didn't see Travis saying "this
>> is public domain",
>
> He didn't?  Then what does this mean?

If he doesn't say "in the public domain" then I fail to see how we can
infer that the original code is in the public domain.

>   "And you can lobby Cincom to include it in VisualWorks. Or port it
> to your own flavor of Smalltalk."
>
> Followed by:
>
>   "I did my best to write it in such a way that it would work in
> Squeak or Gemstone, or whatever."
>
> Geez its even better than MIT because he explicitly mentioned Squeak
> and Gemstone, followed by "whatever".
>
> Taken as a whole, the meaning is clear.  You're hung up because it
> wasn't drafted by a lawyer, approved by parliament, and stamped by the
> queen..?

I'd like clarity as to the licence.

>> I didn't see a licence declaration, so... what?
>> Hopefully Travis will come back and say "hey, you know, I'm a
>> signed-up contributor to Squeak, why are you even asking?" and then we
>> can all be happy.
>>
>> Until then, we _do not know_. 'It was ported from a "public
>> repository" into trunk.  Everything posted to trunk is MIT.' is not an
>> argument.
>
> I was simply trying to double-answer your ambiguous question, which
> didn't specify whether you were asking about the license of the
> original work or the derivative work.  The derivative work is
> MIT-licensed by virtue of it being part of Squeak.

You're saying that Nicolas' implementation is the derivative work,
right? That's fine.

>> And the second statement's not even true. Us saying "you
>> submitted it, therefore it's MIT" is bogus.
>
> Log into source.squeak.org and click on "The Trunk" on the left side.
> What do you see under "License?"

That's not at all the same thing. If you have an MIT licensed
codebase, and copy a bunch of code in there from a GPL licensed
codebase, guess what? Your codebase isn't MIT licensed anymore. (This
is not a theoretical concern. It happens to real projects.)

>> The submitter needs to
>> have signed the contributor agreement, _and have the right_ to sign
>> such an agreement. Your work contract might not permit you to do such
>> a thing.
>>
>> And I'm not suggesting ripping anything out. Let's wait for Travis to
>> respond. Hopefully someone has a more direct line to him, given that
>> Nicolas has waited two days already.
>
> Respond with what?  Something like, "Yes, I really did mean what I
> wrote in black and white that 'You can port it to your own flavor of
> Smalltalk.'"  Or do we need him to officially "stamp it" with some
> kind of "MIT" stamp?

"Hi, that code I wrote that Nicolas ported? Public domain." That would
suit me just fine.

>  And, if he's too busy to do your paperwork then
> throw it out?

Yes, to put it bluntly. I don't understand why this upsets you so
much, Chris. Yes, it's annoying boring paperwork nonsense that keeps
lawyers employed. It still needs doing.

>> But this is a very real problem.
>
> No it isn't.  I think you're making a problem out of nothing.  What do
> you think could happen?  A lawsuit?

I'd like to be able to say, with reasonable certainty, that all the
code in Trunk landed there because someone who agreed to licence their
code as MIT, did so.

Since Travis has actually signed the contributor agreement
(http://netjam.org/squeak/contributors/contributors under the initials
TAG), checking with him is (a) just plain polite and (b) should not be
a problem. (And I'd like to see his positive response in this case
because his signing the agreement doesn't mean that all Smalltalk code
he ever wrote that we can find is now suddenly MIT licensed.)

frank