login
Search
OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt recently discussed the possibilty of removing 'pppd' from the OpenBSD source tree "because after a year+ of notices about the licenses in it not being completely correct, not not much has happened to get this fixed." The OpenBSD web site offers a review of licenses and a thorough explanation of applicable copyright policy.
Theo further explained the issue with pppd, "Most of the licenses in there are not acceptable. Some do not explicitly permit modification. Some do not explicitly permit any use (including sale)." He went on to request that OpenBSD users contact the pppd authors to help get the licensing issues cleaned up, saving pppd from being removed.
Much of the resulting thread follows.
From: Theo de Raadt
To: misc AT cvs.openbsd.org
Subject: pppd
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 14:15:48 -0600
I am thinking of removing pppd from the source tree because after a
year+ of notices about the licenses in it not being completely
correct, not not much has happened to get this fixed.
Most of the licenses in there are not acceptable. Some do not
explicitly permit modification. Some do not explicitly permit any use
(including sale).
Removing it will hurt people. I urge people to try to contact the
various authors and get things cleaned up; my efforts have thus far
failed.
From: Lars Fricke
Subject: Re: pppd
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 23:17:23 +0200
[possble pppd removal due to licensing issues]
>
> Removing it will hurt people. I urge people to try to contact the
> various authors and get things cleaned up; my efforts have thus far
> failed.
I need some help to understand the problem. I have not checked _all_ modules in usr.sbin/pppd but the dozen i checked are " distribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that the above copyright notice and this..." or "this is in public domain..." style. I thought those licenses acceptable.
As a new OBSD user i would like to try to help with this issue but could you please point me to the unclear licenses. Using OBSD private and perhaps also commercial soon i am really interested in the licensing issues and willing to invest some time if i had some pointers to start with...
Greetings from (woot!) tropical germany,
--
Lars Fricke
From: Theo de Raadt
Subject: Re: pppd
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 16:59:44 -0600
> I need some help to understand the problem. I have not checked _all_
> modules in usr.sbin/pppd but the dozen i checked are " distribution
> and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that the
> above copyright notice and this..." or "this is in public domain..."
> style. I thought those licenses acceptable.
No, that is not acceptable. It does not permit modification, and unless
that is specifically stated in a Copyright notice, it is NOT permitted.
> As a new OBSD user i would like to try to help with this issue but
> could you please point me to the unclear licenses. Using OBSD private
> and perhaps also commercial soon i am really interested in the
> licensing issues and willing to invest some time if i had some
> pointers to start with...
They are pretty much all unfree along that line.
Longer discussions about this are difficult to have. It's been stated
many many times what the exact rules are.
From: Ben Goren
Subject: Re: pppd
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 17:17:46 -0700
On Mon, Jun 17, 2002 at 04:59:44PM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> > I thought those licenses acceptable.
>
> No, that is not acceptable. It does not permit modification,
> and unless that is specifically stated in a Copyright notice, it
> is NOT permitted.
For a thorough explanation for those who need more, there's
always:
http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html
b&
--
Ben Goren
From: Christopher D. Lewis
Subject: Re: pppd
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:01:49 -0500
On Tuesday, June 18, 2002, at 03:55 AM, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> THESE FILES IN QUESTION DO NOT SAY THAT THEY ARE IN PUBLIC DOMAIN.
I was responding to the "this is in the public domain" comment you were
responding to. Since it was quoted, I assumed it appeared *somewhere*.
In the future I will keep comments like this to myself, so that the
level of yelling can be minimized.
Best wishes,
--Chris
From: Lars Fricke
Subject: Re: pppd
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 20:07:31 +0200
Hi!
> > THESE FILES IN QUESTION DO NOT SAY THAT THEY ARE IN PUBLIC DOMAIN.
>
> I was responding to the "this is in the public domain" comment you were
> responding to. Since it was quoted, I assumed it appeared *somewhere*.
Err - sorry if _i_ was the person causing trouble. I just scanned the licenses and found http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.sbin/pppd/chat/chat.c in the "public domain" (as far as i understood the license there). I understand now (tnx to theo) the problems and the missing "modification" in the other pppd sources.
Lars
From: Oly
Subject: Re: pppd
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 08:30:26 +0900
Well, given all the excitement, I dug through the files too. All the
"problem" licenses seem to be just a matter of bad wording. That is, the
licenser forgot to say "modify", but clearly meant it (and often refers to
"derived" works in the same paragraph - i.e. modified).
Now, I don't think Theo was claiming otherwise - just that these old
"CMU-style" licenses need to be "fixed".
Paul Mackeras (current pppd maintainer) seems like a very cool guy. He's been
great in the Linux PowerPC community. He's the most likely person to get the
license clarified (though he may not consider it a high priority).
I really, really, really don't think this is a big deal. Lots of other
software has this same vague license. Certainly, fixing the licenses would
be very nice - but please don't yank pppd in the meantime.
-Oly
From: Theo de Raadt
Subject: Re: pppd
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 17:44:04 -0600
> I really, really, really don't think this is a big deal. Lots of other
> software has this same vague license. Certainly, fixing the licenses would
> be very nice - but please don't yank pppd in the meantime.
In the OpenBSD tree, nothing else contains this same vague license. If you
can find something which does, I would like to know, because it falls under
the same rule: it gets fixed, or it gets deleted.
On Tuesday 18 June 2002 19:30, Oly wrote:
> Well, given all the excitement, I dug through the files too. All the
> "problem" licenses seem to be just a matter of bad wording. That is, the
> licenser forgot to say "modify", but clearly meant it (and often refers to
> "derived" works in the same paragraph - i.e. modified).
[snip]
> -Oly
"Bad wording" is the straightest path to legal hell I know of.
Theo's actions might have been harsh, but entirely reasonable.
He meant it when he said he wanted clearly licensed code.
--STeve Andre'
