Hi everybody!
I'm hoping to refocus attention on copyleft-next again soon (yes I know I've said that before, but I *mean* it now!).
Originally the canonical public repository for copyleft-next was under my personal github account (github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next.git). Due in large part to ethical criticisms from bkuhn (and with the quixotic hope of getting bkuhn to contribute), I changed that to gitorious.org/copyleft-next/copyleft-next.git while keeping the github repository in sync. (I also for a while mirrored the gitorious repository on fedorahosted and in a github organization account but didn't keep those up to date.)
As you probably know by now, GitLab has acquired Gitorious and Gitorious will apparently be shutting down in a few months.
I thought I'd use the Gitorious Apocalypse as a good excuse to investigate self-hosting a github-like web application.
bkuhn has recommended Kallithea, the RhodeCode fork which not long ago became a Software Freedom Conservancy member project. I'm a bit familiar with use of Gitlab, and I have read a bit about gogs recently.
So this evening I tried installing all three of them, and am sorrty to say failed completely.
So as far as I'm concerned it is fairly clear that Kallithea and Gogs are not quite ready for actual real-world use. I'll continue to follow them from a distance to see if they mature or at least have installation instructions I can make some sense out of.
As for Gitlab, it was the one of the three I was disinclined to use because of its permissive-core open core-ish model (could be worse, though). However, with Kallithea and Gogs being non-viable, Gitlab was my only hope. But attempts to install the Gitlab 'community edition' CentOS package according to instructions failed, by which point I was too frustrated to do anything but abandon these self-hosting experiments.
So with some sadness, I am currently intending to return to the roots of copyleft-next and making the github repository the canonical one. I may look into a simpler self-hosting solution using a minimalist web frontend like gitweb which I imagine might be easier to get running. Don't say I didn't try.
RF
Hi Richard,
I will say that you didn't wait!
You have until May 1st before Gitorious goes down.
There's now a push for Kallithea to get going, and Gogs looks pretty robust with pull-request functioning anticipated *very* soon.
https://gitbull.org/ is offering 100% free-software ethical Kallithea hosting and https://notabug.org/ is offering the same with Gogs.
Like you, I am not sure either is quite ready for prime-time. However, I think there's a chance we'll see progress over just the next month that makes one or both be a viable enough and promising option…
So, if you wait a month and then go with GitHub or GitLab, *then* I will more understand. But we can wait a month, right? I mean, a decent amount of progress on those sites happened within a couple weeks… Not that I'm actually expecting amazing progress, but give 'em a chance?
Respectfully, Aaron Wolf Snowdrift.coop
On 03/21/2015 12:20 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
Hi everybody!
I'm hoping to refocus attention on copyleft-next again soon (yes I know I've said that before, but I *mean* it now!).
Originally the canonical public repository for copyleft-next was under my personal github account (github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next.git). Due in large part to ethical criticisms from bkuhn (and with the quixotic hope of getting bkuhn to contribute), I changed that to gitorious.org/copyleft-next/copyleft-next.git while keeping the github repository in sync. (I also for a while mirrored the gitorious repository on fedorahosted and in a github organization account but didn't keep those up to date.)
As you probably know by now, GitLab has acquired Gitorious and Gitorious will apparently be shutting down in a few months.
I thought I'd use the Gitorious Apocalypse as a good excuse to investigate self-hosting a github-like web application.
bkuhn has recommended Kallithea, the RhodeCode fork which not long ago became a Software Freedom Conservancy member project. I'm a bit familiar with use of Gitlab, and I have read a bit about gogs recently.
So this evening I tried installing all three of them, and am sorrty to say failed completely.
So as far as I'm concerned it is fairly clear that Kallithea and Gogs are not quite ready for actual real-world use. I'll continue to follow them from a distance to see if they mature or at least have installation instructions I can make some sense out of.
As for Gitlab, it was the one of the three I was disinclined to use because of its permissive-core open core-ish model (could be worse, though). However, with Kallithea and Gogs being non-viable, Gitlab was my only hope. But attempts to install the Gitlab 'community edition' CentOS package according to instructions failed, by which point I was too frustrated to do anything but abandon these self-hosting experiments.
So with some sadness, I am currently intending to return to the roots of copyleft-next and making the github repository the canonical one. I may look into a simpler self-hosting solution using a minimalist web frontend like gitweb which I imagine might be easier to get running. Don't say I didn't try.
RF
copyleft-next mailing list copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
On 03/21/2015 12:26 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
https://gitbull.org/ is offering 100% free-software ethical Kallithea hosting and https://notabug.org/ is offering the same with Gogs.
Good point, I should think about those as an alternative to resorting to github (although my experience with Gitorious, which *some* people claimed was a free-software ethical hosting solution, makes me a little skeptical).
So, if you wait a month and then go with GitHub or GitLab, *then* I will more understand. But we can wait a month, right? I mean, a decent amount of progress on those sites happened within a couple weeks… Not that I'm actually expecting amazing progress, but give 'em a chance?
Yes, that's fair!
Richard
For reference, Gitorious was a long-time project run by people wanting it to be a business.
Now, I have no idea what the people behind Gogs have planned, but I know about the people behind GitBull.org and NotABug.org — they are free-software folks who started these because they care specifically about the issues. They are not asking for funding, they feel they have enough resources to make this work.
In both cases, I contacted them to ask them to specify the scope of the sites as being dedicated to freely-licensed projects. In both cases, they agreed and set a policy that the sites would be strictly for free/libre/open projects.
So, whether reliable or not long-term remains to be seen, but these are definitely community sites run for more principled motivations compared to Gitorious. Of course, they rely strongly on Kallithea and Gogs developer communities, and I can't speak to those myself.
On 03/21/2015 12:35 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
On 03/21/2015 12:26 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
https://gitbull.org/ is offering 100% free-software ethical Kallithea hosting and https://notabug.org/ is offering the same with Gogs.
Good point, I should think about those as an alternative to resorting to github (although my experience with Gitorious, which *some* people claimed was a free-software ethical hosting solution, makes me a little skeptical).
So, if you wait a month and then go with GitHub or GitLab, *then* I will more understand. But we can wait a month, right? I mean, a decent amount of progress on those sites happened within a couple weeks… Not that I'm actually expecting amazing progress, but give 'em a chance?
Yes, that's fair!
Richard
copyleft-next mailing list copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
Richard,
Would reviving the Fedorahosted repo be preferable to GitHub?
As an alternative, I'd be willing to take a crack at getting GitLab CE going on a server for you. I've done a little bit with the instance we use at $dayjob.
Thanks, BC
On 03/21/2015 08:00 AM, Ben Cotton wrote:
Richard,
Would reviving the Fedorahosted repo be preferable to GitHub?
It's a possibility, though the impression I have that fedorahosted projects have generally been migrating to github makes me wonder (though I imagine that is mostly or entirely because "everyone is on github" rather than some technical judgment on the fedorahosted service. Also (like the fact that this is a fedorahosted mailman-instance mailing list) it unfortunately reinforces the incorrect but possible perception of some connection between Red Hat and fedorahosted. (For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year but recently re-joined.)
As an alternative, I'd be willing to take a crack at getting GitLab CE going on a server for you. I've done a little bit with the instance we use at $dayjob.
That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again he has very direct access to the project's developers.
RF
On Mar 21, 2015 12:15 PM, "Richard Fontana" fontana@sharpeleven.org wrote:
(For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year
but recently re-joined.)
That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again he has very direct access to the project's developers
I'm willing to attempt it, at least. We could give bkuhn some time to make a run at his Kallithea instance, or we can work on it in parallel, whichever you think is best.
On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 08:24:47PM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
On Mar 21, 2015 12:15 PM, "Richard Fontana" fontana@sharpeleven.org wrote:
(For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year
but recently re-joined.)
That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again he has very direct access to the project's developers
I'm willing to attempt it, at least. We could give bkuhn some time to make a run at his Kallithea instance, or we can work on it in parallel, whichever you think is best.
While I don't think this is covered by HBR, I was talking to bkuhn about this topic this evening (we were both present at LibrePlanet). I would say that he's not sure it would be such a good idea to closely associate the copyleft.org and copyleft-next initiatives, and I understand his point of view on that. So I'm going to assume that bkuhn and Kallithea is not going to happen. Therefore if you're willing to give Gitlab a try that would be great. But it's fine if you don't want to also since we have other options.
Richard
I already mentioned that there *is* a free-project dedicated Kallithea host: https://gitbull.org
Now, again, I can't specifically vouch for them, but they are connected with Free Software Corsica.
What is it you wanted from bkuhn hosting Kallithea that you don't get from GitBull hosting Kallithea?
On 03/22/2015 12:33 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 08:24:47PM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
On Mar 21, 2015 12:15 PM, "Richard Fontana" fontana@sharpeleven.org wrote:
(For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year
but recently re-joined.)
That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again he has very direct access to the project's developers
I'm willing to attempt it, at least. We could give bkuhn some time to make a run at his Kallithea instance, or we can work on it in parallel, whichever you think is best.
While I don't think this is covered by HBR, I was talking to bkuhn about this topic this evening (we were both present at LibrePlanet). I would say that he's not sure it would be such a good idea to closely associate the copyleft.org and copyleft-next initiatives, and I understand his point of view on that. So I'm going to assume that bkuhn and Kallithea is not going to happen. Therefore if you're willing to give Gitlab a try that would be great. But it's fine if you don't want to also since we have other options.
Richard
copyleft-next mailing list copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
On 03/22/2015 01:28 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
I already mentioned that there *is* a free-project dedicated Kallithea host: https://gitbull.org
Now, again, I can't specifically vouch for them, but they are connected with Free Software Corsica.
What is it you wanted from bkuhn hosting Kallithea that you don't get from GitBull hosting Kallithea?
Good question. I guess it's just that I know bkuhn and usually know where to find him so I can complain to him. :)
I was also thinking of investigating the work Nick Coughlan has done to make Kallithea deployable on OpenShift, although he said it wasn't really production-use-ready.
I suppose there's an underlying desire to minimize dependencies on other people/organizations.
RF
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
Makes sense. If I knew bkuhn was hosting a Kallithea instance, I would absolutely use it or otherwise would trust his endorsement. I'm not comfortable enough with the FS Corsica folks that I can vouch for / endorse them at this point myself…
On 03/23/2015 01:41 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
On 03/22/2015 01:28 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
I already mentioned that there *is* a free-project dedicated Kallithea host: https://gitbull.org
Now, again, I can't specifically vouch for them, but they are connected with Free Software Corsica.
What is it you wanted from bkuhn hosting Kallithea that you don't get from GitBull hosting Kallithea?
Good question. I guess it's just that I know bkuhn and usually know where to find him so I can complain to him. :)
I was also thinking of investigating the work Nick Coughlan has done to make Kallithea deployable on OpenShift, although he said it wasn't really production-use-ready.
I suppose there's an underlying desire to minimize dependencies on other people/organizations.
RF
_______________________________________________ copyleft-next mailing list copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
Richard Fontana wrote on 23 March:
Good question. I guess it's just that I know bkuhn and usually know where to find him so I can complain to him. :)
I'm close to having Kallithea working on copyleft.org, so I'm willing to handle Kallithea for copyleft-next.
I was also thinking of investigating the work Nick Coughlan has done to make Kallithea deployable on OpenShift, although he said it wasn't really production-use-ready.
Nick has put a lot of time into this, so maybe it's easy.
The only hard part I've found has been getting data out of Gitorious. If you don't mind losing it all, it's probably easy to switch to Kallithea.
On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 5:15 PM, Richard Fontana fontana@sharpeleven.org wrote:
On 03/21/2015 08:00 AM, Ben Cotton wrote:
Richard,
Would reviving the Fedorahosted repo be preferable to GitHub?
It's a possibility, though the impression I have that fedorahosted projects have generally been migrating to github makes me wonder (though I imagine that is mostly or entirely because "everyone is on github" rather than some technical judgment on the fedorahosted service. Also (like the fact that this is a fedorahosted mailman-instance mailing list) it unfortunately reinforces the incorrect but possible perception of some connection between Red Hat and fedorahosted. (For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year but recently re-joined.)
As an alternative, I'd be willing to take a crack at getting GitLab CE going on a server for you. I've done a little bit with the instance we use at $dayjob.
That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again he has very direct access to the project's developers.
Matt Lee just put up a GitLab instance at https://git.gnu.io/ . Fellow list member Aaron Wolf's Snowdrift and obviously the gnu.io site itself are already up there, along with GNU Social and GNU fm.
I don't know if GitLab CE has Gitorius migration built-in or if it's a gitlab.com thing, but if it is available, that could be one factor.
On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 9:52 AM, Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) copyleft-next@clacke.user.lysator.liu.se wrote:
Matt Lee just put up a GitLab instance at https://git.gnu.io/ . Fellow list member Aaron Wolf's Snowdrift and obviously the gnu.io site itself are already up there, along with GNU Social and GNU fm.
I don't know if GitLab CE has Gitorius migration built-in or if it's a gitlab.com thing, but if it is available, that could be one factor.
Answering myself. Circumstantial evidence seem to indicate the migration support is there:
""" v 7.8.2 [ . . . ] - Fix showing of already imported projects for GitLab and Gitorious importers """
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/CHANGELOG
Indeed, migration from Gitorious is present at git.gnu.io. That's how we moved Snowdrift.coop. And incidentally, Matt Lee is the guy who sorta is managing it, but actually the host is run by GitLab folks themselves. Matt simply asked if they would offer the community a host of the Community Edition for those who don't want to use the plain GitLab.com proprietary edition.
FWIW, we tested other options. Kallithea remains promising long-term but bull.codes seems a bit slow and the thing needs work overall. I think both Kallithea and Gogs will turn out to be great, but just aren't fully there yet.
On 04/23/2015 03:16 AM, Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) wrote:
On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 9:52 AM, Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) copyleft-next@clacke.user.lysator.liu.se wrote:
Matt Lee just put up a GitLab instance at https://git.gnu.io/ . Fellow list member Aaron Wolf's Snowdrift and obviously the gnu.io site itself are already up there, along with GNU Social and GNU fm.
I don't know if GitLab CE has Gitorius migration built-in or if it's a gitlab.com thing, but if it is available, that could be one factor.
Answering myself. Circumstantial evidence seem to indicate the migration support is there:
""" v 7.8.2 [ . . . ]
- Fix showing of already imported projects for GitLab and Gitorious importers
"""
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/CHANGELOG _______________________________________________ copyleft-next mailing list copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
Hi,
So, is copyleft-next still alive?
In the past I've tried to persuade you that modern FS communities needed a weak copyleft license more than a strong one. I hope you can still be persuaded of that :-)
Regards
Antoine.
Le 21/03/2015 05:20, Richard Fontana a écrit :
Hi everybody!
I'm hoping to refocus attention on copyleft-next again soon (yes I know I've said that before, but I *mean* it now!).
Originally the canonical public repository for copyleft-next was under my personal github account (github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next.git). Due in large part to ethical criticisms from bkuhn (and with the quixotic hope of getting bkuhn to contribute), I changed that to gitorious.org/copyleft-next/copyleft-next.git while keeping the github repository in sync. (I also for a while mirrored the gitorious repository on fedorahosted and in a github organization account but didn't keep those up to date.)
As you probably know by now, GitLab has acquired Gitorious and Gitorious will apparently be shutting down in a few months.
I thought I'd use the Gitorious Apocalypse as a good excuse to investigate self-hosting a github-like web application.
bkuhn has recommended Kallithea, the RhodeCode fork which not long ago became a Software Freedom Conservancy member project. I'm a bit familiar with use of Gitlab, and I have read a bit about gogs recently.
So this evening I tried installing all three of them, and am sorrty to say failed completely.
So as far as I'm concerned it is fairly clear that Kallithea and Gogs are not quite ready for actual real-world use. I'll continue to follow them from a distance to see if they mature or at least have installation instructions I can make some sense out of.
As for Gitlab, it was the one of the three I was disinclined to use because of its permissive-core open core-ish model (could be worse, though). However, with Kallithea and Gogs being non-viable, Gitlab was my only hope. But attempts to install the Gitlab 'community edition' CentOS package according to instructions failed, by which point I was too frustrated to do anything but abandon these self-hosting experiments.
So with some sadness, I am currently intending to return to the roots of copyleft-next and making the github repository the canonical one. I may look into a simpler self-hosting solution using a minimalist web frontend like gitweb which I imagine might be easier to get running. Don't say I didn't try.
RF
copyleft-next mailing list copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
On Mar 21, 2015 10:17, "Antoine Pitrou" antoine@python.org wrote:
In the past I've tried to persuade you that modern FS communities needed a weak copyleft license more than a strong one. I hope you can still be persuaded of that :-)
I do take some issue with your premise; if anything the in-vogue nature of permissive licenses is all the more reason to champion a simple and readable strong copyleft license, rather than meeting the trend halfway. And obviously, considering the inherent "and later" language in copyleft-next and the explicit GPLv3 compatibility, this license itself has to remain nice and strong in its copyleftness, eh?
But all that being said, I'm sure many of us interested enough in licenses and related policy issues to be subscribed to this mailing list would be glad to hear what your arguments are in favour of a lesser-copyleft-next, even if we might expect to strongly or at least weakly disagree :)
On 03/21/2015 02:35 PM, Keith Z-G wrote:
On Mar 21, 2015 10:17, "Antoine Pitrou" antoine@python.org wrote:
In the past I've tried to persuade you that modern FS communities needed a weak copyleft license more than a strong one. I hope you can still be persuaded of that :-)
I do take some issue with your premise; if anything the in-vogue nature of permissive licenses is all the more reason to champion a simple and readable strong copyleft license, rather than meeting the trend halfway. And obviously, considering the inherent "and later" language in copyleft-next and the explicit GPLv3 compatibility, this license itself has to remain nice and strong in its copyleftness, eh?
But all that being said, I'm sure many of us interested enough in licenses and related policy issues to be subscribed to this mailing list would be glad to hear what your arguments are in favour of a lesser-copyleft-next, even if we might expect to strongly or at least weakly disagree :)
FWIW at some point I retreated from calling copyleft-next a "strong" copyleft license to a "non-weak" one (because of the direction certain structural aspects of it were going in), though I will probably be reassessing that. I.e. I saw it as potentially occupying some ground between GPL and whatever a true weak copyleft is. I need to go back for a reminder of Antoine's specific arguments.
RF
On 03/21/2015 02:35 PM, Keith Z-G wrote:
I do take some issue with your premise; if anything the in-vogue nature of permissive licenses is all the more reason to champion a simple and readable strong copyleft license, rather than meeting the trend halfway.
Back when I was giving talks on 'The Decline of the GPL and What To Do About It' I asserted that a decline in relevance of weak copyleft licensing might be behind some of the possible in-vogueness of permissive licenses. (Clearly some of the kinds of software that in the past might have been more likely to have been licensed under, say, the LGPL would today tend to be licensed under the Apache or MIT licenses, or so it seems to me.)
RF
Le 21/03/2015 19:35, Keith Z-G a écrit :
On Mar 21, 2015 10:17, "Antoine Pitrou" <antoine@python.org mailto:antoine@python.org> wrote:
In the past I've tried to persuade you that modern FS communities needed a weak copyleft license more than a strong one. I hope you can still be persuaded of that :-)
I do take some issue with your premise; if anything the in-vogue nature of permissive licenses is all the more reason to champion a simple and readable strong copyleft license, rather than meeting the trend halfway.
It's not about meeting the trend, it's about fulfilling developers' needs. It's not some kind of fad. In a world where more or more free software projects are libraries rather than end user programs, many FS developers don't want to burden their project with a strong copyleft license.
Of course, perhaps it's too late and people are accustomed enough to non-copyleft licenses that they don't feel a need to go back. But I'm sure I'm not the only one to have evolved from a pro-copyleft position to a "pragmatic" pro-BSD/MIT stance. Because there is no reliable middle-ground.
And obviously, considering the inherent "and later" language in copyleft-next and the explicit GPLv3 compatibility, this license itself has to remain nice and strong in its copyleftness, eh?
Well, I'm not sure what is obvious there. GPLv3 compatibility goes in a single direction (from copyleft-next to GPLv3). A weak copyleft license doesn't make that any less possible.
But all that being said, I'm sure many of us interested enough in licenses and related policy issues to be subscribed to this mailing list would be glad to hear what your arguments are in favour of a lesser-copyleft-next, even if we might expect to strongly or at least weakly disagree :)
Well, I don't want to rehash them too much here. You could take a look here: https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-May/000674.html
There's also the following unanswered question :-) https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-June/000726.html
Regards
Antoine.
On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 1:07 PM, Antoine Pitrou antoine@python.org wrote:
It's not about meeting the trend, it's about fulfilling developers' needs. It's not some kind of fad. In a world where more or more free software projects are libraries rather than end user programs, many FS developers don't want to burden their project with a strong copyleft license.
In a world where the majority of software development is funded by for-profit entities (which is certainly a world unlikely to change anytime soon) isn't any degree of copyleft liable to be seen as an equivalent degree of burden? I'd argue, although I have no real data to back me up here, that there's a conceptual leap that folks have to make to accept even the barest whiff of copyleft, especially in commercial software. And in part as a result of that, even once convinced, most will attempt to fulfill the bare minimum of what they see as unwelcome obligations.
The risk then is that the users of code under a lesser-style license will, if extending such existing work, make sure their work never directly touches or becomes derivative of the weak-copylefted code. So you might get many users, but in practice you wouldn't get any more contributors than if you had gone with an entirely permissive license.
The benefit of copyleft-next, IMHO, is to a large degree the concise and readable nature of it. I'm not so convinced that entities who are attracted to the most 'liberal' licenses (especially if their intentions are to create proprietary software) are ever going to be easily convinced of the usefulness of copyleft. But entities who would otherwise be amenable to the actual implications of the GPL, but worry that in the many pages and clauses there will be some sort of 'gotcha', are the sweet spot.
Of course, perhaps it's too late and people are accustomed enough to non-copyleft licenses that they don't feel a need to go back. But I'm sure I'm not the only one to have evolved from a pro-copyleft position to a "pragmatic" pro-BSD/MIT stance. Because there is no reliable middle-ground.
I can sympathize with this argument, certainly. I think it's very important though to clearly define some categorical distinctions between the middle-ground and the pro-BSD/MIT stance, especially since many BSD/MIT proponents seem to see any and all additional stipulations as "less free" (with the exception in some respects of Apache's patent provisions, which I'd posit is mostly due to the general antipathy towards software patents in the same crowd).
Without some hard lines in the sand, erosion towards fully permissive seems difficult to defend against, and perhaps even more importantly the arguments in favour of weak copyleft need to come across as something other than "it's like that thing you decided not to use, except less so".
And obviously, considering the inherent "and later" language in copyleft-next and the explicit GPLv3 compatibility, this license itself has to remain nice and strong in its copyleftness, eh?
Well, I'm not sure what is obvious there. GPLv3 compatibility goes in a single direction (from copyleft-next to GPLv3). A weak copyleft license doesn't make that any less possible.
Fair point on the single direction compatibility. But I stand by the "and later" (or I guess in terms of the copyleft-next terminology I should say "Later Versions") point, because it would be problematic in several senses to make such later versions different in practice and spirit.
Firstly, in this hypothetical where copyleft-next becomes an outright weak-copyleft license, anyone who has code already licensed under copyleft-next might be unhappy to see their license change out from under them in a way that isn't just keeping up with legal theories and/or closing loopholes but is outright changing the meaning and philosophy of the license itself. [Caveats for this point: perhaps not enough folks have used copyleft-next for this to matter, and I can see the argument that any such change in the nature of the license should take place before widespread adoption.]
Secondly, to dramatically change both the general purpose and the practical specifics of the license would seem to me to weaken the power of the "Later Versions" clause if challenged, as someone could argue that the clear change in intent represents enough of a break that the distributor of the older-versioned copyleft-next'd code can't be assumed to have agreed it to. [Caveat: IANAL so I could be entirely misguided, perhaps the legal enforceability of such clauses is high and no court would accept legal theories attempting to unbind a work from them.]
Well, I don't want to rehash them too much here. You could take a look here: https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-May/000674.html
I noticed you're responding there to Richard's stance that
- I have come up with one approach. If you are writing a Python library
*>* foo and you put it under copyleft-next, and you want me to use your *>* library, you ought to have the burden of making clear that the moment *>* I merely distribute a file that says 'import foo' my file is ipso *>* facto "really copyleft-next". If you did not bother to do this, I *>* ought to be free to rely on an assumption you intended something *>* 'weaker'. *
your response being
- Do note that "using a library" in the Python world can go very far,
*>* perhaps as far as monkeypatching the library in order to fix some *>* undesired behaviour. The license (or its attached FAQ) has to be clear *>* that such uses don't entail propagation of copyleft to the application *>* as a whole.*
This presents two very different approaches to Python code under copyleft-next. Curious to hear what the current theory and best-practice would be considered to be, with everyone having a few years now to mull that over. Perhaps some clarification on this would obviate or otherwise change the discussion, eh? (In fact, the company I work for recently decided to adopt the usage of Python within our commercial software product, so I'm also quite interested from the perspective of my own job.)
This might then address or change your unanswered question at https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-June/000726.html, Antoine.
On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 12:54 PM, Richard Fontana fontana@sharpeleven.org wrote:
FWIW at some point I retreated from calling copyleft-next a "strong" copyleft license to a "non-weak" one (because of the direction certain structural aspects of it were going in), though I will probably be reassessing that. I.e. I saw it as potentially occupying some ground between GPL and whatever a true weak copyleft is. I need to go back for a reminder of Antoine's specific arguments.
Ah, fair enough. Interested to hear how you possibly reconsider this, then. The idea and label of "non-weak" seems quite reasonable IMHO.
On March 21, 2015 12:07:32 PM PDT, Antoine Pitrou antoine@python.org wrote:
There's also the following unanswered question :-) https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-June/000726.html
MPL2
Hi everyone,
I'm hoping to refocus attention on copyleft-next again soon (yes I know I've said that before, but I *mean* it now!).
I'm thrilled to hear about that. Is there any particular clause/section of copyleft-next that you feel needs attention/opinions/debate? As a lawyer specializing in legal issues involving free-and-open-source software, I'd be glad to dig in wherever I might be helpful.
Take care, Adam Saunders
On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 10:00:50PM -0400, Adam Saunders wrote:
Is there any particular clause/section of copyleft-next that you feel needs attention/opinions/debate? As a lawyer specializing in legal issues involving free-and-open-source software, I'd be glad to dig in wherever I might be helpful.
Basically everything!
RF
There were four open Gitorious merge requests which I've now disposed of. My thanks to the merge requestors and apologies for the extensive delay in attending to them.
Needless to say no one should submit a new Gitorious merge request given the impending Gitorious Apocalypse, not that anyone was likely to. Everyone is welcome to submit issues or pull requests via GitHub (i.e. github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next), at least until there is an alternative that is deemed viable.
Richard
copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org