[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #14944: GNU Lesser General Public License file is missing

WordPress Trac wp-trac at lists.automattic.com
Tue Oct 5 02:01:21 UTC 2010


#14944: GNU Lesser General Public License file is missing
--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  hakre         |        Owner:                 
     Type:  defect (bug)  |       Status:  reopened       
 Priority:  normal        |    Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  General       |      Version:  3.0            
 Severity:  normal        |   Resolution:                 
 Keywords:  has-patch     |  
--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
Changes (by hakre):

  * type:  feature request => defect (bug)


Comment:

 Replying to [comment:10 Otto42]:
 > Replying to [comment:9 hakre]:
 > > Please reference something that shows it is _not_ necessary.
 >
 > Why don't you please reference something that shows that it *is*
 necessary? Nothing, anywhere, says that.

 AFAIK licensing terms are in written form. That *implies* to provide it.
 If you don't do so, it's like referring to something that is subject of
 change or just inexistent.

 > "Recommended" is not "required". "Should" is not "must". And your
 opinion is not a factual piece of information.
 "It's recommended not to breath under water." Help yourself. The
 recommendation is not my personal opinion but the on of the folks who made
 the LGPL. Maybe you can honor that "factual piece of information".

 > > What's that problematic with adding the LGPL file to the Package? Do
 you really think that the text of the LGPL is bloat and providing it is
 negative for users? That there is no benefit by doing so?
 >
 > Yes, and yes.

 It's sad. Quoted for truth.

 > > > And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
 > >
 > > As it was criticized that "recommends" was too vague, here you have a
 "must" in the ''original terms''.
 >
 > That does not say that you must include the license. That says that you
 must show them the terms. The terms, in our case, are shown by referring
 to the URL of those terms. Your argument here has no merit.

 The URL argument has no merit. I can only underline this: Based on the
 research and various talks I had with others (and I _openly_ asked for
 their opinion and explicitly about linking Licenses), put the license text
 inside the package. I mean this is a software package. When you get
 software, where do you expect the license. EULA anyone? URLs are not
 always provided and some of the content they link are not licenses btw. So
 even technically URLs are broken to show the license.

 >
 > > What about my suggestion we let this mediate through a third party
 like the SFLC?
 >
 > I don't care who they are, what their credentials are, or what they
 decide to back up their arguments with. If they agree with you, then they
 are still wrong. And I will look them right in the eye and tell them flat
 out that they are wrong. Wrong is wrong, and credentials don't make it
 right.

 I can understand that this topic is somehow complex and not easy to
 understand for a programmer as it has legal implications. So my suggestion
 was to contact a third party regarding this issue, namely the SFLC because
 I know that your employer asked for their opinion once. That's whay I
 thought that organization might be trustworthy for you. But it was a
 suggestion only, you can suggest to a third party of your choice as well.

 And I don't know the opinion of the SFLC yet, so I did not suggest them
 because they share the arguments I gave. The opposite is the case, they
 can be freely asked, telling them the problems raised here with providing
 the license. It would be the first time regarding the LGPL licensing issue
 here. I suggested them for mediation.

 ----
 Replying to [comment:11 Otto42]:
 > More to the point, while we could easily include the license in there, I
 think that it's "bloat" because it's confusing to the end user.
 > We already have a license.txt document. Putting another licensing
 document in there, which doesn't actually do anything, which doesn't
 actually *change* anything, just creates more opportunities for people to
 read the wrong thing and make invalid assumptions.

 There are analogies in history where helpful kings needed to protect dumb
 subjects from damage. All the time. This sounds a bit like: If they don't
 have the license, they can't misread it, these idiots. So that actually
 not providing the license is better then providing the license.

 I respectfully oppose such a point of view. I'm for providing the license-
 text so users can easily access it and educate themselves.

 If you fear that the scope of the license is not clear, then you might be
 addressing an additional problem. One that most probably this can be
 easily solved. For example by providing some information in form of a
 short notice in the readme comparable to the one that existed once.

 >
 > The third party bits of WP that are LGPL are all pretty clearly marked
 as such,
 > and they have URLs that point to the text of their licenses.

 Hmm. I think you have not really taken a look into the code, have you?
 Naturally only code marked as LGPL can be seen as being LGPL (easy to
 state, right?) but are you sure all have URLs. And to what content are
 those URLs acutally pointing? Do you think those URLs point to the text of
 the LGPL-License? I think you should take a look first before making such
 a statement. Just to ensure we talk about the same code.

 > Unless you think that gpl.org is going away anytime soon, then they are
 adequately documented as to their licensing already.

 I have no idea why you refer to gpl.org but generally spoken, as written,
 providing URLs is not the same as providing the license. So having a URL
 inside some comment does by far not mean that they are adequately
 documented already. That's probably a misunderstanding because we as web-
 developers make use of URLs every day and this is normal to us to deal
 with them.

 But in a legal sense, a URL can not represent the license text. And other
 things can happen then a site being inaccessible (as opensource.org was
 lately and is always in LAN environments), for example change of URLs.
 Some of the URLs in wordpress code say it's outdated and suggest to
 relicense (!).

 So it's by far not that way you make look it like.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/14944#comment:13>
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