[clfswm-devel] CLFSWM license

Sat Jan 7 00:38:25 UTC 2012

madnificent at gmail.com writes:

> Hello Philippe Brochard,
>
>
> My main issue with this is that all code which is ran in the same lisp
> image will need to be placed under the GPL.  That being said: placing
> things in the contrib directory doesn't solve anything.  It might
> solve something in a C world where things are linked differently, but
> the trick doesn't work in Lisp.  If not for that, the GPL would still
> not be to my liking, but it would certainly be acceptable for this
> sort of software (and probably not only this).  The LLGPL tries to
> solve this (though I must say that it hasn't had to stand up in court
> either and it still scares me to death as I probably still
> misinterpret it).
>
I've read those legacy problems (and [1] also) some times ago. This is
for this reason I have made another of my project under the LLGPL
licence as well resumed here http://common-lisp.net/faq.shtml#lgpl.
But Stumpwm is under the GPL licence and so this is natural for CLFSWM.  

> For what it's worth: My stance against the GPL is not against free
> software, I vastly prefer free software over proprietary software.  As
> such I use free/libre Common Lisp implementations (my preference goes
> out to SBCL and CCL).  I do *not* consider the GPL to yield free
> software.  The legalese is not at all what it means for computer
> scientists, if it can mean anything to us.  I kindly suggest you take
> a look at [1], a section of the mails between rms and the CLISP author
> in order to understand why the GPL doesn't work together with Common
> Lisp.  The main issue with that in my mind wasn't even that I found it
> to be unfair, it was that judges read a different license when they
> see the same words.  The GPL can be seen as stating "the code must be
> free".  The MIT/BSD license can be seen as stating "the programmer
> must be free".  I prefer to be free myself, instead of having code
> which is forced to be free.  Furthermore the moment at which code
> needs to be shared is complete madness, it allows for easy misuse
> (look at Google and TiVo for instance).  Therefore, in my mind,
> there's little good to the GPL aside from the marketing mechanism
> behind it.  Again, I do like sharing code.  I often do!  I like the
> mindset which says that, together, we can get further, faster.
> There's one world and we programmers should stick together for most of
> it.  However, having a long and complicated license is likely not the
> way to go, small companies can't afford to analyse or defend it.  If
> there were a way to go, it certainly wouldn't be GPLv2.
>
As said before, I prefer the GPL over the BSD (or a less restrictive
license than the GPL) because it grants that my code will stay free for
others. In a user point of view, I prefer the 'user freedom' instead of
the 'programmer freedom' and this is why I place a lot of my code under
the GPL license. 
On an other hand, I really like the conciseness of the BSD licence and
there is very few chances that CLFSWM will be used in a proprietary
manner and I'll keep CLFSWM free (GPL or BSD).

We have to discuss this on the mailing list with others contributors.

I'm not really against a change to the BSD licence but I can't take this
decision alone. 

Best regards,

Philippe

>
> Best regards,
>
> Aad Versteden
>
>
> [1] http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-CLISP-is-under-GPL
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 12:02 AM, Philippe Brochard
> <pbrochard at common-lisp.net> wrote:
>> madnificent at gmail.com writes:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>> Hi.
>>
>>>
>>> I was looking at CLFSWM and I find the concept interesting.  I've
>>> hacked the source code so the symbol manipulation works correctly in
>>> most cases (allegro's modern mode will still crash it when changing to
>>> another WM though).  I have more hacks planned.  However, I'm not at
>>> all comfortable with the GPL license in a lisp system.  As shown with
>>> CLISP, it is a recipe for legal issues.
>>>
>> First, thanks a lot for your interest in CLFSWM.
>>
>> Any hack and bug fix is welcome!
>>
>>
>>> I personally release all code under the BSD license as I, as a
>>> programmer, understand the license and know what I'll be allowed to
>>> do.  I also value the fact that the code which I have written can be
>>> used in the companies in which I work.  I know I will not get sued for
>>> odd things I don't understand (again, read the mailing between RMS and
>>> the CLISP author to see how lawyers's reasoning is different from
>>> ours).  If you really want an obligatory (and to my view
>>> condescending) license, I'd be willing to contribute under the LLGPL
>>> (the Lisp Lesser Gnu Public License) which is most likely what you
>>> intend to have if you are convinced the GPL is the only way to go.
>>> For what it's worth, in any company I've  worked in so far, using and
>>> contributing to BSD code was praised, GPL not so much (due to legal
>>> issues).
>>>
>>> Though it's true that CLFSWM probably won't survive in a business
>>> context, it makes all the more sense to publish it in a liberal
>>> license which will not give either of the devs problems if something
>>> would happen.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks for considering this,
>>>
>> CLFSWM is under the GPL licence for historical and personal reason
>> (mainly, I do not care of proprietary software).
>> It is inspired by Stumpwm which is under the GPL licence. I've used few
>> code from it and from Eclipse. This code is relatively easy to find:
>>
>> $ egrep -nri "eclipse|stumpwm" *
>> AUTHORS:23:Stumpwm: http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/
>> contrib/clfswm:23:# Original code and idea: http://stumpwm.antidesktop.net/cgi-bin/wiki/SetUp
>> README:4: and [2]Stumpwm. Many thanks to them).
>> README:108:   2. http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/
>> src/tools.lisp:569:(defun find-free-number (l)          ; stolen from stumpwm - thanks
>> src/keysyms.lisp:3:;;  This file is part of stumpwm.
>> src/keysyms.lisp:5:;; stumpwm is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
>> src/keysyms.lisp:10:;; stumpwm is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
>> src/version.lisp:4:;;  Borrowed from Stumpwm
>> src/xlib-util.lisp:174:;;; Workaround for pixmap error taken from STUMPWM - thanks:
>> src/xlib-util.lisp:178:;; in stumpwm. So far the only slot that seems to be affected is
>> src/xlib-util.lisp:397:;;; Stolen from Eclipse
>> src/netwm-util.lisp:67:;;; Taken from stumpwm (thanks)
>>
>> There is also the contrib/clfswm script from Xavier Maillard which is
>> also based on Stumpwm code and under GPL licence.
>>
>> All that said, I'm really attached to the GPL licence even for Common
>> Lisp code (BTW I've placed another Common Lisp project under the LLGPL
>> licence).
>> For now, I do not want to change the CLFSWM licence. So if you want to
>> contribute to CLFSWM, you'll have to place your code under the GPL
>> licence if you want to have it merged in the CLFSWM core code.
>> Another solution is to make your hack in the contrib/ directory and
>> place it in the licence of your choice.
>> Also, CLFSWM (and Stumpwm I suppose) are placed under the GPL licence
>> because they're expected to be run in free Common Lisp implementation
>> (I regularly test CLFSWM in many of them) but not in closed source
>> Common Lisp implementation.
>>
>> Indeed this is not a closed response and we have to discuss this on the
>> clfswm-devel mailing list (in CC) with others. It'll be sad to loose a
>> contributor.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Philippe
>>
>>
>>> Aad Versteden
>>>
>>>
>>> PS: if you'd like to chat about it, feel free to add me on google
>>> talk, or hop by on irc.freenode.net and send me, madnificent, a /msg
>>> :)
>>>
>> Hmm, I'm not a lawyer and I'm not sufficiently fluent in English to
>> discuss this question on IRC in a comfortable manner. Please continue
>> this discussion on the clfswm-devel mailing list.