The X.Org Foundation Is Undecided About Mir

[pingufunkybeat]

Before giving this unqualified reply to me, you should have read up on the facts: Canonical reserves itself the right to turn every open source-project including all contributions done under the GPL into a proprietary one at any time with its CLA applied to e.g. Mir.

To be fair, a CLA does not say anything about proprietary licenses.

Many FLOSS projects use CLAs, including Qt, OpenOffice.org and most of the GNU toolchain, and the danger of closing these is rather small.

The only question is whether people trust the organisation to which they transfer their copyright. In the case of GNU, certainly. In the case of Trolltech/Digia, sure (the closed version funds the development and there are contractual safeguards to keep the code free forever). In the case of Oracle, not so much (hence the LibreOffice fork).

So far, Canonical has mostly released FLOSS software. The fear of CLA is a measure of distrust of Canonical as an entity. The Free Software Foundation could close GCC and make it proprietary at any point

If you want to commit to it you need to sign this CLA. That's why this project will never be "free" and should be abandoned asap. Everyone supporting this project is just feeding Canonical with his hard work with the risk of it becoming proprietary and "intellectual property".

Like I said, it is a measure of your distrust of Canonical, rather than an issue with the CLA. You surely don't believe that Emacs, GCC and GLIBC will never be "free" and should be abandoned ASAP.

[jrch2k8]

Interesting. I've not come across this commercial licence. Does it actually exist or is it an hypothetical commercial licence that you are talking about?

I am genuinely interested in knowing.

Also, what would be wrong in offering the same product under a open source licence and a commercial licence?

If I remember correctly, that is what Digia does with Qt and it seems to work out fine for both sides (The business that is Digia and the open source community around Qt).

well step by step

1.) well in practice it doesn't because right now Mir is basically skeleton code but the possibility is very real since they plan to reuse android drivers and those are very restricted and closed source as closed source can possibly be, so a copyleft license could win them some nice legal issues or carriers refusal to accept put ubuntu phone on sell.
2.) is not wrong per se but the copyleft protection is very gray with canonical, in the digia/QT case is a bit different since KDE/Qt foundation have them by the balls with actual legal obligations and agreements and the fact itself that digia will cut their own neck if KDE fork Qt [very bad business image and good chunk of developers from several communities] but if in the specific case of canonical Mir doesn't actually do anything that wayland already do[they can't change wayland license or fork surfaceflinger without google on their backs so they created Mir] and for the mid term future Mir will be Canonical exclusive and ubuntu specific that give them the advantage of do anything they want with very low resistance unlike such a widely used project like Qt.

[Figueiredo]

I'm not that familiar with licenses, but AFAIK, CLA is in any form more evil than MIT license for wayland. So, if I'm right, anyone can reditribute a closed version of wayland, but only canonical would be able to redistribute a closed version of mir right? Or can canonical "revoke" the GPL license to the code through CLA and effectively closing down the code and prohibiting anyone from forking mir?

[frign]

To be fair, a CLA does not say anything about proprietary licenses.

Many FLOSS projects use CLAs, including Qt, OpenOffice.org and most of the GNU toolchain, and the danger of closing these is rather small.

The only question is whether people trust the organisation to which they transfer their copyright. In the case of GNU, certainly. In the case of Trolltech/Digia, sure (the closed version funds the development and there are contractual safeguards to keep the code free forever). In the case of Oracle, not so much (hence the LibreOffice fork).

So far, Canonical has mostly released FLOSS software. The fear of CLA is a measure of distrust of Canonical as an entity. The Free Software Foundation could close GCC and make it proprietary at any point



Like I said, it is a measure of your distrust of Canonical, rather than an issue with the CLA. You surely don't believe that Emacs, GCC and GLIBC will never be "free" and should be abandoned ASAP.

Good point, but I trust the FSF, because it is not a corporation but a foundation with certain ideals other than maximising profits (-> Canonical).
I personally don't trust Canonical, because they are unreliable even when it comes to the direction they are heading to. It is just a matter of time until they completely divide themselves from GNU/Linux completely; the only thing missing is them developing their own Kernel (j/k).
I don't want to support this pursuit and am happy contributing to Wayland wherever I can.

[jrch2k8]

I'm not that familiar with licenses, but AFAIK, CLA is in any form more evil than MIT license for wayland. So, if I'm right, anyone can reditribute a closed version of wayland, but only canonical would be able to redistribute a closed version of mir right? Or can canonical "revoke" the GPL license to the code through CLA and effectively closing down the code and prohibiting anyone from forking mir?

well i think the code already released as gpl3 will stay public but they can choose to not make more code public hence making the future release closed only

[frign]

well i think the code already released as gpl3 will stay public but they can choose to not make more code public hence making the future release closed only

which is essentially what he said. The only thing you are left with is either using the old version or completely start from scratch, as you may not fork the project without KEEPING the CLA which essentially forces the property on you.

[jayrulez]

well step by step

1.) well in practice it doesn't because right now Mir is basically skeleton code but the possibility is very real since they plan to reuse android drivers and those are very restricted and closed source as closed source can possibly be, so a copyleft license could win them some nice legal issues or carriers refusal to accept put ubuntu phone on sell.
2.) is not wrong per se but the copyleft protection is very gray with canonical, in the digia/QT case is a bit different since KDE/Qt foundation have them by the balls with actual legal obligations and agreements and the fact itself that digia will cut their own neck if KDE fork Qt [very bad business image and good chunk of developers from several communities] but if in the specific case of canonical Mir doesn't actually do anything that wayland already do[they can't change wayland license or fork surfaceflinger without google on their backs so they created Mir] and for the mid term future Mir will be Canonical exclusive and ubuntu specific that give them the advantage of do anything they want with very low resistance unlike such a widely used project like Qt.

So in short, it is only theoretical.

Here are a list of projects under Canonical's CLA: http://www.canonical.com/contributors.

Here are a few Yes/No questions that I would like you to reply to.

1. Does Canonical have a history of withholding the source of projects under their CLA from any contributor or user?

2. Has Canonical redistributed any of those projects under a proprietary licence?

3. Do you have a bias towards or against Canonical?

[jayrulez]

which is essentially what he said. The only thing you are left with is either using the old version or completely start from scratch, as you may not fork the project without KEEPING the CLA which essentially forces the property on you.

That is not true. You may fork any publicly available GPL3 code that is under Canonical's CLA. The CLA only covers code that is contributed to the project under Canonical's control.

The CLA does not take any right from you as the owner or user of the code. It only grants Canonical the right to use your code as they please, e.g: redistributing it under a commercial licence. It does not stop you from doing anything that you can do with any other piece of GPL code. If you are fine with allowing Canonical to commercialize your code, then you are free to sign the agreement and contribute to the project, otherwise, you do not contribute or you can fork the project.

Making that comment shows you are either misinformed on the matter or being dubious by lying outright.

[jrch2k8]

So in short, it is only theoretical.

Here are a list of projects under Canonical's CLA: http://www.canonical.com/contributors.

Here are a few Yes/No questions that I would like you to reply to.

1. Does Canonical have a history of withholding the source of projects under their CLA from any contributor or user?

2. Has Canonical redistributed any of those projects under a proprietary licence?

3. Do you have a bias towards or against Canonical?

1.) so far no but most of their projects were bit rotten or failed to gain any traction at all, so unlike this possible case there was absolutely no need to do so
2.) not am aware of either [there could be cases outside the linux distro ubuntu scope]
3.) no i actually used ubuntu for a while and like i said is not evil the dual license but that the risk is that canonical have a really bad track with their projects and now that they can realistically get big bucks from the mobile market it introduces an additional sense of risk for those who expect Mir to be a contender in the FOSS world[assuming is actually worked and released <--i doubt it][im rooting with wayland] since many doubt canonical will fight for copyleft rights in mobile sector if they have to face actual money loss from doing so. For example "hey canonical that new Brand X super cool phone that is hot right now require you to change your licenses cuz imagination don't feel legally secure of using your copyleft wrappers so do it or bye bye" or "Big American Carrier wanna do X and Y to mod their version of ubuntu phone or they reject it and they don't wanna push any code back to repos"

as a note most community ppl including me give a rat ass about canonical projects and most of them never really leaved the ubuntu scope, so if canonical tomorrow do twist with their projects i doubt you see much pressure from FOSS ppl

[jrch2k8]

That is not true. You may fork any publicly available GPL3 code that is under Canonical's CLA. The CLA only covers code that is contributed to the project under Canonical's control.

The CLA does not take any right from you as the owner or user of the code. It only grants Canonical the right to use your code as they please, e.g: redistributing it under a commercial licence. It does not stop you from doing anything that you can do with any other piece of GPL code. If you are fine with allowing Canonical to commercialize your code, then you are free to sign the agreement and contribute to the project, otherwise, you do not contribute or you can fork the project.

Making that comment shows you are either misinformed on the matter or being dubious by lying outright.

well Mir so far have minimal[if at all] contribution from outside Canonical developers and that will be for a foreseeable future, so in this case the CLA/FOSS licence is technically void since they can just put code in another repo and let rot the public one without much consequence after all they are the only ones putting code there

so is kinda useless to fight technicalities at this point