RE: [Axiom-legal] Licensing Aldor (was: GPL vs. modified BSD)

[Bill Page]

On November 20, 2006 5:11 PM C Y wrote:
> 
> --- Bill Page wrote:
> > ...
> > The Aldor Public License does not distinguish between binary
> > versus source code formats. It does state specifically what
> > one's obligations would be *if* one were to make modifications
> > to the source code. If you read the intention of the Aldor
> > Public License and the history section of the aldor.org web
> > site, it gives the distinct impression that Aldor in toto 
> > is publicly available.
> 
> However, since this is apparently not the case (I assume the
> compiler source code is somewhere other than in the distribution)

Yes, there is a cvs source archive on another aldor.org machine
that is accessible only to users with an account on that machine.
The binary distribution (several versions) is available for free
download as a tarball (after you agree to the Aldor Public License).
The tarball *does* not include the C source code of the compiler
nor the source code of some runtime libraries.

The copy of the Aldor source code that I obtained after I contacted
Steven Watt last year (August 2005) when I wanted to re-compile
Aldor for use on x86-46 hardware did not come with any license
statement nor a non-disclosure agreement of any kind. However I did
not obtain it through "normal" channels (assuming that such does in
fact exist) since Steven himself did not reply to my request until
several months later (October 2005) at which time he wrote:

"I've taken a bit longer to respond than planned because we are now
contemplating adopting a complete open source license for everyone.
This might take a bit of time, however, so it might make sense to
go ahead on an individual basis with you beforehand."

> it must be assumed that this omission was intentional until
> proven otherwise.

Yes, of course it was intentional. A plausible reason for this
in spite of the existence of the Aldor Public License and that
Aldor is freely and publicly available in binary format is the
desire to control the official source. Unfortunately aldor.org
did not seem to realize that such control kills almost all desire
for innovation on the part of others. Very little has been done
to Aldor since it's release by aldor.org - even bug fixes seem
to be mostly ignored.

> The fact that there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes
> on this would seem to confirm the issue is not straightforward.

What gives you the idea that "there is a lot of work going on
behind the scenes"? I see no real evidence of that. Can you give
any example other than the communication to which Mike Dewar
recently referred? Remember that it has taken more than a year
since Steven Watt first said publicly that work was underway
to make Aldor open source for the process to reach this stage.

Also, I fail to see why the issues is not straightforward.
Everyone involved has already indicated they are in favour of
making Aldor open source. No one has spoken in favour of keeping
Aldor source code closed.

> ...
> I can readily accept that the legal aspects of this are not
> simple to work through.

Could you give an example of such a "legal aspect"?

> Mike Dewar's update that there is still work in progress
> is very encouraging to me.
>

Yes, to me too. But the delay is really deadly. In my opinion we
(the Axiom project) would have been much better off if we had
known two or three years ago whether or not Aldor was going to
be part of Axiom or not. If the answer had been "no", we would be
struggling but at least work would now be well underway to improve
SPAD and to write new algebra code. If the answer had been "yes"
then the work to re-write the Axiom algebra library would likely
be near completion and many people would be involved in writing
new algebra code. But because there has been no decision for so
long, the result is that nearly everything concerning the algebra
is "on hold" and otherwise enthusiastic people (such as those
developing Sage right now) don't want to touch Axiom because of
the overwhelming amount of legacy code and uncertainty about
Aldor - the only interesting part to many people with a computer
science orientation. (Gaby being a fortunate exception :-)
 
> ...
> > Everyone has already publicly stated that they agree with
> > making Aldor open source.
> 
> Yes, but the viability of open source rests on a healthy respect
> for copyright and legality.

I doubt that. It seems to me that the original open source projects,
especially those originating from the Free Software Foundation,
were driven by people who wanted to change the existing status quo
of legally proprietary software. There are many philosophical
arguments about why software should be free of the constraints
of usual copyright and licensed in such as way as to impose this
condition on anyone willing to modify and re-distribute it. Many
people considered this borderline illegal. Witness the Unix law
suite only just recently resolved.

As far as I am concerned the viability of open source rests on
volunteers. I expect that what motivates volunteers ranges widely
but none of those whom I have spoken to had much respect for
anything that prevents them from working on their chosen project
or for that matter any commercially motivated group who uses
licensing and copyright to limit open access to source code
(currently Microsoft and Apple, formerly Sun and IBM), which of
course is not to be interpreted as my saying they are willing to
do anything illegal.

I think the apparent preoccupation with licenses and legal opinions
of people working in open source is only in response to challenges
to this freedom by commercial proprietary interests.

> Morally, re-licensing the code willy-nilly would be about the
> same as taking GPL code and incorporating it into a commercial
> product.

There is nothing legal about using GPL code in a commercial product.
Of course it carries the obligation that the source code of the
commercial product must be open source, but contrary to most
"corporate expectations", open source code has not proven to be
a detriment - quite the contrary. "Commercial" should not be
confused with proprietary or "closed". For example consider Red
Hat Enterprise Linux, Sun's StarOffice (aka. OpenOffice) and IBM's
webserver products based on Apache. This is likely to be the norm
in the future rather than the exception.

> Even if the original authors had said that might be acceptable
> under the right conditions, doing it without their explicit
> approval would be a Bad Idea.  Aldor.org and NAG MUST be
> allowed to do as they please with their work, the same as
> we are allowed to do what we please with our own.

Well, yes copyright law does require the permission of copyright
holders. Violating the wishes of the copyright holders could
leave one open to a law suit but Tim has already explained why
such action is very unlikely.

> Any violation of that trust and respect is very dangerous to the
> community, to say nothing of relations with NAG (who after all
> didn't have to do any of this in the first place.)

There is a risk I suppose that, since NAG retains the copyright on
Axiom (see Axiom license), that they might choose to re-license
Axiom at some point in the future. But that would not retroactively
affect any versions of the Axiom that had already been released
under the existing license.

>  
> > > Tim is correct that only lawyers can render really useful
> > > opinions on these issues, but that doesn't mean we don't need
> > > to make a good faith effort to respect the license to the best
> > > of our abilities.

Which license? As far as I can tell, what I was proposing in terms
of releasing Aldor source under the Aldor Public License would
conform perfectly with that license. Releasing Aldor under GPL
would be more restrictive but compatible with the Aldor Public
License.

> > 
> > From my point of view, to err on the side of caution is equivalent
> > to doing nothing.
> 
> I would have to hear a professional legal opinion to convince me
> there is any other option here.  It seems quite straightforward -
> if Aldor.org and NAG say "not yet", that's the last word.  It's
> their code.
>  
> > > Aldor I think is very clearly NOT GPL or Modified BSD, and unless
> > > and until they decide to change that we are obligated to respect
> > > that decision.
> > > 
> > 
> > Have you read the Aldor Public License? It looks pretty much like
> > GPL to me.
> 
> This part looks like it might not be GPL compatible:
> 
> (b) you grant Aldor.org a royalty-free license to use, modify or
> redistribute your modifications without limitation
> 
> "without limitation" would seem to me to mean you are granting rights
> to Aldor.org over and above those of the GPL.  Again though, this is
> one of those lawyer questions. (Sorry Tim.)  Let's say Aldor.org
> wants to release a commercial version of Aldor - under this license,
> they can incorporate any work based off the Aldor code into a closed
> source binary distribution.  (That's not to say they would do so, of
> course, but legal documents are where people are supposed to consider
> worst case scenarios.)

Well, this is posted on "axiom-legal" which is the place where Tim Daly
says we should keep confine such discussions. As such I feel more free
to speak of these issues here than I would in any other Axiom forum.
I am not a lawyer but I can argue about how many angels fit on the head
of a pin just as well as the next guy. :-)

I think you should not take "without limitation" out of context. This
is part of the Aldor Public License which specifically makes such
modifications public. That would be similar to what is already allowed
in Axiom under the current modified BSD license (which is considered
compatible with GPL). The rights assigned to Aldor.org are compatible
with GPL in the same sense in which BSD is compatible.

> 
> Anyway, Mike Dewar and Dr. Watt are still working on it, which is
> excellent news and may render this whole discussion moot.
> 

I certainly hope so. :-)

Regards,
Bill Page.