all;
an lib Louis organisation would be good; but precautions need to be
taken; in the sence that a professional lawyer needs to be consulted;
for the organisation;
I'm in favour for an organisation to be set up for Lib Louis;
Regards;
Tolga;
On 22/06/2016, Michael Whapples <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John I would suggest if taking your route, that future contributionsFor a description of the software, to download it and links to
then are given with full rights to the organisation then this could not
come up in the future as the organisation would have the rights to
change the license.
However there are words of caution attached to this.
1. The organisation needs to behave in a way that the community agrees
with. This would be to stick to certain principles when relicensing, etc.
2. Contributors need to be happy to grant these rights. You may find
that some decide not to contribute instead of granting those rights. The
behaviour of the organisation may influence this, but some may just not
be happy with granting full rights to an organisation.
This probably would not change much for existing contributions, I think
you really would need to get the permission of the contributors.
From what I understand, permission to change the library source code
back to LGPL2.1 has been recieved and it is only the tables which still
have LGPL3 contributions. As tables are easy to remove, the removal
option is much more practical.
Personally I would go down the route of removing any LGPL3 tables (or at
least any you cannot get explicit permission to change back to LGPL2.1),
and this is regardless of setting up a organisation for the projects in
the future. You might decide to distribute these LGPL3 tables in a
separate optional package people could download, then those who do not
want LGPL3 stuff ignore that optional package and those who want it can
download it.
I am no legal expert and so I might be taking a cautious approach. I am
just uncertain that a no response can be assumed to be that the person
was uncontactable, additional rights need to be granted, but to not
grant them requires no action as it is no change.
Michael Whapples
On 21/06/2016 23:27, John Gardner wrote:
Jamie, there is plenty of case law permitting actions by organizations who
have not heard from all stakeholders provided they have made a good faith
effort to reach them.
John
-----Original Message-----
From: liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Teh
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 2:29 PM
To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: Proposal for aliblouis organization.
(was: Licensing of liblouis tables )
Two points of clarification:
1. There is definitely a difference between GPL 3 and LGPL 3, but that's
academic here and thus not worth discussing.
2. Even if an organisation existed, you cannot relicense anything where
the contributor has not agreed. Majority is not relevant. This will always
be the case unless all contributors sign an agreement which licenses their
code under specific conditions to said organisation. Again, if you can't
get agreement from someone, your only option is to remove the
contribution. This is not anything complex; it is simple legal rights.
Sent from a mobile device
On 22 Jun 2016, at 1:30 AM, John Gardner <john.gardner@xxxxxxxxxxxx>For a description of the software, to download it and links to project
wrote:
Larry, historically, John Boyer borrowed from BRLTTY to get liblouis
started, and we got their permission to change their GPL license to LGPL,
so that liblouis could be used with any software, not just GPL software.
A few years later the LGPL license upgraded from version 2.1 to version
3. None of us realized that LGPL3 had become a great deal more
restrictive than the last LGPL2 version. I have read LGPL3 and to my
non-legal mind, I cannot tell any difference now between GPL and LGPL.
Amazon wants to use liblouis but is not willing to use GPL or LGPL3
software for good reason. So Christian and I were convinced to re-license
anything with LGPL3 license to LGPL2.1. We posted requests on the list
and contacted every contributor whose address we had. To this point
everyone who responded has agreed to have his/her contributions
relicensed to LGPL2.1, but we have been unable to contact every person
listed as a contributor, apparently including authors of some tables
licensed as LGPL3. They remain in the archive as LGPL3 There really is no
liblouis organization that can make the decision to relicense software
whose authors are not reachable.
It is probably time for liblouis to organize itself into some
legally-defined organization so that such decisions can be made instead
of relying on Christian and a few other long-time contributors to put
their necks on the line. The major copyright holders are ViewPlus, John
Boyer's company, and APH. ViewPlus and John Boyer are the founders, and
APH was accepted later as co-owner when it took major development
responsibility for BrailleBlaster and liblouisUTDML. In absence of other
guidance, I propose that these three organizations take responsibility of
drawing up a charter proposal with input from other major contributors.
Then put it to a vote of currently active liblouis participants. In my
opinion, the organization should have a relatively small international
executive board selected from current major contributors and a process
for updating that board from time to time. Any proposal should win
support of a strong majority - we sure wouldn't want to start off with
some serious unhappiness in this excellent group of people. I believe
that Amazon will be willing to contribute to startup expenses. Would APH
be willing to accept contributions for this project until the
organization is able to accept its own funding? As a large non-profit,
APH is the obvious choice for this role.
If anybody on the list has better ideas for forming a liblouis
organization, please post them!
John Gardner
-----Original Message-----
From: liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Larry
Skutchan
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 3:10 AM
To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: Licensing of liblouis tables (was:
Move the library to LGPLv2.1)
It is a shame someone even has to ask this question. The whole intent of
Liblouis is to help make quality braille available on all devices. Why
should someone who wants to use it have to jump through hoops?
This licensing question is tricky and annoying and results in hindering
the mission.
What are our options for smoothing this process?
-----Original Message-----
From: liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Christian Egli
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 4:59 AM
To: Mulcahy, Marc <mmulcahy@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: John Gardner <john.gardner@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; Bangs, Jon
<jbang@xxxxxxxxxx>; Korn, Peter <pkorn@xxxxxxxxxx>;
liblouis-liblouisxml <liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [liblouis-liblouisxml] Licensing of liblouis tables (was:
Move the library to LGPLv2.1)
"Mulcahy, Marc" <mmulcahy@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
Well, currently only the source code of liblouis has been changed to"John Gardner" <john.gardner@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:How can we tell which tables are licensed under LGPL V2 Vs. LGPL V3?
If I understand Christian's post, liblouis is now licensed as
LGPL2.1 except for some of the tables.
We'll need additional languages eventually, but UEB would probably be
enough to get us going.
LGPLv2.1. The tables are all still LGPLv3. Two remarks with respect to
that:
1. Somebody needs to go through all the tables, look at the copyright
statement and the revision history and compare this with the list of
contributors that have agreed to re-licensing. Pick the tables where
we have permission to change the license. Send me this list and I
will change the licenses. If you do this before the summer holidays
there is a chance that this will go in the 3.0 release. Contact me if
you need help with that.
2. I'm not a layer but as far as I know the LGPL is about linking. Since
the tables are not linked to your program you might be OK. On the
other hand this might be slippery terrain.
Hope that helps
Christian
--
Christian Egli
Swiss Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Print Disabled
Grubenstrasse 12, CH-8045 Zürich, Switzerland
-----
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