SHOO's Time code -- conclusion

[kretinis]

== Quote from Steven Schveighoffer (schveiguy at yahoo.com)'s article
> I want to first qualify that I represent only myself, nobody from Phobos,
> nobody from Tango, not Walter nor Andrei nor Kris nor Lars nor SHOO nor
> anyone but me.
> Please see this message:
> http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/phobos/2010-June/000783.html
> Quoted here completely for convenience:
> Walter Bright wrote:
> "Although I do not believe that SHOO's work on the date/time is legally
> infringing on Tango's time code, I feel there's been enough bad feeling
> about this and that we should not include Tango's time api design in
> Phobos.
> I apologize to SHOO for this. I know this is unfair to him.
> Andrei has given a start to std.gregorian, perhaps SHOO's implementation
> work can be transferred to this to help complete it?"
> ------
> So I want to re-stress some points I have made in the past, and respond to
> some statements that have been made by others.
> First, let's recap what happened.  According to SHOO, he was a user of
> Tango's time library, and used the online documentation of Tango, and the
> existing implementation of Phobos to write a new Phobos-ified time library
> that was similar to Tango's api.  Having been one of the main authors of
> Tango's time package, I examined SHOO's implementation side-by-side with
> Tango's, I can say that I believe him.  IMO, it's not the same code or
> even derived, it just has a similar feel.
> Someone from Tango was alerted to this, and considered it to be infringing
> to the point where he/she called Walter and told him so.  Walter, as
> someone who wants nothing to do with controversy and possible legal
> issues, refused to accept the code based on this accusation.  Note: I was
> not a part of this call, so I do not know what was said exactly in it,
> these are my interpretations of the posts on the newsgroup.
> Lars of Tango wrote a message to the Phobos mailing list indicating that
> in his opinion, "claiming a clean room implementation of an API in D is
> difficult, if for no other reason that it is (due to imperfect doc
> generation etc) somewhat difficult to properly study a D API without at
> the same time reading the source (or glimpsing at it). Even if you have
> good intentions, as I'm sure Shoo had, it is important to know this, there
> may be less forgiving actors out there."  You can read the entire message
> here: http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/phobos/2010-April/000370.html
> Coupled with the phone call asking Walter to block the code, at this
> point, we could just say that Tango was being careful.  But under the
> circumstances, it appears to me that Tango is under the impression that
> simply admitting one has used Tango, combined with having made a library
> inspired by Tango's API, is enough to warrant an accusation of
> infringement.  I don't even know if anyone from Tango examined the code or
> not.
> Thus ensued a large discussion (to phrase it politely) in which several
> good ideas for resolving the problem came to light.  Some of them focused
> on getting a boost license for Tango's time code.  It was revealed that
> one of the authors, John Chapman, was not reachable by the Tango team, and
> so it would take some time to get John's permission.  After a few days, I
> took it upon myself to seek out John and get his input.  He responded to
> me positively, and indicated he would alert the Tango team.  If we count
> the four authors listed in the Tango code (I'm somewhat convinced that a
> 5th author does not exist), that meant that both John and I had agreed to
> license the time code under the boost license for Phobos.  This left two
> authors.
> Out of respect for Tango's ownership of the situation, I let it sit for
> over a week, expecting at any time that someone from Tango would contact
> Walter with good news.  Having heard nothing, I decided to push the matter
> a little further and post to the newsgroup my success with John.  An
> indication from Moritz Warning, a Tango user, was that he had spoken with
> the remaining two authors: "I have asked Kris Bell and Matti Niemenmaa.
> No Problem at all."
> This left the infamous 2nd gunma... I mean 5th author.  After requests for
> who this person was on the newsgroup, I got nothing.
> Almost two weeks later, I decided to give up temporarily on the 5th
> author, if the other two were OK with it, I could get more leverage to
> finding out who that 5th person was.  I just wanted to make sure I had a
> direct statement from both those authors, as hearsay isn't very good
> evidence.  After posing the question to Moritz, Matti Niemenmaa posted his
> approval of the license change on the newsgroup. (A sincere thank you for
> that!)
> Which leads us to Kris.  Apparently, Kris has no comment.  Having no
> comment in this issue is equivalent to saying no without sounding like you
> are saying no.  Because a unanimous 'yes' vote is required to change
> things, abstaining means things will stay the way they are.  That's an
> interesting way to go...
> So to answer some questions/comments stated a few months ago:
> > have you thought about just asking the authors of the Tango code in
> > question?
> No, I hadn't, but I did.  Kris says no (comment).
> > I would imagine they would say that they only see a minor resemblance in
> > the api and asking wouldn't even be necessary from their point of view.
> I guess your imagination was incorrect.  I don't know why, but Kris does
> not want a non-infringing reimplementation of Tango's time code in Phobos.
> > But since W/Phobos is very copyright sensitive, I'm sure they will give
> > the permission.
> Nope.
> "Even if you have good intentions, as I'm sure Shoo had, it is important
> to know this, there may be less forgiving actors out there."
> I guess I found one.
> ------
> Draw the conclusions you want.  I'll say that Tango developers have every
> right to defend their intellectual property, and every right to insist on
> their license being unchanged.  Walter has every right to decide what code
> gets included in Phobos and under what license.  I have no say in any of
> these matters, I can only observe and provide suggestions/analysis.
> To reiterate what someone else said, to me Tango is poison.  It appears to
> me from SHOO's story that just *using* Tango is poison. I feel like all
> the contributions I have made (and the other two authors have made) are
> being held hostage for no good reason (I still don't know why).  I stand
> by my decision to leave that project, and I hope this story has at least
> given you an idea of why.
> I also extend Tango an invitation to use any of my code from Phobos,
> druntime, or dcollections and relicense it under their license.  I have no
> problem with people using my code, as long as I can also use it as I see
> fit.
> -Steve
> P.S., I will not respond to this thread except to make any
> clarifications/corrections.  I've said my share.

I accept Shoos implementation only with the conditions

1) No multiplication, division and remainder operations are allowed. Tango used
these operations for date calculation in an original way. All similar uses are
forbidden.

2) Also it is not allowed to implement routines for operations at (1). That would
be obviously a thinly veiled attempt at stealing Tango code.

3) No use of the words date, time, and calendar are allowed in the code or the
documentation. These words were used creatively by Tango. They cannot be stolen.

I am sure these requirements are reasonable