SHOO's Time code -- conclusion

[SHOO]

(2010/06/10 23:33), Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> 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
>> inquestion?
>
> No, I hadn't, but I did. Kris says no (comment).
>
>> I would imagine they would say that they only see a minor resemblance
>> inthe 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
>> givethe 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.

Thank you for your conclusion. And detailed response is not possible and 
is sorry.