The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

Tiago Carvalho merlin3000 at gmail.com
Thu Aug 14 16:27:28 PDT 2008


Sean Kelly Wrote:

> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> > "Walter Bright" wrote
> >> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> >>> Walter Bright wrote:
> >>>> I have explained this to the main Tango developers on multiple
> >>>> occasions. It is their right and privilege to license Tango as they see
> >>>> fit, and I respect that and so have not spoken out on it before. But in
> >>>> this thread I am being cast as a roadblock, which I feel is a little
> >>>> unfair, so I will loosen my tongue and speak up a bit :-)
> >>> And we have on equally many occasions told you that the code you need is
> >>> available. :)
> >> I respectfully disagree. The Tango team has stopped short of providing a 
> >> license to use the Tango code in Phobos with a reciprocal agreement that 
> >> allows it to be distributed under the Phobos license. I also cannot accept 
> >> something vague, it has to be explicit.
> >>
> >> I've dealt with lawyers many times, and spelling it out directly and 
> >> explicitly avoids a lot of future potential problems. Furthermore, if 
> >> Phobos has a wishy-washy legal pedigree, corporate lawyers will not buy 
> >> off on allowing D to be used in their companies.
> >>
> >> This issue must be settled in advance of looking at Tango, not after the 
> >> fact.
> > 
> > The BSD license of Tango is here 
> > http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/BSDLicense
> > The license of Phobos is here 
> > http://www.dsource.org/projects/phobos/browser/trunk/phobos/phoboslicense.txt
> > 
> > These license texts are almost identical.  Both say that you can freely 
> > distribute the library in source or binary form, as long as you retain the 
> > license.  Two differences I see.  One, the Phobos license requires you to 
> > identify if you have changed the file.  Two, the Phobos license is more lax 
> > on requiring acknowledgement for binaries.  But you can't claim you wrote 
> > the binary completely without giving acknowledgement (at least, that's my 
> > interpretation).
> 
> This documentation requirement for binaries is why Tango adopted a dual 
> license scheme.  In prior jobs I'd never be able to get a corporate 
> lawyer to approve the use of a library containing such a requirement, 
> and I wanted to be able to use Tango at work someday :-)
> 
> > From Tango's camp, the Phobos license is very similar, couldn't you allow 
> > licensing the runtime under the Phobos license as well?  I can't see how it 
> > would hurt, the Phobos license is only slightly more restrictive, but still 
> > is in the same spirit of the BSD license.  The one thing it lacks is an 
> > absolute requirement for acknowledgement in binary form, but it is required 
> > if you claim authorship of software or distribute in source form.  So nobody 
> > can go around claiming they wrote Tango, but if they claim any authorship of 
> > anything, Tango must be there.
> 
> Releasing code into the public domain relinquishes any right to claim 
> authorship as well.  I provided permission for Walter to use the runtime 
> code as PD anyway, with the request that Phobos, at least, mention me as 
> the author / contributor as appropriate.  But I think it's asking a lot 
> that other Tango contributors do the same... particularly when all their 
> contributions are user code.  If this permission were given, Walter 
> could quite legally take all of Tango, relabel it as Phobos and 
> distribute it as his own.  Not that I expect him to, but it would be 
> within his rights to do so.
> 
> 
> Sean

I'm not an active participant in this thread, but I'm a anxious reader and hoping all gets decided here and now. Probaly It will be best to create a topic just to solve the little things between phobos and tango people that concern the general user.

I just have one comment are you sure that once something is released to public domain "...relinquishes any right to claim  authorship as well.", because here in Portugal everything that is done by a person is automatically protected as belonging to him. Registering the work and other things like patents (patents probably have other stuff but not relevant to my point) just help to garanty proof that it was made by that person. But unless it's specified otherwise no one can touch anything someone did. 

But what really relate to what you said is that, the only thing the author cannot do is denie autorship. If he made it, it's his, he can sell, give away everything (like the right to be used in any way, by anyone) except the right to be the author. It's called a undeniable "moral" right. And it just seems such a universal right that I repeat my question are you sure that authorship can be just given up?

This is to Walter now... it seems Tango coders would be willing to share Tango if they were to be quoted as authors of that piece of code, independently of the license used (sorry if I misunderstood). So I ask Walter if that is the only thing asked, does it still cause any troubles?

Sorry for the english.



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