Board index FlightGear Development

The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

FlightGear is opensource, so you can be the developer. In the need for help on anything? We are here to help you.
Forum rules
Core development is discussed on the official FlightGear-Devel development mailing list.

Bugs can be reported in the bug tracker.

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby bugman » Thu Aug 20, 2015 8:26 pm

Bomber wrote in Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:54 pm:It's not the core of the code we're talking about here it's content.....

there's a difference....


Those parts of the official policy document are about the content of FGAddon, where the official collection of FG aircraft live. Earlier text talks about code:

All contributions to the flightgear repository must be released under the GNU General Public License V2.0 with the "or any later version" option (GPL2+). All contributions to the simgear repository must be released under the GNU Library General Public License V2.0 with the "or any lager version" option (LGPL2+). All source code files should include the standard (L)GPL2+ header and the original author copyright statement. The authorship of subsequent modifications are not recorded within source code files - instead they are recorded in commit messages in the appropriate version control system.


and FGData content:

All contributions to the fgdata repository must be compatible with the GPL. Completely original contributions are strongly encouraged to be released under the GNU General Public License V2.0 with the "or any later version" option. A list of compatible license is available from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html.


Regards,

Edward
bugman
Moderator
 
Posts: 1808
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:01 am
Version: next

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby Bomber » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:01 pm

And that's the problem with FG.....
"If anyone ever tells you anything about an aeroplane which is so bloody complicated you can't understand it, take it from me - it's all balls" - R J Mitchel
Bomber
 
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:06 pm
OS: Windows XP and 10

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby bugman » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:31 pm

Bomber wrote in Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:01 pm:And that's the problem with FG.....


That there is an official policy document about to be published, agreed upon by all the core code and content developers? A document which codifies the current unwritten practices of the running of the FlightGear project? And lays out the future roadmap of the project?

Regards,

Edward
bugman
Moderator
 
Posts: 1808
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:01 am
Version: next

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby Bomber » Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:50 pm

The arrogance and elitism that exists within certain quarters of FG....

I bet there's been more debate in this thread on the subject by content developers than on an out of date concept mailing list..

Why do these people constantly shoot themselves in the foot, hiding within a mailing list.... Cowards.
"If anyone ever tells you anything about an aeroplane which is so bloody complicated you can't understand it, take it from me - it's all balls" - R J Mitchel
Bomber
 
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:06 pm
OS: Windows XP and 10

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby bugman » Thu Aug 20, 2015 10:22 pm

Bomber wrote in Thu Aug 20, 2015 9:50 pm:The arrogance and elitism that exists within certain quarters of FG....

I bet there's been more debate in this thread on the subject by content developers than on an out of date concept mailing list..

Why do these people constantly shoot themselves in the foot, hiding within a mailing list.... Cowards.


Hiding in plain sight in the forum: FlightGear Policy and Roadmap Documents :wink:

Regards,

Edward
bugman
Moderator
 
Posts: 1808
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:01 am
Version: next

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby Bomber » Thu Aug 20, 2015 10:39 pm

Yeh eight posts..... And when it looked like discussion was likely to break out, it was quickly requested that it be on the mailing list..

There's nearly eight pages worth here...

Shut the mailing list down and have a single place of discussion / debate...

This is hurting FG... Shame on you all.

Simon.
"If anyone ever tells you anything about an aeroplane which is so bloody complicated you can't understand it, take it from me - it's all balls" - R J Mitchel
Bomber
 
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:06 pm
OS: Windows XP and 10

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby bugman » Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:03 pm

If you want to know why mailing lists are an important concept for software development (code and/or content), a great write up is:


It has a section explaining why the mailing will never be replaced by a forum. It might help show why all open source projects rely on mailing lists as an essential part of their infrastructure, and why you hardly ever find developers in the forums.

Regards,

Edward
bugman
Moderator
 
Posts: 1808
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:01 am
Version: next

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby Thorsten » Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:44 am

Shut the mailing list down and have a single place of discussion / debate...


Ironically, the discussion in the forum was shut down for the very reason of having a single place for discussion / debate - which is the mailing list. It's the list which is the 'official' channel to discuss project structure decisions, and it has been that for a very long time.

This is hurting FG... Shame on you all.


I guess I don't understand what the problem is.

It says:

* FGAddon has a GPL and compatible policy
-> we need to be able to identify the license under which FG as a project can be re-distributed e.g. to Linux distributions. It's a policy decision that the official FG servers will be GPL compatible - if you want to publish on a different license, you can use a private hangar

* the author has commit rights for his own aircraft
-> The author should be able to maintain his own stuff, what can I say?

* aircraft may receive updates for compatibility
-> if I decide to re-name a property /environment/aircraft-effects/frost, then the glass shader may break all across the place - so what this says is that in this case I (or someone else) will do a grep across the list of aircraft and fix all instances so that the aircraft maintainer doesn't always have to be alert for possibly breaking changes

* if someone else has a patch for an aircraft, the maintainer should be the first to review it, provide feedback and strive to find a way to include it
-> That's what we've been discussing here - if you have an FDM for a plane which has a 3d model only, the maintainer must work with you rather than veto you.

Maybe there should be a passage about co-authorship when contributions are evidently substantial? So if someone makes a 3d model and someone else an FDM, they become co-authors. Seems to happen in practice, Richard isn't the original maintainer of the F-14b, but he sure is the current maintainer and considered author.

* core committers will adjudicate disagreements
-> if the maintainer decides to veto your patch and the reason is found to be moot, core committers can still make a decision to commit your work

* core committers reserve the right to revoke commit rights
-> the use case I've seen argued for this is someone messing up history structure on the server and creating extra workload for others to clean up - but the admin is responsible for the repository - say someone commits copyrighted stuff and keeps doing so, revoking commit rights is the only reasonable answer

It's unreasonable to limit contribution within FG solely because the authors wish to protect their work against sources outside the FG community.


I'm sorry, but I don't see that point anywhere.

An agreement between authors and FG allowing lifetime use/modification/distribution within the FG community yet still retain protection against external misuse would resolve all internal FG conflict.


If I understand you correctly, you say FG shouldn't be GPL then, or at least aircraft shouldn't? i.e. you only have the right to use/distribute within the FG community (however that is defined...) but not outside so that nobody can mis-use it?

I guess that depends on whether you fundamentally see virtue in the GPL or not.

FGMembers policy of caring nothing for the consent of maintainers and just grabbing content (even unlicensed one) just to be able to offer the largest repository of aircraft around, or the FlightProSim and variants scam sometimes make me doubt the wisdom of GPL. So I have every sympathy for someone publishing under a more restrictive license, prohibiting e.g. commercial use (I have done this for some of my linguistics textbooks).

In the end, GPL is a radical idea (although not quite as radical and contagious as Edward would have us believe) and drags a lot of useful code out into the open. So in principle it has my support, although I don't subscribe (as above) to the idea that the potential use case of modules next to each other is a GPL-worthy dependence, and I think Israel's 'grab and ask license later' policy is not GPL but plainly illegal.
Thorsten
 
Posts: 12490
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:33 am

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby bugman » Fri Aug 21, 2015 11:18 am

Thorsten wrote in Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:44 am:In the end, GPL is a radical idea (although not quite as radical and contagious as Edward would have us believe) and drags a lot of useful code out into the open. So in principle it has my support, although I don't subscribe (as above) to the idea that the potential use case of modules next to each other is a GPL-worthy dependence...


I would put it in a slightly different way, but I believe we see the GPL licence in the same light. The difference is in how FG aircraft are classified by their licences:

    "mere aggregation": FG aircraft are simply a "mere aggregation" (as defined by the GPL), hence the distribution of the complete aircraft is a bundle of unrelated components which can be covered by incompatible licences. Proprietary and open source licenced components can be legally and safely distributed together as a single downloadable bundle.
    "whole": FG aircraft elements may be a little more integrated into a "whole" (again GPL terminology), being loosely glued together by the XML files (and maybe also Nasal and the property tree), so that GPL-compatibility for the official FGAddon aircraft, or any GPL-licenced aircraft, is legally required for distribution. Proprietary components cannot be bundled with open source components and therefore must be distributed separately.
You believe the aircraft are a "mere aggregation" and we are safe from legal issues due to licence mixing. I believe the "mere aggregation" vs. "whole" to be a very grey area for FG aircraft, and think that the safe option is to avoid legal grey areas, assume a "whole", and remain GPL-compatible (or CC-compatible for creative commons licenced aircraft).

Regards,

Edward
bugman
Moderator
 
Posts: 1808
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:01 am
Version: next

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby Thorsten » Fri Aug 21, 2015 11:38 am

Please note that my argument isn't so much about what FGAddon should do - here I think the server policy is sound, and requiring GPL and compatible is the only way to go. I am most definitely not arguing for adding proprietary stuff to FGAddon.

My argument is about what you can legally require e.g. Simon as an FDM creator to do as long as he is not submitting stuff to FGAddon. And here I do not think you can under any circumstances require him to license his FDM GPL if he made it from scratch - I think he may very well opt to advertize it as a proprietary addon. And I would further argue that if anyone has the addon installed somewhere and Israel would grab the plane (GPL + proprietary addon), Israel would not have a legal case to re-distribute anything under GPL. I would even further argue that even if Simon has his FDM with plane (GPL + proprietary) somewhere on a repo a but makes a clear statement that this version, or at least the identified proprietary part, should not re-distributed for the mentioned reasons, Israel still has no legal case.

And even in the event that such a case would go through, the result could only be that Simon separates GPL from non-GPL content again, not that he licenses GPL what he did from scratch.
Thorsten
 
Posts: 12490
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:33 am

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby legoboyvdlp » Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:06 pm

Well, obviosuly, if it is not gpl work it cannot go in. Possubly if Simon agrees it can go into non-GPL repository a seperate folder called Aircraft-nonGPL.And Israel should ask permission (which cannot happen to work from eons ago when the concerned auhor is no longer with us or retired or something) but in some cases he didn't. Despite that for convenience and because I was more familiar with git commands I went wih FGMEMBERS. I still agree that FGMEMBERS is the best, most convenient, system in place today. But as I don't really understand much of all this arguing I better not post any more.
User avatar
legoboyvdlp
 
Posts: 7981
Joined: Sat Jul 26, 2014 2:28 am
Location: Northern Ireland
Callsign: G-LEGO
Version: next
OS: Windows 10 HP

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby Bomber » Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:41 pm

First off it's not about me..... so please understand I don't wish to 'sell' anything..

Mailing list, is it the best place.. ?

Maybe for code developers, but what we're talking about here is content developers and disccusions that concern their work, and the inclussion of it within FG should be discussed in the format that this type of contributor habitats and that's forums...

To my mind the GPL requirement is just an excuses for people to go into free 3d mesh & 2d texture repositories and use the content within FG allowing for a 'quick start-up' of content additions..but how much actual content is now being sourced from these places ?
In reality most content creators when they gift their work to FG would much prefer it that FG is where it stays. They're not against others within the FG community adding to it, improving it.... but have a problem with the possibility that it could be included within a commercial venture.

This is a reasonable concern (IMO)..

The facts are that considering the skills within the wider flight sim community and the length of time FG has been around the quantity of content developers and level of quality of the content should be a lot higher... Isn't it time to look at it and maybe take on some of the concerns...

Now there are 'private' hangers where people of like mind have created content and published their work there... and that seems to be the general work-round to the problem.. but why not just resolve the problem and have the quality work being done an actual part of flightgear repository... instead the front face of FG's content is rather poor.

If I wanted to release any of the planes on my hard-drive to FG, I'd not want to see them anywhere else... but the demanding that I as the authour of these models licence them as GPL before they'll be included within FG, means that I agree to all protection of my working being removed for all time..

I'm just suprised that others can't see the advantages to FG of looking after the work of it's content authors, whilst still allowing the authors wishes of allowing access/ modification/distibution within the FG community ?
"If anyone ever tells you anything about an aeroplane which is so bloody complicated you can't understand it, take it from me - it's all balls" - R J Mitchel
Bomber
 
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:06 pm
OS: Windows XP and 10

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby Thorsten » Fri Aug 21, 2015 3:08 pm

They're not against others within the FG community adding to it, improving it.... but have a problem with the possibility that it could be included within a commercial venture.


Well... what can I say? As an aircraft contributor, you have at least a feasible option of licensing outside GPL - as a coder, no such option really exists.

GPL is radical in its scope - it allows someone to make money from 'free' content, but it forces that someone to give back as well - a company which uses and optimizes gimp to do their photo processing needs to give this optimization back.

There's no question that we can find cases, both real and hypothetical, in which GPL is misused - someone makes money without doing anything, doesn't respect the ideals of other contributors, just grabs and never gives,... Yet - overall - the question is - does it more harm than good.

Some think yes - I would include myself here. I would aim to release code under GPL because I would like to live in a world in which this (rather than proprietary) is the dominant 'business' model, i.e. we don't create a market economy but a contribution economy in which everyone puts in something into a pool and takes out what he needs. I much prefer that idea to a market. And I really like being able to get basically all software I need for free at the simple expense of using a Linux distribution.

(I would, where I can, still strive to prevent misuse of GPL).

Others might say no. Which is just as legitimate.

However, FG is founded and run by people who say yes to GPL - despite its potential for misuse. Which also means it is shipped with other GPL content (i.e. as part of Linux distributions). Which also means that companies can take an interest - which got us stuff back occasionally from that.

So somehow, asking to include non-GPL compatible content to the official FG project is like asking the vegetarians' club whether they won't run a steakhouse in the future because the steaks are so tasty :-) It's a core decision of how the project works - it won't change. Sure - we won't be able to include some planes - but they will still be available, just not so well known. But there will be advantages to being GPL as well - if only sometimes hard to see and very abstract or idealistic ones.
Thorsten
 
Posts: 12490
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:33 am

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby Bomber » Fri Aug 21, 2015 5:19 pm

Ok but aren't we talking two separate things here ?

First there's the content that comes with your FG download... now these I can understand the philosophy of the founders and those that run FG...

But I'm talking about the add on content and I only see a very lose relationship between the two, especially if FG allows the use of non-GPL content.. and here I think the founders and those that run FG are cutting off their noses to spite their face..

Simon
"If anyone ever tells you anything about an aeroplane which is so bloody complicated you can't understand it, take it from me - it's all balls" - R J Mitchel
Bomber
 
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:06 pm
OS: Windows XP and 10

Re: The GNU GPL license and unwritten rules of curtesy

Postby bugman » Fri Aug 21, 2015 5:28 pm

Bomber wrote in Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:41 pm:Mailing list, is it the best place.. ?


For decisions on the direction of the project, generally yes. As that article I linked to, Mailing List or Forum? A theory..., says, a forum is an active 'pull' technology which requires people to go and check, whereas a mailing list is passive 'push' technology where the information automatically comes to you. It is much easier to miss important forum posts than mailing list messages - as such mailing lists are more inclusive. And quoting from the article:

You will find lots of differences of opinion, but in the open source world, a huge number of competent developers hang out on mailing lists, and simply do not have time to participate in forums. If you want to reach them, you go to where they are. And lots of other communities grow under similar circumstances.



Bomber wrote in Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:41 pm:In reality most content creators when they gift their work to FG would much prefer it that FG is where it stays. They're not against others within the FG community adding to it, improving it.... but have a problem with the possibility that it could be included within a commercial venture.

This is a reasonable concern (IMO)..


I get the impression that some people feel safer using the CC-BY-NC licences (Creative commons, attribution non-commercial), as this prevents certain parasites from distributing their work. But I believe that this is a false sense of security, as such parasites will know how to easily work around this. Such planes can be advertised as being part of the package, but the distributed package only needs to provide links to download the aircraft in-game instead of including the files on the CD/DVD/download. It is a piece of cake! I know that this has happened a long, long time ago in the Linux world, though I can't remember where (I think I remember reading an analysis on this exact technique on Groklaw). Just like the commercial redistribution of GPL software is legal, so is providing links for the end user to obtain the content with a single click. As long as the files are not in the distribution media. So, I do not believe that shifting to CC-BY-NC content for FG would impart any protection whatsoever against slimy parasites selling inferior copies of FG under another name, including the aircraft rather as download links, but still advertising your work as being part of the package (even including pictures of the CC-BY-NC aircraft on the box/website).

Regards,

Edward
bugman
Moderator
 
Posts: 1808
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:01 am
Version: next

PreviousNext

Return to Development

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests