Subject: Mir Licensing

From: Ma Xiaojun <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:46:18 +0800

Someone expressed concerns about Mir (at least the server library)
being GPLv3 only [1] . I find [1] non-sense in most parts but the
"License" seems a bit reasonable, copy & paste here.

"""
Wayland is licensed like X under the MIT license, which served us well
for a display server. I think this is a very good choice and I am glad
that the Wayland developers decided for this license. Mir is licensed
under GPLv3-only with CLA. I think this is very unsuited for such a
part of the stack and would render quite a risk for usage in KDE
Plasma. KWin (and most KDE software) is GPLv2-or-later, this would no
longer be possible, it would turn our code into GPLv3-only as KWin (or
any other software which would depend on mir-server) would be a
derived work of Mir. I do not consider GPLv3-only software as a
possible dependency of any core part of our application stack. It
renders a serious threat for the future in case of a GPLv4 which is
not compatible with GPLv3. I also dislike the CLA [6]. So from a
licensing perspective Mir is hardly acceptable.
"""

The solution should be simple. Change from GPLv3 to GPLv3+ and no one
should complain MIr licensing issue any more.

1. http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2013/05/mir-in-kubuntu/

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From: Ma Xiaojun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 02:27:45 +0800

Also, some people have concerns about the CLA of Canonical. it can be
inferred that Canonical retains the right of making a proprietary
version of Mir, which concerns some people.

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From: Robert Ancell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:08:49 +1200

As per Canonical company policy Mir is licensed as GPL3 and requires a CLA.

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 6:27 AM, Ma Xiaojun <[email-masked]> wrote:

> --
> Mir-devel mailing list
> [email-masked]
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/mir-devel
>

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From: Petko Ditchev <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 02:50:21 +0300

On 20/06/13 00:08, Robert Ancell wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 6:27 AM, Ma Xiaojun <[email-masked] 
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>     [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
I do not think that mail contained information :? Just saying ..

Petko

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From: Daniel van Vugt <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:39:46 +0800

> version of Mir, which concerns some people.

_If_ Canonical's Contributor License Agreement for Mir mentions anything 
about "the right of making a proprietary version of Mir" then I'm 
surprised. Because that would probably be unenforceable.

Mir, and the server code in particular, is GPL. That usually makes it 
illegal for anyone* to make a closed-source Mir server.

*"anyone" may exclude Canonical as the original copyright holder. 
Canonical might have rights to dual-license or re-license. But those are 
murky waters I'm not familiar with.

- Daniel

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From: Ma Xiaojun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 12:07:57 +0800

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Daniel van Vugt
> about "the right of making a proprietary version of Mir" then I'm surprised.
> Because that would probably be unenforceable.

Check the section 2.3 of CLA.
http://www.canonical.com/sites/default/files/active/images/Canonical-HA-CLA-ANY-I.pdf

Also check other options available:
http://www.harmonyagreements.org/docs/ha-cla-i.html

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From: Daniel van Vugt <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 12:16:25 +0800

I think you're making the licensing sound worse than it is.

Mir is GPL and Canonical always reserves the right to change that in 
future versions, as with all Canonical projects.

Canonical cannot ever take away your rights to use existing GPL versions 
of Mir as GPL. Once a version has been released as GPL, that version is 
GPL forever, AFAIK.

Canonical can only relicense "your work" in future if you commit it to 
the Mir project. If however your work is not contributed to the Mir 
project, but depends on it, then so long as you always use a GPL'd 
version of Mir, Canonical has no rights to influence your work.