Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of OpenPOOMA - savannah.nongnu.org

[Sylvain Beucler]

On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:38:11AM +0200, Richard Guenther wrote:
> Sylvain Beucler wrote:
> >Savannah's mission is to host free software projects, and we want the
> >public to think of them as free software projects.  A project name
> >that says "open" will tend to lead people to think of the project as
> >"open source" instead of "free software".
> >
> >We would be glad if you accept to use "free" instead of "open" in your
> >project name.
> 
> I have no problem with that.  Should I re-submit using FreePOOMA?

That is not necessary. I will change the system name manually. You
will be able to change the project (non-system) name once the project
is approved.


> >The licensing issues are cleared except for one thing: in order to
> >release your project properly and unambiguously under the Expat
> >license, please place copyright notices and permission-to-copy
> >statements at the beginning of every file of source code. You have to
> >update the license notice and add a (missing) copyright notice to each
> >file of the repository that is more than 10 lines long.
> >
> >For more information, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
> >(aimed at the GNU GPL but can be used as a basis).
> 
> So, to understand that right, at the moment every source file contains
> 
> // ACL:license
> // ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> // This software and ancillary information (herein called "SOFTWARE")
> // called POOMA (Parallel Object-Oriented Methods and Applications) is
> // made available under the terms described here.  The SOFTWARE has been
> // approved for release with associated LA-CC Number LA-CC-98-65.
> //
> // Unless otherwise indicated, this SOFTWARE has been authored by an
> // employee or employees of the University of California, operator of the
> // Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-36 with
> // the U.S. Department of Energy.  The U.S. Government has rights to use,
> // reproduce, and distribute this SOFTWARE. The public may copy, distribute,
> // prepare derivative works and publicly display this SOFTWARE without
> // charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are
> // reproduced on all copies.  Neither the Government nor the University
> // makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or
> // responsibility for the use of this SOFTWARE.
> //
> // If SOFTWARE is modified to produce derivative works, such modified
> // SOFTWARE should be clearly marked, so as not to confuse it with the
> // version available from LANL.
> //
> // For more information about POOMA, send e-mail to address@hidden,
> // or visit the POOMA web page at http://www.acl.lanl.gov/pooma/.
> // ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> // ACL:license
> 
> at its head.  There is no copyright notice - and if I read the license
> ok, the copyright holder (in the US sense) is the U.S. Department of 
> Energy?  So I'd add
> 
> // Copyright (C) 1997-2002  U.S. Department of Energy
> //
> // This file is part of FreePOOMA.
> 
> to each file?

I have to admit the copyright attribution is not clear. First, it is
included in the license itself, which is unusual. Then, it says that
"The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this
SOFTWARE"; if such a statement is made, it is likely that the
U.S. Government (and hence, the U.S. Department of Energy) is not the
copyright holder of the software. So the copyright holder would be the
University of California or the Los Alamos National Laboratory, but I
am not sure at all. Do you have a way to verify which entity holds the
copyright?


> Do I need to change the license copy (as above) to include the expat
> licensing of changes to the pooma 2.4.0 baseline?  Or just remove
> the original licensing note and exchange it for the expat licensing?

You have to include the original licensing note, but not necessarily
in each file. You could, for example, remove it from the headers and
include it in a "LICENSE.previous" file, along with a short
explanation on what it is.


> What's the recommended header per-source for such a case? Like
> 
> // FreePOOMA is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
> // under the terms of the Expat license.
> //
> // This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
> // WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> // MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the Expat
> // License for more details.
> //
> // You should have received a copy of the Expat license
> // along with FreePOOMA; see the file LICENSE.
> 
> ?
> 
> Of course I'll add additional copyrights to the files I changed during 
> the last two years.

This is fine. You could also, since the Expat license is very short,
include it directly in lieu of the GNU GPL-like notice.

Keeping "This file is part of FreePOOMA" seems good, though.

Also, I think it is good to keep a copy of the license in a file (like
"COPYING" or "LICENSE") at the top of your package for clarity,
whatever solution you chose.


I wait for the updated sources.
Regards,

-- 
Sylvain