[ntp:hackers] Re: casting and wildcards

Brian Utterback Brian.Utterback at Sun.COM
Sat Aug 6 12:21:46 UTC 2005


todd glassey wrote:

>Brian - Thanks
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Brian Utterback" <Brian.Utterback at Sun.COM>
>To: "todd glassey" <todd.glassey at att.net>
>Cc: "Paul Vixie" <paul at vix.com>; "Brad Knowles" <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>;
><hackers at ntp.isc.org>
>Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 6:18 PM
>Subject: Re: [ntp:hackers] Re: casting and wildcards
>
>
>  
>
>>I think you have to give those corporations some credit. If there is one
>>thing that makes a large
>>corporation different from a small one or an individual, it's the legal
>>department.
>>    
>>
>
>I actually know *exactly* what and how Sun operates - I ran the unbundled
>release engineering lab in the original Building-1 in Mtn View for some
>time, and had several other roles including managing one of the test groups
>for OpenWindows;  So yes... I do have some amount of hands-on experience -
>its just not stuff (this licensing crap) that people who are only interested
>in technology, like to have in their faces. The problem is exactly that -
>today its in all of our faces.
>
>  
>
>>Sun, for instance, has a process for approval of all code integrated
>>into its products,
>>    
>>
>
>yes Sun does (now) and a sign-off process for it as well...
>
>  
>
>>including a
>>full review of the licenses
>>    
>>
>
>and the proposed code bodies
>
>  
>
>>involved.
>>    
>>
>
>... and is supposed to be re-visited for each release of the code moving
>forward.
>
>  
>
>>todd glassey wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>># Copyright (c) 2004 by Internet Systems Consortium, Inc. ("ISC")
>>>># Copyright (c) 1996,1999 by Internet Software Consortium
>>>>#
>>>># Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
>>>># purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
>>>># copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
>>>>#
>>>># THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND ISC DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
>>>># WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
>>>># MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS.  IN NO EVENT SHALL ISC BE LIABLE FOR
>>>># ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
>>>># WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
>>>># ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT
>>>># OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>
>So this means
>
>    1)     That the company producing derivative work's cannot copyright the
>code as a derivative becuase of this unless this is included.
>
>    2)    ISC assumes no liability for the code - which is cool, but it
>still maintains ownership.
>
>    3)    The mandate to maintain the copyright in the executable has
>interesting implications since it means that modules or derivative
>executables must have their symbols still attached to support the
>requirements of this license - lets be real clear - THIS SAME LICENSE MUST
>appear in the binaries that are shipped as well... right?
>
>Todd
>
>  
>
I don't believe that the BSD style license requires the copyright to appear
in the actual executable. This is exactly the reason I know about the 
current
license review process. During the course of license review prior to the
release of OpenSolaris, we realized that the xntpd distribution in Solaris
did not include the mandated copyright notice. The programmer that did the
port figured that since we weren't redistributing the source, he didn't need
it, and we had a rule about unused files in the source tree. Whoops. So 
I had
to go through the whole license review and then put it back before we could
release OpenSolaris. Of course, the irony of that is that xntpd didn't make
the cut for the first release anyway, because of the crypto code. Sigh.

I am somewhat sympathetic to Todd as a result, because I am now more aware
of the IP issues which for the most part are ignored. I dare say that 90% or
more of those downloading open source software never read the license. And
probably 50% of those that do, misinterpret them. A recent debate over 
license
over at the netbeans IDE project revealed that the license that you had 
to click
through to download the IDE did not apply to 90% of the software. Nobody 
noticed
because of the stats I supposed above, except in this case the 50% was 
closer to
100%.  So we just dropped the click through license entirely.

I agree, however, that this is not the best forum for this kind of 
esoteric license
discussion. NTP is in no better or worse position than any other open source
project in this regard. Most of us do not care about the license issue.

Brian Utterback


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