Re: [Axiom-legal] Licensing Aldor (was: GPL vs. modified BSD)

[C Y]

--- Bill Page <address@hidden> wrote:

> So in this light, how should we view the current situation with
> Aldor? Last March I proposed that we (or I) simply go ahead and
> license Aldor source as GPL (or under the Aldor Public License).

I'm a bit confused.  The Aldor distribution currently available is
already under the Aldor Public License.  My original understanding was
that there are certain core bits of Aldor (the compiler?) that are
binary only in the current publicly available distribution.  The binary
only bits are clearly NOT released in source code to the general public
under ANY license at this time.  Did I misunderstand the situation?

> The benefits for Axiom are obvious and I can see not negative
> affects on Aldor and the people who current depend on it via
> aldor.org.

Nevertheless, they are still the only ones who can make that decision.

> At the time Mike Dewar convinced me to "wait until"
> summer with the promise that it would be discussed when he met
> Steven Watt at one of several meetings. He also said that NAG
> "would likely approve any reasonable proposal". Again in August
> we heard that it had been discussed. But there has been no news
> of any kind sense then.

Which is why the discussions of improving SPAD have gained momentum
recently.  If we don't want to wait on Aldor, improving SPAD or
starting anew are the only viable options.  Taking unapproved action
with Aldor would be an unmitigated disaster legally and public
relations wise, to say nothing of how it would be viewed by the
copyright holders (who have already been very generous.)

> Do you think I should resurrect my plan to just unilaterally
> release Aldor as open source and see what happens?

NO.  The distinction between fairly subtle questions of license
compatibilities and releasing code without the concent of the copyright
holders is night and day.  In the former case the questions are
reasonable - is this OK or not under these conditions?  It is generally
accepted that the Modified BSD license permits code to be used in GPL
programs, and this has been done many times in practice without issue. 
Releasing code without approval from the copyright holder under ANY
license is another matter altogether, and is not reasonable under any
interpretation I have ever heard of - NAG and Aldor.org own the code.
The response would be negative in the extreme - people may decide to
give away code, but it is THEIR decision to do so. 

Also, when people don't use Modified BSD or GPL there is generally a
reason they choose not to, so incompatibilities must be respected.  The
proper thing to do in such a case is contact the authors/copyright
holders and discuss the issues.  Tim is correct that only lawyers can
render really useful opinions on these issues, but that doesn't mean we
don't need to make a good faith effort to respect the license to the
best of our abilities.  Aldor I think is very clearly NOT GPL or
Modified BSD, and unless and until they decide to change that we are
obligated to respect that decision.

Cheers,
CY


 
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