(no subject)
by Toshio Kuratomi
Bcc:
Subject: Asking permission to relicense yum code to LGPLv2+ for kitchen
library
Reply-To: yum(a)lists.baseurl.org
Greetings all,
A few weeks ago skvidal, geppetto, and I were talking about how we have
a lot of code that exists in yum that we end up reusing in other projects.
These code snippets generally seem too small to put into its own library
(like to_unicode and to_bytes) but it seems wrong to have something like
func import the functions from yum. So what generally happens is that the
functions get copy and pasted around to lots of different projects that we
work on.
I volunteered to put these functions together into a kind of miscellaneous
library. Something that has a lot of little code snippets that are too
useful to reinvent everywhere but too small to exist on their own. So for
the past couple weeks I've been working on that project under the name
kitchen:
https://fedorahosted.org/kitchen/
https://fedorahosted.org/releases/k/i/kitchen/docs/
There's quite a bit of documentation there now and quite a few useful
functions that either started off in yum, in python-fedora, or that I just
wrote because they seemed to fit in with the library's mission. Codewise,
it's shaping up well.
As for why I'm emailing you all. Since this is to be used as a library, I'd
like to relicense the code that I've received from yum as LGPLv2+.
Currently, the yum code is GPLv2+. If you're being CC'd directly on this
email it's because you once committed to the section of code that I pulled
from yum. It's possible that I may not need your approval (because your
contribution has since been superceded by new code) but in legal matters
it's always better to be too thorough so the more people I can get explicit
permission from the better. I've taken code from the following files:
yum/i18n.py: pretty much the whole file; I left out some testing code
yum/misc.py: to_xml and one private function that supports it.
Additionally, I'm working on making a kitchen submodule (kitchen.config) out
of the config code found in yum/config.py.
For all of this code, I'm looking for permission from the following people:
James Antill[*]_
James Bowes
Milos Komarcevic
Tim Lauridsen
Luke Macken
Ville Skyttä
Menno Smits
Seth Vidal[*]_
I'd like it if you could email permission to relicense to
yum(a)lists.baseurl.org if you're already subscribed to the list. That way we
have a record that it's okay to relicense in the mailing list archives
should we ever need it.
As for what the permission should be, there's various ways to handle that as
well.
* You could grant permission for me to relicense the code that you've written
that is in the kitchen or kitchen.config repos as of 2010-May-29. Those
repos are presently at::
http://bzr.fedorahosted.org/bzr/kitchen/devel/files
http://bzr.fedorahosted.org/bzr/kitchen/config-devel/files
This is the least permissive option, gives you the most control over the
licensing, and also means that if we want to take more code out of yum and
move it into kitchen in the future, I'll be contacting you again :-) The
rest of the options listed below give me more ability to relicense code
belonging to you in the future for use in kitchen without contacting you
which is more convenient for both of us but doesn't give you as much
control.
* You could grant permission for me to take code you've written from the
specific files I've mentioned (yum/i18n.py, yum/config.py, yum/misc.py) and
include them in kitchen under the LGPLv2+. misc.py especially has other
functions in it that would be good to move into kitchen or kitchen
submodules in the future.
* You could grant me permission to take any code out of yum that you've
written and put it into kitchen under the LGPLv2+. This is a more blanket
permission.
* You could grant me permission to take any code out of yum, yum-utils, createrepo,
func, or certmaster that you've written and put it into kitchen under the
LGPLv2+. This covers the programs that skvidal, geppetto and I talked about
pulling common code out of. If yo'ure the paranoid sort, this covers a lot
of territory but if you trust me then it makes things more convenient.
Definitely consider whether you potentially would want to see all of your
code in those projects released under the LGPLv2+ before doing this.
You can also limit the code that I can relicense by saying "anything
committed before a certain date" or you can contact me to remove your
permission to relicense any further code at a later date.
I'll track who has granted permission for what on this page:
https://fedorahosted.org/kitchen/wiki/RelicenseLGPL
with links to the email in the archives.
.. _[*] James Antill and Seth Vidal have already granted me permission to
relicense but if they'll be kind enough to post messages to this list, all
the emails will be in the archives which will simplify record keeping.
Thanks you for considering this,
-Toshio
13 years, 11 months