Gitorious apocalypse

[Richard Fontana]

Hi everybody!

I'm hoping to refocus attention on copyleft-next again soon (yes I
know I've said that before, but I *mean* it now!).

Originally the canonical public repository for copyleft-next was under
my personal github account
(github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next.git). Due in large part to
ethical criticisms from bkuhn (and with the quixotic hope of getting
bkuhn to contribute), I changed that to
gitorious.org/copyleft-next/copyleft-next.git while keeping the github
repository in sync. (I also for a while mirrored the gitorious
repository on fedorahosted and in a github organization account but
didn't keep those up to date.)

As you probably know by now, GitLab has acquired Gitorious and
Gitorious will apparently be shutting down in a few months.

I thought I'd use the Gitorious Apocalypse as a good excuse to
investigate self-hosting a github-like web application.

bkuhn has recommended Kallithea, the RhodeCode fork which not long ago
became a Software Freedom Conservancy member project. I'm a bit
familiar with use of Gitlab, and I have read a bit about gogs recently.

So this evening I tried installing all three of them, and am sorrty to
say failed completely.

So as far as I'm concerned it is fairly clear that Kallithea and Gogs
are not quite ready for actual real-world use. I'll continue to follow
them from a distance to see if they mature or at least have
installation instructions I can make some sense out of.

As for Gitlab, it was the one of the three I was disinclined to use
because of its permissive-core open core-ish model (could be worse,
though). However, with Kallithea and Gogs being non-viable, Gitlab was
my only hope. But attempts to install the Gitlab 'community edition'
CentOS package according to instructions failed, by which point I was
too frustrated to do anything but abandon these self-hosting experiments.

So with some sadness, I am currently intending to return to the roots
of copyleft-next and making the github repository the canonical one. I
may look into a simpler self-hosting solution using a minimalist web
frontend like gitweb which I imagine might be easier to get running.
Don't say I didn't try.

RF

[Aaron Wolf]

Hi Richard,

I will say that you didn't wait!

You have until May 1st before Gitorious goes down.

There's now a push for Kallithea to get going, and Gogs looks pretty
robust with pull-request functioning anticipated *very* soon.

https://gitbull.org/ is offering 100% free-software ethical Kallithea
hosting and https://notabug.org/ is offering the same with Gogs.

Like you, I am not sure either is quite ready for prime-time. However, I
think there's a chance we'll see progress over just the next month that
makes one or both be a viable enough and promising option…

So, if you wait a month and then go with GitHub or GitLab, *then* I will
more understand. But we can wait a month, right? I mean, a decent amount
of progress on those sites happened within a couple weeks… Not that I'm
actually expecting amazing progress, but give 'em a chance?

Respectfully,
Aaron Wolf
Snowdrift.coop

On 03/21/2015 12:20 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  Hi everybody!
>  
>  I'm hoping to refocus attention on copyleft-next again soon (yes I
>  know I've said that before, but I *mean* it now!).
>  
>  Originally the canonical public repository for copyleft-next was under
>  my personal github account
>  (github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next.git). Due in large part to
>  ethical criticisms from bkuhn (and with the quixotic hope of getting
>  bkuhn to contribute), I changed that to
>  gitorious.org/copyleft-next/copyleft-next.git while keeping the github
>  repository in sync. (I also for a while mirrored the gitorious
>  repository on fedorahosted and in a github organization account but
>  didn't keep those up to date.)
>  
>  As you probably know by now, GitLab has acquired Gitorious and
>  Gitorious will apparently be shutting down in a few months.
>  
>  I thought I'd use the Gitorious Apocalypse as a good excuse to
>  investigate self-hosting a github-like web application.
>  
>  bkuhn has recommended Kallithea, the RhodeCode fork which not long ago
>  became a Software Freedom Conservancy member project. I'm a bit
>  familiar with use of Gitlab, and I have read a bit about gogs recently.
>  
>  So this evening I tried installing all three of them, and am sorrty to
>  say failed completely.
>  
>  So as far as I'm concerned it is fairly clear that Kallithea and Gogs
>  are not quite ready for actual real-world use. I'll continue to follow
>  them from a distance to see if they mature or at least have
>  installation instructions I can make some sense out of.
>  
>  As for Gitlab, it was the one of the three I was disinclined to use
>  because of its permissive-core open core-ish model (could be worse,
>  though). However, with Kallithea and Gogs being non-viable, Gitlab was
>  my only hope. But attempts to install the Gitlab 'community edition'
>  CentOS package according to instructions failed, by which point I was
>  too frustrated to do anything but abandon these self-hosting experiments.
>  
>  So with some sadness, I am currently intending to return to the roots
>  of copyleft-next and making the github repository the canonical one. I
>  may look into a simpler self-hosting solution using a minimalist web
>  frontend like gitweb which I imagine might be easier to get running.
>  Don't say I didn't try.
>  
>  RF
>  
>  _______________________________________________
>  copyleft-next mailing list
>  copyleft-next(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
>

[Richard Fontana]

On 03/21/2015 12:26 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:

>  https://gitbull.org/ is offering 100% free-software ethical
> Kallithea
>  hosting and https://notabug.org/ is offering the same with Gogs. 
Good point, I should think about those as an alternative to resorting
to github (although my experience with Gitorious, which *some* people
claimed was a free-software ethical hosting solution, makes me a
little skeptical).

>  So, if you wait a month and then go with GitHub or GitLab, *then* I
> will
>  more understand. But we can wait a month, right? I mean, a decent amount
>  of progress on those sites happened within a couple weeks… Not that I'm
>  actually expecting amazing progress, but give 'em a chance?  
Yes, that's fair!

Richard

[Aaron Wolf]

For reference, Gitorious was a long-time project run by people wanting
it to be a business.

Now, I have no idea what the people behind Gogs have planned, but I know
about the people behind GitBull.org and NotABug.org — they are
free-software folks who started these because they care specifically
about the issues. They are not asking for funding, they feel they have
enough resources to make this work.

In both cases, I contacted them to ask them to specify the scope of the
sites as being dedicated to freely-licensed projects. In both cases,
they agreed and set a policy that the sites would be strictly for
free/libre/open projects.

So, whether reliable or not long-term remains to be seen, but these are
definitely community sites run for more principled motivations compared
to Gitorious. Of course, they rely strongly on Kallithea and Gogs
developer communities, and I can't speak to those myself.

On 03/21/2015 12:35 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  On 03/21/2015 12:26 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>  
> > https://gitbull.org/ is offering 100% free-software ethical Kallithea
> > hosting and https://notabug.org/ is offering the same with Gogs.
>  
>  Good point, I should think about those as an alternative to resorting
>  to github (although my experience with Gitorious, which *some* people
>  claimed was a free-software ethical hosting solution, makes me a
>  little skeptical).
>  
> > So, if you wait a month and then go with GitHub or GitLab, *then* I will
> > more understand. But we can wait a month, right? I mean, a decent amount
> > of progress on those sites happened within a couple weeks… Not that I'm
> > actually expecting amazing progress, but give 'em a chance? 
>  
>  Yes, that's fair!
>  
>  Richard
>  
>  
>  _______________________________________________
>  copyleft-next mailing list
>  copyleft-next(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
>

[Ben Cotton]

Richard,

Would reviving the Fedorahosted repo be preferable to GitHub?

As an alternative, I'd be willing to take a crack at getting GitLab CE
going on a server for you. I've done a little bit with the instance we use
at $dayjob.

Thanks,
BC

[Richard Fontana]

On 03/21/2015 08:00 AM, Ben Cotton wrote:
>  Richard,
>  
>  Would reviving the Fedorahosted repo be preferable to GitHub? 
It's a possibility, though the impression I have that fedorahosted
projects have generally been migrating to github makes me wonder
(though I imagine that is mostly or entirely because "everyone is on
github" rather than some technical judgment on the fedorahosted
service. Also (like the fact that this is a fedorahosted
mailman-instance mailing list) it unfortunately reinforces the
incorrect but possible perception of some connection between Red Hat
and fedorahosted. (For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year
but recently re-joined.)

>  As an alternative, I'd be willing to take a crack at getting
> GitLab CE
>  going on a server for you. I've done a little bit with the instance we use
>  at $dayjob. 
That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I
should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago
that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the
copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I
don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again
he has very direct access to the project's developers.

RF

[Ben Cotton]

On Mar 21, 2015 12:15 PM, "Richard Fontana" <fontana(a)sharpeleven.org&gt;
wrote:
>  
(For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year
> but recently re-joined.)
>  
> That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do
the work. I
> should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago
> that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the
> copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I
> don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again
> he has very direct access to the project's developers

I'm willing to attempt it, at least. We could give bkuhn some time to make
a run at his Kallithea instance, or we can work on it in parallel,
whichever you think is best.

[Richard Fontana]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 08:24:47PM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
>  On Mar 21, 2015 12:15 PM, "Richard Fontana"
> <fontana(a)sharpeleven.org&gt; wrote:
>  >
>  (For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year
>  > but recently re-joined.)
>  >
>  > That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I
>  > should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago
>  > that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the
>  > copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I
>  > don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again
>  > he has very direct access to the project's developers
>  
>  I'm willing to attempt it, at least. We could give bkuhn some time to make a
>  run at his Kallithea instance, or we can work on it in parallel, whichever you
>  think is best. 
While I don't think this is covered by HBR, I was talking to bkuhn
about this topic this evening (we were both present at LibrePlanet). I
would say that he's not sure it would be such a good idea to closely
associate the copyleft.org and copyleft-next initiatives, and I
understand his point of view on that. So I'm going to assume that
bkuhn and Kallithea is not going to happen. Therefore if you're
willing to give Gitlab a try that would be great. But it's fine if you
don't want to also since we have other options.

Richard

[Aaron Wolf]

I already mentioned that there *is* a free-project dedicated Kallithea
host: https://gitbull.org

Now, again, I can't specifically vouch for them, but they are connected
with Free Software Corsica.

What is it you wanted from bkuhn hosting Kallithea that you don't get
from GitBull hosting Kallithea?


On 03/22/2015 12:33 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 08:24:47PM -0400, Ben Cotton wrote:
> > On Mar 21, 2015 12:15 PM, "Richard Fontana" <fontana(a)sharpeleven.org&gt;
> wrote:
> >>
> > (For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year
> >> but recently re-joined.)
> >>
> >> That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I
> >> should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago
> >> that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the
> >> copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I
> >> don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again
> >> he has very direct access to the project's developers
> >
> > I'm willing to attempt it, at least. We could give bkuhn some time to make a
> > run at his Kallithea instance, or we can work on it in parallel, whichever you
> > think is best.
>  
>  While I don't think this is covered by HBR, I was talking to bkuhn
>  about this topic this evening (we were both present at LibrePlanet). I
>  would say that he's not sure it would be such a good idea to closely
>  associate the copyleft.org and copyleft-next initiatives, and I
>  understand his point of view on that. So I'm going to assume that
>  bkuhn and Kallithea is not going to happen. Therefore if you're
>  willing to give Gitlab a try that would be great. But it's fine if you
>  don't want to also since we have other options.
>  
>  Richard
>  
>  
>  _______________________________________________
>  copyleft-next mailing list
>  copyleft-next(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
>

[Richard Fontana]

On 03/22/2015 01:28 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>  I already mentioned that there *is* a free-project dedicated
> Kallithea
>  host: https://gitbull.org
>  
>  Now, again, I can't specifically vouch for them, but they are connected
>  with Free Software Corsica.
>  
>  What is it you wanted from bkuhn hosting Kallithea that you don't get
>  from GitBull hosting Kallithea? 
Good question. I guess it's just that I know bkuhn and usually know
where to find him so I can complain to him. :)

I was also thinking of investigating the work Nick Coughlan has done
to make Kallithea deployable on OpenShift, although he said it wasn't
really production-use-ready.

I suppose there's an underlying desire to minimize dependencies on
other people/organizations.

RF

[Aaron Wolf]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Makes sense. If I knew bkuhn was hosting a Kallithea instance, I would
absolutely use it or otherwise would trust his endorsement. I'm not
comfortable enough with the FS Corsica folks that I can vouch for /
endorse them at this point myself…

On 03/23/2015 01:41 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  On 03/22/2015 01:28 AM, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> > I already mentioned that there *is* a free-project dedicated
> > Kallithea host: https://gitbull.org
> > 
> > Now, again, I can't specifically vouch for them, but they are
> > connected with Free Software Corsica.
> > 
> > What is it you wanted from bkuhn hosting Kallithea that you don't
> > get from GitBull hosting Kallithea?
>  
>  Good question. I guess it's just that I know bkuhn and usually
>  know where to find him so I can complain to him. :)
>  
>  I was also thinking of investigating the work Nick Coughlan has
>  done to make Kallithea deployable on OpenShift, although he said it
>  wasn't really production-use-ready.
>  
>  I suppose there's an underlying desire to minimize dependencies on 
>  other people/organizations.
>  
>  RF
>  
>  
>  _______________________________________________ copyleft-next
>  mailing list copyleft-next(a)lists.fedorahosted.org 
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
> >   
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[Bradley M. Kuhn]

Richard Fontana wrote on 23 March:
>  Good question. I guess it's just that I know bkuhn and usually
> know
>  where to find him so I can complain to him. :) 
I'm close to having Kallithea working on copyleft.org, so I'm willing to
handle Kallithea for copyleft-next.

>  I was also thinking of investigating the work Nick Coughlan has done
>  to make Kallithea deployable on OpenShift, although he said it wasn't
>  really production-use-ready. 
Nick has put a lot of time into this, so maybe it's easy.

The only hard part I've found has been getting data out of Gitorious.
If you don't mind losing it all, it's probably easy to switch to Kallithea.

-- 
   -- bkuhn

[Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 5:15 PM, Richard Fontana
<fontana(a)sharpeleven.org&gt; wrote:
>  On 03/21/2015 08:00 AM, Ben Cotton wrote:
> > Richard,
> >
> > Would reviving the Fedorahosted repo be preferable to GitHub?
>
>  It's a possibility, though the impression I have that fedorahosted
>  projects have generally been migrating to github makes me wonder
>  (though I imagine that is mostly or entirely because "everyone is on
>  github" rather than some technical judgment on the fedorahosted
>  service. Also (like the fact that this is a fedorahosted
>  mailman-instance mailing list) it unfortunately reinforces the
>  incorrect but possible perception of some connection between Red Hat
>  and fedorahosted. (For those who don't know, I left Red Hat last year
>  but recently re-joined.)
>
> > As an alternative, I'd be willing to take a crack at getting GitLab CE
> > going on a server for you. I've done a little bit with the instance we use
> > at $dayjob.
>
>  That could be worth pursuing if you're willing to do the work. I
>  should also have mentioned that bkuhn said in passing not long ago
>  that he would be trying to get a Kallithea instance running for the
>  copyleft.org guide and he offered to do this for copyleft-next. I
>  don't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll succeed but then again
>  he has very direct access to the project's developers. 

Matt Lee just put up a GitLab instance at https://git.gnu.io/ . Fellow
list member Aaron Wolf's Snowdrift and obviously the gnu.io site
itself are already up there, along with GNU Social and GNU fm.

I don't know if GitLab CE has Gitorius migration built-in or if it's a
gitlab.com thing, but if it is available, that could be one factor.

[Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)]

On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 9:52 AM, Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)
<copyleft-next(a)clacke.user.lysator.liu.se&gt; wrote:

>  Matt Lee just put up a GitLab instance at https://git.gnu.io/ .
> Fellow
>  list member Aaron Wolf's Snowdrift and obviously the gnu.io site
>  itself are already up there, along with GNU Social and GNU fm.
>
>  I don't know if GitLab CE has Gitorius migration built-in or if it's a
>  gitlab.com thing, but if it is available, that could be one factor. 
Answering myself. Circumstantial evidence seem to indicate the
migration support is there:

"""
v 7.8.2
[ . . . ]
  - Fix showing of already imported projects for GitLab and Gitorious importers
"""

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/CHANGELOG

[Aaron Wolf]

Indeed, migration from Gitorious is present at git.gnu.io. That's how we
moved Snowdrift.coop. And incidentally, Matt Lee is the guy who sorta is
managing it, but actually the host is run by GitLab folks themselves.
Matt simply asked if they would offer the community a host of the
Community Edition for those who don't want to use the plain GitLab.com
proprietary edition.

FWIW, we tested other options. Kallithea remains promising long-term but
bull.codes seems a bit slow and the thing needs work overall. I think
both Kallithea and Gogs will turn out to be great, but just aren't fully
there yet.

On 04/23/2015 03:16 AM, Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠) wrote:
>  On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 9:52 AM, Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)
>  <copyleft-next(a)clacke.user.lysator.liu.se&gt; wrote:
>  
> > Matt Lee just put up a GitLab instance at https://git.gnu.io/ . Fellow
> > list member Aaron Wolf's Snowdrift and obviously the gnu.io site
> > itself are already up there, along with GNU Social and GNU fm.
> >
> > I don't know if GitLab CE has Gitorius migration built-in or if it's a
> > gitlab.com thing, but if it is available, that could be one factor.
>  
>  Answering myself. Circumstantial evidence seem to indicate the
>  migration support is there:
>  
>  """
>  v 7.8.2
>  [ . . . ]
>    - Fix showing of already imported projects for GitLab and Gitorious importers
>  """
>  
>  https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/CHANGELOG
>  _______________________________________________
>  copyleft-next mailing list
>  copyleft-next(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
>

[Antoine Pitrou]

Hi,

So, is copyleft-next still alive?

In the past I've tried to persuade you that modern FS communities needed
a weak copyleft license more than a strong one. I hope you can still be
persuaded of that :-)

Regards

Antoine.


Le 21/03/2015 05:20, Richard Fontana a écrit :
>  Hi everybody!
>  
>  I'm hoping to refocus attention on copyleft-next again soon (yes I
>  know I've said that before, but I *mean* it now!).
>  
>  Originally the canonical public repository for copyleft-next was under
>  my personal github account
>  (github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next.git). Due in large part to
>  ethical criticisms from bkuhn (and with the quixotic hope of getting
>  bkuhn to contribute), I changed that to
>  gitorious.org/copyleft-next/copyleft-next.git while keeping the github
>  repository in sync. (I also for a while mirrored the gitorious
>  repository on fedorahosted and in a github organization account but
>  didn't keep those up to date.)
>  
>  As you probably know by now, GitLab has acquired Gitorious and
>  Gitorious will apparently be shutting down in a few months.
>  
>  I thought I'd use the Gitorious Apocalypse as a good excuse to
>  investigate self-hosting a github-like web application.
>  
>  bkuhn has recommended Kallithea, the RhodeCode fork which not long ago
>  became a Software Freedom Conservancy member project. I'm a bit
>  familiar with use of Gitlab, and I have read a bit about gogs recently.
>  
>  So this evening I tried installing all three of them, and am sorrty to
>  say failed completely.
>  
>  So as far as I'm concerned it is fairly clear that Kallithea and Gogs
>  are not quite ready for actual real-world use. I'll continue to follow
>  them from a distance to see if they mature or at least have
>  installation instructions I can make some sense out of.
>  
>  As for Gitlab, it was the one of the three I was disinclined to use
>  because of its permissive-core open core-ish model (could be worse,
>  though). However, with Kallithea and Gogs being non-viable, Gitlab was
>  my only hope. But attempts to install the Gitlab 'community edition'
>  CentOS package according to instructions failed, by which point I was
>  too frustrated to do anything but abandon these self-hosting experiments.
>  
>  So with some sadness, I am currently intending to return to the roots
>  of copyleft-next and making the github repository the canonical one. I
>  may look into a simpler self-hosting solution using a minimalist web
>  frontend like gitweb which I imagine might be easier to get running.
>  Don't say I didn't try.
>  
>  RF
>  
>  _______________________________________________
>  copyleft-next mailing list
>  copyleft-next(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
>

[Keith Z-G]

On Mar 21, 2015 10:17, "Antoine Pitrou" <antoine(a)python.org&gt; wrote:
>  In the past I've tried to persuade you that modern FS communities needed
>  a weak copyleft license more than a strong one. I hope you can still be
>  persuaded of that :-) 
I do take some issue with your premise; if anything the in-vogue nature of
permissive licenses is all the more reason to champion a simple and
readable strong copyleft license, rather than meeting the trend halfway.
And obviously, considering the inherent "and later" language in
copyleft-next and the explicit GPLv3 compatibility, this license itself has
to remain nice and strong in its copyleftness, eh?

But all that being said, I'm sure many of us interested enough in licenses
and related policy issues to be subscribed to this mailing list would be
glad to hear what your arguments are in favour of a lesser-copyleft-next,
even if we might expect to strongly or at least weakly disagree :)

[Richard Fontana]

On 03/21/2015 02:35 PM, Keith Z-G wrote:
>  On Mar 21, 2015 10:17, "Antoine Pitrou"
> <antoine(a)python.org&gt; wrote:
> >
> > In the past I've tried to persuade you that modern FS communities needed
> > a weak copyleft license more than a strong one. I hope you can still be
> > persuaded of that :-)
>  
>  I do take some issue with your premise; if anything the in-vogue nature of
>  permissive licenses is all the more reason to champion a simple and
>  readable strong copyleft license, rather than meeting the trend halfway.
>  And obviously, considering the inherent "and later" language in
>  copyleft-next and the explicit GPLv3 compatibility, this license itself has
>  to remain nice and strong in its copyleftness, eh?
>  
>  But all that being said, I'm sure many of us interested enough in licenses
>  and related policy issues to be subscribed to this mailing list would be
>  glad to hear what your arguments are in favour of a lesser-copyleft-next,
>  even if we might expect to strongly or at least weakly disagree :) 
FWIW at some point I retreated from calling copyleft-next a "strong"
copyleft license to a "non-weak" one (because of the direction certain
structural aspects of it were going in), though I will probably be
reassessing that. I.e. I saw it as potentially occupying some ground
between GPL and whatever a true weak copyleft is. I need to go back
for a reminder of Antoine's specific arguments.

RF

[Richard Fontana]

On 03/21/2015 02:35 PM, Keith Z-G wrote:
>  I do take some issue with your premise; if anything the in-vogue
> nature of
>  permissive licenses is all the more reason to champion a simple and
>  readable strong copyleft license, rather than meeting the trend halfway.  
Back when I was giving talks on 'The Decline of the GPL and What To Do
About It' I asserted that a decline in relevance of weak copyleft
licensing might be behind some of the possible in-vogueness of
permissive licenses. (Clearly some of the kinds of software that in
the past might have been more likely to have been licensed under, say,
the LGPL would today tend to be licensed under the Apache or MIT
licenses, or so it seems to me.)

RF

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le 21/03/2015 19:35, Keith Z-G a écrit :
>  
>  On Mar 21, 2015 10:17, "Antoine Pitrou" <antoine(a)python.org
>  <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> >
> > In the past I've tried to persuade you that modern FS communities needed
> > a weak copyleft license more than a strong one. I hope you can still be
> > persuaded of that :-)
>  
>  I do take some issue with your premise; if anything the in-vogue nature
>  of permissive licenses is all the more reason to champion a simple and
>  readable strong copyleft license, rather than meeting the trend halfway. 
It's not about meeting the trend, it's about fulfilling developers'
needs. It's not some kind of fad. In a world where more or more free
software projects are libraries rather than end user programs, many FS
developers don't want to burden their project with a strong copyleft
license.

Of course, perhaps it's too late and people are accustomed enough to
non-copyleft licenses that they don't feel a need to go back. But I'm
sure I'm not the only one to have evolved from a pro-copyleft position
to a "pragmatic" pro-BSD/MIT stance. Because there is no reliable
middle-ground.

>  And obviously, considering the inherent "and later"
> language in
>  copyleft-next and the explicit GPLv3 compatibility, this license itself
>  has to remain nice and strong in its copyleftness, eh? 
Well, I'm not sure what is obvious there. GPLv3 compatibility goes in a
single direction (from copyleft-next to GPLv3). A weak copyleft license
doesn't make that any less possible.

>  But all that being said, I'm sure many of us interested enough
> in
>  licenses and related policy issues to be subscribed to this mailing list
>  would be glad to hear what your arguments are in favour of a
>  lesser-copyleft-next, even if we might expect to strongly or at least
>  weakly disagree :) 
Well, I don't want to rehash them too much here. You could take a look here:
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-May/000674.html

There's also the following unanswered question :-)
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-June/000726.html

Regards

Antoine.

[Keith Z-G]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 1:07 PM, Antoine Pitrou <antoine(a)python.org&gt; wrote:
>  It's not about meeting the trend, it's about fulfilling developers'
>  needs. It's not some kind of fad. In a world where more or more free
>  software projects are libraries rather than end user programs, many FS
>  developers don't want to burden their project with a strong copyleft
>  license.
>  
In a world where the majority of software development is funded by
for-profit entities (which is certainly a world unlikely to change anytime
soon) isn't any degree of copyleft liable to be seen as an equivalent
degree of burden? I'd argue, although I have no real data to back me up
here, that there's a conceptual leap that folks have to make to accept even
the barest whiff of copyleft, especially in commercial software. And in
part as a result of that, even once convinced, most will attempt to fulfill
the bare minimum of what they see as unwelcome obligations.

The risk then is that the users of code under a lesser-style license will,
if extending such existing work, make sure their work never directly
touches or becomes derivative of the weak-copylefted code. So you might get
many users, but in practice you wouldn't get any more contributors than if
you had gone with an entirely permissive license.

The benefit of copyleft-next, IMHO, is to a large degree the concise and
readable nature of it. I'm not so convinced that entities who are attracted
to the most 'liberal' licenses (especially if their intentions are to
create proprietary software) are ever going to be easily convinced of the
usefulness of copyleft. But entities who would otherwise be amenable to the
actual implications of the GPL, but worry that in the many pages and
clauses there will be some sort of 'gotcha', are the sweet spot.


>  Of course, perhaps it's too late and people are accustomed enough
> to
>  non-copyleft licenses that they don't feel a need to go back. But I'm
>  sure I'm not the only one to have evolved from a pro-copyleft position
>  to a "pragmatic" pro-BSD/MIT stance. Because there is no reliable
>  middle-ground.
>  
I can sympathize with this argument, certainly. I think it's very important
though to clearly define some categorical distinctions between the
middle-ground and the pro-BSD/MIT stance, especially since many BSD/MIT
proponents seem to see any and all additional stipulations as "less free"
(with the exception in some respects of Apache's patent provisions, which
I'd posit is mostly due to the general antipathy towards software patents
in the same crowd).

Without some hard lines in the sand, erosion towards fully permissive seems
difficult to defend against, and perhaps even more importantly the
arguments in favour of weak copyleft need to come across as something other
than "it's like that thing you decided not to use, except less so".


>  > And obviously, considering the inherent "and later"
> language in
>  > copyleft-next and the explicit GPLv3 compatibility, this license itself
>  > has to remain nice and strong in its copyleftness, eh?
>
>  Well, I'm not sure what is obvious there. GPLv3 compatibility goes in a
>  single direction (from copyleft-next to GPLv3). A weak copyleft license
>  doesn't make that any less possible.
>  
Fair point on the single direction compatibility. But I stand by the "and
later" (or I guess in terms of the copyleft-next terminology I should say
"Later Versions") point, because it would be problematic in several senses
to make such later versions different in practice and spirit.

Firstly, in this hypothetical where copyleft-next becomes an outright
weak-copyleft license, anyone who has code already licensed under
copyleft-next might be unhappy to see their license change out from under
them in a way that isn't just keeping up with legal theories and/or closing
loopholes but is outright changing the meaning and philosophy of the
license itself. [Caveats for this point: perhaps not enough folks have used
copyleft-next for this to matter, and I can see the argument that any such
change in the nature of the license should take place before widespread
adoption.]

Secondly, to dramatically change both the general purpose and the practical
specifics of the license would seem to me to weaken the power of the "Later
Versions" clause if challenged, as someone could argue that the clear
change in intent represents enough of a break that the distributor of the
older-versioned copyleft-next'd code can't be assumed to have agreed it to.
[Caveat: IANAL so I could be entirely misguided, perhaps the legal
enforceability of such clauses is high and no court would accept legal
theories attempting to unbind a work from them.]


>  Well, I don't want to rehash them too much here. You could take a
> look
>  here:
>  https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-May/000674.html
>
>  
I noticed you're responding there to Richard's stance that

> * I have come up with one approach. If you are writing a Python
> library 
*>* foo and you put it under copyleft-next, and you want me to use your
*>* library, you ought to have the burden of making clear that the moment
*>* I merely distribute a file that says 'import foo' my file is ipso
*>* facto "really copyleft-next". If you did not bother to do this, I
*>* ought to be free to rely on an assumption you intended something
*>* 'weaker'. *

your response being

> * Do note that "using a library" in the Python world can go
> very far, 
*>* perhaps as far as monkeypatching the library in order to fix some
*>* undesired behaviour. The license (or its attached FAQ) has to be clear
*>* that such uses don't entail propagation of copyleft to the application
*>* as a whole.*

This presents two very different approaches to Python code under
copyleft-next. Curious to hear what the current theory and
best-practice would be considered to be, with everyone having a few
years now to mull that over. Perhaps some clarification on this would
obviate or otherwise change the discussion, eh?  (In fact, the company
I work for recently decided to adopt the usage of Python within our
commercial software product, so I'm also quite interested from the
perspective of my own job.)

This might then address or change your unanswered question at
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-June/000726.html,
Antoine.

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 12:54 PM, Richard Fontana <fontana(a)sharpeleven.org&gt;
 wrote:

>  FWIW at some point I retreated from calling copyleft-next a "strong"
>  copyleft license to a "non-weak" one (because of the direction certain
>  structural aspects of it were going in), though I will probably be
>  reassessing that. I.e. I saw it as potentially occupying some ground
>  between GPL and whatever a true weak copyleft is. I need to go back
>  for a reminder of Antoine's specific arguments. 

Ah, fair enough. Interested to hear how you possibly reconsider this, then.
The idea and label of "non-weak" seems quite reasonable IMHO.

weak copyleft license that has clear (and desirable) semantics for dynamic languages such as Python? (was Re: Gitorious apocalypse)

[Mike Linksvayer]

On March 21, 2015 12:07:32 PM PDT, Antoine Pitrou <antoine(a)python.org&gt; wrote:
> There's also the following unanswered question :-)
> https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-June/000726.html 
MPL2

[Adam Saunders]

Hi everyone,
>  I'm hoping to refocus attention on copyleft-next again soon (yes I
>  know I've said that before, but I *mean* it now!). 
I'm thrilled to hear about that. Is there any particular clause/section 
of copyleft-next that you feel needs attention/opinions/debate? As a 
lawyer specializing in legal issues involving free-and-open-source 
software, I'd be glad to dig in wherever I might be helpful.

Take care,
Adam Saunders

[Richard Fontana]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 10:00:50PM -0400, Adam Saunders wrote:
>  
>  Is there any particular clause/section of
>  copyleft-next that you feel needs attention/opinions/debate? As a lawyer
>  specializing in legal issues involving free-and-open-source software, I'd be
>  glad to dig in wherever I might be helpful. 
Basically everything!

RF

[Richard Fontana]

There were four open Gitorious merge requests which I've now disposed
of. My thanks to the merge requestors and apologies for the extensive
delay in attending to them.

Needless to say no one should submit a new Gitorious merge request
given the impending Gitorious Apocalypse, not that anyone was likely
to. Everyone is welcome to submit issues or pull requests via GitHub
(i.e. github.com/richardfontana/copyleft-next), at least until there
is an alternative that is deemed viable.

Richard