xscreensaver and x11-ssh-askpass licenses

[David Cantrell]

Happy New Year, everyone!

Among the various packages I maintain is one called x11-ssh-askpass.  The
project itself is old but still runs and there are users.  I am trying to
generate an SPDX license expression for this package and am asking for help
for clarification.

x11-ssh-askpass uses code from xscreensaver (jwz.org/xscreensaver).  In the
Fedora package for xscreensaver we call it MIT licensed.  The xscreensaver
project provides sample spec file to build and RPM and in that spec file they
call themselves BSD licensed.  However, I see this at least in xscreensaver.c:


/* xscreensaver, Copyright © 1991-2022 Jamie Zawinski <jwz(a)jwz.org&gt;
 *
 * Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
 * documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that
 * the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
 * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
 * documentation.  No representations are made about the suitability of this
 * software for any purpose.  It is provided "as is" without express or
 * implied warranty.
 *

Would we call this MIT?  It begins mostly the same way but reduces the as-is
paragraph to I guess the last two sentences.  Or would this be more ISC or
even HPND?  ISC doesn't feel right but also feels less wrong somehow to me.
HPND....???

With the xscreensaver license sorted out, that leaves the remaining original
code in x11-ssh-askpass which carries this license:


The remaining portions fall under the following copyright and license:

  by Jim Knoble <jmknoble(a)pobox.com&gt;
  Copyright (C) 1999,2000,2001 Jim Knoble

  Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software
  and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
  provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
  that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
  supporting documentation.

+------------+
| Disclaimer |
+------------+

  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
  express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of
  merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and
  noninfringement. In no event shall the author(s) be liable for any
  claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract,
  tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the
  software or the use or other dealings in the software.


Again....MIT, ISC, HPND, something else?  Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

-- 
David Cantrell <dcantrell(a)redhat.com&gt;
Red Hat, Inc. | Boston, MA | EST5EDT

[Richard Fontana]

On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 9:05 AM David Cantrell <dcantrell(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Happy New Year, everyone!
>
>  Among the various packages I maintain is one called x11-ssh-askpass.  The
>  project itself is old but still runs and there are users.  I am trying to
>  generate an SPDX license expression for this package and am asking for help
>  for clarification.
>
>  x11-ssh-askpass uses code from xscreensaver (jwz.org/xscreensaver).  In the
>  Fedora package for xscreensaver we call it MIT licensed.  The xscreensaver
>  project provides sample spec file to build and RPM and in that spec file they
>  call themselves BSD licensed.  However, I see this at least in xscreensaver.c:
>
>
>  /* xscreensaver, Copyright © 1991-2022 Jamie Zawinski <jwz(a)jwz.org&gt;
>   *
>   * Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
>   * documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that
>   * the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
>   * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
>   * documentation.  No representations are made about the suitability of this
>   * software for any purpose.  It is provided "as is" without express or
>   * implied warranty.
>   *
>
>  Would we call this MIT? 
In Callaway, yes, but not in SPDX.

>   It begins mostly the same way but reduces the as-is
>  paragraph to I guess the last two sentences.  Or would this be more ISC or
>  even HPND?  ISC doesn't feel right but also feels less wrong somehow to me.
>  HPND....??? 
The closest is HPND-sell. For some background: HPND is not a 'real'
license in the sense that it was not conceived of as a license for use
but rather was, apparently, an effort by the OSI or someone making use
of the OSI process (I still haven't tracked down how this happened
historically) to sort of ratify a large set of similar historical
licenses in what we might call the MIT family. The result is a sort of
ill-defined OSI-approved set of license permutations that in a sense
anticipated the activity undertaken by SPDX many years later. SPDX,
because it is dedicated to having all OSI-approved licenses in its
list, has HPND, but has probably made the best attempt possible to
make rationalized sense of what the OSI means by HPND. The 'sell
variant' was discovered later on and does not fit into the OSI
template. I think SPDX may have defined HPND-sell on the assumption
that it would have the same range of permutations as HPND, but I'm not
sure.

Anyway this is how HPND-sell is defined:

 https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/blob/main/src/HPND-sell-variant.xml

I *think* that almost covers the license you quote but probably needs
to be adjusted a bit. I suggest submitting an issue to
github.com/SPDX/License-List-XML. Or maybe Jilayne thinks the answer
here is more obvious than I do :)

>  With the xscreensaver license sorted out, that leaves the remaining
> original
>  code in x11-ssh-askpass which carries this license:
>
>
>  The remaining portions fall under the following copyright and license:
>
>    by Jim Knoble <jmknoble(a)pobox.com&gt;
>    Copyright (C) 1999,2000,2001 Jim Knoble
>
>    Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software
>    and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
>    provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
>    that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
>    supporting documentation.
>
>  +------------+
>  | Disclaimer |
>  +------------+
>
>    THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
>    express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of
>    merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and
>    noninfringement. In no event shall the author(s) be liable for any
>    claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract,
>    tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the
>    software or the use or other dealings in the software.
>
>
>  Again....MIT, ISC, HPND, something else?  Anyone have any ideas? 
I think this is another one that is closest to HPND-sell but doesn't
quite match.

Richard

[Jilayne Lovejoy]

On 1/3/23 7:56 AM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>  On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 9:05 AM David Cantrell
> <dcantrell(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > Happy New Year, everyone!
> >
> > Among the various packages I maintain is one called x11-ssh-askpass.  The
> > project itself is old but still runs and there are users.  I am trying to
> > generate an SPDX license expression for this package and am asking for help
> > for clarification.
> >
> > x11-ssh-askpass uses code from xscreensaver (jwz.org/xscreensaver).  In the
> > Fedora package for xscreensaver we call it MIT licensed.  The xscreensaver
> > project provides sample spec file to build and RPM and in that spec file they
> > call themselves BSD licensed.  However, I see this at least in xscreensaver.c:
> >
> >
> > /* xscreensaver, Copyright © 1991-2022 Jamie Zawinski <jwz(a)jwz.org&gt;
> >   *
> >   * Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
> >   * documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that
> >   * the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
> >   * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
> >   * documentation.  No representations are made about the suitability of this
> >   * software for any purpose.  It is provided "as is" without express or
> >   * implied warranty.
> >   *
> >
> > Would we call this MIT?
>  In Callaway, yes, but not in SPDX.
>
> >   It begins mostly the same way but reduces the as-is
> > paragraph to I guess the last two sentences.  Or would this be more ISC or
> > even HPND?  ISC doesn't feel right but also feels less wrong somehow to me.
> > HPND....???
>  The closest is HPND-sell. For some background: HPND is not a 'real'
>  license in the sense that it was not conceived of as a license for use
>  but rather was, apparently, an effort by the OSI or someone making use
>  of the OSI process (I still haven't tracked down how this happened
>  historically) to sort of ratify a large set of similar historical
>  licenses in what we might call the MIT family. The result is a sort of
>  ill-defined OSI-approved set of license permutations that in a sense
>  anticipated the activity undertaken by SPDX many years later. SPDX,
>  because it is dedicated to having all OSI-approved licenses in its
>  list, has HPND, but has probably made the best attempt possible to
>  make rationalized sense of what the OSI means by HPND. The 'sell
>  variant' was discovered later on and does not fit into the OSI
>  template. I think SPDX may have defined HPND-sell on the assumption
>  that it would have the same range of permutations as HPND, but I'm not
>  sure.
>
>  Anyway this is how HPND-sell is defined:
>
>    https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/blob/main/src/HPND-sell-variant.xml
>
>  I *think* that almost covers the license you quote but probably needs
>  to be adjusted a bit. I suggest submitting an issue to
>  github.com/SPDX/License-List-XML. Or maybe Jilayne thinks the answer
>  here is more obvious than I do :) 
agree, we can use HPND-sell-variant for this one, which is already in 
the fedora-license-data
> > With the xscreensaver license sorted out, that leaves the remaining original
> > code in x11-ssh-askpass which carries this license:
> >
> >
> > The remaining portions fall under the following copyright and license:
> >
> >    by Jim Knoble <jmknoble(a)pobox.com&gt;
> >    Copyright (C) 1999,2000,2001 Jim Knoble
> >
> >    Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software
> >    and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
> >    provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
> >    that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
> >    supporting documentation.
> >
> > +------------+
> > | Disclaimer |
> > +------------+
> >
> >    THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
> >    express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of
> >    merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and
> >    noninfringement. In no event shall the author(s) be liable for any
> >    claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract,
> >    tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the
> >    software or the use or other dealings in the software.
> >
> >
> > Again....MIT, ISC, HPND, something else?  Anyone have any ideas?
>  I think this is another one that is closest to HPND-sell but doesn't
>  quite match. 
it is close, but no cigar... I think we need a new issue in 
fedora-license-data, TOML file, and submit to SPDX. sigh

J.
>  Richard
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