[PATCH 01/11] COPYING: Update to MIT Expat License rather than MIT X License

[Bryce Harrington]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 10:56:10AM +0300, Pekka Paalanen wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 11:55:12 -0700
> Bryce Harrington <bryce at osg.samsung.com> wrote:
> 
> > MIT has released software under several slightly different licenses,
> > including the old 'X11 License' or 'MIT License'.  Some code under this
> > license was in fact included in X.org's Xserver in the past.  However,
> > X.org now prefers the MIT Expat License as the standard (which,
> > confusingly, is also referred to as the 'MIT License').  See
> > http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/tree/COPYING
> > 
> > When Wayland started, it was Kristian Høgsberg's intent to license it
> > compatibly with X.org.  "I wanted Wayland to be usable (license-wise)
> > whereever X was usable."  But, the text of the older X11 License was
> > taken for Wayland, rather than X11's current standard.  This patch
> > corrects this by swapping in the intended text.
> > 
> > In practical terms, the most notable change is the dropping of the
> > no-advertising clause.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Bryce Harrington <bryce at osg.samsung.com>
> > ---
> >  COPYING | 33 +++++++++++++++++----------------
> >  1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/COPYING b/COPYING
> > index 6ba3d98..2b81002 100644
> > --- a/COPYING
> > +++ b/COPYING
> > @@ -3,20 +3,21 @@ Copyright © 2010-2012 Intel Corporation
> >  Copyright © 2011 Benjamin Franzke
> >  Copyright © 2012 Collabora, Ltd.
> >  
> > -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, and
> > -that the name of the copyright holders not be used in advertising or
> > -publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific,
> > -written prior permission.  The copyright holders make no representations
> > -about the suitability of this software for any purpose.  It is provided "as
> > -is" without express or implied warranty.
> > +Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
> > +copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
> > +to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
> > +the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
> > +and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
> > +Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
> >  
> > -THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE,
> > -INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO
> > -EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, 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.
> > +The above copyright notice and this permission notice (including the next
> > +paragraph) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the
> > +Software.
> > +
> > +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 AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS 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.
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> should we also add the license links (see my reply to patch 2/11 of
> this series to add them to the Contributing file) to the COPYING file?
> 
> http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#Expat
> 
> Hmm, where did the "(including the next paragraph)" come from? I don't
> see it in either of the above links.
> 
> Ah, I see it comes from the xserver COPYING file... I don't know what
> to do with that. On one hand I don't think it matters at all and it's
> all fine, OTOH it's not what opensource.org calls MIT if you take the
> text literally.
> 
> So, if we go by the original premise "do as xserver does", then this
> patch is the right thing to do. Because of that, and because this
> trivial addition is IMO not changing the license meaning at all, I
> would really like to give my R-b.
> 
> But since I now see the original is the xserver COPYING file, we should
> probably link to that too in the Contributing file.
> 
> Can we call this license "MIT" or "Expat" though? That I have no idea.
> It is yet another slight variation.
> 
> Markus, I'm CC'ing you with this one review so you know where we are.
> 
> I would be most confortable with using the exact wording from
> http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
> even if it differs from what xserver COPYING has as the recommended
> one. At least that we can unambiguously say is the MIT or Expat
> license, and it still fulfills the original premise completely.

Your review comments so far sound like you are on the fence but leaning
towards the version that excludes the "next-paragraph" phrase.

I had noticed this discrepancy right off the bat when starting on this,
and gave it a lot of study and thought before including it.  So let me
offer some points to perhaps tilt you over the other direction, because
I think that is the better decision.

1.  First off I agree with you it probably doesn't matter.  This is a
    tiny nit.

2.  Wayland and Weston already include several files, like
    vaapi-recorder.c, weston-egl.ext.h, etc. which were already covered
    by this form of the license.

3.  Since X.org uses this wording in their boilerplate, files we pull
    from them in the future will include it.  OTOH I don't know of any
    sources we might pull from that would be using the
    non-"next-paragraph" form.  This is a practical inconvenience we
    will (presumably) hit, and so I weigh this point higher than the
    others.

4.  While there is a benefit to being able to say, "This is the exact,
    100% pure, unadulterated MIT Expat License," I see this benefit as
    being pretty tiny.  Indeed the name "MIT Expat License" is my own
    invention; near as I can tell it's generally either called "Expat
    License" or "MIT License".  I chose the more wordy name so it's
    clearer to folks that we're merely doing a MIT -> MIT license
    switch.  If I posted that we're switching from "X11 License to Expat
    License" it might cause consternation among folks that don't know
    wtf Expat License means.  Maybe "MIT License (Expat-style)" would
    have been even clearer.

5.  There aren't really many places where we specifically mention the
    license by name.  (In fact, apart from this patch I don't think we
    mention it anywhere.  I could be wrong but it's extremely minimal at
    best.)

So, to sum up, I don't really think it matters at all whether Wayland is
"pure Expat" or "Expat with a slight tweak to match X".  From what I can
tell we don't "need" the pure Expat form for anything specifically, but
we will have to deal with the next-paragraph variant.  So from a
pratical standpoint, it's going to be simpler going forward if we adopt
the "next-paragraph" variant to match with X.org.  If we do that then I
think we can just use that variant and never need to deal with the other
style.

Anyway, not that my opinion would matter at all here, but personally I
don't care one way or the other.  It looks to me like the next-paragraph
version would be better for Wayland, but I can change it to however you
prefer, just let me know.

Bryce