From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on dcvr.yhbt.net X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-ASN: AS31976 209.132.180.0/23 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.6 required=3.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_HI,RP_MATCHES_RCVD shortcircuit=no autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [209.132.180.67]) by dcvr.yhbt.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1D208202A0 for ; Wed, 1 Nov 2017 18:38:35 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751663AbdKASic (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Nov 2017 14:38:32 -0400 Received: from cloud.peff.net ([104.130.231.41]:42948 "HELO cloud.peff.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1751428AbdKASic (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Nov 2017 14:38:32 -0400 Received: (qmail 22060 invoked by uid 109); 1 Nov 2017 18:38:32 -0000 Received: from Unknown (HELO peff.net) (10.0.1.2) by cloud.peff.net (qpsmtpd/0.94) with SMTP; Wed, 01 Nov 2017 18:38:32 +0000 Authentication-Results: cloud.peff.net; auth=none Received: (qmail 14277 invoked by uid 111); 1 Nov 2017 18:38:40 -0000 Received: from sigill.intra.peff.net (HELO sigill.intra.peff.net) (10.0.0.7) by peff.net (qpsmtpd/0.94) with SMTP; Wed, 01 Nov 2017 14:38:40 -0400 Authentication-Results: peff.net; auth=none Received: by sigill.intra.peff.net (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Wed, 01 Nov 2017 14:38:29 -0400 Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2017 14:38:29 -0400 From: Jeff King To: Elijah Newren Cc: Git Mailing List Subject: Re: Contribution licensing question(s) Message-ID: <20171101183829.mwoi7urka3hze3pm@sigill.intra.peff.net> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Nov 01, 2017 at 08:50:00AM -0700, Elijah Newren wrote: > Background: git's README.md file points out that some parts of git are > under a license other than GPLv2 (while still GPLv2-compatible), > though it doesn't state which one(s) I think this note is mostly about code we've imported from elsewhere. For example, libxdiff seems to be under LGPL. > or what a contributor might want > to do if they want to grant permission under one of those more > permissive license(s). If it's a whole file or subsystem that can be used standalone, I think it would make sense to mark the copyright at the top of the file (like xdiff does). For smaller bits or changes to GPL'd code, it's not clear to me if you can meaningfully dual-license them. I.e., I think you hit a question of whether small changes are copyrightable in themselves or if they're simply a derived work of Git. I'll leave that one to people more clueful about legal issues. > Also, I seem to recall that years ago there > were requests to make code available under a slightly more permissive > license to allow re-usage in jgit and perhaps other projects, though I > can't find any trace of this in the codebase. This was mostly done for the libgit2 project, which uses GPL with a linking exception: https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2/blob/master/COPYING When that project started, they asked for dual-license permission from various git.git contributors, which is documented in that repo: https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2/blob/master/git.git-authors > I'm not sure whether my specific git contributions would matter to > jgit (which we also use internally, both directly and indirectly), but > generally, is contributing under a more permissive GPLv2-compatible > license to permit re-usage in other projects like jgit (or for easing > future license switches) still relevant? If so, which license(s) have > folks gravitated towards for these contributions, and how would one > mark their submitted patches? Hopefully the above answers most of these questions. But I think in general the approach is not "license it differently in git.git", but "grant those other projects a different license to use your code, too". -Peff