AMD R600 LLVM Back-End Called For Inclusion

[pingufunkybeat]

Saying you can only use it as part of Mesa does make it nonfree.

The license says no such thing.

If you use it outside of Mesa, you get the standard modified BSD license.

If you use it inside Mesa, then you get a non-standard modified BSD license with relaxed attribution requirements.

Both cases are completely FSF-approved Free Software licenses. It's Free Software either way, and you can use it to your heart's desire.

[DaemonFC]

*bridgman has left the Q Continuum

Bridgman and the lawyers that say I have to follow every possible export law in the world to use AMD software. This is a crock. No matter how you try to defend it, it will still be a crock. Can you just admit it's a total crock and fix the license?

I'm subject to two major sets of laws. US federal laws and Indiana state laws. I don't care what the law is anywhere else and I shouldn't have to. If I find a loophole in the law that lets me circumvent it to help someone, AMD shouldn't close it by misusing their copyright.

[bridgman]

*bridgman has left the Q Continuum

[bridgman]

export laws are only for export but releasing open-source software is NOT A EXPORT!

for example "source-forge" the website if THEY upload this to "Iran" then the Export LAW hits.

but the Export LAW hit NOT if someone release open-source in the USA.

I'm guessing you haven't actually read the regs yet, right ?

It's *really* not as simple as you claim.

[Nedanfor]

Saying you can only use it as part of Mesa does make it nonfree. It takes away my ability to use the software for any purpose, including putting it in other software.

I think you really misunderstood what is written in that license. You can use the code in your personal project, if you write in the binary this sentence:

+ * "Uses Jimenez's MLAA. Copyright (C) 2010 by Jorge Jimenez, Belen Masia,
+ * Jose I. Echevarria, Fernando Navarro and Diego Gutierrez."

I will try to explain to you why you can do anything with this piece of software.

+ * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
+ * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

So you have to simply follow two conditions.

+ * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
+ * this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

First condition like the first condition of 2-clause BSD license.

+ * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the following statement:
+ *
+ * "Uses Jimenez's MLAA. Copyright (C) 2010 by Jorge Jimenez, Belen Masia,
+ * Jose I. Echevarria, Fernando Navarro and Diego Gutierrez."

Second condition like the second condition of 2-clause BSD license.

+ * Only for use in the Mesa project, this point 2 is filled by naming the
+ * technique Jimenez's MLAA in the Mesa config options.

If your project is the Mesa project, then you can fill the second condition in another way, if you want. Period. It's an exception. My first language is italian and my english skills aren't so good, but trust me, this is free open source software.

The second clause exceptions doesn't mean 'You can only use this code for Mesa', at least not in any language that I can understand.

PS. If you speak other languages, I can try to explain to you this through private messages.

[bridgman]

What aspect of copyright law do you think this license abuses ?

The difference between laws for export and those for murder and double-parking is that the former laws require "closing the loop" with whoever receives the materials under most conditions while (AFAIK) the latter laws do not. If you check the actual EARs this will become more clear :

http://www.bis.doc.gov/index.htm

Click on "Export Administration Regulations" on the left hand side. Most industrial countries have similar laws.

[DaemonFC]

Yeah, we're arguing about MLAA license (it seems free to me) and also about whether the shaped charge on an RPG (which can punch through the armour on most tanks) can take down an armoured helicopter gunship (of course it can).

The llvm license discussion seems to have gone off the rails again. I went back and checked the license text just to be sure...

IT DOESN'T SAY YOU CAN'T SHIP TO RUSSIA AND CHINA PERIOD, it just says that you can't export to some countries unless you have an export license *or* one of the standard license exceptions applies (I believe the latter is the case for the llvm backend code but I am not a lawyer and definitely not *your* lawyer ), and that you can't export the code to those countries if it is controlled under the export regs or if you combine it with other stuff such that the result is controlled under the export regs (duh !). That is just standard US export law, very similar to the export laws in 40+ other countries. Look up the Wassenaar Arrangement if you want an idea of how all these countries align their regs.

The default license says "here it is, you can do whatever you want with it, but you are responsible for thinking about how export laws apply, and here are a couple of examples in case you don't know what we're talking about". That is the standard license text, and using it is the fastest way to get something into public view.

If we want to release something under a less restrictive license like X11 or UIUC, we basically have to go through the export laws ourselves, determine what export category the code falls into, obtain export licenses ourselves if required, basically taking on more of the export worries ourselves. Doing that is time consuming, expensive, and means we need to set up a bunch of internal processes to make sure that we don't go outside the dotted lines for that export category in future.

So why does AMD have to abuse copyright law to tell me I can't do something that's illegal?

Maybe you should throw in the "You are not allowed to kill people or double park" clause just to make sure you didn't miss anything? It's entirely outside of the scope of a copyright license to try to enforce criminal law. Leave it to the government to do their own damned dirty work.

[DaemonFC]

It isn't a rule, it's an exception. The generic license is 100% free software and the exception isn't restrictive, therefore it is free software. I'm sure that FSF and OSI would agree with me, because none of the four freedom is limited by this license. What does matter is what you can do, not how you have to attribute the rights...

Saying you can only use it as part of Mesa does make it nonfree. It takes away my ability to use the software for any purpose, including putting it in other software.

[bridgman]

Yeah, we're arguing about MLAA license (it seems free to me) and also about whether the shaped charge on an RPG (which can punch through the armour on most tanks) can take down an armoured helicopter gunship (of course it can).

The llvm license discussion seems to have gone off the rails again. I went back and checked the license text just to be sure...

IT DOESN'T SAY YOU CAN'T SHIP TO RUSSIA AND CHINA PERIOD, it just says that you can't export to some countries unless you have an export license *or* one of the standard license exceptions applies (I believe the latter is the case for the llvm backend code but I am not a lawyer and definitely not *your* lawyer ), and that you can't export the code to those countries if it is controlled under the export regs or if you combine it with other stuff such that the result is controlled under the export regs (duh !). That is just standard US export law, very similar to the export laws in 40+ other countries. Look up the Wassenaar Arrangement if you want an idea of how all these countries align their regs.

The default license says "here it is, you can do whatever you want with it, but you are responsible for thinking about how export laws apply, and here are a couple of examples in case you don't know what we're talking about". That is the standard license text, and using it is the fastest way to get something into public view.

If we want to release something under a less restrictive license like X11 or UIUC, we basically have to go through the export laws ourselves, determine what export category the code falls into, obtain export licenses ourselves if required, basically taking on more of the export worries ourselves. Doing that is time consuming, expensive, and means we need to set up a bunch of internal processes to make sure that we don't go outside the dotted lines for that export category in future.

[pingufunkybeat]

Are people seriously discussing whether the modified BSD license (the Jimenez MLAA one, with the attribution clause) is a Free Software license?

The fact that you're not allowed to use open source together with AMD GPUs in Russia and China is the REAL problem, not MLAA. While I don't expect AMD to go around suing Linux users in China for copyright infringement and believe Bridgman that they were forced to put that there to avoid US governmental sanctions, I do wish that a better way of handling this is introduced.