The X.Org Foundation Is Undecided About Mir

[jayrulez]

well step by step

1.) well in practice it doesn't because right now Mir is basically skeleton code but the possibility is very real since they plan to reuse android drivers and those are very restricted and closed source as closed source can possibly be, so a copyleft license could win them some nice legal issues or carriers refusal to accept put ubuntu phone on sell.
2.) is not wrong per se but the copyleft protection is very gray with canonical, in the digia/QT case is a bit different since KDE/Qt foundation have them by the balls with actual legal obligations and agreements and the fact itself that digia will cut their own neck if KDE fork Qt [very bad business image and good chunk of developers from several communities] but if in the specific case of canonical Mir doesn't actually do anything that wayland already do[they can't change wayland license or fork surfaceflinger without google on their backs so they created Mir] and for the mid term future Mir will be Canonical exclusive and ubuntu specific that give them the advantage of do anything they want with very low resistance unlike such a widely used project like Qt.

So in short, it is only theoretical.

Here are a list of projects under Canonical's CLA: http://www.canonical.com/contributors.

Here are a few Yes/No questions that I would like you to reply to.

1. Does Canonical have a history of withholding the source of projects under their CLA from any contributor or user?

2. Has Canonical redistributed any of those projects under a proprietary licence?

3. Do you have a bias towards or against Canonical?

[frign]

Nope

well i think the code already released as gpl3 will stay public but they can choose to not make more code public hence making the future release closed only

which is essentially what he said. The only thing you are left with is either using the old version or completely start from scratch, as you may not fork the project without KEEPING the CLA which essentially forces the property on you.

[jrch2k8]

I'm not that familiar with licenses, but AFAIK, CLA is in any form more evil than MIT license for wayland. So, if I'm right, anyone can reditribute a closed version of wayland, but only canonical would be able to redistribute a closed version of mir right? Or can canonical "revoke" the GPL license to the code through CLA and effectively closing down the code and prohibiting anyone from forking mir?

well i think the code already released as gpl3 will stay public but they can choose to not make more code public hence making the future release closed only

[frign]

Cla =!= cla

To be fair, a CLA does not say anything about proprietary licenses.

Many FLOSS projects use CLAs, including Qt, OpenOffice.org and most of the GNU toolchain, and the danger of closing these is rather small.

The only question is whether people trust the organisation to which they transfer their copyright. In the case of GNU, certainly. In the case of Trolltech/Digia, sure (the closed version funds the development and there are contractual safeguards to keep the code free forever). In the case of Oracle, not so much (hence the LibreOffice fork).

So far, Canonical has mostly released FLOSS software. The fear of CLA is a measure of distrust of Canonical as an entity. The Free Software Foundation could close GCC and make it proprietary at any point



Like I said, it is a measure of your distrust of Canonical, rather than an issue with the CLA. You surely don't believe that Emacs, GCC and GLIBC will never be "free" and should be abandoned ASAP.

Good point, but I trust the FSF, because it is not a corporation but a foundation with certain ideals other than maximising profits (-> Canonical).
I personally don't trust Canonical, because they are unreliable even when it comes to the direction they are heading to. It is just a matter of time until they completely divide themselves from GNU/Linux completely; the only thing missing is them developing their own Kernel (j/k).
I don't want to support this pursuit and am happy contributing to Wayland wherever I can.

[Figueiredo]

I'm not that familiar with licenses, but AFAIK, CLA is in any form more evil than MIT license for wayland. So, if I'm right, anyone can reditribute a closed version of wayland, but only canonical would be able to redistribute a closed version of mir right? Or can canonical "revoke" the GPL license to the code through CLA and effectively closing down the code and prohibiting anyone from forking mir?

[jrch2k8]

Interesting. I've not come across this commercial licence. Does it actually exist or is it an hypothetical commercial licence that you are talking about?

I am genuinely interested in knowing.

Also, what would be wrong in offering the same product under a open source licence and a commercial licence?

If I remember correctly, that is what Digia does with Qt and it seems to work out fine for both sides (The business that is Digia and the open source community around Qt).

well step by step

1.) well in practice it doesn't because right now Mir is basically skeleton code but the possibility is very real since they plan to reuse android drivers and those are very restricted and closed source as closed source can possibly be, so a copyleft license could win them some nice legal issues or carriers refusal to accept put ubuntu phone on sell.
2.) is not wrong per se but the copyleft protection is very gray with canonical, in the digia/QT case is a bit different since KDE/Qt foundation have them by the balls with actual legal obligations and agreements and the fact itself that digia will cut their own neck if KDE fork Qt [very bad business image and good chunk of developers from several communities] but if in the specific case of canonical Mir doesn't actually do anything that wayland already do[they can't change wayland license or fork surfaceflinger without google on their backs so they created Mir] and for the mid term future Mir will be Canonical exclusive and ubuntu specific that give them the advantage of do anything they want with very low resistance unlike such a widely used project like Qt.

[pingufunkybeat]

Before giving this unqualified reply to me, you should have read up on the facts: Canonical reserves itself the right to turn every open source-project including all contributions done under the GPL into a proprietary one at any time with its CLA applied to e.g. Mir.

To be fair, a CLA does not say anything about proprietary licenses.

Many FLOSS projects use CLAs, including Qt, OpenOffice.org and most of the GNU toolchain, and the danger of closing these is rather small.

The only question is whether people trust the organisation to which they transfer their copyright. In the case of GNU, certainly. In the case of Trolltech/Digia, sure (the closed version funds the development and there are contractual safeguards to keep the code free forever). In the case of Oracle, not so much (hence the LibreOffice fork).

So far, Canonical has mostly released FLOSS software. The fear of CLA is a measure of distrust of Canonical as an entity. The Free Software Foundation could close GCC and make it proprietary at any point

If you want to commit to it you need to sign this CLA. That's why this project will never be "free" and should be abandoned asap. Everyone supporting this project is just feeding Canonical with his hard work with the risk of it becoming proprietary and "intellectual property".

Like I said, it is a measure of your distrust of Canonical, rather than an issue with the CLA. You surely don't believe that Emacs, GCC and GLIBC will never be "free" and should be abandoned ASAP.

[jayrulez]

Before giving this unqualified reply to me, you should have read up on the facts: Canonical reserves itself the right to turn every open source-project including all contributions done under the GPL into a proprietary one at any time with its CLA applied to e.g. Mir.

If you want to commit to it you need to sign this CLA. That's why this project will never be "free" and should be abandoned asap. Everyone supporting this project is just feeding Canonical with his hard work with the risk of it becoming proprietary and "intellectual property".

So hypothetical then? Also, unless you are using two accounts here, that reply wasn't to you.

[pingufunkybeat]

What's with all these users with a total number of posts in the single digits being extremely defensive to Canonical, and extremely anti-Wayland?

They are here to tell you that Linux could not even boot before Canonical blessed us with a dark GNOME theme and defined Linux as we know it.

Personally, I don't mind Ubuntu, but I don't like the direction Canonical has been taking -- isolationist, controlling, NIH.

In any case, absolutely nothing has changed for me since Ubuntu first arrived. But some of the newer converts who are only familiar with Ubuntu tend to be overprotective. They think Linux didn't exist before that

[frign]

Interesting. I've not come across this commercial licence. Does it actually exist or is it an hypothetical commercial licence that you are talking about?

I am genuinely interested in knowing.

Also, what would be wrong in offering the same product under a open source licence and a commercial licence?

If I remember correctly, that is what Digia does with Qt and it seems to work out fine for both sides (The business that is Digia and the open source community around Qt).

Before giving this unqualified reply to me, you should have read up on the facts: Canonical reserves itself the right to turn every open source-project including all contributions done under the GPL into a proprietary one at any time with its CLA applied to e.g. Mir.

If you want to commit to it you need to sign this CLA. That's why this project will never be "free" and should be abandoned asap. Everyone supporting this project is just feeding Canonical with his hard work with the risk of it becoming proprietary and "intellectual property".