LLVM Is Still Working On Relicensing, Needs Help Locating Some Past Contributors

[GrumpyLinuxUser]

At least two people on the list should not be hard to find: Janne Grunau (dav1d, x264), Markus Oberhumer (LZO, UPX).
And the first guy on the list (Eric Fiselier) with 250.000 lines of code seems to be a Googler with recent activity on LLVM code review web app (even though list states last contribution in 2019).

[M@GOid]

If they originally went with a GPL license, they wouldn't be in this mess...







*hides under the desk for cover...

[bug77]

Serious question if anyone knows the answer. What happens in the case where the original author of some code has since passed away? I have thought about this before and do not know the answer. But I am curious.

That's the easy question. The hard question is who do you contact when a 200 line long file has been patched over time by 10 contributors until there's nothing left of the original implementation?

[StarterX4]

At least few of them could've pass away. Since many of those contribs reach the times of 2007-2012, I really wouldn't be suprised. ~97% is imo the honest percent of signatures.

[bridgman]

If they originally went with a GPL license, they wouldn't be in this mess...

How would that help ? I don't think there is anything in the GPL license text that allows relicensing to Apache, is there ?

[M@GOid]

How would that help ? I don't think there is anything in the GPL license text that allows relicensing to Apache, is there ?

I was trolling...

[brad0]

If they originally went with a GPL license, they wouldn't be in this mess...

Obvious troll is obvious. Most of the user base wouldn't exist then.

[Alexmitter]

I kind of hope that a few of the still missing large line count contributors refuse the re-licensing.

[mdedetrich]

The purist in me agrees, but in practice those are all perfectly good and there are a lot better things to do with ones time.

A 'broad-tent' set of criteria like the DFSG (which later became the basis of the OSD) is a feature, not a bug.

Now, if you're starting a new project, yes you should absolutely choose one of the big established open source licenses rather than inventing your own.

Its not just about purism, its a massive PITA when legal is involved. Working at a company that is open source first, its a LOT easier when projects use well established licenses rather than coming up with their own because the legal precedent is already known for commonly used licenses.

If they originally went with a GPL license, they wouldn't be in this mess...







*hides under the desk for cover...

Not sure why you are specifically mentioning GPL here, this problem would have been avoided if they used any well established license (not just GPL). I suspect this is mainly a case of university having license vanity and wanting to come up with their own license to feel special.

[_r00t-]

I think it's better to switch to LGPL