[pkg-x2go-devel] Bug#784565: Bug#784565: nx-libs-lite: parts are derived from non-free code

Tue May 12 15:41:55 UTC 2015

Hi Kevin,

thanks for your feedback. Let us wait for Francesco, our expert on license issues, and see what he thinks about your feedback.

Thank you very much for providing info and sharing pieces of nx-libs's history.

As you sent your reply to the Debian bug tracker already, this will public statement enough, I guess.

Thanks a lot,
Mike

-- 

DAS-NETZWERKTEAM
mike gabriel, herweg 7, 24357 fleckeby
fon: +49 (1520) 1976148

GnuPG Key ID 0x25771B13
mail: mike.gabriel at das-netzwerkteam.de, http://das-netzwerkteam.de

----- Original message -----
> Hi Mike, et al,
> 
>         I am not the original author of dxpc, that being Brian Pane.
> However, I took over maintenance circa 1999 and am still the primary
> maintainer (though the project has effectively been dead for most of a
> decade now).
> 
>         As you are aware, when I inherited the code, it was licensed under a
> variant of the BSD license that did not include the 'with modification'
> clause. To the best of my recollection, somebody from the FSF contacted
> me circa 2001 regarding this and as a result, subsequent releases were
> done under a standard 2-clause BSD license with the modification clause.
> Again, to the best of my recollection, I contacted Brian about this
> change and he offered no objection.
> 
>         Further, I recall distinctly that NoMachine contacted me and
> explicitly asked permission before including DXPC code in NX, which I
> happily granted with no new conditions beyond the BSD license already in
> play.
> 
>         It is possible, though by no means certain, that I could dig up
> ancient email to corroborate this account if necessary. However, I am
> more than willing to publicly state that I believe NoMachine's use of
> DXPC code to be both legal and ethical, and that my intent when changing
> the license to 2-clause BSD was simply to clarity the existing intent
> and that it ought therefore be considered retroactive.
> 
>         Yours,
>               Kevin Vigor
> 
> On 05/11/15 22:46, Mike Gabriel wrote:
> > Dear Kevin,
> > 
> > (I Cc: several people involved in this, also the X2Go development
> > mailing list...)
> > 
> > [If you feel unconfortable with discussing the details / the impact of
> > the below in public, feel free to answer to me directly first with
> > questions and concerns, before answering to all people who are listed
> > in Cc:.]
> > 
> > Someone from the Debian legal team recently brought up a license issue
> > discovered in nx-libs 3.x series.
> > 
> > TL;DR; Suggested by Francesco Poli from the Debian legal team: """
> > (A) someone gets in touch with DXPC copyright owners and asks them
> > whether the re-licensing [in 2002] may be considered retroactive
> > (applicable to older versions of DXPC); in case the answer is
> > negative, DXPC copyright owners should be persuaded to make the
> > re-licensing retroactive """
> > 
> > The person contacting you about the above question is me. Mike
> > Gabriel, Debian Developer and one of the current upstream maintainers
> > of nx-libs 3.x (previously also know as   "NX redistributed" for X2Go)
> > [1].
> > 
> > This issue requires some time of reading from you and (hopefully) a
> > public statement, that the original DXPC code can be considered as
> > BSD-2-clause (the current license) also for released versions prior
> > 2002 when the ancient BSD license template [2] was still shipped with
> > DXPC.
> > 
> > For a complete follow-up, please check Debian bug #784565 [3].
> > 
> > We are aware that NoMachine forked DXPC at some early stage around the
> > year 2000 and wrote their own commercial product around it. Obviously,
> > this fork happened before 2002 (i.e., before DXPC release 3.8.1), as
> > libxcomp3 in NoMachine's NX ships the previously used BSD license
> > template. I am not sure, if that fork was easy for you or actually a
> > nuisance. I may only guess at this point. I'd be happy to know more
> > (maybe not in this mail thread, though).
> > 
> > NoMachine has stopped publishing NXv3 updates a couple of years ago
> > (2011 IIRC), now. The maintenance has been moved into the hands of the
> > currently available FLOSS projects "X2Go", "Arctica Project" [NEW] and
> > "TheQVD". Some of us are running a business model on top of that
> > (consultancy, support contracts, feature development contracts), some
> > of us spend a lot of their free time on improving / maintaining
> > nx-libs (as we call NoMachine's NXv3 at the moment).
> > 
> > To outline the impact of my mail clearly: If you say that it was not
> > legal by NoMachine to fork DXPC at the given time (before 2002), then
> > all FLOSS remote desktop / remote application would be in real
> > trouble, because then the core component of their software projects
> > could not be considered as free (as in DFSG, Debian free software
> > guidelines[4]) anymore. Also the code changes originally performed by
> > NoMachine might have been illegal in the first place. All current
> > maintenance activities and also planned future development on nx-libs
> > would become questionable.
> > 
> > Thus, I hope you can chime in on this: Dear developers of nx-libs,
> > please assume the BSD-2-license as retroactive and applicable to DXPC
> > version earlier than 3.8.1. As the copyright holder, I agree with
> > modifications of code bases that originate before the change to
> > BSD-2-clause license got introduced in 3.8.1 of DXPC.
> > 
> > And... I will bring up that question later (but it is burning under my
> > nails)... Be sure: The nx-libs maintainers would be happy to have the
> > original DXPC author on the nx-libs developer team. But I will bring
> > up that question later (when this very issue is settled). ;-)
> > 
> > Greets,
> > Mike
> > 
> > [1] https://github.com/ArcticaProject/nx-libs
> > [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses#Previous_license
> > [3] http://bugs.debian.org/784565
> > [4] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines
> > 
> > On   Mo 11 Mai 2015 21:36:59 CEST, Francesco Poli wrote:
> > 
> > > On Mon, 11 May 2015 09:26:36 +0000 Mike Gabriel wrote:
> > > 
> > > [...]
> > > > As it seems, dxpc has been long ago relicensed to BSD-2-clause (for
> > > > v3.8.1 in/around 2002).
> > > 
> > > This is great news, indeed!
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > I have no exact clue, if NoMachine forked prior to that (if they
> > > > quote the old licensing terms, then probably they did).
> > > 
> > > Yep, it's plausible...
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > However, how do you see the situation considering that upstream
> > > > changed to BSD-2-clause a long time ago. What approach do you
> > > > propose for nx-libs-lite to get the issue fully fixed?
> > > 
> > > If the fork has been performed before the DXPC re-licensing (as it's
> > > likely), I see two possible strategies:
> > > 
> > > (A) someone gets in touch with DXPC copyright owners and asks them
> > > whether the re-licensing may be considered retroactive (applicable to
> > > older versions of DXPC); in case the answer is negative, DXPC
> > > copyright owners should be persuaded to make the re-licensing
> > > retroactive
> > > 
> > > (B) nx-libs-lite upstream developers re-fork from scratch, basing the
> > > new code on a BSD-licensed version of DXPC (I suspect this may turn
> > > out to be somewhat painful...)
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Obviously, the optimal solution is (A). I hope it may work...
> > > 
> > > Thanks for your time and for your prompt and kind replies.
> > 
> > 
> 