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digitalmars.D - Tango & Phobos

reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
First off, I'm not a copyright lawyer, so my legal opinions are lay.

Secondly, every time D gets mentioned publicly, such as on reddit, someone
posts 
that they won't use D because there are "two standard libraries" and "when will 
D get its act together." This situation is deplorable.

Thirdly, I understand that Tango has upwards of 50 developers, and they do not 
speak with one voice. When I say "Tango representative", it is not how he 
describes himself, except that he has been asked to speak to me on behalf of 
some, I don't know how many, Tango developers. When I say "Tango team", I mean 
the opinion as I interpreted it from the Tango representative.

Sadly, I do not have an identic memory, so I'll just do the best I can to
recall 
our conversation.

I received a call from the Tango representative yesterday saying that some 
developers expressed concern that SHOO's time library proposed submission to 
Phobos may have an "infraction" of the Tango BSD license. The word 
"infringement" was not used, though I think infraction and infringement mean
the 
same thing here.

He expressed the idea that since SHOO was admittedly very familiar with the 
Tango time code, that it was not possible for his time code to be free of 
"taint" from the corresponding Tango code. He was satisfied only by my
agreement 
to block the inclusion of SHOO's time module in Phobos.

The key point here is the Tango team regards it as impossible for someone 
familiar with the internals of a Tango module to make a non-infringing 
reimplementation of its interface.

The discussion next turned to what can be done about it. One possibility was
for 
Phobos to include modules from Tango under the BSD license. That is certainly 
allowed. The problem then is that, since Phobos modules all tend to willy-nilly 
import each other, any use of Phobos will require conformance to the BSD binary 
attribution requirement. I regard this as an unnecessary and unacceptable 
impediment to the adoption of D. That's fine for other libraries, but the 
*standard* library shouldn't be so encumbered.

Yes, I know Google has embraced BSD, but Google can afford to spend a billion 
dollars in legal fees defending their interests. We can't.

On the other hand, wholesale inclusion of Phobos modules into Tango under the 
Boost license will impose zero additional requirements upon users of Tango. It 
is not a symmetric problem. This is why I proposed moving Tango towards the 
Boost license.

I wholly understand that it is impractical to move the entire Tango codebase to 
Boost because some of the developers are not contactable. But, it is entirely 
possible for new modules to be done using Boost, and for existing modules where 
the developers can be located to be relicensed to Boost.

The Tango representative said this was proposed, and there were some
reservations:

1. Since we changed the Phobos license to Boost, we might change it again and 
pull the rug out from under Tango.

The Phobos 1 license was, and remains, a mishmash of Public Domain and various 
homemade open source licenses. This was not acceptable for professional use,
and 
we settled on Boost as the most liberal of the accepted open source licenses
for 
Phobos 2. It would take nothing short of a catastrophe, like the courts 
declaring the Boost license to be invalid, to get us to change it again.


2. Tango having 2 licenses for different parts will confuse people.

This is a reasonable concern. My answer is that we can handle such confusion,
as 
both BSD and Boost licenses are simple and well known. It's a lot better than 
the current situation.


3. The Boost license is "viral".

I think this concern is unfounded.


4. There were some other unspecified reservations.

I invite any that have such reservations to call me off the record on Skype. My 
Skype handle is walter.bright


The only other possibility Tango and Phobos can work together is for individual 
Tango developers to relicense their own code to Boost and put it into Phobos. 
This has happened, for example, with Sean and Don's code.

I reiterate my general and blanket policy of allowing any Tango developers to 
use any part of Phobos I've written for Tango and relicense it as necessary to 
do so. I have not received any reciprocal agreement from the Tango team, though 
I would welcome it.

If I have misstated, misrepresented, or misinterpreted anything, I welcome any 
corrections.

If anyone would like to go on the record about these issues, please post here. 
If anyone wants to go off the record and talk with me directly, I'm available
on 
Skype.

I believe both sides of this have the same goal, the furtherment of D, and want 
an amicable resolution. I promise to do everything I can to make that happen.
Apr 30 2010
next sibling parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> writes:
It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.

I have been assuming the path of least resistance for D2 Tango was for Tango to
replace a few components with their druntime equivalent. That would allow Tango
and Phobos to be installed side by side with no legal problems. Those that use
tango.xxx would have to conform to the BSD license requirements and those that
don't wouldn't.  Providing two alternatives which are mutually compatible is
already a huge step forward from the state of D1. 

Maybe D2 Tango Would one day remove a few modules and use the Phobos
equivalent, or convert some modules to boost license, etc... Those things are
not nearly as important and could be done later. My understanding is that Tango
is kept modular with minimal interdependencies. That should make those kinds of
changes fairly easy.

Walter Bright Wrote:


 First off, I'm not a copyright lawyer, so my legal opinions are lay.
 
 Secondly, every time D gets mentioned publicly, such as on reddit, someone
posts 
 that they won't use D because there are "two standard libraries" and "when
will 
 D get its act together." This situation is deplorable.
 
 Thirdly, I understand that Tango has upwards of 50 developers, and they do not 
 speak with one voice. When I say "Tango representative", it is not how he 
 describes himself, except that he has been asked to speak to me on behalf of 
 some, I don't know how many, Tango developers. When I say "Tango team", I mean 
 the opinion as I interpreted it from the Tango representative.
 
 Sadly, I do not have an identic memory, so I'll just do the best I can to
recall 
 our conversation.
 
 I received a call from the Tango representative yesterday saying that some 
 developers expressed concern that SHOO's time library proposed submission to 
 Phobos may have an "infraction" of the Tango BSD license. The word 
 "infringement" was not used, though I think infraction and infringement mean
the 
 same thing here.
 
 He expressed the idea that since SHOO was admittedly very familiar with the 
 Tango time code, that it was not possible for his time code to be free of 
 "taint" from the corresponding Tango code. He was satisfied only by my
agreement 
 to block the inclusion of SHOO's time module in Phobos.
 
 The key point here is the Tango team regards it as impossible for someone 
 familiar with the internals of a Tango module to make a non-infringing 
 reimplementation of its interface.
 
 The discussion next turned to what can be done about it. One possibility was
for 
 Phobos to include modules from Tango under the BSD license. That is certainly 
 allowed. The problem then is that, since Phobos modules all tend to
willy-nilly 
 import each other, any use of Phobos will require conformance to the BSD
binary 
 attribution requirement. I regard this as an unnecessary and unacceptable 
 impediment to the adoption of D. That's fine for other libraries, but the 
 *standard* library shouldn't be so encumbered.
 
 Yes, I know Google has embraced BSD, but Google can afford to spend a billion 
 dollars in legal fees defending their interests. We can't.
 
 On the other hand, wholesale inclusion of Phobos modules into Tango under the 
 Boost license will impose zero additional requirements upon users of Tango. It 
 is not a symmetric problem. This is why I proposed moving Tango towards the 
 Boost license.
 
 I wholly understand that it is impractical to move the entire Tango codebase
to 
 Boost because some of the developers are not contactable. But, it is entirely 
 possible for new modules to be done using Boost, and for existing modules
where 
 the developers can be located to be relicensed to Boost.
 
 The Tango representative said this was proposed, and there were some
reservations:
 
 1. Since we changed the Phobos license to Boost, we might change it again and 
 pull the rug out from under Tango.
 
 The Phobos 1 license was, and remains, a mishmash of Public Domain and various 
 homemade open source licenses. This was not acceptable for professional use,
and 
 we settled on Boost as the most liberal of the accepted open source licenses
for 
 Phobos 2. It would take nothing short of a catastrophe, like the courts 
 declaring the Boost license to be invalid, to get us to change it again.
 
 
 2. Tango having 2 licenses for different parts will confuse people.
 
 This is a reasonable concern. My answer is that we can handle such confusion,
as 
 both BSD and Boost licenses are simple and well known. It's a lot better than 
 the current situation.
 
 
 3. The Boost license is "viral".
 
 I think this concern is unfounded.
 
 
 4. There were some other unspecified reservations.
 
 I invite any that have such reservations to call me off the record on Skype.
My 
 Skype handle is walter.bright
 
 
 The only other possibility Tango and Phobos can work together is for
individual 
 Tango developers to relicense their own code to Boost and put it into Phobos. 
 This has happened, for example, with Sean and Don's code.
 
 I reiterate my general and blanket policy of allowing any Tango developers to 
 use any part of Phobos I've written for Tango and relicense it as necessary to 
 do so. I have not received any reciprocal agreement from the Tango team,
though 
 I would welcome it.
 
 If I have misstated, misrepresented, or misinterpreted anything, I welcome any 
 corrections.
 
 If anyone would like to go on the record about these issues, please post here. 
 If anyone wants to go off the record and talk with me directly, I'm available
on 
 Skype.
 
 I believe both sides of this have the same goal, the furtherment of D, and
want 
 an amicable resolution. I promise to do everything I can to make that happen.
Apr 30 2010
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread in the Tango 
forums, feel free.
Apr 30 2010
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread in the 
 Tango forums, feel free.


Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878
Apr 30 2010
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
news:hrgbo5$fvo$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread in the 
 Tango forums, feel free.


 Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878


It seems to have been silently deleted...(???)
May 01 2010
next sibling parent Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com> writes:
On 02/05/10 13:55, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky"<a a.a>  wrote in message
 news:hrgbo5$fvo$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright"<newshound1 digitalmars.com>  wrote in message
 news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread in the
 Tango forums, feel free.


 Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878


 It seems to have been silently deleted...(???)


Classy.
May 02 2010
prev sibling parent reply Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
 news:hrgbo5$fvo$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread in the 
 Tango forums, feel free.


 Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878


 
 It seems to have been silently deleted...(???)
 
 


Yup, that's what Stalin would do :)

Joke aside, hot tempered discussion can't bring any good, so its better that
way.
May 02 2010
next sibling parent reply Gurney Halleck <gurney.halleck dune.com> writes:
== Quote from Bane (branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com)'s article

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message
 news:hrgbo5$fvo$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread in the
 Tango forums, feel free.


 Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878


 It seems to have been silently deleted...(???)


 Yup, that's what Stalin would do :)
 Joke aside, hot tempered discussion can't bring any good, so its better that
way.


Srsly?!? Its better to censor Walters informative post because the Tango
Komintern
has no good retort?

The dimwits tried to rewrite history once. They edited the title of Dons bug
report. They failed to explain that too. This time the truth is out there. Tango
leadership deserves no respect.

--
Gurney Halleck
May 02 2010
next sibling parent reply Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:
Gurney Halleck Wrote:


 == Quote from Bane (branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com)'s article

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message
 news:hrgbo5$fvo$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread in the
 Tango forums, feel free.


 Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878


 It seems to have been silently deleted...(???)


 Yup, that's what Stalin would do :)
 Joke aside, hot tempered discussion can't bring any good, so its better that
way.


 
 Srsly?!? Its better to censor Walters informative post because the Tango
Komintern
 has no good retort?
 
 The dimwits tried to rewrite history once. They edited the title of Dons bug
 report. They failed to explain that too. This time the truth is out there.
Tango
 leadership deserves no respect.
 


I meant on topic removal from DM newsgroup. I guess Walther did it, as he is
the one administering it, right? I support his decision for a reason I wrote
above.

As far of Tango leadership and respecting them, time will tell soon. If
Walther, Andrei and the rest of people that are making tremendously hard work
on D can put their ego aside (quest for fame), then what is to say about people
that (face it) do less with Tango and act like their work is more important?

Bottom line is that D should not suffer because of ego of individuals.
May 02 2010
next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Bane" <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:hrk1oi$1o7i$1 digitalmars.com...

 Gurney Halleck Wrote:


 == Quote from Bane (branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com)'s article

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message
 news:hrgbo5$fvo$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer 
 follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread 
 in the
 Tango forums, feel free.


 Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878


 It seems to have been silently deleted...(???)


 Yup, that's what Stalin would do :)
 Joke aside, hot tempered discussion can't bring any good, so its better 
 that way.


 Srsly?!? Its better to censor Walters informative post because the Tango 
 Komintern
 has no good retort?

 The dimwits tried to rewrite history once. They edited the title of Dons 
 bug
 report. They failed to explain that too. This time the truth is out 
 there. Tango
 leadership deserves no respect.


 I meant on topic removal from DM newsgroup. I guess Walther did it, as he 
 is the one administering it, right? I support his decision for a reason I 
 wrote above.


I was talking about the post on Tango's forums that reposted Walter's OP. I 
haven't seen anything deleted on the NG.


 As far of Tango leadership and respecting them, time will tell soon. If 
 Walther, Andrei and the rest of people that are making tremendously hard 
 work on D can put their ego aside (quest for fame), then what is to say 
 about people that (face it) do less with Tango and act like their work is 
 more important?

 Bottom line is that D should not suffer because of ego of individuals.


I've read all the discussion, I think it's very clear (especially from 
Lars's mesage here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos/359 ) 
thst there's been absolutely no ego involved, by anyone, at all. The whole 
thing was all about Walter being told that it may be possible that one of 
tango.time's writers could *IN THEORY* have a potentially legal complaint 
about SHOO's lib. I assume that Lars was the one who informed Walter of this 
(though I'm not certain), and if so, then *NOBODY* has actually made any 
complaint about *THEIR OWN* code being infringed!!

Additionally, it's been made very clear that the whole binary attribution 
thing is staying in Tango *purely* because of difficulties in switching away 
from BSD (While I may disagree that sticking with BSD is the best thing for 
Tango to do, the important thing here is that ego doesn't have a damn thing 
to do with it).

So can we finally knock it off with all the "someone has an ego" bullcrap? I 
fully expect Halleck to keep it up, but that's only because every post he's 
made here has been trolling, and trolls certainly aren't going to care about 
any reasonable argument that gets presented to them. But for everyone else: 
It's done, it's over, QED, there's no flaming egos, give it a rest.
May 02 2010
next sibling parent Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:
 I've read all the discussion, I think it's very clear (especially from 
 Lars's mesage here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos/359 ) 
 thst there's been absolutely no ego involved, by anyone, at all. The whole 
 thing was all about Walter being told that it may be possible that one of 
 tango.time's writers could *IN THEORY* have a potentially legal complaint 
 about SHOO's lib. I assume that Lars was the one who informed Walter of this 
 (though I'm not certain), and if so, then *NOBODY* has actually made any 
 complaint about *THEIR OWN* code being infringed!!
 
 Additionally, it's been made very clear that the whole binary attribution 
 thing is staying in Tango *purely* because of difficulties in switching away 
 from BSD (While I may disagree that sticking with BSD is the best thing for 
 Tango to do, the important thing here is that ego doesn't have a damn thing 
 to do with it).
 
 So can we finally knock it off with all the "someone has an ego" bullcrap? I 
 fully expect Halleck to keep it up, but that's only because every post he's 
 made here has been trolling, and trolls certainly aren't going to care about 
 any reasonable argument that gets presented to them. But for everyone else: 
 It's done, it's over, QED, there's no flaming egos, give it a rest.
 
 


I was under impression that stopping factor is that Tango can't switch to boost
so it and Phobos can share the same license. Or maybe that Tango has problems
with itself switching to single license from current dual licensing thing that
has problems.

I read all links involving this discussion, and frankly, its a mess (too much
details).

Also, I'm not tracking who is troll here, so I take seriously everything I read
that sounds remotely non-trolling.
May 02 2010
prev sibling parent reply Lars Ivar Douchegesund <larsivar douchegesund.net> writes:
== Quote from Nick Sabalausky (a a.a)'s article

 "Bane" <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:hrk1oi$1o7i$1 digitalmars.com...

 Gurney Halleck Wrote:


 == Quote from Bane (branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com)'s article

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message
 news:hrgbo5$fvo$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer
 follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread
 in the
 Tango forums, feel free.


 Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878


 It seems to have been silently deleted...(???)


 Yup, that's what Stalin would do :)
 Joke aside, hot tempered discussion can't bring any good, so its better
 that way.


 Srsly?!? Its better to censor Walters informative post because the Tango
 Komintern
 has no good retort?

 The dimwits tried to rewrite history once. They edited the title of Dons
 bug
 report. They failed to explain that too. This time the truth is out
 there. Tango
 leadership deserves no respect.


 I meant on topic removal from DM newsgroup. I guess Walther did it, as he
 is the one administering it, right? I support his decision for a reason I
 wrote above.


 I was talking about the post on Tango's forums that reposted Walter's OP. I
 haven't seen anything deleted on the NG.


My post was deleted.

--
Lars Ivar Douchegesund
May 02 2010
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Lars Ivar Douchegesund wrote:

 My post was deleted.


I will restore it if you request, and this goes for anyone else in this thread. 
I apologize if I offended you by deleting this thread.

Your post http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos/359 remains.
May 02 2010
next sibling parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org> writes:
On 05/02/2010 03:04 PM, Walter Bright wrote:

 Lars Ivar Douchegesund wrote:

 My post was deleted.


 I will restore it if you request, and this goes for anyone else in this
 thread. I apologize if I offended you by deleting this thread.


It looks like you finally broke down and violated your own stated 
principles by deleting the posts of others (aside from spam) without 
asking. As a reader of this newsgroup, I'm not so much offended as 
surprised and disappointed. How many years has this newsgroup survived 
without such moderation?
May 02 2010
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 It looks like you finally broke down and violated your own stated 
 principles by deleting the posts of others (aside from spam) without 
 asking. As a reader of this newsgroup, I'm not so much offended as 
 surprised and disappointed. How many years has this newsgroup survived 
 without such moderation?


Yes, this is the one and only time I did that. Maybe it was a really bad idea, 
and something we can point to in the future as why it shouldn't be done again.

What do you think?
May 02 2010
next sibling parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org> writes:
On 05/02/2010 05:01 PM, Walter Bright wrote:

 Yes, this is the one and only time I did that. Maybe it was a really bad
 idea, and something we can point to in the future as why it shouldn't be
 done again.

 What do you think?


I suppose you're asking "you" to the community, but anyways: Yes, it was 
a really bad idea. You should restore the posts of others without them 
having to "opt-out" of having their posts deleted. Yes, it is a good 
example of why it shouldn't be done again. Note that the post from Lars 
you deleted shed lots of light and no heat on the matter.

The subject of moderation has been discussed many times. I believe open 
discussion and free speech is worth dealing with the occasional heated 
discussions. I don't see what changed in this instance to make you 
reverse your policy, except for your personal involvement.
May 02 2010
parent reply Justin Spahr-Summers <Justin.SpahrSummers gmail.com> writes:
On Sun, 02 May 2010 18:25:07 -0400, Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org> 
wrote:

 
 On 05/02/2010 05:01 PM, Walter Bright wrote:

 Yes, this is the one and only time I did that. Maybe it was a really bad
 idea, and something we can point to in the future as why it shouldn't be
 done again.

 What do you think?


 
 I suppose you're asking "you" to the community, but anyways: Yes, it was 
 a really bad idea. You should restore the posts of others without them 
 having to "opt-out" of having their posts deleted. Yes, it is a good 
 example of why it shouldn't be done again. Note that the post from Lars 
 you deleted shed lots of light and no heat on the matter.
 
 The subject of moderation has been discussed many times. I believe open 
 discussion and free speech is worth dealing with the occasional heated 
 discussions. I don't see what changed in this instance to make you 
 reverse your policy, except for your personal involvement.


That wasn't the real Lars, nor his actual post. It was blatant trolling; 
just look at the name.
May 02 2010
next sibling parent reply Lars Ivar Douchegesund <lars.ivar douchegesund.net> writes:
== Quote from Justin Spahr-Summers (Justin.SpahrSummers gmail.com)'s article

 On Sun, 02 May 2010 18:25:07 -0400, Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>
 wrote:

 On 05/02/2010 05:01 PM, Walter Bright wrote:

 Yes, this is the one and only time I did that. Maybe it was a really bad
 idea, and something we can point to in the future as why it shouldn't be
 done again.

 What do you think?


 I suppose you're asking "you" to the community, but anyways: Yes, it was
 a really bad idea. You should restore the posts of others without them
 having to "opt-out" of having their posts deleted. Yes, it is a good
 example of why it shouldn't be done again. Note that the post from Lars
 you deleted shed lots of light and no heat on the matter.

 The subject of moderation has been discussed many times. I believe open
 discussion and free speech is worth dealing with the occasional heated
 discussions. I don't see what changed in this instance to make you
 reverse your policy, except for your personal involvement.


 That wasn't the real Lars, nor his actual post. It was blatant trolling;
 just look at the name.


What if my name really is Douchegesund? Does that make it illegal for me to
post?

--
Lars Ivar Douchegesund
May 02 2010
parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Lars Ivar Douchegesund wrote:

 What if my name really is Douchegesund? Does that make it illegal for me to
post?


No. Use whatever name you please.
May 02 2010
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Justin Spahr-Summers" <Justin.SpahrSummers gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:MPG.26479be5b58cc3f9989694 news.digitalmars.com...

 On Sun, 02 May 2010 18:25:07 -0400, Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>
 wrote:

 On 05/02/2010 05:01 PM, Walter Bright wrote:

 Yes, this is the one and only time I did that. Maybe it was a really 
 bad
 idea, and something we can point to in the future as why it shouldn't 
 be
 done again.

 What do you think?


 I suppose you're asking "you" to the community, but anyways: Yes, it was
 a really bad idea. You should restore the posts of others without them
 having to "opt-out" of having their posts deleted. Yes, it is a good
 example of why it shouldn't be done again. Note that the post from Lars
 you deleted shed lots of light and no heat on the matter.

 The subject of moderation has been discussed many times. I believe open
 discussion and free speech is worth dealing with the occasional heated
 discussions. I don't see what changed in this instance to make you
 reverse your policy, except for your personal involvement.


 That wasn't the real Lars, nor his actual post. It was blatant trolling;
 just look at the name.


I think we're all talking about three different posts and getting them all 
confused with each other:

- This one: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos/359  (Posted by 
a Lars *Igesund*)

- A post elsewhere in this very thread that took the post above, replaced 
all the words with the word "blah" and changed the last name to 
"Douchegesund".

- A post on the Tango Forums, that used to be here: 
http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878 but is now gone. This 
one was made by me reposting Walter's original post in this thread, at the 
suggestion of Jason House and Walter (FWIW, we were just trying to be 
helpful. Not that I'm taking it personally or anything).
May 02 2010
prev sibling parent "Scott" <dlist C++.net> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:hrkp7r$30fp$1 digitalmars.com...

 Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 It looks like you finally broke down and violated your own stated 
 principles by deleting the posts of others (aside from spam) without 
 asking. As a reader of this newsgroup, I'm not so much offended as 
 surprised and disappointed. How many years has this newsgroup survived 
 without such moderation?


 Yes, this is the one and only time I did that. Maybe it was a really 
 bad idea, and something we can point to in the future as why it 
 shouldn't be done again.

 What do you think?


I think anarchy doesn't work. The squeeky wheel gets the grease, and on 
and on with the cliches. Think about it analytically. Start from the 
perspective of complete control of product design by one person and at 
the other extreme, er, um, GNU? (I couldn't resist that!). At the other 
extreme, I was about to say, is complete "homogenization". That is, 
"designed by everyone". Somewhere in-between is "design by committee". Of 
course, such a curt view of things doesn't even scratch the surface of 
all the different aspects that are important in product creation and 
development.

I know you are discussing post removal, but the above is relevant, though 
maybe a parallel track. Not that the above is the the climax of this 
post. Let me be blunt: "To filter or not to filter, that is the 
question!" (from the Latin, meaning: green eggs and Ham legs). Sure. Go 
ahead. <insert 10 second pause> Ah, but there is the rub. Torn between 
philosophy and knighthood be you? I've noted that the "noise" in your 
groups is minimal. Hence, leaving those posts inline, seems appropriate. 
Oh, but wait (insert de-emphasized exclamation mark here). Any and all 
posts that "cross the line", should be immediately removed.

Your group. Your line. No generality of whether "to be or not to be" 
applies (always and in all cases, I theorize). Or are you worried about 
being "graded" for it? Don't sweat it, if it's not a job for you, don't 
fake it. Doesn't it suck, Walter, that every little decision you have to 
make becomes cumbersome? If so, I can only offer this (but it is not 
advice, of course): move your locks (from concurrent programming 
techniques 101) to a higher level. "Pffft!" you say, because that is "not 
efficient", not "close to the machine"... blah blah. There is only so 
much you can do with primitives. Everything is not an int.

(This commercial message brought to you by: "I've been on the wagon for a 
week, and I have hayfever! Yeah, I've tried drugs, but nothing works. OK, 
actifed does sometimes, sudafed sucks, but this allergy is quite specific 
and the ONLY thing that helps is what's in resveratrol, but the lab 
version DOES NOT WORK!! Trust me, I know. So I HAVE TO get the pure form 
or I could die. "Pfft!" you say? Pfft, as if you were a witch doctor! 
Which doctor are you? PhD from ... OK, I have GPS. In which gothic 
building did you matriculize? ).

Not to be mired in theories of conspirity or undulationalism(ality), (and 
the neccessity of the parens of the preceding should be obvious, even to 
the casual affectionato), and all humour bones aside, and speaking 
entirely seriously, of course, and with great libations and pursuits of 
poppies noted, but not "necessarily" sought (that was a joke), there is 
only one (obvious, ... well I told her to wear the red dr... nevermind) 
thing left to say: I did not have, nor am I having now, nor to I plan to 
ever again have (aside: <pretend loss of thought to avoid the tedium of 
explaining the relevance or lack thereof> but the important part does 
distract (me), can I place a personal ad in this "news"group? I will 
assume YES so here it is: SWM ISO F! <-- See! I can't even post a 
personal ad without those ancient thinkers "chiming" in. </tangent(?)(you 
decide) off>

To be or not to be... was that a question? Get thee to a 
Wikipedia-for-the-Soul! Where there will be soup. Soup is good. Chips are 
great to. Do you like chips? They are "bad" for you, ya know (;), ;)). 
OK, they may be if you have a chip fetish. It's really so hard to post 
anything because everything seems to be intertwined and all attempts (I'm 
being facetious, no one has attempted such) at unificamorphicating, have 
failed (Bartender! Reason to celebrate! Drinks are ... on HER! And YES, I 
AM BUYING!!!). See, now I have "said it": and those pesky 
feminaz..ATIONALs (yeah, that's the tickey!) are going to flood your 
"news" (news? what news? An elephant walks into a bar. A jackass seated 
at the bar asks the elephant: "have you heard the news?" The elephant 
"listens" to the jackass, sit's concernedly down next to jackass and 
combobulates: "Oh man, I heard the news today.. oh boy. Hi sweety, I'll 
have a gin and tonic, easy on the lime").

OK, OK, OK, I wouldn't want to be classified (Yowza! Sounds SEXY!! "Yeah 
baby, I'm 'classified'. I have outlook, and I'm NOT saying Microsoftism. 
I kinda like you right away, ya know, and ya know I know you know I do, 
and I just wanted you to know that I am not who I appear to be. Not that 
I assert (Assert(vixen) ;) (?)(YOU, do not decide, asshats. :P Do not 
pass 'goet' (yes, do that search on google right now!))) you are gazing 
at my <see later in this sentence>, unbeknownst to others, oops, but it 
is apparently gathering quick attention by the cute american foxes that I 
am  a  WILD AND CRAZY GUY(!!!) and they love my plaid pants and 
especially my buldg.. er, um, my.. BULLDOG(!), (yeah, that's the 
tickey) ) a troll (downza :( ). I posted the above incompletionism (ref: 
"icompletionism", 20historical wiki (can you find it? And you call 
yourself (not you Mr. Walden) a programmer?!)

*** <-- my own invention (use it, or lose it)

So, now we've come full circle. I'm so glad to have this time together. 
Just to share a laugh or sing a song.
(
For those of you still figuring out the important parentheses, ask the 
owner of this group because I don't even know what is appropriate here. 
Hehe, apparently, he doesn't either!
    (
        and no, that is not a "climax". I don't even have 3D glasses, so 
curb yourself
            (
                you know who you are
            )
    )

)
May 02 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Tomasz Stachowiak <spam example.com> writes:
== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 Lars Ivar Douchegesund wrote:

 My post was deleted.


 I will restore it if you request, and this goes for anyone else in


this thread.

 I apologize if I offended you by deleting this thread.
 Your post http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos/359


remains.

Don't worry, I don't think you offended Lars here ;) His real name
definitely isn't "Douchegesund". And if you removed the troll's
earlier post - great!

--
Tomasz Stachowiak
May 02 2010
prev sibling parent Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 Lars Ivar Douchegesund wrote:

 My post was deleted.


 
 I will restore it if you request, and this goes for anyone else in this
thread. 
 I apologize if I offended you by deleting this thread.
 
 Your post http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos/359 remains.


Lars Ivar Igesund is not this person.  I can only assume by the tone of his
mock-name that his posts probably didn't add much to the discussion, so I'm not
sure it matters.

I'm confused why you removed your original post, which I found very well
written and objective.

This whole topic has probably run out of useful discussion, all that is left is
name-calling and hate.  I think we should just accept things are not changing,
and try to get some work done.

-Steve
May 02 2010
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Bane wrote:

 I meant on topic removal from DM newsgroup. I guess Walther did it, as he is
 the one administering it, right? I support his decision for a reason I wrote
 above.


Yes, I did it, it was my idea to do so. I did it for the reason you suggest
(not 
the Stalin one!) but the one about letting our hot tempers cool a bit so 
hopefully we can find the best solution for D, not an ego-driven one.
May 02 2010
parent reply Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 Bane wrote:

 I meant on topic removal from DM newsgroup. I guess Walther did it, as he is
 the one administering it, right? I support his decision for a reason I wrote
 above.


 
 Yes, I did it, it was my idea to do so. I did it for the reason you suggest
(not 
 the Stalin one!) but the one about letting our hot tempers cool a bit so 
 hopefully we can find the best solution for D, not an ego-driven one.
 


As I said, this Stalin thing is joke on efficiency and speed of action was
taken. Comparing Walther to Staling was not my intention.
May 02 2010
next sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Bane wrote:

 As I said, this Stalin thing is joke on efficiency and speed of action was
 taken. Comparing Walther to Staling was not my intention.



No prob, I knew it was a joke <g>.
May 02 2010
prev sibling parent "anggayono" <juwitacemumutglantez yahoo.co.id> writes:
On Sunday, 2 May 2010 at 18:16:59 UTC, Bane wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:


 Bane wrote:

 I meant on topic removal from DM newsgroup. I guess Walther 
 did it, as he is
 the one administering it, right? I support his decision for 
 a reason I wrote
 above.


 
 Yes, I did it, it was my idea to do so. I did it for the 
 reason you suggest (not the Stalin one!) but the one about 
 letting our hot tempers cool a bit so hopefully we can find 
 the best solution for D, not an ego-driven one.
 


 As I said, this Stalin thing is joke on efficiency and speed of 
 action was taken. Comparing Walther to Staling was not my 
 intention.
Aug 19 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Gurney Halleck wrote:

 Srsly?!? Its better to censor Walters informative post because the Tango
Komintern
 has no good retort?
 
 The dimwits tried to rewrite history once. They edited the title of Dons bug
 report. They failed to explain that too. This time the truth is out there.
Tango
 leadership deserves no respect.


It was my suggestion to do this. Please do not blame anyone but me. Emotions
are 
running high, mine included, and I worry that that impairs good judgment. If 
there is a solution, I want to be able to find it without anyone feeling that 
they must lose face.
May 02 2010
parent Gurney Halleck <gurney.halleck dune.com> writes:
== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 Gurney Halleck wrote:

 Srsly?!? Its better to censor Walters informative post because the Tango
Komintern
 has no good retort?

 The dimwits tried to rewrite history once. They edited the title of Dons bug
 report. They failed to explain that too. This time the truth is out there.
Tango
 leadership deserves no respect.


 It was my suggestion to do this. Please do not blame anyone but me. Emotions
are
 running high, mine included, and I worry that that impairs good judgment. If
 there is a solution, I want to be able to find it without anyone feeling that
 they must lose face.


Apologies for misrepresenting the situation.

--
Gurney Halleck
May 03 2010
prev sibling parent Don <nospam nospam.com> writes:
Gurney Halleck wrote:

 == Quote from Bane (branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com)'s article

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message
 news:hrgbo5$fvo$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:hrgag4$cp2$2 digitalmars.com...

 Jason House wrote:

 It is my understanding that several Tango developers no longer follow
 digitalmars.D. I recommend posting to the Tango forums.


 If anyone would like to repost my message initiating this thread in the
 Tango forums, feel free.


 Done: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/878


 It seems to have been silently deleted...(???)


 Yup, that's what Stalin would do :)
 Joke aside, hot tempered discussion can't bring any good, so its better that
way.


 
 Srsly?!? Its better to censor Walters informative post because the Tango
Komintern
 has no good retort?
 
 The dimwits tried to rewrite history once. They edited the title of Dons bug
 report. They failed to explain that too. This time the truth is out there.
Tango
 leadership deserves no respect.


I don't support that conclusion. There's more going on here, I think, 
and without knowing what it is (and how far back it goes), nobody should 
jump to conclusions.

It's now public that we're all confused.
May 02 2010
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Bane wrote:

 Joke aside, hot tempered discussion can't bring any good, so its better that
way.


It was removed at my suggestion. There was nothing underhanded about it, at 
least not by anyone other than myself. It was my words, not anyone else's, so I 
feel I had the right.

The point was, things were getting pretty overheated, and I wished to let
things 
cool down a bit. Let's see how this evolves over the next few days, and not say 
things in the heat of the moment we might regret tomorrow.
May 02 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:hrfn8q$262p$1 digitalmars.com...

 2. Tango having 2 licenses for different parts will confuse people.

 This is a reasonable concern. My answer is that we can handle such 
 confusion, as both BSD and Boost licenses are simple and well known. It's 
 a lot better than the current situation.


I applaud Walter's whole post here, and would like to especially emphasize 
my strong agreement on this point in particular. It's absolutely better than 
the current state, and although I'm neither a member of the Phobos team nor 
the Tango team (nor a lawyer for that matter), after carefully reading all 
of the discussion, every side, it is my firm belief that this is the best, 
surest, clearest path towards solving the whole issue once and for all. I'll 
explain my thoughts:

It is my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that most of Tango has 
been cleared by the respective developers for whatever license change is 
decided. The remaining parts can be clearly labeled in the documentation and 
source as being "currently under BSD due to an inability to either contact 
or obtain permission from the author" (or something to that effect, but more 
thought out than my off-the-top-of-my-head example there). Yes, this *is* a 
bit inconvenient for both Tango devs and Tango users, *however*, unlike all 
other suggestions I've seen (I certainly don't intend to badmouth those 
suggestions, though), it provides a real starting point for a clear path out 
of the whole mess once-and-for-all: Those "BSD" portions can eventually be 
phased-out and/or slowly replaced, or with luck, maybe a few of the 
remaining authors can be contacted/persuaded, and meanwhile, the rest of the 
D/Phobos/Tango worlds can move on.

Again, yes, it would be a pain for everyone, but every other approach seems 
to be a pain too, if not plain unrealistic. The biggest pain of all, of 
course, and the longest-lasting pain, would be allowing things to continue 
in the direction they've been going.

Although I'm not really a Tango dev, I have submitted small patches of code 
in tickets to Tango that did get included, and I've made a few changes to 
the Wiki. I seriously doubt any of that has been significant enough to 
qualify me as a developer that would need to give any permission, especially 
since I've never noticed any request for permission coming my way. But just 
in case I'm wrong, and maybe there was an email mixup somewhere, anyone can 
consider this to be my official permission for Tango (or Phobos, for that 
matter, everyone else willing) to do anything it wants with anything I've 
submitted (My DSource/Tango username is "Abscissa"). If anything else is 
needed my email username is "nick1" and the domain is semitwist.com. If 
there's a problem with that I also have a gmail account named "semitwist".
Apr 30 2010
parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Although I'm not really a Tango dev, I have submitted small patches of code 
 in tickets to Tango that did get included, and I've made a few changes to 
 the Wiki. I seriously doubt any of that has been significant enough to 
 qualify me as a developer that would need to give any permission, especially 
 since I've never noticed any request for permission coming my way. But just 
 in case I'm wrong, and maybe there was an email mixup somewhere, anyone can 
 consider this to be my official permission for Tango (or Phobos, for that 
 matter, everyone else willing) to do anything it wants with anything I've 
 submitted (My DSource/Tango username is "Abscissa"). If anything else is 
 needed my email username is "nick1" and the domain is semitwist.com. If 
 there's a problem with that I also have a gmail account named "semitwist".


Thank you, Nick! This is a great start.
Apr 30 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Robert Clipsham <robert octarineparrot.com> writes:
On 30/04/10 23:57, Walter Bright wrote:

 2. Tango having 2 licenses for different parts will confuse people.


Actually, it would be 3 licenses, as tango is currently dual-licensed.


 4. There were some other unspecified reservations.


I believe one of these was that gradually transitioning to boost would 
be a huge administrative task, and would really slow down the 
development of Tango, as the developers would be busy sorting out 
license issues rather than coding. I think the solution to this would be 
to find a 3rd party who is willing to make the transition for them, so 
they can keep coding and the 3rd party can chase up people and get their 
permission. Of course for this to happen the lead Tango devs would need 
to agree to a move to boost, something I hope they have the sense to 
consider, as it does look like the right path to take to sort out this 
issue once and for all.


 The only other possibility Tango and Phobos can work together is for
 individual Tango developers to relicense their own code to Boost and put
 it into Phobos. This has happened, for example, with Sean and Don's code.


I think this is where we are currently. The issue arises when the 
developers for certain code can't be found, or don't want to re-license. 
This will invariable cause the whole situation to arise again when 
someone decides to make a new module, and it ends up having a similar 
interface to the Tango code for example. I believe the only way forward 
from Phobos' point of view is to use C/C++ libraries with compatible 
licenses as a base rather than Tango, this is unless Tango transitions 
to Boost.


 I reiterate my general and blanket policy of allowing any Tango
 developers to use any part of Phobos I've written for Tango and
 relicense it as necessary to do so. I have not received any reciprocal
 agreement from the Tango team, though I would welcome it.


I don't think this will happen given the 50+ contributors. This said, if 
Tango transitions to boost, you won't need their explicit permission to 
move code into phobos, providing the license stays in tact.


 I believe both sides of this have the same goal, the furtherment of D,
 and want an amicable resolution. I promise to do everything I can to
 make that happen.


It's a shame we're all fighting for the same thing, yet the community is 
becoming split over politics...

--
Robert
May 01 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Gurney Halleck <gurney.halleck dune.com> writes:
== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 I received a call from the Tango representative yesterday saying that some
 developers expressed concern that SHOO's time library proposed submission to
 Phobos may have an "infraction" of the Tango BSD license. The word
 "infringement" was not used, though I think infraction and infringement mean
the
 same thing here.
 He expressed the idea that since SHOO was admittedly very familiar with the
 Tango time code, that it was not possible for his time code to be free of
 "taint" from the corresponding Tango code. He was satisfied only by my
agreement
 to block the inclusion of SHOO's time module in Phobos.
 The key point here is the Tango team regards it as impossible for someone
 familiar with the internals of a Tango module to make a non-infringing
 reimplementation of its interface.


This is worse than I imagined. So they were the bad guys all alone. Lars Ivar &
comp.- shame on you for this crap. The hell with Tango. It needs to die with D1.

--
Gurney Halleck
May 01 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:
For those Tango programmers not willing to change their license: 

They are fucking programmer prima donnas. Tango should prune their work and
continue on without them. Too much good work is at hold because of legal bombs
they planted. Their contribution is clearly useless, even more, harmful.

As for those that can't be reached: hey, either adopt it as anonymous work or
prune it too.

That's what Stalin would do.
May 01 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Lars Ivar Douchegesund <larsivar douchegesund.net> writes:
== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 First off, I'm not a copyright lawyer, so my legal opinions are lay.
 Secondly, every time D gets mentioned publicly, such as on reddit, someone
posts
 that they won't use D because there are "two standard libraries" and "when will
 D get its act together." This situation is deplorable.
 Thirdly, I understand that Tango has upwards of 50 developers, and they do not
 speak with one voice. When I say "Tango representative", it is not how he
 describes himself, except that he has been asked to speak to me on behalf of
 some, I don't know how many, Tango developers. When I say "Tango team", I mean
 the opinion as I interpreted it from the Tango representative.
 Sadly, I do not have an identic memory, so I'll just do the best I can to
recall
 our conversation.
 I received a call from the Tango representative yesterday saying that some
 developers expressed concern that SHOO's time library proposed submission to
 Phobos may have an "infraction" of the Tango BSD license. The word
 "infringement" was not used, though I think infraction and infringement mean
the
 same thing here.
 He expressed the idea that since SHOO was admittedly very familiar with the
 Tango time code, that it was not possible for his time code to be free of
 "taint" from the corresponding Tango code. He was satisfied only by my
agreement
 to block the inclusion of SHOO's time module in Phobos.
 The key point here is the Tango team regards it as impossible for someone
 familiar with the internals of a Tango module to make a non-infringing
 reimplementation of its interface.
 The discussion next turned to what can be done about it. One possibility was
for
 Phobos to include modules from Tango under the BSD license. That is certainly
 allowed. The problem then is that, since Phobos modules all tend to willy-nilly
 import each other, any use of Phobos will require conformance to the BSD binary
 attribution requirement. I regard this as an unnecessary and unacceptable
 impediment to the adoption of D. That's fine for other libraries, but the
 *standard* library shouldn't be so encumbered.
 Yes, I know Google has embraced BSD, but Google can afford to spend a billion
 dollars in legal fees defending their interests. We can't.
 On the other hand, wholesale inclusion of Phobos modules into Tango under the
 Boost license will impose zero additional requirements upon users of Tango. It
 is not a symmetric problem. This is why I proposed moving Tango towards the
 Boost license.
 I wholly understand that it is impractical to move the entire Tango codebase to
 Boost because some of the developers are not contactable. But, it is entirely
 possible for new modules to be done using Boost, and for existing modules where
 the developers can be located to be relicensed to Boost.
 The Tango representative said this was proposed, and there were some
reservations:
 1. Since we changed the Phobos license to Boost, we might change it again and
 pull the rug out from under Tango.
 The Phobos 1 license was, and remains, a mishmash of Public Domain and various
 homemade open source licenses. This was not acceptable for professional use,
and
 we settled on Boost as the most liberal of the accepted open source licenses
for
 Phobos 2. It would take nothing short of a catastrophe, like the courts
 declaring the Boost license to be invalid, to get us to change it again.
 2. Tango having 2 licenses for different parts will confuse people.
 This is a reasonable concern. My answer is that we can handle such confusion,
as
 both BSD and Boost licenses are simple and well known. It's a lot better than
 the current situation.
 3. The Boost license is "viral".
 I think this concern is unfounded.
 4. There were some other unspecified reservations.
 I invite any that have such reservations to call me off the record on Skype. My
 Skype handle is walter.bright
 The only other possibility Tango and Phobos can work together is for individual
 Tango developers to relicense their own code to Boost and put it into Phobos.
 This has happened, for example, with Sean and Don's code.
 I reiterate my general and blanket policy of allowing any Tango developers to
 use any part of Phobos I've written for Tango and relicense it as necessary to
 do so. I have not received any reciprocal agreement from the Tango team, though
 I would welcome it.
 If I have misstated, misrepresented, or misinterpreted anything, I welcome any
 corrections.
 If anyone would like to go on the record about these issues, please post here.
 If anyone wants to go off the record and talk with me directly, I'm available
on
 Skype.
 I believe both sides of this have the same goal, the furtherment of D, and want
 an amicable resolution. I promise to do everything I can to make that happen.


Adapted from http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos/359

I wish to clear the air somewhat regarding this topic.

I mostly feel like saying "Aaaarghh, you all got it wrong!", but I'll rather
try to explain my (and thus to some degree Tango's) stance.

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--
Lars Ivar Douchegesund
May 01 2010
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Lars Ivar Douchegesund" <larsivar douchegesund.net> wrote in message 
news:hri1n3$1870$1 digitalmars.com...

 == Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 First off, I'm not a copyright lawyer, so my legal opinions are lay.
 Secondly, every time D gets mentioned publicly, such as on reddit, 
 someone posts
 that they won't use D because there are "two standard libraries" and 
 "when will
 D get its act together." This situation is deplorable.
 Thirdly, I understand that Tango has upwards of 50 developers, and they 
 do not
 speak with one voice. When I say "Tango representative", it is not how he
 describes himself, except that he has been asked to speak to me on behalf 
 of
 some, I don't know how many, Tango developers. When I say "Tango team", I 
 mean
 the opinion as I interpreted it from the Tango representative.
 Sadly, I do not have an identic memory, so I'll just do the best I can to 
 recall
 our conversation.
 I received a call from the Tango representative yesterday saying that 
 some
 developers expressed concern that SHOO's time library proposed submission 
 to
 Phobos may have an "infraction" of the Tango BSD license. The word
 "infringement" was not used, though I think infraction and infringement 
 mean the
 same thing here.
 He expressed the idea that since SHOO was admittedly very familiar with 
 the
 Tango time code, that it was not possible for his time code to be free of
 "taint" from the corresponding Tango code. He was satisfied only by my 
 agreement
 to block the inclusion of SHOO's time module in Phobos.
 The key point here is the Tango team regards it as impossible for someone
 familiar with the internals of a Tango module to make a non-infringing
 reimplementation of its interface.
 The discussion next turned to what can be done about it. One possibility 
 was for
 Phobos to include modules from Tango under the BSD license. That is 
 certainly
 allowed. The problem then is that, since Phobos modules all tend to 
 willy-nilly
 import each other, any use of Phobos will require conformance to the BSD 
 binary
 attribution requirement. I regard this as an unnecessary and unacceptable
 impediment to the adoption of D. That's fine for other libraries, but the
 *standard* library shouldn't be so encumbered.
 Yes, I know Google has embraced BSD, but Google can afford to spend a 
 billion
 dollars in legal fees defending their interests. We can't.
 On the other hand, wholesale inclusion of Phobos modules into Tango under 
 the
 Boost license will impose zero additional requirements upon users of 
 Tango. It
 is not a symmetric problem. This is why I proposed moving Tango towards 
 the
 Boost license.
 I wholly understand that it is impractical to move the entire Tango 
 codebase to
 Boost because some of the developers are not contactable. But, it is 
 entirely
 possible for new modules to be done using Boost, and for existing modules 
 where
 the developers can be located to be relicensed to Boost.
 The Tango representative said this was proposed, and there were some 
 reservations:
 1. Since we changed the Phobos license to Boost, we might change it again 
 and
 pull the rug out from under Tango.
 The Phobos 1 license was, and remains, a mishmash of Public Domain and 
 various
 homemade open source licenses. This was not acceptable for professional 
 use, and
 we settled on Boost as the most liberal of the accepted open source 
 licenses for
 Phobos 2. It would take nothing short of a catastrophe, like the courts
 declaring the Boost license to be invalid, to get us to change it again.
 2. Tango having 2 licenses for different parts will confuse people.
 This is a reasonable concern. My answer is that we can handle such 
 confusion, as
 both BSD and Boost licenses are simple and well known. It's a lot better 
 than
 the current situation.
 3. The Boost license is "viral".
 I think this concern is unfounded.
 4. There were some other unspecified reservations.
 I invite any that have such reservations to call me off the record on 
 Skype. My
 Skype handle is walter.bright
 The only other possibility Tango and Phobos can work together is for 
 individual
 Tango developers to relicense their own code to Boost and put it into 
 Phobos.
 This has happened, for example, with Sean and Don's code.
 I reiterate my general and blanket policy of allowing any Tango 
 developers to
 use any part of Phobos I've written for Tango and relicense it as 
 necessary to
 do so. I have not received any reciprocal agreement from the Tango team, 
 though
 I would welcome it.
 If I have misstated, misrepresented, or misinterpreted anything, I 
 welcome any
 corrections.
 If anyone would like to go on the record about these issues, please post 
 here.
 If anyone wants to go off the record and talk with me directly, I'm 
 available on
 Skype.
 I believe both sides of this have the same goal, the furtherment of D, 
 and want
 an amicable resolution. I promise to do everything I can to make that 
 happen.


 Adapted from http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos/359

 I wish to clear the air somewhat regarding this topic.

 I mostly feel like saying "Aaaarghh, you all got it wrong!", but I'll 
 rather
 try to explain my (and thus to some degree Tango's) stance.

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This made no sense to me until I looked at the link. The non-"blah"-ified 
version is here for those who (like me) would rather not use a web 
interface:

From: Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar ...>
Subject: Licensing in Tango and elsewhere
Newsgroups: gmane.comp.lang.d.phobos
Date: 2010-04-30 08:17:34 GMT (1 day, 13 hours and 15 minutes ago)

Hi folks,

I wish to clear the air somewhat regarding this topic.

I mostly feel like saying "Aaaarghh, you all got it wrong!", but I'll rather
try to explain my (and thus to some degree Tango's) stance.

Lets first start by defining incompatible licenses. This is entirely a user
issue, and ocassionally applies if the user uses two libraries with licenses
that conflict. This almost only ever happen if one of those licenses is the
GPL. It certainly does not happen between BSD and Boost.

So what is the issue here? It is truly impractical to have different
licenses littering a code base, so every library writer wish to avoid that.
And thus to include code from a different library with a different license,
a release of rights/relicensing may be necessary (at least in the case
moving from a stricter to a less strict license).

Then there is the case of dual licenses, such that Tango has. This tends to
make all types of interaction, such as outlined in the above paragraphs,
even more complex. I like to think that we had good reasons for making Tango
dual licensed back in the days, but in the end it has caused little more
than grief. Thus, prior to Don's Boost ticket, we started to discuss the
possiblity of a license change.

Since the BSD to some (me included) appears to be less than ideal due to the
binary attribution clause, we initially sought for an entirely new
alternative. We generally really like the Apache 2.0 license, and as
probably most other licenses, it is the result of thourough legal
counseling. The Apache Foundation is no small actor in the "open source
market". I think Boost is a nice license too, but as I will get back to, it
is a tad less restrictive than the BSD. The AFL we just dismissed, as it
just isn't well enough known (it is however a good license, written by a
lawyer specialized in software licensing issues).

To change the license of a library such as Tango is a major process, not the
least because it over the times have got over 50 contributors to the code,
some that today are really difficult to get to (we have failed when trying
to get in touch with a couple of them). So when looking to change the
license, we actually had to look into the likely case of "what can we do in
the case where we lack an acceptance from some of the contributors?". We
certainly can't move to a less restrictive license, but the AFL is
considered equal enough to the Apache 2.0, such that a relicense wasn't
totally infeasible.

At about this point in time, Don created his license ticket. In retrospect,
me changing the description of it, was probably a bad idea. The alternative,
given the restrictions outlined above, would have been just to close it
though. In any case, I am sorry if this has aggravated you Don, I certainly
didn't intend to.

In the end, we also decided against the Apache 2.0 move, the AFL<->Apache
link was just not clear enough, and we wished to avoid any potential issues
there. Looking at the options now, we ended up with the BSD, which Tango
already is licensed under.

Binary attribution clause:
This is the only actual difference between Boost and BSD, Boost otherwise
appear to be fully derived from the BSD license. Now, what does it mean?
Well, it typically mean that you don't get away from the copyright
obligations in the license, just because you have compiled the code. How you
comply with this, is up to yourself. For a product, the most obvious
solution would probably be to put a note in the documentation. OSX has taken
a different route if I understand correctly, by noting it in the boot
messages. This is of course entirely possible with Tango too, however we
think it will be good service to our users to make it possible to include
the text as a string in the binary, since that is also in compliance.

I will note further that there is an abundance of BSD licensed software out
there, which to my knowledge never really caused any harm, neither to the
libraries themselves, or to commercial businesses. (Whether this is because
all ignore the binary attribution clause, and noone tries to enforce it, I
do not know). In fact, BSD is a really popular license among copmanies such
as Google. For Tango, we believe this to be a good thing, as we ocassionally
also wish to use external code, and the best (ignoring stuff licensed as
L/GPL for now) almost always turns out to be BSD.

So in the end, Tango is in terms of licensing, really bound to decisions
made about 6 years ago, when Mango was started (as the very first project on
dsource), and those decisions were made such that the library should have a
license compatible with Phobos, seen from the user. That was true then, and
it is true today.

As for what prompted this discussion in the first place, tango.time, it is
not about being asinine or anything else. In my opinion, claiming a clean
room implementation of an API in D is difficult, if for no other reason that
it is (due to imperfect doc generation etc) somewhat difficult to properly
study a D API without at the same time reading the source (or glimpsing at
it). Even if you have good intentions, as I'm sure Shoo had, it is important
to know this, there may be less forgiving actors out there. I also think it
is civil to inform the originators if you go into such a process, and note
in the docs where the inspiration comes from, even if not required for an
API per se. Now I wasn't one of the contributors to the modules in question
(tango.time is a package fwiw, not just one module), but I can say that the
question stated by Walter (making license concessions wrt this package) will
in any case apparently take a few days to get an answer to from all relevant
parties.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
May 01 2010
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:
[...]

Clearly it is not possible to unring a bell, and bad manners to try. I
apologize.
May 02 2010