• Steven Schveighoffer (104/110) Jun 10 2010 I want to first qualify that I represent only myself, nobody from Phobos...
• kretinis (10/120) Jun 10 2010 I accept Shoos implementation only with the conditions
• Moritz Warning (5/9) Jun 10 2010 [..]
• Jonathan M Davis (14/28) Jun 10 2010 LOL. I've never used Tango, so I don't know how its time/date code does
• Matthias Pleh (1/10) Jun 11 2010 invalid email-address => useless content
• SHOO (3/114) Jun 10 2010 Thank you for your conclusion. And detailed response is not possible and...
• godobject (5/22) Jun 10 2010 Why should he? He has invested much time on Tango and Tango was much bet...
• =?UTF-8?B?QWxpIMOHZWhyZWxp?= (7/20) Jun 10 2010 Thank you very much for the detailed summary and all of your
• Moritz Warning (11/20) Jun 10 2010 thx!

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:

I want to first qualify that I represent only myself, nobody from Phobos,  
nobody from Tango, not Walter nor Andrei nor Kris nor Lars nor SHOO nor  
anyone but me.

Please see this message:

http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/phobos/2010-June/000783.html

Quoted here completely for convenience:

Walter Bright wrote:

"Although I do not believe that SHOO's work on the date/time is legally
infringing on Tango's time code, I feel there's been enough bad feeling
about this and that we should not include Tango's time api design in  
Phobos.

I apologize to SHOO for this. I know this is unfair to him.

Andrei has given a start to std.gregorian, perhaps SHOO's implementation
work can be transferred to this to help complete it?"

------

So I want to re-stress some points I have made in the past, and respond to  
some statements that have been made by others.

First, let's recap what happened.  According to SHOO, he was a user of  
Tango's time library, and used the online documentation of Tango, and the  
existing implementation of Phobos to write a new Phobos-ified time library  
that was similar to Tango's api.  Having been one of the main authors of  
Tango's time package, I examined SHOO's implementation side-by-side with  
Tango's, I can say that I believe him.  IMO, it's not the same code or  
even derived, it just has a similar feel.

Someone from Tango was alerted to this, and considered it to be infringing  
to the point where he/she called Walter and told him so.  Walter, as  
someone who wants nothing to do with controversy and possible legal  
issues, refused to accept the code based on this accusation.  Note: I was  
not a part of this call, so I do not know what was said exactly in it,  
these are my interpretations of the posts on the newsgroup.

Lars of Tango wrote a message to the Phobos mailing list indicating that  
in his 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."  You can read the entire message  
here: http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/phobos/2010-April/000370.html

Coupled with the phone call asking Walter to block the code, at this  
point, we could just say that Tango was being careful.  But under the  
circumstances, it appears to me that Tango is under the impression that  
simply admitting one has used Tango, combined with having made a library  
inspired by Tango's API, is enough to warrant an accusation of  
infringement.  I don't even know if anyone from Tango examined the code or  
not.

Thus ensued a large discussion (to phrase it politely) in which several  
good ideas for resolving the problem came to light.  Some of them focused  
on getting a boost license for Tango's time code.  It was revealed that  
one of the authors, John Chapman, was not reachable by the Tango team, and  
so it would take some time to get John's permission.  After a few days, I  
took it upon myself to seek out John and get his input.  He responded to  
me positively, and indicated he would alert the Tango team.  If we count  
the four authors listed in the Tango code (I'm somewhat convinced that a  
5th author does not exist), that meant that both John and I had agreed to  
license the time code under the boost license for Phobos.  This left two  
authors.

Out of respect for Tango's ownership of the situation, I let it sit for  
over a week, expecting at any time that someone from Tango would contact  
Walter with good news.  Having heard nothing, I decided to push the matter  
a little further and post to the newsgroup my success with John.  An  
indication from Moritz Warning, a Tango user, was that he had spoken with  
the remaining two authors: "I have asked Kris Bell and Matti Niemenmaa.   
No Problem at all."

This left the infamous 2nd gunma... I mean 5th author.  After requests for  
who this person was on the newsgroup, I got nothing.

Almost two weeks later, I decided to give up temporarily on the 5th  
author, if the other two were OK with it, I could get more leverage to  
finding out who that 5th person was.  I just wanted to make sure I had a  
direct statement from both those authors, as hearsay isn't very good  
evidence.  After posing the question to Moritz, Matti Niemenmaa posted his  
approval of the license change on the newsgroup. (A sincere thank you for  
that!)

Which leads us to Kris.  Apparently, Kris has no comment.  Having no  
comment in this issue is equivalent to saying no without sounding like you  
are saying no.  Because a unanimous 'yes' vote is required to change  
things, abstaining means things will stay the way they are.  That's an  
interesting way to go...

So to answer some questions/comments stated a few months ago:

 have you thought about just asking the authors of the Tango code in 
 question?

No, I hadn't, but I did.  Kris says no (comment).

 I would imagine they would say that they only see a minor resemblance in 
 the api and asking wouldn't even be necessary from their point of view.

I guess your imagination was incorrect.  I don't know why, but Kris does  
not want a non-infringing reimplementation of Tango's time code in Phobos.

 But since W/Phobos is very copyright sensitive, I'm sure they will give 
 the permission.

Nope.

"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 guess I found one.

------

Draw the conclusions you want.  I'll say that Tango developers have every  
right to defend their intellectual property, and every right to insist on  
their license being unchanged.  Walter has every right to decide what code  
gets included in Phobos and under what license.  I have no say in any of  
these matters, I can only observe and provide suggestions/analysis.

To reiterate what someone else said, to me Tango is poison.  It appears to  
me from SHOO's story that just *using* Tango is poison. I feel like all  
the contributions I have made (and the other two authors have made) are  
being held hostage for no good reason (I still don't know why).  I stand  
by my decision to leave that project, and I hope this story has at least  
given you an idea of why.

I also extend Tango an invitation to use any of my code from Phobos,  
druntime, or dcollections and relicense it under their license.  I have no  
problem with people using my code, as long as I can also use it as I see  
fit.

-Steve

P.S., I will not respond to this thread except to make any  
clarifications/corrections.  I've said my share.

kretinis <kret in.is> writes:

== Quote from Steven Schveighoffer (schveiguy yahoo.com)'s article
 I want to first qualify that I represent only myself, nobody from Phobos,
 nobody from Tango, not Walter nor Andrei nor Kris nor Lars nor SHOO nor
 anyone but me.
 Please see this message:
 http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/phobos/2010-June/000783.html
 Quoted here completely for convenience:
 Walter Bright wrote:
 "Although I do not believe that SHOO's work on the date/time is legally
 infringing on Tango's time code, I feel there's been enough bad feeling
 about this and that we should not include Tango's time api design in
 Phobos.
 I apologize to SHOO for this. I know this is unfair to him.
 Andrei has given a start to std.gregorian, perhaps SHOO's implementation
 work can be transferred to this to help complete it?"
 ------
 So I want to re-stress some points I have made in the past, and respond to
 some statements that have been made by others.
 First, let's recap what happened.  According to SHOO, he was a user of
 Tango's time library, and used the online documentation of Tango, and the
 existing implementation of Phobos to write a new Phobos-ified time library
 that was similar to Tango's api.  Having been one of the main authors of
 Tango's time package, I examined SHOO's implementation side-by-side with
 Tango's, I can say that I believe him.  IMO, it's not the same code or
 even derived, it just has a similar feel.
 Someone from Tango was alerted to this, and considered it to be infringing
 to the point where he/she called Walter and told him so.  Walter, as
 someone who wants nothing to do with controversy and possible legal
 issues, refused to accept the code based on this accusation.  Note: I was
 not a part of this call, so I do not know what was said exactly in it,
 these are my interpretations of the posts on the newsgroup.
 Lars of Tango wrote a message to the Phobos mailing list indicating that
 in his 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."  You can read the entire message
 here: http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/phobos/2010-April/000370.html
 Coupled with the phone call asking Walter to block the code, at this
 point, we could just say that Tango was being careful.  But under the
 circumstances, it appears to me that Tango is under the impression that
 simply admitting one has used Tango, combined with having made a library
 inspired by Tango's API, is enough to warrant an accusation of
 infringement.  I don't even know if anyone from Tango examined the code or
 not.
 Thus ensued a large discussion (to phrase it politely) in which several
 good ideas for resolving the problem came to light.  Some of them focused
 on getting a boost license for Tango's time code.  It was revealed that
 one of the authors, John Chapman, was not reachable by the Tango team, and
 so it would take some time to get John's permission.  After a few days, I
 took it upon myself to seek out John and get his input.  He responded to
 me positively, and indicated he would alert the Tango team.  If we count
 the four authors listed in the Tango code (I'm somewhat convinced that a
 5th author does not exist), that meant that both John and I had agreed to
 license the time code under the boost license for Phobos.  This left two
 authors.
 Out of respect for Tango's ownership of the situation, I let it sit for
 over a week, expecting at any time that someone from Tango would contact
 Walter with good news.  Having heard nothing, I decided to push the matter
 a little further and post to the newsgroup my success with John.  An
 indication from Moritz Warning, a Tango user, was that he had spoken with
 the remaining two authors: "I have asked Kris Bell and Matti Niemenmaa.
 No Problem at all."
 This left the infamous 2nd gunma... I mean 5th author.  After requests for
 who this person was on the newsgroup, I got nothing.
 Almost two weeks later, I decided to give up temporarily on the 5th
 author, if the other two were OK with it, I could get more leverage to
 finding out who that 5th person was.  I just wanted to make sure I had a
 direct statement from both those authors, as hearsay isn't very good
 evidence.  After posing the question to Moritz, Matti Niemenmaa posted his
 approval of the license change on the newsgroup. (A sincere thank you for
 that!)
 Which leads us to Kris.  Apparently, Kris has no comment.  Having no
 comment in this issue is equivalent to saying no without sounding like you
 are saying no.  Because a unanimous 'yes' vote is required to change
 things, abstaining means things will stay the way they are.  That's an
 interesting way to go...
 So to answer some questions/comments stated a few months ago:
 have you thought about just asking the authors of the Tango code in
 question?

 No, I hadn't, but I did.  Kris says no (comment).
 I would imagine they would say that they only see a minor resemblance in
 the api and asking wouldn't even be necessary from their point of view.

 I guess your imagination was incorrect.  I don't know why, but Kris does
 not want a non-infringing reimplementation of Tango's time code in Phobos.
 But since W/Phobos is very copyright sensitive, I'm sure they will give
 the permission.

 Nope.
 "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 guess I found one.
 ------
 Draw the conclusions you want.  I'll say that Tango developers have every
 right to defend their intellectual property, and every right to insist on
 their license being unchanged.  Walter has every right to decide what code
 gets included in Phobos and under what license.  I have no say in any of
 these matters, I can only observe and provide suggestions/analysis.
 To reiterate what someone else said, to me Tango is poison.  It appears to
 me from SHOO's story that just *using* Tango is poison. I feel like all
 the contributions I have made (and the other two authors have made) are
 being held hostage for no good reason (I still don't know why).  I stand
 by my decision to leave that project, and I hope this story has at least
 given you an idea of why.
 I also extend Tango an invitation to use any of my code from Phobos,
 druntime, or dcollections and relicense it under their license.  I have no
 problem with people using my code, as long as I can also use it as I see
 fit.
 -Steve
 P.S., I will not respond to this thread except to make any
 clarifications/corrections.  I've said my share.

I accept Shoos implementation only with the conditions

1) No multiplication, division and remainder operations are allowed. Tango used
these operations for date calculation in an original way. All similar uses are
forbidden.

2) Also it is not allowed to implement routines for operations at (1). That
would
be obviously a thinly veiled attempt at stealing Tango code.

3) No use of the words date, time, and calendar are allowed in the code or the
documentation. These words were used creatively by Tango. They cannot be stolen.

I am sure these requirements are reasonable

Moritz Warning <moritzwarning web.de> writes:

On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:10:31 +0000, kretinis wrote:

 == Quote from Steven Schveighoffer (schveiguy yahoo.com)'s article

[..]
 
 I accept Shoos implementation only with the conditions

[..]
 I am sure these requirements are reasonable

Your arguments are futile, explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K83gqiRd2XI

Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmail.com> writes:

kretinis wrote:

 I accept Shoos implementation only with the conditions
 
 1) No multiplication, division and remainder operations are allowed. Tango
 used these operations for date calculation in an original way. All similar
 uses are forbidden.
 
 2) Also it is not allowed to implement routines for operations at (1).
 That would be obviously a thinly veiled attempt at stealing Tango code.
 
 3) No use of the words date, time, and calendar are allowed in the code or
 the documentation. These words were used creatively by Tango. They cannot
 be stolen.
 
 I am sure these requirements are reasonable

LOL. I've never used Tango, so I don't know how its time/date code does 
things, let alone if there's anything original about it. But requiring date 
or time code to not use the words date, time, or calendar? That's like 
saying that code which uses an int can't use the word integer or number. 
It's just plain silly. I sincerely hope that you're not being serious.

Honestly, I don't see any problem with copying APIs as long as they're 
solid, and you don't look at the actual code. However, it does seem that in 
this case, at least, it's best to just do something different with phobos 
and avoid conflict on the matter. There are plenty of different useful ways 
which date and time code can be done, and basing it on a pre-existing, major 
library such as boost (which is what Andrei is doing IIRC) seems to me to be 
a reasonable solution.

- Jonathan M Davis

Matthias Pleh <matthias.pleh gmx.at> writes:

 I accept Shoos implementation only with the conditions

 1) No multiplication, division and remainder operations are allowed. Tango used
 these operations for date calculation in an original way. All similar uses are
 forbidden.

 2) Also it is not allowed to implement routines for operations at (1). That
would
 be obviously a thinly veiled attempt at stealing Tango code.

 3) No use of the words date, time, and calendar are allowed in the code or the
 documentation. These words were used creatively by Tango. They cannot be
stolen.

 I am sure these requirements are reasonable


invalid email-address => useless content

SHOO <zan77137 nifty.com> writes:

(2010/06/10 23:33), Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
 I want to first qualify that I represent only myself, nobody from
 Phobos, nobody from Tango, not Walter nor Andrei nor Kris nor Lars nor
 SHOO nor anyone but me.

 Please see this message:

 http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/phobos/2010-June/000783.html

 Quoted here completely for convenience:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 "Although I do not believe that SHOO's work on the date/time is legally
 infringing on Tango's time code, I feel there's been enough bad feeling
 about this and that we should not include Tango's time api design in
 Phobos.

 I apologize to SHOO for this. I know this is unfair to him.

 Andrei has given a start to std.gregorian, perhaps SHOO's implementation
 work can be transferred to this to help complete it?"

 ------

 So I want to re-stress some points I have made in the past, and respond
 to some statements that have been made by others.

 First, let's recap what happened. According to SHOO, he was a user of
 Tango's time library, and used the online documentation of Tango, and
 the existing implementation of Phobos to write a new Phobos-ified time
 library that was similar to Tango's api. Having been one of the main
 authors of Tango's time package, I examined SHOO's implementation
 side-by-side with Tango's, I can say that I believe him. IMO, it's not
 the same code or even derived, it just has a similar feel.

 Someone from Tango was alerted to this, and considered it to be
 infringing to the point where he/she called Walter and told him so.
 Walter, as someone who wants nothing to do with controversy and possible
 legal issues, refused to accept the code based on this accusation. Note:
 I was not a part of this call, so I do not know what was said exactly in
 it, these are my interpretations of the posts on the newsgroup.

 Lars of Tango wrote a message to the Phobos mailing list indicating that
 in his 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." You can read the entire
 message here:
 http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/phobos/2010-April/000370.html

 Coupled with the phone call asking Walter to block the code, at this
 point, we could just say that Tango was being careful. But under the
 circumstances, it appears to me that Tango is under the impression that
 simply admitting one has used Tango, combined with having made a library
 inspired by Tango's API, is enough to warrant an accusation of
 infringement. I don't even know if anyone from Tango examined the code
 or not.

 Thus ensued a large discussion (to phrase it politely) in which several
 good ideas for resolving the problem came to light. Some of them focused
 on getting a boost license for Tango's time code. It was revealed that
 one of the authors, John Chapman, was not reachable by the Tango team,
 and so it would take some time to get John's permission. After a few
 days, I took it upon myself to seek out John and get his input. He
 responded to me positively, and indicated he would alert the Tango team.
 If we count the four authors listed in the Tango code (I'm somewhat
 convinced that a 5th author does not exist), that meant that both John
 and I had agreed to license the time code under the boost license for
 Phobos. This left two authors.

 Out of respect for Tango's ownership of the situation, I let it sit for
 over a week, expecting at any time that someone from Tango would contact
 Walter with good news. Having heard nothing, I decided to push the
 matter a little further and post to the newsgroup my success with John.
 An indication from Moritz Warning, a Tango user, was that he had spoken
 with the remaining two authors: "I have asked Kris Bell and Matti
 Niemenmaa. No Problem at all."

 This left the infamous 2nd gunma... I mean 5th author. After requests
 for who this person was on the newsgroup, I got nothing.

 Almost two weeks later, I decided to give up temporarily on the 5th
 author, if the other two were OK with it, I could get more leverage to
 finding out who that 5th person was. I just wanted to make sure I had a
 direct statement from both those authors, as hearsay isn't very good
 evidence. After posing the question to Moritz, Matti Niemenmaa posted
 his approval of the license change on the newsgroup. (A sincere thank
 you for that!)

 Which leads us to Kris. Apparently, Kris has no comment. Having no
 comment in this issue is equivalent to saying no without sounding like
 you are saying no. Because a unanimous 'yes' vote is required to change
 things, abstaining means things will stay the way they are. That's an
 interesting way to go...

 So to answer some questions/comments stated a few months ago:

 have you thought about just asking the authors of the Tango code
 inquestion?

 No, I hadn't, but I did. Kris says no (comment).

 I would imagine they would say that they only see a minor resemblance
 inthe api and asking wouldn't even be necessary from their point of view.

 I guess your imagination was incorrect. I don't know why, but Kris does
 not want a non-infringing reimplementation of Tango's time code in Phobos.

 But since W/Phobos is very copyright sensitive, I'm sure they will
 givethe permission.

 Nope.

 "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 guess I found one.

 ------

 Draw the conclusions you want. I'll say that Tango developers have every
 right to defend their intellectual property, and every right to insist
 on their license being unchanged. Walter has every right to decide what
 code gets included in Phobos and under what license. I have no say in
 any of these matters, I can only observe and provide suggestions/analysis.

 To reiterate what someone else said, to me Tango is poison. It appears
 to me from SHOO's story that just *using* Tango is poison. I feel like
 all the contributions I have made (and the other two authors have made)
 are being held hostage for no good reason (I still don't know why). I
 stand by my decision to leave that project, and I hope this story has at
 least given you an idea of why.

 I also extend Tango an invitation to use any of my code from Phobos,
 druntime, or dcollections and relicense it under their license. I have
 no problem with people using my code, as long as I can also use it as I
 see fit.

 -Steve

 P.S., I will not respond to this thread except to make any
 clarifications/corrections. I've said my share.

Thank you for your conclusion. And detailed response is not possible and 
is sorry.

godobject <god hea.ven> writes:

Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:

 So to answer some questions/comments stated a few months ago:
 
 have you thought about just asking the authors of the Tango code in 
 question?

 
 No, I hadn't, but I did.  Kris says no (comment).

What's the problem? If you can't use his code, write your own. Stop
complaining. It's unproductive.

 I would imagine they would say that they only see a minor resemblance in 
 the api and asking wouldn't even be necessary from their point of view.

 
 I guess your imagination was incorrect.  I don't know why, but Kris does  
 not want a non-infringing reimplementation of Tango's time code in Phobos.

Why should he? He has invested much time on Tango and Tango was much better.
Phobos was rebuild from scratch because of serious NIH syndrome by some
weirdos. You're enforcing your stupid 'better than thou' attitude with the crap
Boost license. The real work was already done. Your only contribution will be
to spread the stupid intellectual property propaganda (attribution clause FUD).
You can't beat the old work technically.

 "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 guess I found one.

Yes you did.

 P.S., I will not respond to this thread except to make any  
 clarifications/corrections.  I've said my share.

Good.

=?UTF-8?B?QWxpIMOHZWhyZWxp?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 To reiterate what someone else said, to me Tango is poison.  It appears
 to me from SHOO's story that just *using* Tango is poison. I feel like
 all the contributions I have made (and the other two authors have made)
 are being held hostage for no good reason (I still don't know why).  I
 stand by my decision to leave that project, and I hope this story has at
 least given you an idea of why.

 I also extend Tango an invitation to use any of my code from Phobos,
 druntime, or dcollections and relicense it under their license.  I have
 no problem with people using my code, as long as I can also use it as I
 see fit.

 -Steve

 P.S., I will not respond to this thread except to make any
 clarifications/corrections.  I've said my share.

Thank you very much for the detailed summary and all of your 
contributions to the D community.

Ali

P.S. For the record, I have never used, installed, or looked at Tango 
code. Once, I did follow a link to their online documentation which had 
been pointed out to be very good and useful. I had agreed.

Moritz Warning <moritzwarning web.de> writes:

On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:33:13 -0400, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 I want to first qualify that I represent only myself, nobody from
 Phobos, nobody from Tango, not Walter nor Andrei nor Kris nor Lars nor
 SHOO nor anyone but me.
 

[..]
 
 I also extend Tango an invitation to use any of my code from Phobos,
 druntime, or dcollections and relicense it under their license.  I have
 no problem with people using my code, as long as I can also use it as I
 see fit.

thx!

I understand your sentiments.

As for me, Tango doesn't look harmful and
I contribute small stuff here and there
(as many other ppl do).
It's helpful to focus community efforts.
(Phobos got better in this regards lately)

As for this unfortunate issue,
it's time to move on.