Shen 17 released under BSD license | Hacker News Reader

Shen 17 released under BSD license

shenlanguage.org

First of all, thank you for changing the license to BSD. This is a really happy news. Reading all the discussions including Google Group, HN, and Reddit so far, to deal with the concerns of hga and others, is it possible to just move the comment part of the licence.pdf to porting.htm? Perhaps the main motivation of the changes to BSD was to encourage shenturions and potential shenturions to use Shen at work, and we are almost there. If you do that, then nobody will claim the licence, and we can move forward. We don't want to see anymore hatred just because of the licence issue. We want to focus on developing real applications using Shen at work and see the Land of Shen to expand. Please consider if you think this is reasonable. Thanks

You should make this appeal on the Google Group (https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/qilang) although based on the latest discussion (https://groups.google.com/d/msg/qilang/qGHfX3Iimqk/PBQerwjM2...) that would be unlikely to sway the author, might even be highly unwelcome.

Nope, it isn't.

Or rather, it now has a 3 clause BSD licence with an additional "Comment on BSD, GPL and Copyright": http://www.shenlanguage.org/license.pdf which is significantly longer than the 3 clauses minus the all caps disclaimer of warranty boilerplate.

Which might be acceptable, it looks OK at first glance (compared to an unacceptable initial version presented yesterday), but it does add to the overhead in doing things with Shen. Fatally? I don't know, but the usual dismissal that "It's got a weird licence" still holds, even if it has less weight now.

The license text as found in the Shen and KLambda sources lacks the "Comment on..." section, i.e. it's boilerplate 3-clause BSD.

Apparently, Dr. Tarver intends the license.pdf file to serve as a "licensing guide" for would-be port authors, while not intending to add terms or conditions to the BSD license by way of the Comments section. I think that intention could be made a bit more explicit, but I'm satisfied that the license as given in the sources is plain vanilla 3-clause BSD.

Perhaps a better solution would be to have a license.pdf file which contains only the BSD text and a separate PDF file which gives commentary on the license. Someone mentioned that possibility on the mailing list yesterday; if there's enough hubbub about it, perhaps Dr. Tarver will implement the suggestion.

I am doubtful that a BSD license excludes the possibility of a port author licensing the port author's own original code under a GPL license, though that seems to me to be Dr. Tarver's conclusion. At most, I think Dr. Tarver could choose to withhold certification from and refuse to list on the download page any port that includes GPL'd code.

However the pdf file is part of the source package, and presumably future ports. This is at the level were lawyers would have to be consulted to be sure this interpretation is correct (and that's a per country thing...), and that brings us back to negating the #1 advantage to Shen being "BSD licensed", you don't have to run it by "legal".

His purpose in this is to prevent any one of a number of GPL related stunts, such as explicit re-licensing as was attempted on a painfully reverse engineered OpenBSD driver, or declaring a GPL license on an entire Shen distribution. Of course no part of the standard library will have a GPL or other viral license.

He's OK with e.g. a Scientific Shen distribution incorporating the GPLed GNU Scientific Library, just as long as the, err, virility in both practice and claims is controlled. If he were to accept such a distribution on the downloads page, it would be very clearly marked.

And addressing your final point while emphasizing mine, I don't believe he's trying to "[exclude] the possibility of a port author licensing the port author's own original code under a GPL license". He's just saying, or trying to say, you couldn't then claim GPL over the whole distribution including his modified BSD licensed code.

Given that we've come to different conclusions about this (granted, I've been involved in this BSD effort for almost a month, and entirely approve of his ends, just not his means), I'm even more confident of my position. And thus Shen will continue to be kneecapped in trying to gain market share, something he's declared to be entirely comfortable with.

I think we're agreed that the present approach is not optimal. I share your concerns about having to "run it by legal".

I would prefer the Comments section to be preceded by a highly explicit statement of intention:

"End of the license text. The following statements are the copyright holder's comments on the license and in no way add any terms or conditions to those given above."

Or something like that. Better yet, the comments could be moved to a separate file; but now I'm repeating myself...

I also share your interpretation of the motives. I read carefully all of the material linked from Dr. Tarver's recent license-related posts to the Shen mailing list, and your replies as well.

The sentence under Comments that is causing confusion reads: "This work may be placed under any license of choice except GPL..."

The subject of the previous sentence is "original code", which leads me to understand "[t]his work" as referring to the same. But perhaps you're correct and it's referring back to Shen itself.

"End of the license text...."

Just about exactly that was proposed by someone, and implicitly rejected in the redraft :-(.

Erk, I think you're interpretation is "right", as in that's the clearest way to read those sentences. I was going by one reading of the intent from the historical discussion, which matters less than the actual legal language.

His intent might be exactly this, a Shen distribution cannot include GPLed code you write because of what he believes about the virality of the GPL, and the very bad behavior he's noted from RMS/FSF/SFLC (that I personally attested to/added from the '80s). As I recall, he also was unhappy with how GPLing Qi V1 worked out, or didn't, but you don't really need all that to treat the GPL like garlic and holy water, e.g. I've noted that the most successful implementations of niche languages have less severe licences.

Yep, "run it by legal", which just isn't going to work when there are so many competitive languages, e.g. other Lisps including the very tasty Clojure, and non-Lispy functional languages which Shen is trying to make Lisp competitive with.

Again Harold, a falsehood. Since you have contributed to two threads with the same misinformation, I'll make this clear, not for you, but for everybody else.

Shen is under BSD and anybody who downloads it can see this. The 1/3 page of comment in the pdf is simply pointing out copyright law, mainly for platform holders (and you're not one having sent no code). Everything was thrashed out in fine detail and agreed on before the change.

For other hackers, none of this will register with Harold who will simply continue to spout as he likes to do and write emails to me, but everybody else can find out for themselves by downloading.

I'm not going to feed your self-importance by entering into public correspondence with you. This is all I'm going to write. If others want to get down with you, they can.

This is no different as if the master license text had a "comments" section which said that the license was only for non-commercial use. This has happened many times before, and the legal consensus for it as been more or less the same: The work is under a inconsistent license.

What happen if a person download Shen from a redistributor who had only included source files and no master license file? Can that person then write changes under GPL without being under threat from copyright violations? What if distribution like debian got a GPL package that depend (i.e. links) on Shen?

A lawyer would ask a simple question: What is the authors intention with the license? If it is "changes can be under any license except GPL", then it do not matter if its the authors interpretation of copyright or an explicit license requirement. If the intention is "no changes which is licensed under GPL", then that is the wishes of the author and the legal requirement a distributor has to follow.

Perhaps I should limit myself to pointing out that:

"Everything was thrashed out in fine detail and agreed on before the change."

Is demonstrably false. About a day before the planned release of "BSD licensed" Shen 17, we were presented with this language for the master license:

The Shen license

Shen is under a 3 clause BSD license from 2015.

[ The standard language. ]

This license appears in the file BSD.

This license applies to all derived versions of Shen, including all versions derived from the sources provided whatever the method of compilation and the object code generated. This is the reason for clause 2 in the BSD. Such derived works should carry the above license on those source files generated – or with the files if they are binary. Any original code specifically written by the programmer which not derived from the sources supplied is and should be copyrighted to that programmer. This work may be placed under any license of choice except GPL because of the viral condition (see next paragraph)

There is no legal right to relicense or sublicense BSD code or any derived version to another license (e.g. GPL). The power to place a license on a work belongs to the copyright holder.

A person does not assume copyright over a work by making a small change to it. Only if the change is substantial to be deemed intellectually significant can such a claim be made and then only over the change itself. Hence if changing code, if you wish to retain copyright over your changes and they are intellectually significant, offset these changes under your copyright.

[ And Shen certification stuff. ]

There was no prior discussion that I can remember of adding language to the master license file, let alone "hashing out", and after multiple protests, the added language was retained with the 2nd paragraph appended to the 1st and the certification stuff moved to another file, with the following reframing. The initial two lines were changed to:

The Shen License = 3 Clause BSD

Shen is under a 3 clause BSD license from 2015. This license appears in the file BSD in the sources.

And the transition after the BSD license text was given this title:

Comment on BSD, GPL and Copyright

> There was no prior discussion that I can remember

Actually, Harold, you are either very stupid or have Alzheimer's or are a liar. In fact there was a very long discussion, initiated by me, about GPL and BSD to which you contributed a long irrelevant rambling reminiscence about Stallman. In it I discussed this very point and there was no dispute from you - nor from anyone else as to the legal point I was making.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qilang/mVSJIyp-OhM

Again there was another long thread, in which I explained about copyright and the course we were to follow

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qilang/hWCTdM-0E0c

In fact there were two weeks of open discussion in which I went into detail reiterating the same points several times and leaving the space open for debate precisely so we could have a common understanding. And we all, that is, everybody who actually is making a code contribution, came to an agreement about the law. And strangely we did not miss your sunny personality one bit.

And after that Shen went to BSD and these copyright points were put into a brief paragraph to remind the people involved what copyright law means and we discussed how to present this to be clear. After we went to BSD. And you were and are mainly irrelevant to that process.

And really these paragraphs are not written for you, because I regard you as pointless. It is written for those on the outside. Shen is BSD.

Please quote me in full thoughts. What I said was:

> There was no prior discussion that I can remember of adding language to the master license file, let alone "hashing out"

Hashing out of that added language, like, oh, this: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/qilang/qGHfX3Iimqk/PBQerwjM2.... You are welcome to point out a specific message broaching this concept prior to this one two days ago https://groups.google.com/d/msg/qilang/WLwJmlxtXSU/rlG9j0SOn... which starts out saying:

"We had a long discussion about copyright and licensing and I've brought it together under a document which will be incorporated into the sources. You can find it here"

Which then pointed to the master licence file I quoted above for the first draft.

This is all I'm going to write. (From the message from you before this one I'm replying to.)

And here we have another example of your making a promise you were unable to keep.

Having donated to what I thought was the BSD licensing of this, I'm pretty disappointed.

A couple of thoughts (I also donated):

Given that the source files have a license-header which is standard 3-clause BSD (no extra Comments section), and in light of Dr. Tarver's recent statements[1] on the mailing list, I think it's clear that the license of Shen 17 is, in fact, 3-clause BSD without any extra terms or conditions.

So what we're looking at is a situation where some of us think that Dr. Tarver has expressed in a problematic way his misgivings about the GPL and his understanding of copyright law. Namely, by making the latter an addendum to the source distribution's license.pdf file, he is or may be causing confusion about Shen 17's license.

As a remedy, I would suggest we express our concerns on the mailing list in a constructive manner. Some of us have already done so.

[1] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/qilang/WLwJmlxtXSU/BUzjLtdmK...

Unfortunately, per Tarver's last comment on this a couple of hours ago, it looks like it's "game over" WRT to licencing reform (https://groups.google.com/d/msg/qilang/pt1nmdcOOVU/1WzrqV5Fd...):

Well exactly as promised. I hope people are happy. However now people have got the power they asked for, it is up to them to make the running with it. My role is now more of an observer and to maintain the sources and standards and printed documentation. What people do with Shen, where they take it, is now in the hands of the Shenturians. This means to a degree that people have to define and solve their own problems. My path resumes from where I left it when I returned from the edge of the Himalayas to build Shen.

Side note: no idea why at least two people would down vote all your contributions to this discussion....

ADDED: Just got back an email from Taver WRT to my refund request, denying the "it's modified BSD" claim, and a not unreasonable in the context of our communications, especially since I'd already decided to do it, request to "go away forever" (well, unless a flourishing Shen community develops within the next few years).

Perhaps my "with fire and sword" style stuck a nerve; my #1 and calmly stated point that this negated the whole premise of the campaign was quoted by at least one other person on the mailing list.

The down votes of my comments are in all likelihood not connected to the content of this discussion.

In the last couple of months, I made some unpopular comments on HN and since then have seen all of my comments, no matter the subject, receive a downvote or two some time during the wee hours (in US timezones). The intent is, obviously, to discourage my participation on HN in the face of steady karma loss. I am not discouraged, and in time perhaps my karma-detractors will tire of their little game.

Changing over your routine (or script) to the time/s of day when I'm active (or US participants are generally active) is clever... but not that clever ;-)

> I would suggest we express our concerns on the mailing list in a constructive manner.

You're probably right that this is the most effective thing to do.

On the other hand, it's hard to maintain enthusiasm for engaging with a community when you feel ever so slightly scammed. This is almost certainly an overreaction, but I wasn't really bought into the community anyway and donated because I wanted to see it flourish on principle. The reasons I donated are certainly compromised by this stunt and I almost certainly wouldn't have donated if I'd realised up front that it was BSD plus commentary that was being proposed.

I don't know, neither my "with fire and sword" nor your constructive approach solved the true problem, the binary one of BSD vs. modified BSD, although it would appear he took a bit your's to help transform it from totally impossible (the original version was really bad) to not entirely awful.

The #1 thing I want to see is the community increase, and I'm entirely unsure that'll happen now (e.g. taking our money and doing this makes it personal). Especially to the extent the rule that for every person who complains N others silently agree and do the same thing.

Harold is I'm afraid bullshitting you. I really have to say lying, because at this stage there is no other word to use. Check for yourself, the files are all 3 clause BSD.

Except of course the master license file. The language you added to the 3 clause BSD language means something, otherwise you wouldn't have put it there.

We have a difference of opinion on a legal matter, where neither of us is a lawyer, let alone in the same exact legal system. I submit that doesn't rise to the level of "lying".

I'm glad to have you clarify this.

We were warned by his reneging on the V2 The Book of Shen price discount if you'd bought the V1 temporary version.

I finished closing the gap of the revised goal, since I think Shen is potentially very important for Lisp, so I'm not surprised, but still disappointed.

Needless to say requests for refunds are not being granted.

And his word not being good is another input into trying to interpret the license....

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