[arch-projects] [archweb] Licensing issues with JS code

[Luke Shumaker]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2018 21:51:07 -0500,
Eli Schwartz wrote:
> 
> On 01/14/2018 08:34 PM, Luke Shumaker wrote:
> > Note that without even being concerned with license compatibility,
> > archweb is currently in violation of konami.js, as it does not
> > include, link to, or in any way provide instructions on how to obtain
> > non-minified source code. 
> 
> This would be boringly easy for you to fix, you know...

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, later in the paragraph I state: I did fix
this.  I apologize that the fix hasn't been submitted upstream, but
you point out: once one is aware of the issue, it is boringly easy to
fix.

> > This is especially grievous, as it includes
> > (minor) changes that are not present in any non-minified version that
> > I have found.  (We already patch to fix this in Parabola's fork; after
> > identifying the minifier used (UglifyJS 2.2), I backed-out to
> > reproduce the source changes (which I linked above).)
> 
> This would be mildly less so, but apparently you cared enough to fork
> archweb but not enough to email a simple question to Dan.

Given that we're maintaining a fork of archweb to use as our website
anyway, this was just a small commit I made a couple of years ago, and
then mostly forgot about.  And, IIRC, I did email Dan, but never
received a reply.

I was kinda hoping this thread would catch his attention ;)

> We could solve that by declaring that we accept konami.js under the MIT,
> assuming the changes came from Dan,

Isn't that what I said?

> and by favoring the not-unheard-of opinion that Apache 2.0 and GPL2
> aren't incompatible. :p
>
> Not every OSS lawyer agrees with the FSF lawyers on this... pity it
> hasn't been challenged in court as I'd love to see a court ruling that
> says they are compatible.

From what I see, that's a minority position, but of course I run in
FSF circles, so my perception is a bit skewed.  :P

If that's the official position that the archweb team wants to take, I
won't argue.

> *complaining about Parabola forking instead of contributing upstream*

Like I said, the primary purpose of maintaining a fork of archweb is
to replace the Arch branding with Parabola branding so that we can use
it as our website.  Obviously, we can't send that work upstream.

Of the other, would-be-upstreamable, changes that have gone in to the
fork, they are mixed in the git history of the non-upstreamable
changes, and buried in an absolute *mess* of merges and such; pulling
and rebasing and amending an upstreamable patchset out of that is
quite a bit of work (it was already that way when I inherited
parabolaweb ~4 years ago)... it's been on my TODO list for longer than
I'd care to admit.  FWIW, the `archweb-generic` branch in
parabolaweb.git is intended to be changes that are upstreamable, but
it needs some rebasing first.

This email thread is simply us forwarding a bug upstream:

  User: there's an issue in parabolaweb

  Me: if it's a real issue, it's also in upstream archweb, it should
      be discussed there

  User: ok, I'll report it there. (*creates this email thread*)

This is just the beginning of us being better about contributing
upstream.  This line of criticism here feels a bit like criticizing a
fat guy at the gym--he knows he's fat and is trying to fix it, that's
why he's at the gym.

> I'll be watching this list and the Pull Requests page on archweb's
> github with anticipation. ;)

Wait, archweb is on GitHub? :P

Is a GitHub PR the preferred method, or is the usual git-send-email to
this ML preferred?

(Though I have to be honest: this is on my TODO list, but fairly low
priority on it)

-- 
Happy hacking,
~ Luke Shumaker