I agree, and I also find their claim rather strange.  I don't think they can prevent others from creating code with a similar interface to theirs.  (If that were the case, the Wine and Mono devs would be in big trouble.)

So that leaves the code.  Unless SHOO has copy-pasted the code from Tango, I cannot see how their claim holds any water.  There are only so many ways to figure out which day of the month it is.

-Lars


On Thu, 2010-04-29 at 07:52 -0700, Sean Kelly wrote:
> That's effing ridiculous.  The D community could really do without this kind of behavior.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Apr 28, 2010, at 7:38 PM, Walter Bright <walter at digitalmars.com> wrote:
> 
> > One of the Tango developers called me today. There are 5 developers of the Tango time library, and they feel that the Phobos time lib submission is close enough to theirs to be considered an infringement on their license. The Tango license is the BSD license, which does not permit others changing the license, such as to Boost which is the Phobos license.
> >
> > I am not qualified to compare the two source code bases and make a legal determination if there is infringement or not. And quite frankly, I don't want to split legal hairs about it against the Tango developers' wishes. I've invited the Tango devs to subscribe to this mailing list, and I hope we can come to a resolution:
> >
> > 1. I think the best solution would be for Tango to relicense the time module under the Boost license, which would require the agreement of the five time module developers. Then, the Phobos version would include them as authors and they'd share in the copyright.
> >
> > 2. Next would be if the Tango developers who do agree to the Boost license would identify their contributions, those would get authorship & copyright credit, etc. Tango developers who do not agree would identify code they consider infringing, and that code would be removed from the Phobos version, and possibly reimplemented by someone who has not looked at the Tango version.
> >
> >
> > The bottom line is the Tango devs should get the final say on what
> > is infringing and what isn't, and we won't relicense infringing code
> > into Phobos without their explicit permission.
> > _______________________________________________
> > phobos mailing list
> > phobos at puremagic.com
> > http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos
> _______________________________________________
> phobos mailing list
> phobos at puremagic.com
> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Lars Tandle Kyllingstad < lars at kyllingen.net> wrote:

> So that leaves the code.  Unless SHOO has copy-pasted the code from Tango, I cannot see how their claim holds any water.  There are only so many ways to figure out which day of the month it is.
>
> -Lars
>
>
Very good point.  I agree that we don't want to resort to splitting legal hairs, but the relevant test is the abstraction-filtration-comparison test. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison_test)

Basically, this says that, since copyright protects only the expression of an idea, not the idea itself, if two programs do something the same way because that's the only reasonable way to do it then there's no infringement.
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On 29 April 2010 16:52, Sean Kelly <sean at invisibleduck.org> wrote:
> That's effing ridiculous. ?The D community could really do without this kind of behavior.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 28, 2010, at 7:38 PM, Walter Bright <walter at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>
>> One of the Tango developers called me today. There are 5 developers of the Tango time library, and they feel that the Phobos time lib submission is close enough to theirs to be considered an infringement on their license. The Tango license is the BSD license, which does not permit others changing the license, such as to Boost which is the Phobos license.
>>
>> I am not qualified to compare the two source code bases and make a legal determination if there is infringement or not. And quite frankly, I don't want to split legal hairs about it against the Tango developers' wishes. I've invited the Tango devs to subscribe to this mailing list, and I hope we can come to a resolution:
>>
>> 1. I think the best solution would be for Tango to relicense the time module under the Boost license, which would require the agreement of the five time module developers. Then, the Phobos version would include them as authors and they'd share in the copyright.
>>
>> 2. Next would be if the Tango developers who do agree to the Boost license would identify their contributions, those would get authorship & copyright credit, etc. Tango developers who do not agree would identify code they consider infringing, and that code would be removed from the Phobos version, and possibly reimplemented by someone who has not looked at the Tango version.

I tried hard to get Tango to use the Boost license. More recently, I
tried to get the Boost license available as a standard option in the
Tango ddoc templates. They wouldn't even do that, and someone modified
my "support Boost license" ticket into "support Apache 2.0 license"
!!!!
I concluded that there is little chance of healing the Tango-Phobos
rift, because there are people on the Tango side who do not want
unity.
Sadly, it only takes one to tango.

Boost thread uses a different, lightweight class to represent timespans. I'd like to use something similar in druntime then as well.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 29, 2010, at 7:36 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu <andrei at erdani.com> wrote:

> I know people who swear by Boost.Date_Time. I think starting from it is a great idea.
>
> Andrei
>
> On 04/29/2010 09:24 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>>
>> Lars Tandle Kyllingstad wrote:
>>> The Boost.Date_Time library seems like a good starting point.
>>>
>>> We could port all or parts of it to D without having to worry about licence issues, and it seems to contain all we need and more. Does anyone have any experience using it?
>>>
>>
>> I have no experience with it, though C++ Boost libraries tend to be
>> of
>> unusually high quality. The compatible license also makes them ideal
>> candidates for conversion to D.
>> _______________________________________________
>> phobos mailing list
>> phobos at puremagic.com
>> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos
> _______________________________________________
> phobos mailing list
> phobos at puremagic.com
> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos

It doesn't hold any water, but it's not worth risking the legal hassle to prove it.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 29, 2010, at 8:09 AM, Lars Tandle Kyllingstad <lars at kyllingen.net> wrote:

> I agree, and I also find their claim rather strange.  I don't think
> they
> can prevent others from creating code with a similar interface to
> theirs.  (If that were the case, the Wine and Mono devs would be in
> big
> trouble.)
>
> So that leaves the code.  Unless SHOO has copy-pasted the code from
> Tango, I cannot see how their claim holds any water.  There are only
> so
> many ways to figure out which day of the month it is.
>
> -Lars
>
>
> On Thu, 2010-04-29 at 07:52 -0700, Sean Kelly wrote:
>> That's effing ridiculous.  The D community could really do without this kind of behavior.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Apr 28, 2010, at 7:38 PM, Walter Bright <walter at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>>
>>> One of the Tango developers called me today. There are 5 developers of the Tango time library, and they feel that the Phobos time lib submission is close enough to theirs to be considered an infringement on their license. The Tango license is the BSD license, which does not permit others changing the license, such as to Boost which is the Phobos license.
>>>
>>> I am not qualified to compare the two source code bases and make a legal determination if there is infringement or not. And quite frankly, I don't want to split legal hairs about it against the Tango developers' wishes. I've invited the Tango devs to subscribe to this mailing list, and I hope we can come to a resolution:
>>>
>>> 1. I think the best solution would be for Tango to relicense the time module under the Boost license, which would require the agreement of the five time module developers. Then, the Phobos version would include them as authors and they'd share in the copyright.
>>>
>>> 2. Next would be if the Tango developers who do agree to the Boost license would identify their contributions, those would get authorship & copyright credit, etc. Tango developers who do not agree would identify code they consider infringing, and that code would be removed from the Phobos version, and possibly reimplemented by someone who has not looked at the Tango version.
>>>
>>>
>>> The bottom line is the Tango devs should get the final say on what
>>> is infringing and what isn't, and we won't relicense infringing code
>>> into Phobos without their explicit permission.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> phobos mailing list
>>> phobos at puremagic.com
>>> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos
>> _______________________________________________
>> phobos mailing list
>> phobos at puremagic.com
>> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> phobos mailing list
> phobos at puremagic.com
> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos

I think for practical reasons we should simply stay away from Tango. We'd be wasting time otherwise. It's not like they discovered the cure for cancer. We're better off just defining better abstractions; think of where Phobos was in comparison to Tango before std.algorithm came about.

In the date/time case, we should be looking for inspiration at Boost - work that's licensed under better terms, and of good quality to boot.


Andrei

On 04/29/2010 10:13 AM, David Simcha wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Lars Tandle Kyllingstad <lars at kyllingen.net <mailto:lars at kyllingen.net>> wrote:
>
>     So that leaves the code.  Unless SHOO has copy-pasted the code from
>     Tango, I cannot see how their claim holds any water.  There are only so
>     many ways to figure out which day of the month it is.
>
>     -Lars
>
>
> Very good point.  I agree that we don't want to resort to splitting legal hairs, but the relevant test is the abstraction-filtration-comparison test. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison_test)
>
> Basically, this says that, since copyright protects only the expression of an idea, not the idea itself, if two programs do something the same way because that's the only reasonable way to do it then there's no infringement.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> phobos mailing list
> phobos at puremagic.com
> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos

Don Clugston <dclugston at ...> writes:

> 
> I tried hard to get Tango to use the Boost license. More recently, I
> tried to get the Boost license available as a standard option in the
> Tango ddoc templates. They wouldn't even do that, and someone modified
> my "support Boost license" ticket into "support Apache 2.0 license"
> !!!!
> I concluded that there is little chance of healing the Tango-Phobos
> rift, because there are people on the Tango side who do not want
> unity.
> Sadly, it only takes one to tango.
> 


What's the consensus over here on the tango team's solution to the binary attribution clause? They say they're going to include the license as a static string somewhere in the source code to pull the bother off the user.

The boost approach is a bit different and is supported by actual legal advice. The license lives in a file and each source file contains a 3 line copyright note.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 29, 2010, at 9:02 AM, Ellery Newcomer <ellery- newcomer at utulsa.edu> wrote:

> Don Clugston <dclugston at ...> writes:
>
>>
>> I tried hard to get Tango to use the Boost license. More recently, I
>> tried to get the Boost license available as a standard option in the
>> Tango ddoc templates. They wouldn't even do that, and someone
>> modified
>> my "support Boost license" ticket into "support Apache 2.0 license"
>> !!!!
>> I concluded that there is little chance of healing the Tango-Phobos
>> rift, because there are people on the Tango side who do not want
>> unity.
>> Sadly, it only takes one to tango.
>>
>
>
> What's the consensus over here on the tango team's solution to the
> binary
> attribution clause? They say they're going to include the license as
> a static
> string somewhere in the source code to pull the bother off the user.
>
> _______________________________________________
> phobos mailing list
> phobos at puremagic.com
> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is quite possibly the legal technicality of the year, though I believe
it would satisfy the requirements as literally interpreted.

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Ellery Newcomer < ellery-newcomer at utulsa.edu> wrote:

> Don Clugston <dclugston at ...> writes:
>
> >
> > I tried hard to get Tango to use the Boost license. More recently, I
> > tried to get the Boost license available as a standard option in the
> > Tango ddoc templates. They wouldn't even do that, and someone modified
> > my "support Boost license" ticket into "support Apache 2.0 license"
> > !!!!
> > I concluded that there is little chance of healing the Tango-Phobos
> > rift, because there are people on the Tango side who do not want
> > unity.
> > Sadly, it only takes one to tango.
> >
>
>
> What's the consensus over here on the tango team's solution to the binary
> attribution clause? They say they're going to include the license as a
> static
> string somewhere in the source code to pull the bother off the user.
>
> _______________________________________________
> phobos mailing list
> phobos at puremagic.com
> http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos
>
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On 29 April 2010 13:35, Jacob Carlborg <doob at me.com> wrote:
> On 4/29/10 07:19, Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>> Years ago, the lawyers told me that "I've never looked at that source code" is an effective defense for parallel evolution. Things get a lot harder if one has. That's why I never look at, say, the gcc source code.
>>
>> What I'd really like to see is Tango move to the Boost license as well. This will eliminate this regrettable problem of incompatible licenses, which is holding D back. The "two standard libraries" comes up every single time D gets mentioned in other forums, and it's a convenient excuse people use for not looking further at D.
>
> These two links discuss a possible change of the Tango license:
>
> http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/forums/topic/786 http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/ticket/1701

Yeah, that's my ticket. And that's not the original title. When they
changed the title of it, I gave up any hope. (And I stopped
contributing anything to Tango, other than bugfixes).
And that ridiculous forum discussion, where they say about how Phobos
changed the license without consulting them -- 100% of the public
discussion about the license happened on the newsgroup.