move licensing to HISTORY
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HISTORY
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HISTORY
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@ -104,6 +104,58 @@ See the help for the full list.
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urchin -h
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urchin -h
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### Copyrights
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Some people had contributed to Urchin but had not been added to the copyright
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notice. I have updated the copyright notice to include everyone whom I believe
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to have contributed patches.
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### License
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I, Thomas Levine, have switched the previous BSD-style license for the Afferro
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Gnu Public License (AGPL) after determining that the added restrictions in the
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AGPL shouldn't have any practical legal consequences for people who want to
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use Urchin. I did not get approval from the other authors as I believe the
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licenses to be compatible. Here are the considerations that I considered.
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#### History
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ScraperWiki owns the original version of Urchin (Thomas Levine did the early
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work as part of his work for ScraperWiki.) and originally licensed it under a
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BSD-style license with the advertising clauses removed. (This makes it a
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"2-clause BSD license", similar to the FreeBSD license.) We had the previous
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license just because that's what ScraperWiki put on everything.
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Other people made changes after this original ScraperWiki version. As of
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January 2016, they are just Thomas Levine (when he wasn't working for
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ScraperWiki) and Michael Klement.
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The 2-clause BSD license grants pretty much all rights. It says that you need
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to attribute when you redistribute source code, but you don't necessarily have
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to redistribute source code.
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#### License compatibility
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A copyleft license adds the restriction that modified versions of the code
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need to be licensed under the same license. GNU licenses in particular require
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that source code be released if non-source versions are released, and the
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different GNU licenses differ in what how the non-source version is defined.
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(The original, GPL, discusses compiled binaries, for example.) Copyleft
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doesn't mean anything specific for commercial use.
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Code licensed under the 2-clause BSD license can be modified and then licensed
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as AGPL, because the 2-clause BSD license license allows that, but AGPL code
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can't be modified as 2-clause BSD, because AGPL doesn't allow that.
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Of course, if we get all of the authors to agree on it, we can always add
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whatever crazy license we want, regardless of what we have already.
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#### Practical differences
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The distinction between the permissive 2-clause BSD license and the AGPL seem
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to matter quite little in the case of Urchin.
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1. Urchin is written in an interpreted language (shell), so it would be
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hard to distribute usefully without providing the source code.
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2. Urchin usually just runs tests; it doesn't get compiled with the rest of
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the code (also because it's in shell). Thus, I think a GPL license on Urchin
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wouldn't infect the code being tested.
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### Source setup and teardown
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### Source setup and teardown
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setup, teardown, setup_dir, and teardown_dir are now sourced instead of
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setup, teardown, setup_dir, and teardown_dir are now sourced instead of
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executed; they are referenced a bit like this.
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executed; they are referenced a bit like this.
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46
TODO
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TODO
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@ -11,12 +11,6 @@ https://github.com/creationix/nvm/issues/589
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Documenting that people should run "env" when their tests fail might be good
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Documenting that people should run "env" when their tests fail might be good
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enough.
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enough.
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Licensing and copyright
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------------------------
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* Reference all owners and years in the Copyright file
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* Consider copyleft licenses
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* Add license notices to other files if necessary
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Packaging
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Packaging
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------------
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------------
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Package for package managers.
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Package for package managers.
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@ -39,43 +33,3 @@ Try running Urchin in Windows somehow. Interpreters include
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* Git for Windows (https://git-scm.com/download/win)
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* Git for Windows (https://git-scm.com/download/win)
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* win-bash (http://win-bash.sourceforge.net/)
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* win-bash (http://win-bash.sourceforge.net/)
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Consider copyleft licenses
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----------
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ScraperWiki owns the original version of Urchin (Thomas Levine did the early
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work as part of his work for ScraperWiki.) and originally licensed it under an
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MIT-style license. Other people made changes after this original ScraperWiki
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version. As of January 2016, they are just Thomas Levine (when he wasn't
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working for ScraperWiki) and Michael Klement.
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The original license was MIT just because that's what ScraperWiki put on
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everything. Should we change the license?
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The MIT-style license grants pretty much all rights. It says that you need
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to attribute when you redistribute source code, but you don't
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necessarily have to redistribute source code.
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A copyleft license adds the restriction that modified versions of the
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code need to be licensed under the same license. GNU licenses in
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particular require that source code be released if non-source versions are
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released, and the different GNU licenses differ in what how the
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non-source version is defined. (The original, GPL, discusses compiled
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binaries.) Copyleft doesn't mean anything specific for commercial use.
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MIT-licensed code can be modified and then licensed as GPL, because MIT
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license allows that, but GPL code can't be modified as MIT, because MIT
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doesn't allow that. And if we get all of the authors to agree on it, we
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can always add whatever crazy license we want, regardless of what we
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have already.
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The distinction between MIT-style and GNU-something might matter quite little
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in the case of Urchin.
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1. Urchin is written in an interpreted language (shell), so it might be
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hard to distribute usefully without providing the source code.
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2. Urchin just runs tests; it doesn't get compiled with the rest of the
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code (also because it's in shell). Thus, I think a GPL license on
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Urchin wouldn't infect the code being tested.
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This is as far as I have gotten with contemplating license changes. For now
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we're sticking with the original MIT-style license, but it's easy to change
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licenses later.
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