Author Topic: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?  (Read 10736 times)

Martin Iturbide

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USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« on: June 10, 2015, 02:17:57 am »
Hi

I need to solve this mystery (little mystery). I need to know which is the license (terms of use) of USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy).

For what I read on netlabs ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/snapshots/usb/usb_20070121.zip the original author is Markus Montkowski and he released it under the "Aladdin Free Public License"

FYI:
Quote
Aladdin Free Public License

The license was derived from the GNU General Public License, but differs on two key points:
- The source code must be included with any software distribution.
- The software may not be sold, including any fees involved with distribution.

From Wikipedia.

But checking the source code under /drivers/ directory there are code that is licensed by IBM. (It does not specify an IBM license, only AS IS).

So, I honestly do not know if the USBLib project should be under "Aladdin Free Public License" the whole package, or it is a project with different licenses.  I want to know if there had been license change with time approved by the author, or other authors by any chance.

Comments are welcome, but please don't ask "why do you want to know this?" it is obviously that I want to know which license applies to this project. I had a discussion some months ago with a community member that told me that it should not be "Aladdin Free Public License" but he failed to explain why.

Regards

 
« Last Edit: June 10, 2015, 02:19:39 am by Martin Iturbide »
Martin Iturbide
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Roderick Klein

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2015, 10:45:22 pm »
Its ages ago but when I worked at Mensys some discussion took place at one of the Warpstocks.

I can not answer your question what license USBRESMG.SYS is under.  But the fact it says copyright IBM, is weird.
Looking at how old the driver is, you could only _guess_ it was derived from the DDK. I can not realy think of another souce.  Wha did IBM Employee written software fall under if it was a device driver ?
I do not know if the orginal author can be contacted to clarify ?

I do see in the timeline the usbresmg.sys in the none public browseable version of SVN.
http://trac.netlabs.org/usb/timeline
So is it DDK license ?!

I could not find in the OS/2 github link to these sources ? How does the copyright header ? Its just says (c) IBM ?
Its weird as IBM would not release source with such headers ?

Do USBCALLS and USBRESMG.SYS have the same license ?

Roderick
(I rewrote the message to make it easier readable)
« Last Edit: June 10, 2015, 11:36:13 pm by Roderick Klein »

Martin Iturbide

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2015, 12:07:23 am »
Hi Roderick

I forgot to post the link: https://github.com/OS2World/DRV-USBLib

If you do a search you can find the source code that is from IBM: https://github.com/OS2World/DRV-USBLib/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=IBM

It is not much and it is not hard to see which ones are the one that says "IBM Copyright".

I want to see if I should:
a) Remove the source code from github  (if applies).
b) Talk to the original developer (if I can) to see a way to fix the licensing (if applies).
c) Try to divide what can be public and what can not from the source code repository  (if applies).

I can not validate if this source code was part of the IBM DDK (since USB is not located on the 2004 CD), but I can not remember that if the last DDK web pages was the one that provided these source code under the DDK license.

I can not know by looking to the source code if it is from DDK or if it was EWS which are a different license types.

Regards.
Martin Iturbide
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Roderick Klein

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2015, 12:36:10 am »
I send you the developer his email address privately...

As I do not want to post it public.


Roderick

Wim Brul

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2015, 11:01:03 am »
The way I see it. First of all the first lines of the LICENSE file clearly state:

Code: [Select]
All source code and other software components in this CVS repository (USB)
are Copyright Markus Montkowski. Are covered by the license
below.   

Therefore all "Licensed Material -- Property of IBM" files must be removed.

GENJOY - Only the GENSEGS.ASM file must be replaced with something else.
USBJOY -  Only the JOYSEGS.ASM file must be replaced with something else.
SYSLOG - The LOGSEGS.ASM could be used to create these something else.
INCLUDE - Only keep the USBLOG.H file.
MISC - Only keep the USBLOG.C file.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2015, 05:28:05 pm »
Thanks for the feedback.

So, I think that most logical thing to do is:

1) Remove the code that is suspected to be from IBM DDK, which says "licensed by IBM"
2) The rest that is left, will remain under Aladdin public license.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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Dave Yeo

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #6 on: June 12, 2015, 02:15:27 am »
It does (once again) raise the question of whether header files are copyrightable as often they are just listings of facts, namely the API. The American courts have been looking at this in the Java case between Google and Oracle and at least one Judge, who happens to also be a programmer, ruled that they are not. It may be going to the Supreme Court though the Obama administration is hoping that they are ruled copyrightable. And of course whatever the Americans decide, they will bully everyone else to following.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #7 on: June 12, 2015, 02:00:36 pm »
It does (once again) raise the question of whether header files are copyrightable as often they are just listings of facts, namely the API. The American courts have been looking at this in the Java case between Google and Oracle and at least one Judge, who happens to also be a programmer, ruled that they are not. It may be going to the Supreme Court though the Obama administration is hoping that they are ruled copyrightable. And of course whatever the Americans decide, they will bully everyone else to following.

I think that the answer it is simple for the moment.  Right now, in the US, the answer is no, it can change with the Oracle Vs Google case. 

I liked this comment about the subject "Given that the court cases so far have ruled against copyright, it would be very hard to argue willful infringement anywhere. (US)". But Oracle can screw up everything if the US court rule that APIs (and header files defining the APIs) are copyrightable.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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Martin Iturbide

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #8 on: June 12, 2015, 02:14:07 pm »
The way I see it. First of all the first lines of the LICENSE file clearly state:


Thats Wim, I already removed the non .h and IBM copyrighted files from the repository.

Will this mean also that your "USB Resource Manager" (that you already share with source code) should be under "Aladdin Free Public License", or your USBCalls is a different thing and do not uses Markus Montkowski work?

Do you think I can mix your USBCalls.C on the USBLib github repository, or not ?

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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Roderick Klein

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #9 on: June 12, 2015, 05:18:37 pm »
Would it not make sense to see if Netlabs can host the sources as thats where they have been for the last decade or so. As far as I can tell from the timeline thats where all developers who work on the code check it in.

Roderick

Wim Brul

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #10 on: June 12, 2015, 07:33:07 pm »
Hi Martin,
Quote
Will this mean also that your "USB Resource Manager" (that you already share with source code) should be under "Aladdin Free Public License", or your USBCalls is a different thing and do not uses Markus Montkowski work?

The source code of my "USB Resource Manager" is hosted on the netlabs usb repository. It is based on the original source code from Markus Montkowski after it had been modified by Dmitry Froloff. I have done a lot of cleanup (removing old code that never worked) and adding code to implement a.o. support for isochronous transfers.  From the Aladdin Free Public License of the original work it follows that the source code must be made available.

Quote
Do you think I can mix your USBCalls.C on the USBLib github repository, or not ?

The USBCALLS.DLL and USBRESMG.SYS form a matched set. It is unwise to have one without the other. When you mix USBCalls.C on the USBLib github repository then you are left with an incompatible set. Do not do that. In the readme of usbres03.zip I refer to the applicable sources that are in my private branch at netlabs.

Hi Roderick,
Quote
Would it not make sense to see if Netlabs can host the sources as thats where they have been for the last decade or so. As far as I can tell from the timeline thats where all developers who work on the code check it in.

Yes, that makes sense. But the applicable sources of usbres03.zip are right now not open to the public. I have no idea how that could be changed without running the risk that closed sources of the other usb drivers become public too. May be the solution is to prove a snapshot in a zip file like was done before with the usb_20020812.zip and usb_20070121.zip files. Or maybe I should just include these in a usbres04.zip file. That would be the safest.

Wim.

Roderick Klein

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2015, 07:43:03 pm »
Well that is something that Adrian would have to setup Wim. But having code in ZIP's or different repo's in my opinion does not help the developers and also not the end users.

Roderick

Wim Brul

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Re: USBLib (USBCalls, USBResmg, USBJoy) license?
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2015, 09:05:23 am »
Hi Martin,

I had a closer look at the original usbresmg.sys sources and although most of of the files claim to be Aladdin licensed, these appear to be derived from DDK samples. This means that the DDK license applies to these sources. The applicable sources of usbres03.zip are therefore rightfully not open to the public. That restriction cannot be lifted.

Wim.