Thanks Till for reporting the issue and Steve for looking into it.

 

My first reaction would be that the two texts, ANTLR with additional license and ANTLR without, are legally different licenses (with different effects which are important for the reasons Till mentioned), and should therefore be added as a new version of the ANTLR license rather than added as optional matching text to the original.

 

What do others think?

 

Best,

Brad

--

Brad Edmondson, Esq.
512-673-8782 | brad.edmondson@...

 

 

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 8:36 AM Steve Winslow <swinslow@...> wrote:

Hi Till -- taking a closer look, it seems that the language you cited was added to the original ANTLR 2 license sometime later, which is probably why it isn't in the license list version.

 

Looking at the Wayback Machine, http://web.archive.org/web/20130401024631/https://www.antlr2.org/license.html shows that at least as of April 2013 the ANTLR 2 License did not include that additional paragraph. I haven't done a deeper dive yet to figure out when it was subsequently added.

 

Given that, I'd be inclined to add it to the ANTLR-PD markup but to mark it as optional, so that it would match whether or not that paragraph is present.

 

Thanks,

Steve

 

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 8:33 AM Steve Winslow via lists.spdx.org <swinslow=linuxfoundation.org@...> wrote:

Thanks for flagging this, Till. I've added an issue in the license-list-XML repo to track this at https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1056.

 

I don't know the history of this one myself, but it looks like that language had been omitted prior to when the license list was first brought into source control (see https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/commits/master/src/ANTLR-PD.xml). I expect it should be added into the ANTLR-PD markup for the reasons you mentioned.

 

Best,

Steve

 

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 5:33 AM Till Jaeger via lists.spdx.org <jaeger=jbb.de@...> wrote:

Hello list,

I just found out that there is a deviation from
https://spdx.org/licenses/ANTLR-PD.html#licenseText to the linked text from
http://www.antlr2.org/license.html which contains the following language:

"In countries where the Public Domain status of the work may not be valid,
the author grants a copyright licence to the general public to deal in the
work without restriction and permission to sublicence derivates under the
terms of any (OSI approved) Open Source licence."

From the perspective from EU law this is an extremely important part since
it makes clear that a unrestricted license is intended if PD does not work.
This avoids (always disputable) interpretation of the PD text.

Is there any reason for the omission? Could the text be added?

Best regards,

Till

--
Dr. Till Jaeger
Certified Copyright and Media Law Attorney


JBB Rechtsanwälte
Jaschinski Biere Brexl Partnerschaft mbB
Christinenstraße 18/19 | 10119 Berlin
Tel. +49.30.443 765 0  |  Fax +49.30.443 765 22
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Berlin | Registergericht AG Charlottenburg | PR 609 B
www.jbb.de

--

Steve Winslow
Director of Strategic Programs
The Linux Foundation

swinslow@...

--

Steve Winslow
Director of Strategic Programs
The Linux Foundation

swinslow@...

--

Why don’t we reach out since they’re the license steward to see if they’d
prefer an update vs two separate licenses?

 

*From: *<Spdx-legal@...> on behalf of Steve Winslow
<swinslow@...>
*Date: *Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 2:00 PM
*To: *Bradlee Edmondson <brad.edmondson@...>
*Cc: *"jaeger@..." <jaeger@...>, SPDX-legal <Spdx-legal@...>
*Subject: *Re: ANTLR-PD

 

*CAUTION:**This email originated from outside of Western Digital. Do not
click on links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know
that the content is safe.*

 

Hi Brad, it's a good point and I was considering that too. I guess my one
question would be whether there are other projects that have used the
original vs. the later version of the license, beyond ANTLR.

 

Since it's the ANTLR project and the ANTLR-PD license, if they're the only
ones who have used it -- and if they're not even using it anymore for new
versions -- personally I'd feel comfortable with adding it via markup and
perhaps including an explanatory sentence in the Notes so that people are
aware. Rather than adding a new separate identifier. But this is just a gut
reaction, I don't feel especially strongly about it. Open to others'
thoughts of course  :)

 

Best,

Steve

 

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 4:42 PM Brad Edmondson <brad.edmondson@...
<mailto:brad.edmondson@...>> wrote:

Thanks Till for reporting the issue and Steve for looking into it.

 

My first reaction would be that the two texts, ANTLR with additional
license and ANTLR without, are legally different licenses (with
different effects which are important for the reasons Till mentioned),
and should therefore be added as a new version of the ANTLR license
rather than added as optional matching text to the original.

 

What do others think?

 

Best,

Brad

--

Brad Edmondson, /Esq./
512-673-8782 | brad.edmondson@... <mailto:brad.edmondson@...>

 

 

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 8:36 AM Steve Winslow
<swinslow@... <mailto:swinslow@...>> wrote:

Hi Till -- taking a closer look, it seems that the language you
cited was added to the original ANTLR 2 license sometime later,
which is probably why it isn't in the license list version.

 

Looking at the Wayback Machine,
http://web.archive.org/web/20130401024631/https://www.antlr2.org/license.html
<http://web.archive.org/web/20130401024631/https:/www.antlr2.org/license.html>
shows that at least as of April 2013 the ANTLR 2 License did not
include that additional paragraph. I haven't done a deeper dive yet
to figure out when it was subsequently added.

 

Given that, I'd be inclined to add it to the ANTLR-PD markup but to
mark it as optional, so that it would match whether or not that
paragraph is present.

 

Thanks,

Steve

 

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 8:33 AM Steve Winslow via lists.spdx.org
<http://lists.spdx.org> <swinslow=linuxfoundation.org@...
<mailto:linuxfoundation.org@...>> wrote:

Thanks for flagging this, Till. I've added an issue in the
license-list-XML repo to track this at
https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1056.

 

I don't know the history of this one myself, but it looks like
that language had been omitted prior to when the license list
was first brought into source control (see
https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/commits/master/src/ANTLR-PD.xml).
I expect it should be added into the ANTLR-PD markup for the
reasons you mentioned.

 

Best,

Steve

 

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 5:33 AM Till Jaeger via lists.spdx.org
<http://lists.spdx.org> <jaeger=jbb.de@...
<mailto:jbb.de@...>> wrote:

Hello list,

I just found out that there is a deviation from
https://spdx.org/licenses/ANTLR-PD.html#licenseText to the
linked text from
http://www.antlr2.org/license.html which contains the
following language:

"In countries where the Public Domain status of the work may
not be valid,
the author grants a copyright licence to the general public
to deal in the
work without restriction and permission to sublicence
derivates under the
terms of any (OSI approved) Open Source licence."

From the perspective from EU law this is an extremely
important part since
it makes clear that a unrestricted license is intended if PD
does not work.
This avoids (always disputable) interpretation of the PD text.

Is there any reason for the omission? Could the text be added?

Best regards,

Till

--
Dr. Till Jaeger
Certified Copyright and Media Law Attorney


JBB Rechtsanwälte
Jaschinski Biere Brexl Partnerschaft mbB
Christinenstraße 18/19 | 10119 Berlin
Tel. +49.30.443 765 0  |  Fax +49.30.443 765 22
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Berlin | Registergericht AG
Charlottenburg | PR 609 B
www.jbb.de <http://www.jbb.de>




--

Steve Winslow
Director of Strategic Programs
The Linux Foundation

swinslow@... <mailto:swinslow@...>



--

Steve Winslow
Director of Strategic Programs
The Linux Foundation

swinslow@... <mailto:swinslow@...>



--

Steve Winslow
Director of Strategic Programs
The Linux Foundation

swinslow@... <mailto:swinslow@...>