Mesa license issue?

[Callum Lerwick]

Okay, so there's a Second Life bug open pointing out what appears to be
a license problem with some OpenGL headers:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2881

There is indeed a bunch of headers with "SGI Free Software License B"
boilerplate in them:

$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/*
/usr/include/GL/glext.h
/usr/include/GL/glu.h
/usr/include/GL/glxext.h
/usr/include/GL/glxmd.h
/usr/include/GL/glxproto.h
/usr/include/GL/glxtokens.h

$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/* |xargs rpm -qf|sort|uniq
mesa-libGL-devel-6.5.2-13.fc7.i386
mesa-libGL-devel-6.5.2-13.fc7.x86_64
mesa-libGLU-devel-6.5.2-13.fc7.i386
mesa-libGLU-devel-6.5.2-13.fc7.x86_64
xorg-x11-proto-devel-7.2-9.fc7.x86_64

The devel packages say they're all MIT license:

$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/* |xargs rpm -qfi|grep License|
sort|uniq
Size : 1393741 License: MIT
Size : 82501 License: MIT
Size : 872295 License: MIT

"SGI Free Software License B" is explicitly not acceptable in Fedora:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#head-d8cc605dd386091c8b6be97b8a43fb6a5d624ae1

I've googled up and down and I haven't found an explanation as to what
is going on. Mesa's merge review is untouched:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=226136

Is there a reason these files don't fall under the SGI license? There's
a provision for "an alternative license" but I'm not even going to
pretend to understand the mechanics. If so, could the headers be
clarified, and an explanation made in Mesa's review? And a reply made
here? And Mesa's home page fixed? ;P

http://www.mesa3d.org/license.html

GLEW apparently had the same problem, fixed by taking headers from Mesa,
so I'm very confused as to what is going on:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=251191


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071031/93f9771b/attachment.bin

[Peter Lemenkov]

Post by Callum Lerwick
Okay, so there's a Second Life bug open pointing out what appears to be
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2881
$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/* |xargs rpm -qfi|grep License|
sort|uniq
Size : 1393741 License: MIT
Size : 82501 License: MIT
Size : 872295 License: MIT

Yeah! It's time to drop Mesa support from Fedora as it was already did
with openmotif!

[Hans de Goede]

Post by Callum Lerwick
Okay, so there's a Second Life bug open pointing out what appears to be
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2881
There is indeed a bunch of headers with "SGI Free Software License B"
$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/*
/usr/include/GL/glext.h
/usr/include/GL/glu.h
/usr/include/GL/glxext.h
/usr/include/GL/glxmd.h
/usr/include/GL/glxproto.h
/usr/include/GL/glxtokens.h

<snip>

Post by Callum Lerwick
I've googled up and down and I haven't found an explanation as to what
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=226136
Is there a reason these files don't fall under the SGI license? There's
a provision for "an alternative license" but I'm not even going to
pretend to understand the mechanics. If so, could the headers be
clarified, and an explanation made in Mesa's review? And a reply made
here? And Mesa's home page fixed? ;P
http://www.mesa3d.org/license.html

This is all very much AFAIK:

These files are indeed a problem, there have been talks with SGI about freeing
them but those have stagnated, since Mesa is a crucial piece of infrastructure,
the current situation is being allowed as an exception to the licensing guidelines.

Post by Callum Lerwick
GLEW apparently had the same problem, fixed by taking headers from Mesa,
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=251191

GLEW contained bits of "code" in some header files copy and pasted from the
OpenGL reference implementation. I've replaced these with "code" from
/usr/include/GL/gl.h and /usr/include/GL/glx.h, which are not under the
"SGI Free Software License B" / "GLX Public License" but fall for 100% under
Mesa's MIT license and thus are ok.

I did this because glew would not be allowed as is, the "SGI Free Software
License B" / "GLX Public License" exception is only for Mesa and we do not want
to add any other software under this license to the repo.

On the contrary, we really should start working on removing/replacing the
troublesome Mesa bits.

Regards,

Hans

[Callum Lerwick]

Update: I found this commit in Mesa's git:

http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=mesa/mesa.git;a=commitdiff;h=344c3f7379ab4db749e7e8513be9be8fbb9f126c

It appears this is fixed in Mesa 7, which is in F8, but I don't know
where this leaves F7 and whatnot, which are still shipping Mesa 6.5.x.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071031/182ebf2e/attachment.bin

[Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway]

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=mesa/mesa.git;a=commitdiff;h=344c3f7379ab4db749e7e8513be9be8fbb9f126c
It appears this is fixed in Mesa 7, which is in F8, but I don't know
where this leaves F7 and whatnot, which are still shipping Mesa 6.5.x.

I'm not sure that's even remotely legal for Mesa to have committed. The
SGI Free B license doesn't permit arbitrary relicensing, and without any
code changes, that amounts to simply stripping the copyright and license
off the old files.

Adam, do you know the details behind that commit?

~spot

[Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway]

Post by Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=mesa/mesa.git;a=commitdiff;h=344c3f7379ab4db749e7e8513be9be8fbb9f126c
It appears this is fixed in Mesa 7, which is in F8, but I don't know
where this leaves F7 and whatnot, which are still shipping Mesa 6.5.x.

I'm not sure that's even remotely legal for Mesa to have committed. The
SGI Free B license doesn't permit arbitrary relicensing, and without any
code changes, that amounts to simply stripping the copyright and license
off the old files.
Adam, do you know the details behind that commit?

NM, it looks like SGI signed off on that change upstream when they moved
to hosting those files at Khronos.

~spot

[Anthony Green]

Post by Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway
NM, it looks like SGI signed off on that change upstream when they moved
to hosting those files at Khronos.

Do you have a reference or link explaining this? I'm working with the
JOGL upstream developers on their use of SGI FreeB licensed code and
this was their reaction to me removing JOGL from Fedora (for now)...

Post by Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway
This seems like a harsh overreaction. Sun's legal team reviewed our
use of the code covered under the SGI FreeB license and (with our
prodding) approved it despite potential legal exposure to Sun.
I don't think SGI's OpenGL sample implementation has been relicensed.
I just downloaded the Mesa 7 sources and there is no mention of the
Khronos group anywhere. The portions of code we are using (the
GLU tessellator and mipmap code) have as far as I know been
written basically once in the industry and we're not going to pull
out their inclusion in JOGL. Both Mesa and XFree86 seem to be
comfortable including code covered by the SGI FreeB license.
If you have a more concrete pointer regarding a relicensing of this
code I'll look into it.

Thanks,

AG
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: green.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 163 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071107/85889896/attachment.vcf

[Anthony Green]

Post by Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway
NM, it looks like SGI signed off on that change upstream when they moved
to hosting those files at Khronos.

Do you have a reference or link explaining this? I'm working with the
JOGL upstream developers on their use of SGI FreeB licensed code and
this was their reaction to me removing JOGL from Fedora (for now)...

Post by Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway
This seems like a harsh overreaction. Sun's legal team reviewed our
use of the code covered under the SGI FreeB license and (with our
prodding) approved it despite potential legal exposure to Sun.
I don't think SGI's OpenGL sample implementation has been relicensed.
I just downloaded the Mesa 7 sources and there is no mention of the
Khronos group anywhere. The portions of code we are using (the
GLU tessellator and mipmap code) have as far as I know been
written basically once in the industry and we're not going to pull
out their inclusion in JOGL. Both Mesa and XFree86 seem to be
comfortable including code covered by the SGI FreeB license.
If you have a more concrete pointer regarding a relicensing of this
code I'll look into it.

Thanks,

AG
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: green.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 163 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071107/85889896/attachment-0002.vcf

[Hans de Goede]

Post by Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=mesa/mesa.git;a=commitdiff;h=344c3f7379ab4db749e7e8513be9be8fbb9f126c
It appears this is fixed in Mesa 7, which is in F8, but I don't know
where this leaves F7 and whatnot, which are still shipping Mesa 6.5.x.

I'm not sure that's even remotely legal for Mesa to have committed. The
SGI Free B license doesn't permit arbitrary relicensing, and without any
code changes, that amounts to simply stripping the copyright and license
off the old files.
Adam, do you know the details behind that commit?

I've done some research on this, the OpenGL standard has been given in the
hands of an organization called "The Khronos Group Inc":
http://www.khronos.org/

They are now the owners of:
http://www.opengl.org/

Where the host atleast some of the involved header files:
http://www.opengl.org/registry/api/glext.h
http://www.opengl.org/registry/api/glxext.h
http://www.opengl.org/registry/api/wglext.h

With a new Khronos copyright header, these are the only files changed by the
commit, so yes this is legit. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the whole problem.

Regards,

Hans

[Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway]

Post by Hans de Goede
With a new Khronos copyright header, these are the only files changed by the
commit, so yes this is legit. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the whole problem.

Nope, it doesn't.

~spot

[Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway]

Post by Hans de Goede
With a new Khronos copyright header, these are the only files changed by the
commit, so yes this is legit. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the whole problem.

Nope, it doesn't.

~spot

[Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway]

Post by Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=mesa/mesa.git;a=commitdiff;h=344c3f7379ab4db749e7e8513be9be8fbb9f126c
It appears this is fixed in Mesa 7, which is in F8, but I don't know
where this leaves F7 and whatnot, which are still shipping Mesa 6.5.x.

I'm not sure that's even remotely legal for Mesa to have committed. The
SGI Free B license doesn't permit arbitrary relicensing, and without any
code changes, that amounts to simply stripping the copyright and license
off the old files.
Adam, do you know the details behind that commit?

NM, it looks like SGI signed off on that change upstream when they moved
to hosting those files at Khronos.

~spot

[Hans de Goede]

Post by Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=mesa/mesa.git;a=commitdiff;h=344c3f7379ab4db749e7e8513be9be8fbb9f126c
It appears this is fixed in Mesa 7, which is in F8, but I don't know
where this leaves F7 and whatnot, which are still shipping Mesa 6.5.x.

I'm not sure that's even remotely legal for Mesa to have committed. The
SGI Free B license doesn't permit arbitrary relicensing, and without any
code changes, that amounts to simply stripping the copyright and license
off the old files.
Adam, do you know the details behind that commit?

I've done some research on this, the OpenGL standard has been given in the
hands of an organization called "The Khronos Group Inc":
http://www.khronos.org/

They are now the owners of:
http://www.opengl.org/

Where the host atleast some of the involved header files:
http://www.opengl.org/registry/api/glext.h
http://www.opengl.org/registry/api/glxext.h
http://www.opengl.org/registry/api/wglext.h

With a new Khronos copyright header, these are the only files changed by the
commit, so yes this is legit. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the whole problem.

Regards,

Hans

[Tom &quot;spot&quot; Callaway]

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=mesa/mesa.git;a=commitdiff;h=344c3f7379ab4db749e7e8513be9be8fbb9f126c
It appears this is fixed in Mesa 7, which is in F8, but I don't know
where this leaves F7 and whatnot, which are still shipping Mesa 6.5.x.

I'm not sure that's even remotely legal for Mesa to have committed. The
SGI Free B license doesn't permit arbitrary relicensing, and without any
code changes, that amounts to simply stripping the copyright and license
off the old files.

Adam, do you know the details behind that commit?

~spot

[Anthony Green]

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#head-d8cc605dd386091c8b6be97b8a43fb6a5d624ae1

Parts of jogl are licensed under this license. I don't believe anything
depends on jogl. I've just retired this package.

AG

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: green.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 163 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071031/46141d6d/attachment.vcf

[Hans de Goede]

Post by Anthony Green

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#head-d8cc605dd386091c8b6be97b8a43fb6a5d624ae1

Parts of jogl are licensed under this license. I don't believe anything
depends on jogl. I've just retired this package.

We might want to have jogl in the future, assuming it just includes some SGI
licensed OpenGL header files, we might be able to replaced the encumbered parts
like I did with glew.

Regards,

Hans

[Anthony Green]

Post by Hans de Goede
We might want to have jogl in the future, assuming it just includes some
SGI licensed OpenGL header files, we might be able to replaced the
encumbered parts like I did with glew.

I think it is more than just headers. I'm going to talk to upstream
about it. I hope we can sort it out because there are some nice apps
written on top of jogl these days (cf.
http://code.google.com/p/worldwindrcp/ )

AG

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: green.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 163 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071031/f0145b01/attachment.vcf

[Anthony Green]

Post by Hans de Goede
We might want to have jogl in the future, assuming it just includes some
SGI licensed OpenGL header files, we might be able to replaced the
encumbered parts like I did with glew.

I think it is more than just headers. I'm going to talk to upstream
about it. I hope we can sort it out because there are some nice apps
written on top of jogl these days (cf.
http://code.google.com/p/worldwindrcp/ )

AG

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: green.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 163 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071031/f0145b01/attachment-0002.vcf

[Hans de Goede]

Post by Anthony Green

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#head-d8cc605dd386091c8b6be97b8a43fb6a5d624ae1

Parts of jogl are licensed under this license. I don't believe anything
depends on jogl. I've just retired this package.

We might want to have jogl in the future, assuming it just includes some SGI
licensed OpenGL header files, we might be able to replaced the encumbered parts
like I did with glew.

Regards,

Hans

[Callum Lerwick]

Okay, so there's a Second Life bug open pointing out what appears to be
a license problem with some OpenGL headers:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2881

There is indeed a bunch of headers with "SGI Free Software License B"
boilerplate in them:

$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/*
/usr/include/GL/glext.h
/usr/include/GL/glu.h
/usr/include/GL/glxext.h
/usr/include/GL/glxmd.h
/usr/include/GL/glxproto.h
/usr/include/GL/glxtokens.h

$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/* |xargs rpm -qf|sort|uniq
mesa-libGL-devel-6.5.2-13.fc7.i386
mesa-libGL-devel-6.5.2-13.fc7.x86_64
mesa-libGLU-devel-6.5.2-13.fc7.i386
mesa-libGLU-devel-6.5.2-13.fc7.x86_64
xorg-x11-proto-devel-7.2-9.fc7.x86_64

The devel packages say they're all MIT license:

$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/* |xargs rpm -qfi|grep License|
sort|uniq
Size : 1393741 License: MIT
Size : 82501 License: MIT
Size : 872295 License: MIT

"SGI Free Software License B" is explicitly not acceptable in Fedora:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#head-d8cc605dd386091c8b6be97b8a43fb6a5d624ae1

I've googled up and down and I haven't found an explanation as to what
is going on. Mesa's merge review is untouched:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=226136

Is there a reason these files don't fall under the SGI license? There's
a provision for "an alternative license" but I'm not even going to
pretend to understand the mechanics. If so, could the headers be
clarified, and an explanation made in Mesa's review? And a reply made
here? And Mesa's home page fixed? ;P

http://www.mesa3d.org/license.html

GLEW apparently had the same problem, fixed by taking headers from Mesa,
so I'm very confused as to what is going on:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=251191


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071031/93f9771b/attachment-0002.bin

[Peter Lemenkov]

Post by Callum Lerwick
Okay, so there's a Second Life bug open pointing out what appears to be
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2881
$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/* |xargs rpm -qfi|grep License|
sort|uniq
Size : 1393741 License: MIT
Size : 82501 License: MIT
Size : 872295 License: MIT

Yeah! It's time to drop Mesa support from Fedora as it was already did
with openmotif!

[Hans de Goede]

Post by Callum Lerwick
Okay, so there's a Second Life bug open pointing out what appears to be
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2881
There is indeed a bunch of headers with "SGI Free Software License B"
$ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/*
/usr/include/GL/glext.h
/usr/include/GL/glu.h
/usr/include/GL/glxext.h
/usr/include/GL/glxmd.h
/usr/include/GL/glxproto.h
/usr/include/GL/glxtokens.h

<snip>

Post by Callum Lerwick
I've googled up and down and I haven't found an explanation as to what
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=226136
Is there a reason these files don't fall under the SGI license? There's
a provision for "an alternative license" but I'm not even going to
pretend to understand the mechanics. If so, could the headers be
clarified, and an explanation made in Mesa's review? And a reply made
here? And Mesa's home page fixed? ;P
http://www.mesa3d.org/license.html

This is all very much AFAIK:

These files are indeed a problem, there have been talks with SGI about freeing
them but those have stagnated, since Mesa is a crucial piece of infrastructure,
the current situation is being allowed as an exception to the licensing guidelines.

Post by Callum Lerwick
GLEW apparently had the same problem, fixed by taking headers from Mesa,
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=251191

GLEW contained bits of "code" in some header files copy and pasted from the
OpenGL reference implementation. I've replaced these with "code" from
/usr/include/GL/gl.h and /usr/include/GL/glx.h, which are not under the
"SGI Free Software License B" / "GLX Public License" but fall for 100% under
Mesa's MIT license and thus are ok.

I did this because glew would not be allowed as is, the "SGI Free Software
License B" / "GLX Public License" exception is only for Mesa and we do not want
to add any other software under this license to the repo.

On the contrary, we really should start working on removing/replacing the
troublesome Mesa bits.

Regards,

Hans

[Callum Lerwick]

Update: I found this commit in Mesa's git:

http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=mesa/mesa.git;a=commitdiff;h=344c3f7379ab4db749e7e8513be9be8fbb9f126c

It appears this is fixed in Mesa 7, which is in F8, but I don't know
where this leaves F7 and whatnot, which are still shipping Mesa 6.5.x.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071031/182ebf2e/attachment-0002.bin

[Anthony Green]

Post by Callum Lerwick
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#head-d8cc605dd386091c8b6be97b8a43fb6a5d624ae1

Parts of jogl are licensed under this license. I don't believe anything
depends on jogl. I've just retired this package.

AG

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: green.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 163 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20071031/46141d6d/attachment-0002.vcf