taskSavannah Administration - Tasks: task #16406, Submission of CC Mode

 
 

task #16406: Submission of CC Mode

Submitter:  Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Submitted:  Tue 25 Jul 2023 06:52:17 PM UTC
   
 
Should Start On:  Tue 25 Jul 2023 12:00:00 AM UTC Should be Finished on:  Fri 04 Aug 2023 12:00:00 AM UTC
Category:  Project Approval Priority:  * 5 - Normal
Status:  Done Privacy:  Public
Assigned to:  ineiev Open/Closed:  Closed
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Mon 31 Jul 2023 02:04:52 PM UTC, comment #17: 

Hello, Ineiev.

Many thanks!

I'll get the files installed in the coming days.

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Mon 31 Jul 2023 10:04:23 AM UTC, comment #16: 

Thank you, approving.

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Mon 31 Jul 2023 08:53:58 AM UTC, comment #15: 


Hello, Ineiev.

comment #14:
 

> > So, I've attached cc-mode.20230730.tar.gz.  Maybe this will be the last such attempt.
>
> Something went wrong, it didn't attach.


Sorry.  Maybe I forgot to log in, first.  I'll try again.


(file #55000)

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Mon 31 Jul 2023 07:20:07 AM UTC, comment #14: 


> I've amended cc-mode.texi to be licensed as either GFDL or GPL3+.  This involves the new file doclicense.texi, the text of GFDLv1.3.  That name is what the Emacs project calls the file.


Thank you!

> So, I've attached cc-mode.20230730.tar.gz.  Maybe this will be the last such attempt.


Something went wrong, it didn't attach.

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Sun 30 Jul 2023 04:14:26 PM UTC, comment #13: 

Hello, Ineiev.

comment #12:

> > ....
> > Alternatively, why not licence the manual under both the GFDL and GPL3+?
>
> Yes, these would be compliant with our hosting requirements.


OK, thanks!  I've amended cc-mode.texi to be licensed as either GFDL or GPL3+.  This involves the new file doclicense.texi, the text of GFDLv1.3.  That name is what the Emacs project calls the file.

So, I've attached cc-mode.20230730.tar.gz.  Maybe this will be the last such attempt.

Just as a matter of interest, cc-mode.texi in that tarball still refers to the SourceForge website, so there is work to be done before the sources are ready to be made public.

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Sun 30 Jul 2023 06:58:25 AM UTC, comment #12: 


> To do this, how about including something like the following text in cc-mode.texi at an appropriate place:
>
> "Additionally, the examples of Lisp code in this document are placed in the public domain, and may thus be freely copied, used, and modified for your software."?
>
> Alternatively, why not licence the manual under both the GFDL and GPL3+?


Yes, these would be compliant with our hosting requirements.

comment #10:

>
> Well, I seem to remember, about 10 years ago, a firm making and selling "Hackintoshes" (Intel PCs loaded with Apple Macintosh OSs) was found guilty of copyright infringement because they loaded each PC from a master they had made, rather than from the individual Apple distribution media they shipped with each PC.


I would guess that they had no permission to make a master in the first place; both GPL and FDL do allow such things.

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Sat 29 Jul 2023 02:02:24 PM UTC, comment #11: 

Hello again Ineiev,

As a suggestion to break the deadlock:

In https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html#addendum it says:

"If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software."

To do this, how about including something like the following text in cc-mode.texi at an appropriate place:

"Additionally, the examples of Lisp code in this document are placed in the public domain, and may thus be freely copied, used, and modified for your software."?

Alternatively, why not licence the manual under both the GFDL and GPL3+?

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Fri 28 Jul 2023 10:05:58 AM UTC, comment #10: 

Hello, Ineiev.



comment #9:

> It can't matter where they copy from when the copies are identical: it's the same work released under two licenses.


> Do I miss anything?


Well, I seem to remember, about 10 years ago, a firm making and selling "Hackintoshes" (Intel PCs loaded with Apple Macintosh OSs) was found guilty of copyright infringement because they loaded each PC from a master they had made, rather than from the individual Apple distribution media they shipped with each PC.  The question is a legal one rather than a technical one.

Also, such a file of code fragments would need context from the manual around each fragment, to make them meaningful.  Such a file would need to be maintained (although, in the CC Mode manual, these code pieces don't change often).

This file would also be ugly, and would be an aesthetic blemish on CC Mode, since it clearly serves no technical purpose.

Surely this point has come up for discussion before, probably quite a lot of times.  Is there not some better way that code fragments in manuals can be made freely copyable, possibly some licensing text in the manual, despite the manual being GFDL?

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Fri 28 Jul 2023 06:52:36 AM UTC, comment #9: 


> The workaround for this GPL3+/GFDL conflict in maintain.html section 6.6.5., namely to have a distinct file of code containing these code fragments, seems unworkably clumsy.  Even if there were a separate file of code examples licensed as GPL3+, users are, in practice, still going to be copying the code from the manual, not that file.


It can't matter where they copy from when the copies are identical: it's the same work released under two licenses.

Do I miss anything?

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Thu 27 Jul 2023 07:45:55 PM UTC, comment #8: 

Hello again, Ineiev.

cc-find-types-background.el (and also cc-engine.20160830.el) got into the tarball by accident (careless use of "*.el").  I'll take them out of the next tarball version.  Apologies.

cc-mode.texi is licensed under GPL3+ so as to permit users to copy Lisp code from this manual into their own code.  There are around 40 instances of such code, at least one of which (page "Sample .emacs file") is large, of the order of 50 lines.  Were cc-mode.texi GFDL licenced, such copying would violate this licence.

The workaround for this GPL3+/GFDL conflict in maintain.html section 6.6.5., namely to have a distinct file of code containing these code fragments, seems unworkably clumsy.  Even if there were a separate file of code examples licensed as GPL3+, users are, in practice, still going to be copying the code from the manual, not that file.  Why do we make our users licence violators?

I'm sure this point must have been discussed before, probably at great length.  It seems to be a bug in the licences.  Is there not a better solution than the above workaround?

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Thu 27 Jul 2023 04:29:09 PM UTC, comment #7: 

Thank you!

There are two issues remaining,

  • manuals should be released under an FDL-compatible license;
  • cc-find-types-background.el still lacks copyright and license notices.
Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Thu 27 Jul 2023 03:29:59 PM UTC, comment #6: 

Hello, Ineiev.

I've now attached copyright and licence statements to the five "auxiliary" files in the CC Mode release.

I'm uploading cc-mode.20230727.tar.gz with these files, and ask you to peruse it.

Thanks!

(file #54981)

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Wed 26 Jul 2023 06:35:53 PM UTC, comment #5: 


> I've had a look at a recent Emacs release, and all the corresponding files in Emacs have C/L statements, even if they're sometimes (ChangeLog) at the bottom of the file, not the top.


The legal procedures are documented in the Information for Maintainers of GNU Software.  Since ELPA packages are part of Emacs and therefore part of the GNU Project, they are expected to follow those guidelines and GNU Standards, though I do know that the maintainers of some ELPA packages don't realize that---even when they are quite familiar with those documents.
 

> ...but what date(s) do I put in?  Do I use 2023 (the date of adding the copyright statement) or a range of dates going back to the original creation of the files?  The latter may be problematic, since I don't know for sure when some files were created, and might not be able to find this out from previous maintainers.


I think it would be acceptable to list just as old dates as the history goes.  After all, the guidelines say on updating the years,


When you add the new year, it is not required to keep track of which files have seen significant changes in the new year and which have not. It is recommended and simpler to add the new year to all files in the package, and be done with it for the rest of the year.


> Sorry about the waste of time, here.


I believe this is anything but waste of time.

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Wed 26 Jul 2023 04:03:35 PM UTC, comment #4: 

Hello, Ineiev,

>> ...If I understand correctly, none of these five files needs a copyright/licence statement.



> Why do you think they needn't?


Er, because they've never had one before?  I've had a look at a recent Emacs release, and all the corresponding files in Emacs have C/L statements, even if they're sometimes (ChangeLog) at the bottom of the file, not the top.

So, it seems these files do need C/L statements.  Copyrighting them to the FSF isn't a problem (everybody who's worked on it has signed copyright papers), but what date(s) do I put in?  Do I use 2023 (the date of adding the copyright statement) or a range of dates going back to the original creation of the files?  The latter may be problematic, since I don't know for sure when some files were created, and might not be able to find this out from previous maintainers.  (I took over the SourceForge project in ~2005.)

Sorry about the waste of time, here.

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Wed 26 Jul 2023 03:01:07 PM UTC, comment #3: 

comment #2:

>
> I've updated the COPYING file as you requested.


Thank you!

> ...If I understand correctly, none of these five files needs a copyright/licence statement.


Why do you think they needn't?

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Wed 26 Jul 2023 10:47:27 AM UTC, comment #2: 

Hello, Ineiev.

I've updated the COPYING file as you requested.

The new tarball I've uploaded, cc-mode.20230726.tar.gz contains additionally ANNOUNCEMENT, MANIFEST, README, NEWS, and ChangeLog.  If I understand correctly, none of these five files needs a copyright/licence statement.

The tarball isn't a release as such, but has the same shape as a release.  I hope this is OK!

(file #54973)

Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>
Wed 26 Jul 2023 01:38:42 AM UTC, comment #1: 

original submission:

> Only the *.el and cc-mode.texi source files are uploaded below.  There are also miscellaneous files (NEWS, etc.), web pages, and a substantial unit-test facility, whose files don't carry copyright/license statements.


We need a complete release tarball in order to evaluate a package.  All copyrightable files should have valid copyright and license notices; could you fix that and attach a new file to this task?

Also, the COPYING file differs in a minor way from the file currently available from https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt; could you update it?

Ineiev <ineiev>
Site Administrator
Tue 25 Jul 2023 06:52:17 PM UTC, original submission:  

A new group has been registered at Savannah.
This group will remain inactive until a site admin approves
or discards the registration.


Registration Administration


Approving or discarding the registration must be done using the specific
Group administration page, accessible only to site
administrators logged in as superusers.

Registration Details


  • Name: CC Mode
  • System Name:  cc-mode
  • Type: Extras for official GNU software
  • License: GNU General Public License v3 or later





Description:

The Emacs component for editing C/C++/Objective C/Java/Pike/IDL/AWK code.  Written in Emacs Lisp.


Other Software Required:

Emacs, GPL3+, https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
or
XEmacs, GPL3+, https://www.xemacs.org/


Other Comments:

This project is to be moved from SourceForge to Savannah, as discussed in savannah-users@gnu.org.  I hope to obtain a sensible archive of the cc-mode-help mailing list from SourceForge too, to reinitialise the list in Savannah.

Only the *.el and cc-mode.texi source files are uploaded below.  There are also miscellaneous files (NEWS, etc.), web pages, and a substantial unit-test facility, whose files don't carry copyright/license statements.

(There are no "media files" in the project.)


Tarball URL:

https://savannah.gnu.org/submissions_uploads/cc-mode.20230725.tar.gz


Alan Mackenzie <acmacm>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

Attached Files
file #55000:  cc-mode.20230730.tar.gz added by acmacm (720KiB - application/gzip)
file #54981:  cc-mode.20230727.tar.gz added by acmacm (834KiB - application/gzip)
file #54973:  cc-mode.20230726.tar.gz added by acmacm (833KiB - application/gzip)

 

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    Follow 7 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2023-07-31 ineiev StatusIn Progress Done
        Open/ClosedOpen Closed
    2023-07-31 acmacm Attached File- Added cc-mode.20230730.tar.gz, #55000
    2023-07-27 acmacm Attached File- Added cc-mode.20230727.tar.gz, #54981
    2023-07-26 acmacm Attached File- Added cc-mode.20230726.tar.gz, #54973
    2023-07-26 ineiev StatusNone In Progress
        Assigned toNone ineiev

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