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All the comments here seem to focus on Theo, the Apache license vs. the BSD one, and for some reason the OpenBSD policy. But my understanding of that email is

All the comments here seem to focus on Theo, the Apache license vs. the BSD one, and for some reason the OpenBSD policy. But my understanding of that email is about the irregularity of a unilateral change of license. The contributors own their work and licensed it under one license, and the project wants to change it without doing the Herculean job of getting permission from all. I think Theo is correct there saying that there is a risk that one of those contributors will then come out of the woods and wreak havoc, risking a forced fork from the relicense point. IANAL, but "you don't change the license" is one of the few things I was taught.

kr7 10y ago
License changes are not unheard of. Wine changed from the MIT license to LGPL without all of the developer's support.
- lukeschlather 10y ago
  That's fine within the terms of the MIT license. It's not okay to relicense LGPL to MIT without author consent.
  - the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
    You can't do that but you can do further contributions under the LGPL which essentially makes it an LGPL project.
    - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
      What provision of the MIT license prevents it? My understanding is that MIT -> GPL is legal as long as the required notice is kept for MIT compliance, since MIT is a subset of GPL.
      - protomyth 10y ago
        What provision of the MIT License allows it? By default it is prevented in a copyrighted work. I don't think the sublicense clause covers it.
        cyphar 10y ago
        MIT is not copyleft. If you can sublicense MIT to be proprietary (which is what most people consider to be a "benefit" of the MIT license) then you can also sublicense it to be under the GPL[1]. The GPL does not strictly provide more rights than the MIT license. [1]: http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-agreement/ http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-a...
        protomyth 10y ago
        We don't change the license on the original code when we include it in proprietary software. I cannot just take a piece of MIT licensed code and change the license to what I want. I can add code of a different license.
        johncolanduoni 10y ago
        You can't make the original code not-MIT-licensed, since the author already released it as such (and even they cannot make it not-MIT-licensed). But you can release it (with or without modifications) under another license as long as it lets you follow the MIT license's only restriction (reproduction of the copyright notice). What do you think being GPL-compatible (for example) means other than that? The GPL requires you to release all parts of the derived work under the GPL, not just a compatible license.
        protomyth 10y ago
        > You can't make the original code not-MIT-licensed Yes, that's what I was saying.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    It's never fine to relicense works of others, unless you have a CLA giving you that explicit right.
    - johncolanduoni 10y ago
      Or a license that gives you that explicit right (like the MIT license does).
DannyBee 10y ago
Again, the project is not planning on doing it this way. Chris even says this: " Once we reach an agreement on the path to take, we can start talking about logistics of how to get there."
drewcrawford 10y ago
Both of the licenses used in LLVM contain the following clause: > Permission is hereby granted... to deal with the Software without restriction, including... the rights to... sublicense The effect of this clause is that all LLVM contributors have already consented to a chance in license, whether that change is done by you, me, Debian, or the Pope. The only question is whether the LLVM organization wishes to exercise this authority itself. It's clear that the majority of the key contributors are in favor of it, so it seems like a foregone conclusion at this point.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  Does 'sublicensing' imply a change in the license terms? I wouldn't think so, but IANAL.
  - drewcrawford 10y ago
    Well to cite an actual IP attorney [0], yes. A sublicense means that you (the licensee / sublicensor) grant somebody else (the sublicensee) the right to use the software, and you can do it under any terms you are permitted by the grant of sublicense. The MIT/NCSA do place some restrictions on sublicenses ("subject to the following conditions") but I don't see any reason why the Apache license would present a problem as the choice of sublicense. I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice. [0] http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-agreement/ http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-a...
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  The whole reason that this license change is coming up is that some people in the project (and I assume Apple as well) want to provide some level of protection from patent infringement cases for the users of LLVM. The ability to sublicense doesn't help here because the patent clause in the Apache 2.0 license would only apply to the patents owned by you, the one who is doing the sub-licensing. They want these protections to apply to the patents of any of the authors of LLVM, which of course cannot be done without their consent.
AsyncAwait 10y ago
> The contributors own their work and licensed it under one license, and the project wants to change it without doing the Herculean job of getting permission from all. And how Theo figured that the plan isn't to get approval for the license change from all contributors?

kr7 10y ago

License changes are not unheard of. Wine changed from the MIT license to LGPL without all of the developer's support.

lukeschlather 10y ago
That's fine within the terms of the MIT license. It's not okay to relicense LGPL to MIT without author consent.
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  You can't do that but you can do further contributions under the LGPL which essentially makes it an LGPL project.
  - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
    What provision of the MIT license prevents it? My understanding is that MIT -> GPL is legal as long as the required notice is kept for MIT compliance, since MIT is a subset of GPL.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      What provision of the MIT License allows it? By default it is prevented in a copyrighted work. I don't think the sublicense clause covers it.
      - cyphar 10y ago
        MIT is not copyleft. If you can sublicense MIT to be proprietary (which is what most people consider to be a "benefit" of the MIT license) then you can also sublicense it to be under the GPL[1]. The GPL does not strictly provide more rights than the MIT license. [1]: http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-agreement/ http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-a...
        protomyth 10y ago
        We don't change the license on the original code when we include it in proprietary software. I cannot just take a piece of MIT licensed code and change the license to what I want. I can add code of a different license.
        johncolanduoni 10y ago
        You can't make the original code not-MIT-licensed, since the author already released it as such (and even they cannot make it not-MIT-licensed). But you can release it (with or without modifications) under another license as long as it lets you follow the MIT license's only restriction (reproduction of the copyright notice). What do you think being GPL-compatible (for example) means other than that? The GPL requires you to release all parts of the derived work under the GPL, not just a compatible license.
        protomyth 10y ago
        > You can't make the original code not-MIT-licensed Yes, that's what I was saying.
- icebraining 10y ago
  It's never fine to relicense works of others, unless you have a CLA giving you that explicit right.
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    Or a license that gives you that explicit right (like the MIT license does).

DannyBee 10y ago

Again, the project is not planning on doing it this way. Chris even says this: " Once we reach an agreement on the path to take, we can start talking about logistics of how to get there."

drewcrawford 10y ago

Both of the licenses used in LLVM contain the following clause: > Permission is hereby granted... to deal with the Software without restriction, including... the rights to... sublicense The effect of this clause is that all LLVM contributors have already consented to a chance in license, whether that change is done by you, me, Debian, or the Pope. The only question is whether the LLVM organization wishes to exercise this authority itself. It's clear that the majority of the key contributors are in favor of it, so it seems like a foregone conclusion at this point.

mgkimsal 10y ago
Does 'sublicensing' imply a change in the license terms? I wouldn't think so, but IANAL.
- drewcrawford 10y ago
  Well to cite an actual IP attorney [0], yes. A sublicense means that you (the licensee / sublicensor) grant somebody else (the sublicensee) the right to use the software, and you can do it under any terms you are permitted by the grant of sublicense. The MIT/NCSA do place some restrictions on sublicenses ("subject to the following conditions") but I don't see any reason why the Apache license would present a problem as the choice of sublicense. I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice. [0] http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-agreement/ http://danashultz.com/blog/2010/10/19/what-is-a-sublicense-a...
johncolanduoni 10y ago
The whole reason that this license change is coming up is that some people in the project (and I assume Apple as well) want to provide some level of protection from patent infringement cases for the users of LLVM. The ability to sublicense doesn't help here because the patent clause in the Apache 2.0 license would only apply to the patents owned by you, the one who is doing the sub-licensing. They want these protections to apply to the patents of any of the authors of LLVM, which of course cannot be done without their consent.

AsyncAwait 10y ago

> The contributors own their work and licensed it under one license, and the project wants to change it without doing the Herculean job of getting permission from all. And how Theo figured that the plan isn't to get approval for the license change from all contributors?