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So, the major question getting asked (and theo is trolling about elsewhere) is what happens if you don't respond to the emails. Having helped out with many rel

So, the major question getting asked (and theo is trolling about elsewhere) is what happens if you don't respond to the emails. Having helped out with many relicensing exercises at this point, i'm not sure why people are so worried. The usual tact taken is: If you cannot affirmatively get consent, you remove the code and, if still needed, have someone not involved rewrite it. I have yet to see anywhere in all of this that actually says they plan on doing anything different (IE theo's trolling seems to be based not on reality). I looked at the press releases, details, and mailing lists. What am i missing?

4a6f656c 10y ago
The email being sent out clearly states: "If we do not hear from you, we will assume that you have no objection."
- ckastner 10y ago
  The email can state all it wants, but from a legal point of view, assuming consent merely by absence of dissent is nonsense -- at least in the jurisdictions I'm familiar with. There are exceptions to this, but this is not one of those cases. Just assuming that the email has been read is already a far stretch.
  - jwilk 10y ago
    The process raises my eyebrows, too, but apparently that's how it was done for other projects: * https://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-commits/2011-November/010353.html https://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-commits/2011-Nove... (grep for "It is possible") * https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/05/25/relicensing-dolphin/#a-legal-gray-area https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/05/25/relicensing-dolphin/... * https://blogs.fsfe.org/ciaran/?p=58 https://blogs.fsfe.org/ciaran/?p=58 (grep for "it is not necessary")
    - ckastner 10y ago
      Ah. In those cases, it appears that the overwhelming majority (>= 95%) of developers explicitly agreed to the relicensing, with the remaining minority at least not objecting. That is still not assent by the remaining 5%, but was apparently sufficient for relicensing of the whole work in the relevant jurisdictions. In that context, the quote from the OpenSSL email appears to be well-phrased, as it really only assumes the absence of objections.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  If so, that's uh, yeah, remarkably stupid. I would guess they meant "don't object to the plan in general". They certainly can't obtain legal consent to relicense this way, and anyone who told them the could pretty much has no idea what they are talking about, at least in the US. There is a lot of citation to "lawyers in the past told them X" with no actual data or description of what those lawyers said, caselaw they relied upon, jurisdiction they are talking about, etc.

4a6f656c 10y ago

The email being sent out clearly states: "If we do not hear from you, we will assume that you have no objection."

ckastner 10y ago
The email can state all it wants, but from a legal point of view, assuming consent merely by absence of dissent is nonsense -- at least in the jurisdictions I'm familiar with. There are exceptions to this, but this is not one of those cases. Just assuming that the email has been read is already a far stretch.
- jwilk 10y ago
  The process raises my eyebrows, too, but apparently that's how it was done for other projects: * https://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-commits/2011-November/010353.html https://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-commits/2011-Nove... (grep for "It is possible") * https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/05/25/relicensing-dolphin/#a-legal-gray-area https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/05/25/relicensing-dolphin/... * https://blogs.fsfe.org/ciaran/?p=58 https://blogs.fsfe.org/ciaran/?p=58 (grep for "it is not necessary")
  - ckastner 10y ago
    Ah. In those cases, it appears that the overwhelming majority (>= 95%) of developers explicitly agreed to the relicensing, with the remaining minority at least not objecting. That is still not assent by the remaining 5%, but was apparently sufficient for relicensing of the whole work in the relevant jurisdictions. In that context, the quote from the OpenSSL email appears to be well-phrased, as it really only assumes the absence of objections.
DannyBee 10y ago
If so, that's uh, yeah, remarkably stupid. I would guess they meant "don't object to the plan in general". They certainly can't obtain legal consent to relicense this way, and anyone who told them the could pretty much has no idea what they are talking about, at least in the US. There is a lot of citation to "lawyers in the past told them X" with no actual data or description of what those lawyers said, caselaw they relied upon, jurisdiction they are talking about, etc.