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How did Facebook was able to change the license of RocksDB so easily? The CLA is not a copyright assignment and therefore all contributors have to agree for the

How did Facebook was able to change the license of RocksDB so easily? The CLA is not a copyright assignment and therefore all contributors have to agree for the change. Did they contact anyone who has signed up the CLA?

khuey 9y ago
On purely copyright grounds, any BSD licensed code can be relicensed as Apache 2.0 code. And the patent grant was solely from Facebook so it can be modified at their discretion.
- vbernat 9y ago
  First paragraph of BSD license says: "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright-notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer". I agree you can add the Apache 2.0 license on top of that, but you cannot discard the BSD license unless you own the code.
- dchest 9y ago
  This is incorrect. Here's the full text of BSD license: Copyright (c) 2011 The LevelDB Authors. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the name of Google Inc. nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. View The first list item disproves your statement.
  - thrillgore 9y ago
    There is a similar clause in the MIT License, which is even weaker than the BSD License.
    - dchest 9y ago
      MIT license includes the right to sublicense, however the terms of sublicensing is retaining the original copyright and permission notices, so you'll still have to retain the large portion of the MIT license text.
dchest 9y ago
All contributors to RocksDB signed Facebook's CLA https://code.facebook.com/cla/individual https://code.facebook.com/cla/individual which states: 2. Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, You hereby grant to Facebook and to recipients of software distributed by Facebook a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative works.
- vbernat 9y ago
  This is not a copyright assignment and not an authorization to publish under a different license. Canonical's CLA adds the additional paragraph to enable that: Based on the grant of rights in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, if We include Your Contribution in a Material, We may license the Contribution under any license, including copyleft, permissive, commercial, or proprietary licenses. As a condition on the exercise of this right, We agree to also license the Contribution under the terms of the license or licenses which We are using for the Material on the Submission Date.
  - Steeeve 9y ago
    I hate to say it, but you have a perfectly valid point. I hate to say it because it makes changing the license significantly more problematic than it seemingly was an hour or two ago. By changing the license, Facebook assumed rights to contributions that it does not have. Even if the licenses are _compatible_, releasing contributions under a different license is not allowed without permission from the contributors. This is a change from a permissive open source license to another permissive open source license, but what if my GPL contributions to a project were released under BSD? Or what if they were released under a proprietary commercial license? In either case, I might not have contributed, and I should have the right to rescind my contribution to prevent it from being included under a new license. It's an interesting quagmire, and one that FB's choice of license was destined to lead into at some point. I think it was a bad decision from the get-go. This is not the first major licensing snafu. A lot of projects ran into similar issues trying to adopt GPLv3 when it first came about. And I have seen a few other projects deal with community uprisings as other license changes came about. Personally, I think FB should adopt the combined apache/GPL license, adopt CLA language like you've stated, and provide notice that developers can rescind contributions if they don't agree. Perhaps do a tri-license of Apache/GPL/BSD if there's significant kickback. Their current license is a problem and too much of a continuing distraction. JMO.

khuey 9y ago

On purely copyright grounds, any BSD licensed code can be relicensed as Apache 2.0 code. And the patent grant was solely from Facebook so it can be modified at their discretion.

vbernat 9y ago
First paragraph of BSD license says: "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright-notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer". I agree you can add the Apache 2.0 license on top of that, but you cannot discard the BSD license unless you own the code.
dchest 9y ago
This is incorrect. Here's the full text of BSD license: Copyright (c) 2011 The LevelDB Authors. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the name of Google Inc. nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. View The first list item disproves your statement.
- thrillgore 9y ago
  There is a similar clause in the MIT License, which is even weaker than the BSD License.
  - dchest 9y ago
    MIT license includes the right to sublicense, however the terms of sublicensing is retaining the original copyright and permission notices, so you'll still have to retain the large portion of the MIT license text.

dchest 9y ago

All contributors to RocksDB signed Facebook's CLA https://code.facebook.com/cla/individual https://code.facebook.com/cla/individual which states: 2. Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, You hereby grant to Facebook and to recipients of software distributed by Facebook a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative works.

vbernat 9y ago
This is not a copyright assignment and not an authorization to publish under a different license. Canonical's CLA adds the additional paragraph to enable that: Based on the grant of rights in Sections 2.1 and 2.2, if We include Your Contribution in a Material, We may license the Contribution under any license, including copyleft, permissive, commercial, or proprietary licenses. As a condition on the exercise of this right, We agree to also license the Contribution under the terms of the license or licenses which We are using for the Material on the Submission Date.
- Steeeve 9y ago
  I hate to say it, but you have a perfectly valid point. I hate to say it because it makes changing the license significantly more problematic than it seemingly was an hour or two ago. By changing the license, Facebook assumed rights to contributions that it does not have. Even if the licenses are _compatible_, releasing contributions under a different license is not allowed without permission from the contributors. This is a change from a permissive open source license to another permissive open source license, but what if my GPL contributions to a project were released under BSD? Or what if they were released under a proprietary commercial license? In either case, I might not have contributed, and I should have the right to rescind my contribution to prevent it from being included under a new license. It's an interesting quagmire, and one that FB's choice of license was destined to lead into at some point. I think it was a bad decision from the get-go. This is not the first major licensing snafu. A lot of projects ran into similar issues trying to adopt GPLv3 when it first came about. And I have seen a few other projects deal with community uprisings as other license changes came about. Personally, I think FB should adopt the combined apache/GPL license, adopt CLA language like you've stated, and provide notice that developers can rescind contributions if they don't agree. Perhaps do a tri-license of Apache/GPL/BSD if there's significant kickback. Their current license is a problem and too much of a continuing distraction. JMO.