ISC considering a change to the BIND open source license

Robert Edmonds edmonds at mycre.ws
Tue Jun 28 04:20:21 UTC 2016


Victoria Risk wrote:
> Hello BIND users-
> 
> ISC published BIND under a very permissive open source license <https://www.isc.org/downloads/software-support-policy/isc-license/> (https://www.isc.org/downloads/software-support-policy/isc-license/ <https://www.isc.org/downloads/software-support-policy/isc-license/>) nearly two decades ago.  ISC is the organizational steward for BIND; in order to preserve the software for the long term, we are considering a move to the more restrictive Mozilla Public License (MPL 2.0) <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/> (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/ <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/>).

Hi, Vicky:

It looks like this was announced today:

https://www.isc.org/blogs/bind9-adopts-the-mpl-2-0-license-with-bind-9-11-0/

> The MPL license requires that anyone redistributing the code who has changed it must publish their changes (or pay for an exception to the license). It doesn’t impact anyone who is using the software without redistributing it, nor anyone redistributing it without changes – so most users will not see any change.

Can you clarify what "or pay for an exception to the license" means?
I also see a similar statement in these slides:

https://ripe72.ripe.net/presentations/150-Relicensing-BIND.pdf

    • Probably Mozilla (MPL 2.0), possibly adding hosting clause
      • Contribute changes or pay for exception license
      • Not commercial software, just charging for exception

I don't think the MPL-2.0 has a "pay for an exception" clause, so this
would seem to imply that you plan to dual license BIND, or license BIND
under a modified license based on the MPL-2.0. Is that correct?

There is also this statement in your blog post:

    In addition, we will be updating our contributor guidelines so
    technical contributors are aware of how their contributions will be
    licensed.  We are considering other changes to the way people
    contribute code changes.  We do not plan to add a contributor
    agreement, based on the significant feedback we received against it.

Your contributor guidelines now read:

    https://www.isc.org/git/guidelines/

    ISC does not require an explicit copyright assignment for patch
    contributions. However, by submitting a patch to ISC, you implicitly
    certify that you are the author of the code, that you intend to
    reliquish exclusive copyright, and that you grant permission to
    publish your work under whichever is the standard license agreement
    for the project you are submitting it for. (The license agreement
    depends on the project and also the version, since we have changed
    two projects from the ISC license to the Mozilla Public License 2.0)

It looks like that paragraph formerly read:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20160329142948/https://www.isc.org/git/guidelines/

    ISC does not require an explicit copyright assignment for patch
    contributions. However, by submitting a patch to ISC, you implicitly
    certify that you are the author of the code, that you intend to
    reliquish exclusive copyright, and that you grant permission to
    publish your work under the ISC license.

Can you clarify what "...that you intend to relinquish exclusive
copyright" means? This sounds vaguely like an implicit contributor
license agreement.

I'm also confused as to how you plan to not require a contributor
agreement, while still being able to sell exceptions to the restrictions
in the MPL-2.0. E.g., suppose an external contributor writes 1000 lines
of new code, and licenses it under MPL-2.0 by putting a copyright notice
and license grant at the top:

/*
 * Copyright © 2017 James Hacker
 *
 * This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public
 * License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this
 * file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.
 */

How does ISC then both a) Merge this contribution into the BIND
mainline, and b) Sell a "pay for exception" version of BIND containing
this contribution?

-- 
Robert Edmonds


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