Licensing question on gstreamer/common file

[Ties Jan Hefting]

Hello,

I am currently working on a music player using the GStreamer libraries.
While developing and running unit tests, I use Valgrind among others.
In the gstreamer/common repository [1], there is a file called
"gst.supp", which can be used for suppressions in Valgrind.

For ease of development, I would like to include this file in my own
common repository, which is then included as a git submodule in other
repositories.  However, it is not clear to me under what license the
file "gst.supp" is released, as there is no COPYING or LICENSE file in
the repository itself.  As the GStreamer core library is released by
the GStreamer community under LGPL v2.1, my initial thought was
everything inside this repository is also released under LGPL v2.1.

A few days ago I already set up this common repository [2]. The
repository itself holds no license at the moment. This will probably be
applied to my own code only, which is to be added later on.

I would like to confirm:
  1. Is this file indeed released under LGPL v2.1 as part of the core
     library? If not, what license is it released under?
  2. The attribution can be found here [3]. Do I attribute the file
     back to the community correctly? If not, how would you like the
     attribution to be?

If requested, I will of course change it as soon as possible, to comply
with your wishes.

Thanks in advance, TJ

(Ties Jan Hefting)


[1] https://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/common/
[2] https://github.com/Hefting/HarmonIQ-Common
[3] https://github.com/Hefting/HarmonIQ-Common/tree/fe9544cf6c72b12b0fdb78e729bbcdb955aaa4bb/tools
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[Nicolas Dufresne-5]

Le vendredi 28 avril 2017 à 17:27 +0200, Ties Jan Hefting a écrit :

> Hello,
>
> I am currently working on a music player using the GStreamer
> libraries.
> While developing and running unit tests, I use Valgrind among others.
> In the gstreamer/common repository [1], there is a file called
> "gst.supp", which can be used for suppressions in Valgrind.
>
> For ease of development, I would like to include this file in my own
> common repository, which is then included as a git submodule in other
> repositories.  However, it is not clear to me under what license the
> file "gst.supp" is released, as there is no COPYING or LICENSE file
> in
> the repository itself.  As the GStreamer core library is released by
> the GStreamer community under LGPL v2.1, my initial thought was
> everything inside this repository is also released under LGPL v2.1.

The repository "common" is included as sub-module in the other
repositories. A copy is then packaged when generating the release
tarballs (what we distribute). Taken from the tarballs, those file will
inherit from COPYING file at the root of the tarballs as there is no
other indication.

My personal opinion, is that I doubt anyone will ever care if you
distribute these files elsewhere, regardless of the terms. This file a
development helper, it is not fully portable either, but really useful
for debugging. Anyone is encouraged using that to find or better report
bugs.

>
> A few days ago I already set up this common repository [2]. The
> repository itself holds no license at the moment. This will probably
> be
> applied to my own code only, which is to be added later on.

>
> I would like to confirm:
>   1. Is this file indeed released under LGPL v2.1 as part of the core
>      library? If not, what license is it released under?
>   2. The attribution can be found here [3]. Do I attribute the file
>      back to the community correctly? If not, how would you like the
>      attribution to be?
>
> If requested, I will of course change it as soon as possible, to
> comply
> with your wishes.
>
> Thanks in advance, TJ
>
> (Ties Jan Hefting)
>
>
> [1] https://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/common/
> [2] https://github.com/Hefting/HarmonIQ-Common
> [3] https://github.com/Hefting/HarmonIQ-Common/tree/fe9544cf6c72b12b0fdb78e729bbcdb955aaa4bb/tools

That looks correct to me. It's quite a kind move to provide links and
all.

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[Tim-Philipp Müller-2]

On Fri, 2017-04-28 at 14:32 -0400, Nicolas Dufresne wrote:

Hi,

> > In the gstreamer/common repository [1], there is a file called
> > "gst.supp", which can be used for suppressions in Valgrind.
> >
> > For ease of development, I would like to include this file in my
> > own common repository, which is then included as a git submodule in
> > other repositories.  However, it is not clear to me under what
> > license the file "gst.supp" is released
>
> (snip)
> My personal opinion, is that I doubt anyone will ever care if you
> distribute these files elsewhere, regardless of the terms. This file
> a development helper, it is not fully portable either, but really
> useful for debugging. Anyone is encouraged using that to find or
> better report bugs.

+1

If a LGPLv2.1+ license would be useful to you, I think you can assume
that it's licensed as such.

But really, the suppression rules in this file are generated by
valgrind in some way or another, and then perhaps cleaned up a bit
manually, so personally I would question whether the stuff in this file
constitutes any kind of copyrightable work. IANAL of course, but I
would not make that claim for the parts I contributed.

Having said that, we should install the file somewhere now that glib is
doing that as well. I'll make a patch for that.

Cheers
 -Tim

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[Ties Jan Hefting]

Hi Nicolas and Tim,

Thanks a lot for your input. I understand you're not lawyers (me
neither), but this gives me enough to proceed with my project.


On license:
> > For ease of development, I would like to include this file in my
> > own common repository, which is then included as a git submodule in
> > other repositories.  However, it is not clear to me under what
> > license the file "gst.supp" is released, as there is no COPYING or
> > LICENSE file in the repository itself.  As the GStreamer core
> > library is released by the GStreamer community under LGPL v2.1, my
> > initial thought was everything inside this repository is also
> > released under LGPL v2.1.

(Nicolas)
> My personal opinion, is that I doubt anyone will ever care if you
> distribute these files elsewhere, regardless of the terms. This file
> a development helper, it is not fully portable either, but really
> useful for debugging. Anyone is encouraged using that to find or
> better report bugs.

Agreed, I was thinking the same on the purpose of this repository and
this file in particular. I will use it as such then.

(Tim)
> If a LGPLv2.1+ license would be useful to you, I think you can assume
> that it's licensed as such.

I recently switched to LGPLv3, so it will definitely fit. I will stick
with my assumption of LGPLv2.1+ then.


On attribution:
> > [3] https://github.com/Hefting/HarmonIQ-Common/tree/fe9544cf6c72b12b0fdb78e729bbcdb955aaa4bb/tools

(Nicolas)
> That looks correct to me. It's quite a kind move to provide links and
> all.

Cool, my pleasure for such a great library! :-)


Thanks again,
-TJ


On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 9:07 PM, Tim-Philipp Müller <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Fri, 2017-04-28 at 14:32 -0400, Nicolas Dufresne wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>> > In the gstreamer/common repository [1], there is a file called
>> > "gst.supp", which can be used for suppressions in Valgrind.
>> >
>> > For ease of development, I would like to include this file in my
>> > own common repository, which is then included as a git submodule in
>> > other repositories.  However, it is not clear to me under what
>> > license the file "gst.supp" is released
>>
>> (snip)
>> My personal opinion, is that I doubt anyone will ever care if you
>> distribute these files elsewhere, regardless of the terms. This file
>> a development helper, it is not fully portable either, but really
>> useful for debugging. Anyone is encouraged using that to find or
>> better report bugs.
>
> +1
>
> If a LGPLv2.1+ license would be useful to you, I think you can assume
> that it's licensed as such.
>
> But really, the suppression rules in this file are generated by
> valgrind in some way or another, and then perhaps cleaned up a bit
> manually, so personally I would question whether the stuff in this file
> constitutes any kind of copyrightable work. IANAL of course, but I
> would not make that claim for the parts I contributed.
>
> Having said that, we should install the file somewhere now that glib is
> doing that as well. I'll make a patch for that.
>
> Cheers
>  -Tim
>
> _______________________________________________
> gstreamer-devel mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/gstreamer-devel

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