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[VOTE] Relicense of Forgejo #183

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opened 2023年03月01日 02:52:27 +01:00 by fsologureng · 17 comments
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WHEREAS, an issue was opened on 26 December 2022: Relicensing Forgejo as copyleft #86;

WHEREAS, a Proposal to close the issue, subsequently opening another issue to hold a vote to determine and resolve the matter of which software license to adopt for Forgejo has been made on 03 February 2023;

WHEREAS, 26 additional days were requested by @Dachary, until the beginning of March 2023, and agreed to with support from @tallship, @oliverpool, @gapodo, and @Ryuno-Ki here, and here;

WHEREAS, there have been no objections, the additional 26 days have passed, it is now 01 March 2023, and issue #86 has now been closed;

RESOLVED that a VOTE is now underway to decide which license will be adopted for the Forgejo software product; the following three choices with instructions follow;

Voting Procedure:

Decision - Choices between licenses:

The choices between the varios licenses having garnered significant support are the the poll items to choose from. They are:

  • MIT License - Remain with the Existing MIT License
  • AGPL-3.0-or-later - Adopt the "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later" License.
  • AGPL-3.0-only - Adopt the "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only" License.
  • EUPL-1.2 - Adopt the "European Union Public License (EUPL-1.2)." License.

Method of Voting:

There are four comments below. Each one represents a license.

  • Please react by selecting the license option(s) of your preference by reacting with a thumbs up emoji (in reality, you may choose any reaction emoji, but it is simpler to tally the votes if you oblige by only using the thumbs up reaction emoji).
  • Your choice will be tallied and your Codeberg.org username will be associated with your preference.
  • You may chose, one, two, all, or none of the license options in the poll.
  • You may vote only once for each individual license (if choosing more than once license as your preference).
  • Each vote is a vote for your preference in the affirmative, yet if you vote more than once for any single item in this poll all of your votes will be disqualified.
  • You can change your vote(s) (preferences) at anytime before the end of this poll - i.e., selecting the thumbs up emoji again for any particular item will remove your vote of preference for that particular item.

Duration:

This poll will end in Fifteen (15) days - ending on 16 March 2023 @23:59hrs UTC.

Results

RESOLVED that the license with the most affirmative votes will be the license moving forward that Forgejo shall be licensed under for all future contributions, commencing 30 days from the conclusion of this poll (15 April 2023 @00:00hrs UTC);

RESOLVED that in the event of a tie vote another poll will commence between those respective licenses to reach the determination as to which license will go into effect on 15 April 2023.

**WHEREAS**, an issue was opened on 26 December 2022: [Relicensing Forgejo as copyleft #86](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/issues/86); **WHEREAS**, a Proposal to close the issue, subsequently opening another issue to hold a vote to determine and resolve the matter of which software license to adopt for Forgejo has been made on [03 February 2023](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/issues/86#issuecomment-790804); **WHEREAS**, 26 additional days were requested by @Dachary, until the beginning of March 2023, and agreed to with support from @tallship, @oliverpool, @gapodo, and @Ryuno-Ki [here](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/issues/86#issuecomment-790868), and [here](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/issues/86#issuecomment-806131); **WHEREAS**, there have been **no objections**, the additional 26 days have passed, it is now 01 March 2023, and issue #86 has now been closed; **RESOLVED** that a **VOTE** is now underway to decide which license will be adopted for the Forgejo software product; the following three choices with instructions follow; ## Voting Procedure: ### Decision - Choices between licenses: #### The choices between the varios licenses having garnered significant support are the the poll items to choose from. They are: * **MIT License** - Remain with the Existing MIT License * **AGPL-3.0-or-later** - Adopt the *"GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later"* [License](https://spdx.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0-or-later.html). * **AGPL-3.0-only** - Adopt the *"GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only"* [License](https://spdx.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0-only). * **EUPL-1.2** - Adopt the *"European Union Public License (EUPL-1.2)."* [License](https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12). #### Method of Voting: There are four comments below. Each one represents a license. * Please react by selecting the license option(s) of your preference by reacting with a thumbs up emoji (in reality, you may choose any reaction emoji, but it is simpler to tally the votes if you oblige by only using the thumbs up reaction emoji). * Your choice will be tallied and your Codeberg.org username will be associated with your preference. * You may chose, one, two, all, or none of the license options in the poll. * You may vote only once for each individual license (if choosing more than once license as your preference). * Each vote is a vote for your preference in the affirmative, yet if you vote more than once for any single item in this poll all of your votes will be disqualified. * You can change your vote(s) (preferences) at anytime before the end of this poll - i.e., selecting the thumbs up emoji again for any particular item will remove your vote of preference for that particular item. ## Duration: This poll will end in Fifteen (15) days - ending on 16 March 2023 @23:59hrs UTC. ## Results **RESOLVED** that the license with the most affirmative votes will be the license moving forward that Forgejo shall be licensed under for all future contributions, commencing 30 days from the conclusion of this poll (15 April 2023 @00:00hrs UTC); **RESOLVED** that in the event of a tie vote another poll will commence between those respective licenses to reach the determination as to which license will go into effect on 15 April 2023.
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MIT License - Retain the exitsing MIT license moving forward.

**MIT License** - Retain the exitsing MIT license moving forward.
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AGPL-3.0-or-later - Adopt the "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later" License.

**AGPL-3.0-or-later** - Adopt the *"GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later"* [License](https://spdx.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0-or-later.html).
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AGPL-3.0-only - Adopt the "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only" License.

**AGPL-3.0-only** - Adopt the *"GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only"* [License](https://spdx.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0-only).
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EUPL-1.2 - Adopt the "European Union Public Licence (EUPL-1.2)." License.

**EUPL-1.2** - Adopt the *"European Union Public Licence (EUPL-1.2)."* [License](https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12).

@fsologureng while I understand you are eager to see this through, it is premature. I reiterate, if necessary, that I am very much in favor of licensing Forgejo under a copyleft license. But this must be done right and carefully.

WHEREAS, there have been no objections, the additional 26 days have passed, it is now 01 March 2023, and issue #86 has now been closed;

There is an objection and the discussion is still active.

RESOLVED that a VOTE is now underway to decide which license will be adopted for the Forgejo software product; the following three choices with instructions follow;

Voting was never discussed in governance meetings. The decision making is about reaching an agreement, not about voting.

Furthermore, should it be agreed on that copyleft is the right choice for Forgejo, voting on the license would lead to a "design by committee" problem: it is a matter of expertise and rationale that cannot be resolved by counting votes.

@fsologureng while I understand you are eager to see this through, it is premature. I reiterate, if necessary, that I am very much in favor of licensing Forgejo under a copyleft license. But this must be done right and carefully. > WHEREAS, there have been no objections, the additional 26 days have passed, it is now 01 March 2023, and issue #86 has now been closed; There is [an objection](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/issues/86#issuecomment-819747) and the discussion is still active. > RESOLVED that a VOTE is now underway to decide which license will be adopted for the Forgejo software product; the following three choices with instructions follow; Voting was never discussed in governance meetings. The [decision making](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/src/branch/readme/DECISION-MAKING.md) is about reaching an agreement, not about voting. Furthermore, should it be agreed on that copyleft is the right choice for Forgejo, voting on the license would lead to a "design by committee" problem: it is a matter of expertise and rationale that cannot be resolved by counting votes.

I kind of agree with @dachary. The license is a major decision that will permanently change the direction of the project. Since most of our original code right now is in areas like federation that will likely need to be upstreamed to Gitea eventually anyway, I don't see a compelling reason to rush into a decision on the license. But, then, I'm still somewhat undecided on the copyleft question (though leaning in favor of it since many other community members seem to support it, and a lot of other federated software uses it). It is clear, however, that many people are eager to see a conclusion to the licensing issue.

I would also like to reiterate my concerns about the EUPL-1.2 license. That license is much more permissive than the AGPL in many ways. Notably, it would not require the distribution of the source code to the users of an instance that uses a custom build. You would only be required to give the source code to people you share your binary with. If we're going to use copyleft, I would rather have the network distribution clause, but even if we don't go with that, I would prefer GPLv2 or GPLv3

I kind of agree with @dachary. The license is a major decision that will permanently change the direction of the project. Since most of our original code right now is in areas like federation that will likely need to be upstreamed to Gitea eventually anyway, I don't see a compelling reason to rush into a decision on the license. But, then, I'm still somewhat undecided on the copyleft question (though leaning in favor of it since many other community members seem to support it, and a lot of other federated software uses it). It is clear, however, that many people are eager to see a conclusion to the licensing issue. I would also like to reiterate my concerns about the EUPL-1.2 license. That license is much more permissive than the AGPL in many ways. Notably, it would not require the distribution of the source code to the users of an instance that uses a custom build. You would only be required to give the source code to people you share your binary with. If we're going to use copyleft, I would rather have the network distribution clause, but even if we don't go with that, I would prefer GPLv2 or GPLv3

to decide which license will be adopted for the Forgejo software product

This assumes a wholesale relicense. Was that decided? Is it just poorly worded?

The 'soft fork' licensing suggestion still might get traction:

the new code contributed to forgejo is licensed under some copyleft license (which, is a separate decision) and the file it is contributed to will thus get relicensed from MIT to [new license]. The entire product will, as a legal consequence, be shipped as [new license]. The repo has over 5000 files, it would take a while before all of them are changed. It would ease relations and allow fence-sitters on the license issue to slowly get used to this.

Am I the only one that thinks this in-the-middle solution would be useful to have recognized as a real option?

> to decide which license will be adopted for the Forgejo software product This assumes a wholesale relicense. Was that decided? Is it just poorly worded? The 'soft fork' licensing suggestion still might get traction: the new code contributed to forgejo is licensed under some copyleft license (which, is a separate decision) and the file it is contributed to will thus get relicensed from MIT to [new license]. The entire product will, as a legal consequence, be shipped as [new license]. The repo has over 5000 files, it would take a while before all of them are changed. It would ease relations and allow fence-sitters on the license issue to slowly get used to this. Am I the only one that thinks this in-the-middle solution would be useful to have recognized as a real option?

Also, especially with the great observations from @crystal here, it doesn't make sense to just list a license by name.
Many people don't consider the EU-PL to be a real option, but it shows up here without any pro's or con's.

Licenses are legal documents, people voting here will honestly need a voting-guide on each because unless you have been paying a lot of attention to licenses for YEARS its not going to be an informed vote.

Also, especially with the great observations from @crystal here, it doesn't make sense to just list a license by name. Many people [don't consider](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/issues/86#issuecomment-778344) the EU-PL to be a real option, but it shows up here without any pro's or con's. Licenses are legal documents, people voting here will honestly need a voting-guide on each because unless you have been paying a lot of attention to licenses for YEARS its not going to be an informed vote.

The polling has ended and the results are tallied. this concludes the vote on what license Forĝejo will continue under, and that license is the:

AGPL-3.0-or-later - "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later" License.

Here is the screenshot of the results taken at the conclusion of the election fur this resolution:

The individual results are as follows:

AGPL-3.0-or-later - "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later" = 6 votes

AGPL-3.0-or-only - "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only" = 5 votes

MIT License = 4 votes

EUPL-1.2 - "European Union Public Licence (EUPL-1.2)." = Zero (0) votes

The permissive voting options were available to vote for one, some, all, or none of the licenses on the ballot.

the names/UIDs of the people casting their votes are displayed in each screenshot.

As per the resolution, the Forgejo project will begin accepting contributions under the AGPL license instead of the MIT license, commencing 30 days from now on 15 April 2023 @00:00hrs UTC.

The polling has ended and the results are tallied. this concludes the vote on what license Forĝejo will continue under, and that license is the: AGPL-3.0-or-later - "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later" License. Here is the screenshot of the results taken at the conclusion of the election fur this resolution: The individual results are as follows: AGPL-3.0-or-later - "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later" = 6 votes AGPL-3.0-or-only - "GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only" = 5 votes MIT License = 4 votes EUPL-1.2 - "European Union Public Licence (EUPL-1.2)." = Zero (0) votes The permissive voting options were available to vote for one, some, all, or none of the licenses on the ballot. the names/UIDs of the people casting their votes are displayed in each screenshot. As per the resolution, the Forgejo project will begin accepting contributions under the AGPL license instead of the MIT license, commencing 30 days from now on 15 April 2023 @00:00hrs UTC.

I am a copyright holder of significant part of Forgejo and I strongly object to that being a decision of the Forgejo community. At least one other copyright holder did not agree.

A decision cannot be made by people who are not impacted by the decision: a licensing decision must be made with an explicit consensus among copyright holders. It does not make sense otherwise.

I am a copyright holder of significant part of Forgejo and I strongly object to that being a decision of the Forgejo community. At least one other copyright holder did not agree. A decision cannot be made by people who are not impacted by the decision: a licensing decision must be made with an explicit consensus among copyright holders. It does not make sense otherwise.

A decision cannot be made by people who are not impacted by the decision: a licensing decision must be made with an explicit consensus among copyright holders.

I'm not a copyright holder, nor a voter. But I need to point out that this is simply false.

You say you have a lot of copyrighted stuff in gitea/forgejo. That implies you licensed it under some BSD-style, probably the MIT license. This explicitly allows people to relicense it to anything else. As the user sees fit. You agreed to this when you published your works. Under that license.

I know it sounds ironic, but please realize I don't mean disrespect. The truth is that the relicense to any copyleft license is explicitly the thing that disallows relicensing afterwards. So since you are very much passionate about people not relicensing your code as you expect, you should really consider a copyleft license to be what you wanted in the first place. Because that is the only type of open source licenses that allows you, the copyright holder, to have such expectations of 'downstream'.

The entire point of (some/most) people not wanting the MIT license for a work like forgejo is because we too care about how people use our code for their own usage.

> A decision cannot be made by people who are not impacted by the decision: a licensing decision must be made with an explicit consensus among copyright holders. I'm not a copyright holder, nor a voter. But I need to point out that this is simply false. You say you have a lot of copyrighted stuff in gitea/forgejo. That implies you licensed it under some BSD-style, probably the MIT license. This explicitly allows people to relicense it to anything else. As the user sees fit. You agreed to this when you published your works. Under that license. I know it sounds ironic, but please realize I don't mean disrespect. The truth is that the relicense to any copyleft license is explicitly the thing that disallows relicensing afterwards. So since you are very much passionate about people not relicensing your code as you expect, you should really consider a copyleft license to be what you wanted in the first place. Because that is the only type of open source licenses that allows you, the copyright holder, to have such expectations of 'downstream'. The entire point of (some/most) people not wanting the MIT license for a work like forgejo is because we too care about how people use our code for their own usage.

You say you have a lot of copyrighted stuff in gitea/forgejo.

I just meant the Forgejo part, everything that is not in Gitea but unique to Forgejo. Claiming that I am a copyright holder of a significant part of Gitea would be presumptuous, to say the least 😄

That implies you licensed it under some BSD-style, probably the MIT license. This explicitly allows people to relicense it to anything else. As the user sees fit. You agreed to this when you published your works. Under that license.

Yes. It is legally possible and nobody needs my consent to do that.

I should have written:

A Forgejo decision cannot be made by Forgejo community members who are not impacted by the decision: a licensing decision must be made with an explicit consensus among the Forgejo community members who are also copyright holders.

Otherwise the Forgejo community could end up making decisions that go against the majority of the members impacted by it (the copyright holders in this instance). Which would not make much common sense, even though it would be legally allowed.

Does that clarify my statement?

> You say you have a lot of copyrighted stuff in gitea/forgejo. I just meant the Forgejo part, everything that is not in Gitea but unique to Forgejo. Claiming that I am a copyright holder of a significant part of Gitea would be presumptuous, to say the least 😄 > That implies you licensed it under some BSD-style, probably the MIT license. This explicitly allows people to relicense it to anything else. As the user sees fit. You agreed to this when you published your works. Under that license. Yes. It is legally possible and nobody needs my consent to do that. I should have written: > A Forgejo decision cannot be made by Forgejo community members who are not impacted by the decision: a licensing decision must be made with an explicit consensus among the Forgejo community members who are also copyright holders. Otherwise the Forgejo community could end up making decisions that go against the majority of the members impacted by it (the copyright holders in this instance). Which would not make much common sense, even though it would be legally allowed. Does that clarify my statement?

earl-warren

A Forgejo decision cannot be made by Forgejo community members who are not
impacted by the decision: a licensing decision must be made with an explicit
consensus among the Forgejo community members who are also copyright holders.

On that I fully agree.

I don't consider this vote to represent forgejo, I don't expect it to get honored because none of the obvious rules of voting have been followed, objections (I wrote some) have been ignored and I feel that OP is making things harder than they should be by pretending otherwise.

Does that clarify my statement?

It does, and I support it.

earl-warren > A Forgejo decision cannot be made by Forgejo community members who are not > impacted by the decision: a licensing decision must be made with an explicit > consensus among the Forgejo community members who are also copyright holders. On that I fully agree. I don't consider this vote to represent forgejo, I don't expect it to get honored because none of the obvious rules of voting have been followed, objections (I wrote some) have been ignored and I feel that OP is making things harder than they should be by pretending otherwise. > Does that clarify my statement? It does, and I support it.
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I'm offering my help with moving the licensing question forward: #198

I'm offering my help with moving the licensing question forward: https://codeberg.org/forgejo/meta/issues/198
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