Preview: https://forgejo.codeberg.page/@pull_204/2023-06-copyleft/
This is a companion blog for the decision to welcome copyleft contributions.
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Preview ready: https://forgejo.codeberg.page/@pull_204/
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I wonder if there should be a paragraph about copyrightable work. If someone fixes a typo in a comment, they do not have any copyright. For a contribution to be copyrightable, it must be original which a typo fix is not. Most trivial bug fixes are not either. This may be important in case someone think they can submit such a change under a copyleft license to trigger the decision.
Maybe it is best to leave that for later, when and if someone actually tries that. Otherwise it may trigger a long and controversial theoretical discussion.
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This message was redacted by the moderation team
I went ahead and proposed an agreement that re-uses material from this draft blog post at forgejo/governance#20
An agreement was reached and this could be published. It needs fixing to please the CI.
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This is a major step for Forgejo and it should be properly explained. Please express your concerns & ideas to improve this blog post.
I am unsure about the last paragraph, but I think removing the last sentence would be enough for me to publish this blog post.
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Developers who feel strongly about exclusively publishing their work under a permissive license can keep doing so when working on Forgejo. By the terms of this permissive license, they accept that their work can be sublicensed and redistributed under a proprietary license. And they also accept that it can be sublicensed and redistributed as part of Forgejo, under a copyleft license.
The choice of a copyleft license is a delicate balance and it is expected that different opinions will be voiced within the Forgejo community. There already were debates comparing the merits of the [AGPL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License) which was designed for online services and the [GPL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License) which was designed before the internet age. The least controversial choice would be to choose the same license as Git since there already is a de facto consensus because all developers and users agree on it.
I would remove the last sentence (or maybe the last paragraph):
The least controversial choice would be to choose the same license as Git since there already is a de facto consensus because all developers and users agree on it.
I consider choosing GPLv2-only for Forgejo to be very much controversial (among other things, it would prevent accepting AGPL contributions in the future)
I agree that this last paragraph is not needed because it speculates on a debate that is yet to happen. It was removed.
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Will this change anything for ...
Well, if it doesn't change anything, why dare this step? I actually hope that it changes how Forgejo can and will be used, especially that there are no proprietary Forgejo (SaaSS) variants.
If many people here agree on the plan that this is how the future of Forgejo should look like, we should be honest about it. This is a step towards AGPL for some, which is IMHO not comparable to Git, because you cannot patch Forgejo on a server without offering the source ...
All in all, the article is good, but I wonder if "nothing will change" is the honest essence we should convey in the introduction.
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## Forgejo users already welcome copyleft
Forgejo is a [software forge](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forge_(software)>), an online development environment, based on [Git](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git). **Both Forgejo and Git must be installed together**, either as individual binaries or bundled into the [official container images](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/-/packages/container/forgejo/1.19-rootless). The license of Git is [GNU GPLv2](https://git-scm.com/about/free-and-open-source) which is a [copyleft license](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.html). Although the Forgejo codebase includes basic support for [gogit](https://github.com/go-git/go-git), a Go package distributed under a permissive license that can be used in place of Git, it is not supported or packaged because it is [not fully compatible](https://github.com/go-git/go-git/blob/master/COMPATIBILITY.md) and could corrupt git repositories.
^Git repositories (upper case)
It seems like "gogit" is actually always written as "go-git", I propose we do so, too.
All in all, the article is good, but I wonder if "nothing will change" is the honest essence we should convey in the introduction.
I think it changes people perception in a fundamental way: using Forgejo means using copyleft software, because of Git.
I also think that jumping directly to the AGPL vs GPL debate is likely to trigger anti-copyleft criticism from people who are under the illusion that Forgejo can be used in an environment that forbids copyleft software for whatever reason (ideological, legal, ...).
In the introduction it clearly states that it will change nothing for users and developers. But it also clearly states that it will change one thing: copyleft is welcome. That's something.
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It has been six weeks since the decision was made and this blog post proposed. This is an unusually long discussion but it is also a delicate topic and it is good that all voices got plenty of time to be heard.
Since it has been approved and no objection was raised, I re-read it one last time and will go ahead to merge it.
No due date set.
No dependencies set.
Deleting a branch is permanent. Although the deleted branch may continue to exist for a short time before it actually gets removed, it CANNOT be undone in most cases. Continue?