[llvm-dev] Relicensing: Revised Developer Policy

[David Chisnall via llvm-dev]

On 11 Aug 2017, at 01:29, Rafael Avila de Espindola via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> 
> If FreeBSD and OpenBSD are OK with license X, I am OK with license X.

Note: I don’t speak for either project, as I stood down from the FreeBSD Core Team last election (after two terms, I was owed some time off for good behaviour), but as I was part of the FreeBSD Core Team for much of this long process, I’m going to comment anyway.

OpenBSD and FreeBSD have different license policies, but Chris and others involved in this process have iterated with the FreeBSD project and the latest version has been sent to the FreeBSD Foundation’s lawyer.  We had several concerns about early versions of the license.  Most notably, we want to ship libc++ and compiler-rt as part of the base system and place no obligations on any third-party code.  The current version of the exemption appears to allow this[1] and also makes a number of other uses (e.g. using DRI drivers with X.org that use LLVM) equally simple.

My understanding of the new license is that it will make life easier for a number of downstream consumers, at the cost of a bit more legalese to wade through (though far less than the GPL, even v2).  I would be happier if we could achieve the same objective with less legal text, but the Apache 2 license plus the LLVM exemption appears to be close to the minimum that possible with the desired goals (permissive license, no restrictions on library use, patent protection).  In particular, the Apache 2 license has already been scrutinised by a lot of lawyers working for both companies that use / distribute open source software and for various open source foundations and is well understood.  The exemption is clear and excludes the only terms of the license that are not simply describing good manners.

Relicensing all of the code is going to be a complicated process, and I’m grateful to the LLVM Foundation for undertaking this effort.  There will probably be some pain in the intermediate steps, but I believe that the end state will be an improvement over the current state.

David

[1] I am not a lawyer, so I don’t make this claim strongly until we’ve heard back from the Foundation’s lawyer, but it looks pretty clear.