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GeneralRe: Will doom run ... on potatoes? Pin
Jörgen Andersson13-Dec-20 23:14
professionalJörgen Andersson13-Dec-20 23:14 
GeneralRe: Will doom run ... on potatoes? Pin
jsc4213-Dec-20 22:15
professionaljsc4213-Dec-20 22:15 
GeneralRe: Will doom run ... on potatoes? Pin
OriginalGriff13-Dec-20 22:29
mveOriginalGriff13-Dec-20 22:29 
GeneralRe: Will doom run ... on potatoes? Pin
Rage13-Dec-20 22:58
professionalRage13-Dec-20 22:58 
GeneralRe: Will doom run ... on potatoes? Pin
dandy7214-Dec-20 8:26
dandy7214-Dec-20 8:26 
GeneralJohn le Carré Pin
megaadam13-Dec-20 20:40
professionalmegaadam13-Dec-20 20:40 
GeneralRe: John le Carré Pin
5teveH13-Dec-20 21:24
5teveH13-Dec-20 21:24 
RantOpen source license woes Pin
Randor 13-Dec-20 7:14
professional Randor 13-Dec-20 7:14 
Yeah,

I need to decode Punycode in a project. So I find myself reading the RFC[^]. Oh look, there is a sample encoder/decoder right there in the RFC! It's my lucky day.

But wait... LibIDN[^] has a verbatim copy of this code with almost no changes with the GNU license slapped onto it.

But wait... the RFC is also 'Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.' at the bottom which isn't mentioned anywhere on the GNU provided code.

I can infer that I am not the first person to ask about this... the GNU header says the following:

/*
 * This file is derived from RFC 3492bis written by Adam M. Costello,
 * downloaded from http://www.nicemice.net/idn/punycode-spec.gz on
 * 2015-03-02 with SHA1 a966a8017f6be579d74a50a226accc7607c40133, a
 * copy of which is stored in the GNU Libidn version controlled
 * repository under doc/specification/punycode-spec.gz.

This is legal speak for 'We took this from a work in the public domain'.

This is like following a spider web... let's keep following the threads. So let's check the original licence at http://www.nicemice.net/idn/punycode-spec.gz[^]

B. Disclaimer and license

    Regarding this entire document or any portion of it (including
    the pseudocode and C code), the author makes no guarantees and
    is not responsible for any damage resulting from its use.  The
    author grants irrevocable permission to anyone to use, modify,
    and distribute it in any way that does not diminish the rights
    of anyone else to use, modify, and distribute it, provided that
    redistributed derivative works do not contain misleading author or
    version information.  Derivative works need not be licensed under
    similar terms.


So without being a lawyer I interpret this as a guy named Adam wrote the Punycode RFC and put it into the public domain. Then the 'The Internet Society' slapped a copyright on the code. Then someone working on LibIDN copied the code and slapped a third license on it.
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
honey the codewitch13-Dec-20 7:33
mvahoney the codewitch13-Dec-20 7:33 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Greg Utas13-Dec-20 8:14
professionalGreg Utas13-Dec-20 8:14 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
honey the codewitch13-Dec-20 11:21
mvahoney the codewitch13-Dec-20 11:21 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Greg Utas13-Dec-20 11:38
professionalGreg Utas13-Dec-20 11:38 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
honey the codewitch13-Dec-20 12:14
mvahoney the codewitch13-Dec-20 12:14 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Greg Utas13-Dec-20 13:17
professionalGreg Utas13-Dec-20 13:17 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
honey the codewitch13-Dec-20 13:23
mvahoney the codewitch13-Dec-20 13:23 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Greg Utas13-Dec-20 13:25
professionalGreg Utas13-Dec-20 13:25 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
honey the codewitch13-Dec-20 13:28
mvahoney the codewitch13-Dec-20 13:28 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Randor 13-Dec-20 14:09
professional Randor 13-Dec-20 14:09 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
honey the codewitch13-Dec-20 16:52
mvahoney the codewitch13-Dec-20 16:52 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Greg Utas13-Dec-20 13:29
professionalGreg Utas13-Dec-20 13:29 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Randor 13-Dec-20 8:21
professional Randor 13-Dec-20 8:21 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
honey the codewitch13-Dec-20 11:23
mvahoney the codewitch13-Dec-20 11:23 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Jörgen Andersson13-Dec-20 20:49
professionalJörgen Andersson13-Dec-20 20:49 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Member 1485721314-Dec-20 2:43
Member 1485721314-Dec-20 2:43 
GeneralRe: Open source license woes Pin
Jörgen Andersson14-Dec-20 2:46
professionalJörgen Andersson14-Dec-20 2:46 

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