Updated BBN 80211 code?

GNU Radio
21

Frank B. wrote:

It seems obvious there has to be a place for GNU Radio code that’s GPL
but will not be assigned to FSF, with certainty. I believe there should
also be a place for code whose status is uncertain – in short, a
place with minimal obstacles to publishing early and often.

Thanks Frank, this is exactly a major issue I am trying to address. I
think that CGRAN will be a good place for people to put code as a work
in progress that might or might not ever make it to the GR repo.
Minimal obstacles is key to get people to contribute. Additionally,
maybe someone out there wants to start working on GNU Radio stuff and
doesn’t have access to a SVN server, they’re more than welcome to use
CGRAN’s in the development stage. So, I’m also trying to increase the
resources available to those who want to work on GNU Radio related
projects.

  • George
22

Greg T. wrote:

Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
[email protected]
Discuss-gnuradio Info Page

For me, I don’t think this is a problem - as I’ve just recently
submitted my assignment for patches to gnuradio. So as long as the BBN
code is considered part of gnuradio - it should fall under that (as far
as I understand my assignment statement). Either way, if the code gets
hosted somewhere, I’ll be happy to send in what I have. It does look
like I’m going to have to re-create some of my work though - too many
changes since this past summer and apparently I wasn’t good about saving
a version that worked. As for the larger question about CGRAN, I think
it makes sense as a third-party repository, but I can imagine that might
lead to problems down the line for anything that might be desirable for
inclusion into the mainline gnuradio repository.
Doug

–
Doug G.
Research Assistant
Communications and Signal Processing Lab
Oklahoma State University
http://cspl.okstate.edu
[email protected]
[email protected]

23

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 03:22:43AM -0400, George N. wrote:

something outside of the GR repo, and then you want to integrate it. Do
you need an FSF copyright from them to pull in their code that is
already under GPLv3?

Yes. The license and who holds the copyright are distinct issues.

For inclusion in the gnuradio.org tree we require a copyright
assignment to FSF for all new code and modifications to existing
code. This policy is based on a desire to ensure that there’s only a
single entity on our side of any potential legal challenge to the code.

Eric

24

On Oct 15, 2008, at 11:34 AM, George N. wrote:

A lot of students work on GNU Radio, and we work towards a deadline
and our goal is typically to get it to work as fast as possible, not
as fast and as clean as possible. Once that deadline hits, we’re
typically done :stuck_out_tongue:

I second or third this aspect of “student-hood”. YA aspect, as sort
of, almost, brought up by Thomas, is the university-required
licensing / intellectual-property issues. In his case (UCLA), he can
choose an open-source license (preferably BSD). In my case, ND does
not specify a license that I can pick (or not), but there is a well-
defined IP clause covering graduate student works (not undergrads, but
also faculty, staff, and so forth … those who are being paid either
directly by ND or make significant use of ND’s resources to get paid
[e.g., via a stipend]): IP is owned by the student, advisor,
department, school, and university. The only way I can donate my code
to CGRAN (or the gnuradio trunk) is with the permission of “the food
chain” all the way to the top … which is not realistic for most
students or advisors to obtain. Most advisors at ND are not yet aware
of the “recent” addition (interpretation, really) of grad. students to
the list of IP-covered individuals, but they should be since they are
liable to “the powers that be” to make sure IP is properly disclosed
before a license (open-source or other) can be approved.

IMHO this is all quite a PITA, but it’s what we have to live with and
I’m sure other students are in a similar circumstance even if they
don’t know it right now.

My advice to friends / students in other universities / businesses is
to carefully check the IP policy of their institution, talk with their
advisor(s) / manager(s), and perform “due diligence” before assigning
a license and / or signing over their code to the FSF. You’re more
likely to gain forgiveness if you can show how hard you tried to “do
the right thing” first.

25

George N. wrote:

CGRAN, the code is probably going to be lost in between, in a dead SVN
repo or the author has no place to put it.

  • George
    I’ll certainly second that statement about us students. In case I
    wasn’t clear, I think the idea of CGRAN is a good one - and I’m sure it
    could be useful exactly as you describe.
    Doug

–
Doug G.
Research Assistant
Communications and Signal Processing Lab
Oklahoma State University
http://cspl.okstate.edu
[email protected]
[email protected]

26

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:34:42AM -0400, George N. wrote:

As Frank mentioned, he has not-so-mature code which can be useful to
others, but not primetime for the GR repo. It’s a good example of
something that would go to CGRAN.

Agreed.

In direct reponse to Greg, I think CGRAN is more than just for people
who aren’t FSF assignment. Some people don’t want to go through the
hassle of following the GR conventions, writing the QA code, cleaning up
the code, and actually trying to integrate it.

Oh, you mean really making it work, and making it work on more than
just your current architecture, OS and version :slight_smile:

A lot of students work on GNU Radio, and we work towards a deadline
and our goal is typically to get it to work as fast as possible, not
as fast and as clean as possible. Once that deadline hits, we’re
typically done :stuck_out_tongue: CGRAN is a good place for this code and if someone
wants to fix it up for the repo, someone has to get assignments and
it goes in. Without CGRAN, the code is probably going to be lost in
between, in a dead SVN repo or the author has no place to put it.

All good observations.

I’d like to say a couple of words about the copyright assignment
processes. In 95% of the cases, it’s very simple. You fill out a
simple email form, the FSF copyright clerk sends you a couple of pages
of hardcopy paperwork, you sign them and mail them back. Done.

What some folks (students mostly) find out when they head down this
path, is that there is a non-zero probability that they don’t actually
own what they think is their own work. This may be extremely
disconcerting, but it’s not really a GR problem. Think of it as a
crash course in copyright. It’s important to read and pay attention
to the fine print on employment, research or stipend agreements (all
contracts, really). In cases where somebody else may claim ownership
of the work there’s an extra step. That step is getting either a
disclaimer or an assignment from the school or employer. This is
generally not a big deal either. With some schools, we negotiate a
single agreement covering all of their students for all GNU projects.
Others are handled by a disclaimer from their professor or sponsor, or
whatever.

I hope this helped shed some light on the process.

Eric

27

Eric B. wrote:

own what they think is their own work. This may be extremely

I hope this helped shed some light on the process.

Eric

Having recently gone through this, I can attest that it was, in fact,
quite painless. Besides the assignment from myself, I had to get a
disclaimer stating the University did not hold (or desire) a claim on my
work on GR. For my end, dealing with my University’s intellectual
property agreements was fairly simple, as Oklahoma State does not
require that grad students sign it away when working as a research
assistant (i.e. ‘works made for hire’). However, most employers will
typically lay claim to any copyright-able material generated by
employees - so even non-students would face this if they are working on
GR during the course of their work. Perhaps this is something OSU should
be advertising more to entice grad students to come and work for them
:).

–
Doug G.
Research Assistant
Communications and Signal Processing Lab
Oklahoma State University
http://cspl.okstate.edu
[email protected]
[email protected]

28

Eric B. wrote:

the code, and actually trying to integrate it.

Oh, you mean really making it work, and making it work on more than
just your current architecture, OS and version :slight_smile:

Just a comment from a casual user… I read on the list about a lot of
cool stuff being done with GR. I’m one of those folks who’s a lot
better at hacking on existing code than writing something from scratch,
so I’d appreciate a repository that accepts any relevant code, with the
full understanding that you get what you pay for.

John

29

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:20:06AM -0400, Frank B. wrote:

Suppose, for example, I have some code that’s more Cognitive-Radio-related
than Software-Defined-Radio, really. It uses Orange <
http://www.ailab.si/orange>, which is GPL but not assigned to FSF. At least
for now it can’t go into the GNU Radio tree. Probably it never will.

Do you mean that your code can’t go in the repo, or that Orange can’t
go in the repo? I see no problem having code in the repo use Orange.

With regard to the code that’s headed for the trunk, we need to
consider the impact of introducing new external dependencies – an
issue of keeping customers happy, not one of licensing. Code on the
trunk needs to be properly autoconf’d of course. The concern about
new external dependencies doesn’t apply to dev branches.

It’s also true that this (my) code is experimental and provisional. It’s
nothing more than a steppingstone. (The obvious place to put it would be a
developer branch, but that’s part of the tree.) Perhaps I doubt whether, in
its current form, it should go into the tree. But that’s no reason not to
make it visible and easily accessible, if only as a scaffolding for later
code destined for the tree.

That would be an excellent use of a developer branch.

In general, no one should be expecting code in a dev branch to be
fully sorted out, or for that matter, even compile.

There is also some quantity of code which is useful and usable right now,
but which doesn’t currently fit well with the unified installation procedure
for the GR tree. I’m thinking here primarily of Linux audio subsystem code
that uses scons.

No problem with having this on a dev branch.

It seems obvious there has to be a place for GNU Radio code that’s GPL but
will not be assigned to FSF, with certainty. I believe there should also be
a place for code whose status is uncertain – in short, a place with
minimal obstacles to publishing early and often.

I believe that’s one of the CGRAN goals.

Eric

–
All growth occurs at the border of order and chaos…

30

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:20 PM, Eric B. [email protected] wrote:

Do you mean that your code can’t go in the repo, or that Orange can’t
go in the repo? I see no problem having code in the repo use Orange.

You’re describing an approach to the dev branches – here and below –
that’s considerably more liberal than my previous understanding of it,
anyway. Good.

In general, no one should be expecting code in a dev branch to be
fully sorted out, or for that matter, even compile.

Got that part down, thanks :slight_smile:

It seems obvious there has to be a place for GNU Radio code that’s GPL but

will not be assigned to FSF, with certainty. I believe there should also
be
a place for code whose status is uncertain – in short, a place with
minimal obstacles to publishing early and often.

I believe that’s one of the CGRAN goals.

The understanding, then, is that it’s explicitly OK for non-FSF-assigned
code to go into dev branches of the official repo. That’s news to me,
and
I’m glad to have it cleared up.

Frank

31

Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio

32

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 06:14:28AM -0400, Frank B. wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 11:20 PM, Eric B. [email protected] wrote:

Do you mean that your code can’t go in the repo, or that Orange can’t
go in the repo? I see no problem having code in the repo use Orange.

You’re describing an approach to the dev branches – here and below –
that’s considerably more liberal than my previous understanding of it,
anyway. Good.

Good.

In general, no one should be expecting code in a dev branch to be
fully sorted out, or for that matter, even compile.

Got that part down, thanks :slight_smile:

:slight_smile:

code to go into dev branches of the official repo. That’s news to me, and
I’m glad to have it cleared up.

Nope, sorry for the confusion.

Code in gnuradio.org should be GPLv3 and assigned to FSF. Using code
outside of the repo is fine as long as the outside code has a license
that is compatible with the GPLv3.
Various Licenses and Comments about Them - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

Eric

–
All growth occurs at the border of order and chaos.

33

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 11:02:54AM -0400, Frank B. wrote:

You just reinforced the confusion.
I thought that might have been the case about 10 seconds after I pressed
send.

Let me try that without adding anything else:

All code in the gnuradio.org svn repository shall be GPL and assigned
to FSF.

Eric

34

Frank B. wrote:

I invoke the law of the excluded middle and claim that both assertions
– non-FSF-assigned is OK, and Code…should be…assigned to FSF –
cannot hold at the same time :slight_smile:

What am I missing?

The non-FSF assigned code goes to https://www.cgran.org, not
gnuradio.org :slight_smile:

  • George
35

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Eric B. [email protected] wrote:

You just reinforced the confusion.

I say,

The understanding, then, is that it’s explicitly OK for non-FSF-assigned
code to go into dev branches of the official repo.
This branch:
http://gnuradio.org/trac/browser/gnuradio/branches/developers/brickle
is, obviously, on gnuradio.org.
However, you then say:
Code in gnuradio.org should be GPLv3 and assigned to FSF.

I invoke the law of the excluded middle and claim that both assertions

non-FSF-assigned is OK, and Code…should be…assigned to FSF –
cannot hold at the same time :slight_smile:

What am I missing?

Frank

36

Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio

37

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 08:46:40AM -0400, Greg T. wrote:

(Note that the GNU Radio project is a sub-organization of the FSF.)

All code in the gnuradio.org svn repository shall be assigned to FSF.
(Because the GNU Radio project has a policy that says it can’t go in
unless it is assigned)

GNU Radio Project has a policy that all of its code will be GPL.

Practically, people with assignments put the GPL markings on, but they
are following project policy when doing so, not making a license choice.

Thanks for stirring :slight_smile:

Eric