FloodBot licensing

[ljlbox at tiscali.it]

I feel I need to clarify the FloodBots' licensing/copyright status even
more clearly.

I take issue with the concept, which has been stated on this mailing 
list,
that I'm "confusing" matters regarding my own licensing [1], that I 
didn't
"intend" to distribute the code under the GPLv2 (but, according to Alan
Bell, I technically did, since the IRC team "can" bring the bots back 
from
another server, but merely won't because "arguing that point" would 
lead to
no "happy outcome") [2].

No; I am not confused. I did not intend to do something I didn't. My 
code
is proprietary, with no rights (of use, modification, redistribution or
anything) being granted to anyone except as determined by relevant
copyright law.

Any "boilerplate" GPL text that some people may have found associated 
with
the code was only there under clear, explicit agreements that the code 
was
to be considered closed-source, proprietary, private, and only to be 
shared
with anyone with my explicit permission, if at all.

This is not "distribution", this is "internal use" by one entity (the
Ubuntu IRC Team), with internal agreements that are supposed to be
respected.

The code was ultimately supposed to *become* open source, if/when 
certain
conditions had been fulfilled (and after 2 years, they hadn't been), 
and
that may have been why there may have been licensing-related text 
visible
in some places by certain people.

That didn't happen, so the code is NOT open source, and, again, NO 
rights
are granted by its original and only author (me).

Today, I approached the members of the IRC Council who seemed to imply
differently in private, trying to nudge them towards the direction of
amending their public statements, but the best I could get was a "paste 
our
conversations publicly" sort of response.

So that's what I'm doing: the above should summarize the 
licensing-related
matters, but, below, I'm including relevant IRC logs, posted with
permission of the parties involved.

They also contain my own comments, preceeded by "***", which point out 
the
crucial parts where agreements were made or facts were acknowledged.

Logs of #ubuntu-irc-council from 9 January 2012:
http://privatepaste.com/fb55b771c4 [1]

Logs of #ubuntu-irc-council from 15 January 2012:
http://privatepaste.com/28baf9854d [2]

Logs of #ubuntu-ops-team from 6 February 2014:
http://privatepaste.com/9501275de5 [3]

For reference, I'll also link to these public logs of #ubuntu-ops:
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/02/04/%23ubuntu-ops.html [4]
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/02/05/%23ubuntu-ops.html [5]

as well as, once again, to the log of the discussion that caused my
decision to follow Robert Wall's suggestion and retire the bots:
http://privatepaste.com/f0649bc9a3/sb45y [6]

by LjL

ljlbox at tiscali.it

ljl at ubuntu.com


Links:
------
[1] http://privatepaste.com/fb55b771c4
[2] http://privatepaste.com/28baf9854d
[3] http://privatepaste.com/9501275de5
[4] http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/02/04/%23ubuntu-ops.html
[5] http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2014/02/04/%23ubuntu-ops.html
[6] http://privatepaste.com/f0649bc9a3/sb45y

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