BIP39: add license and copyright section #1680

1. 
   jonatack commented at 4:56 pm on October 8, 2024: member

   These are required for legal use, and also per BIP-2, and they avoid user confusion as seen in #1395 (comment).

   Choice of MIT license per BIP author feedback in #1395 (comment).

   The license omission was likely an oversight.

   BIP-39 predates BIP-2 by 2-3 years. BIP-1 (in force at the time, since superseded by BIP-2) did require a copyright or public domain section.

2. BIP39: add license and copyright section

   These are required per BIP-2, and they avoid user confusion as seen in
   
   https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1395#issuecomment-2393915807

   541b6c4db4
3. 
   jonatack commented at 4:59 pm on October 8, 2024: member

   cc @prusnak for approval
4. jonatack added the label Proposed BIP modification on Oct 8, 2024
5. 
   prusnak commented at 5:14 pm on October 8, 2024: contributor

   ACK
6. 
   murchandamus commented at 5:54 pm on October 8, 2024: contributor

   Concept ACK, but for a license change, I expect that we need all rights holders to agree. cc: @slush0, @ebfull, @voisine
7. 
   kanzure commented at 7:13 pm on October 8, 2024: contributor

   is licensing and CLAs addressed in the new bip2 @murchandamus ?
8. 
   slush0 commented at 7:21 pm on October 8, 2024: contributor

   ACK MIT
9. 
   jonatack commented at 10:21 pm on October 18, 2024: member

   Pinging @ebfull and @voisine for approval here.
10. murchandamus added the label Pending acceptance on Nov 7, 2024
11. 
    murchandamus commented at 8:47 pm on November 12, 2024: contributor

    is licensing and CLAs addressed in the new bip2 @murchandamus ?

    Just in so far as we have always required an “acceptable license” that permitted others to use the work. My new process BIP draft so far does not propose a CLA.

12. bitcoin deleted a comment on Nov 22, 2024
13. 
    jonatack commented at 1:36 pm on December 17, 2024: member

    Re-pinging @ebfull and @voisine for approval here.
14. bitcoin deleted a comment on Jan 28, 2025
15. bitcoin deleted a comment on Jan 28, 2025
16. 
    jonatack commented at 6:10 pm on January 29, 2025: member

    2 BIP authors have ACKed but 2 others are not responding. @murchandamus we’d want to ensure this case is covered by BIP3.
17. 
    murchandamus commented at 7:34 pm on January 29, 2025: contributor

    I don’t think this is a case that we can litigate. The authors have the copyright for this document. As far as I am aware, we do not have a record of them licensing it in any different manner than “all rights reserved”, and it seems obvious to me that a subset of them cannot update the license, IANAL, though.

    FWIW, BIP 3 asserts:

    

18. 
    prusnak commented at 7:55 pm on January 29, 2025: contributor

    @jonatack @murchandamus have you tried contacting them via email?
19. bitcoin deleted a comment on Jan 29, 2025
20. Aldocapurro approved
21. 
    murchandamus commented at 6:43 pm on January 30, 2025: contributor

    @prusnak: I sent them an email today.
22. 
    ebfull commented at 6:46 pm on January 30, 2025: contributor

    ACK MIT, sorry for the delay.
23. ebfull approved
24. 
    murchandamus commented at 6:10 pm on February 4, 2025: contributor

    I did some additional research into this situation. I have come to the understanding that for jointly authored work any of the authors can license the work. Given that we have approval from three authors and BIP 1 already required that any contributions to this repository were placed into public domain or have a copyright statement, it would be hard to argue that BIP 39 was not intended to be licensed compliantly.

    Given my updated understanding, I conclude that this is ready to be merged.

25. murchandamus merged this on Feb 4, 2025
26. murchandamus closed this on Feb 4, 2025

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27. murchandamus removed the label Pending acceptance on Feb 4, 2025
28. jonatack deleted the branch on Feb 4, 2025

Contributors
jonatack prusnak murchandamus kanzure slush0 Aldocapurro ebfull

Labels
Proposed BIP modification