On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 16:07:01 +0200 Osamu Aoki wrote: > Hi, > > Before discussion details of words, I would say for all practical > purpose, let's drop GFDL statement from comments.
Good! :)
[...]
> I think this GPL statemnt may come from older version. I did not
> create it. Instead of arguing how current wordings are, let's agree
> on how best to put GPL2 statement which fits to text documents. Do
> you see best practice elsewhere?
The copyright notice I proposed is, AFAIK, the clearest way to release a
work under the GPLv2 (or later). It's basically the one suggested at the
end of the GPLv2 itself...
Anyway IANAL, TINLA.
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2005 at 07:11:26PM +0200, Jens Seidel wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 18, 2005 at 05:05:32PM +0200, Osamu Aoki wrote:
> > > On Sun, Jul 17, 2005 at 09:47:34PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote:
[...]
> > > > The work is thus released under the GNU GPL (v2 or later),
> > >
> > > Yes absolutely.
> >
> > Ahm, why? In previous discussions you, Osamu, told me that this is
> > not true because of the usage of "may" in the above sentence.
> > According to you it's the users choice whether he want to consider
> > the document licensed under GPL or under the text mentioned below
> > this sentence which is only GPL like.
>
> It is GPL like... hmmm I took this from previous work on debian FAQ.
Well it's a weak copyleft, but it's definitely *not* the GPL.
[...]
>
> > > > The canonical copyright notice for a work released under the GNU
> > > > GPL v2 or later is something along the lines of
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Copyright (c) 2001-2004 Osamu Aoki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > >
> > > > This work is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
> > > > modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
> > > > published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
> > > > the License, or (at your option) any later version.
> >
> > Mhh, even the official text uses "can" not "must". This means that
> > the user can reject the GPL license in which case no license applies
> > and so it is much more restrictive than GPL (no changes allowed).
> >
> > Confusing!!??
>
> This is some loose use of colloquial American English. Since I make
> no statement allowing user to distribute things underr other license,
> practical consequence of using "must" and "can" are the same.
Well, not exactly.
"Can" is the correct word even for works released under one license
only.
The reason is that the recipient *can* redistribute and/or modify the
work and, *if* she does so, she *must* do so under the terms of the GPL.
But the recipient is *not* compelled to redistribute and/or modify the
work: she can entirely avoid engaging in such activities.
After all, it's a permission, not a chain-letter-like obligation as in
"if you receive this work, you *must* redistribute it to someone else"!
;-)
>
> > > > Could you please clarify the copyright notice?
> >
> > Osamu, please remember the the sentence
> >
> > Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
> > document into another language, under the above conditions for
> > modified versions, except that this permission notice may be
> > included in translations approved by the Free Software Foundation
> > instead of in the original English.
> >
> > (which is extracted from GPL?) should be fixed, since the user
> > doesn't generally recognises that this is an excerpt of GPL and
> > translation refers to translations of GPL.
No, the above quoted text is *not* extracted from the GPL: the GPLv2
text does not even include any occurrence of the word "approved"...
The "translations" above does not referr to translations of the GPL, but
to translations of the "permission notice".
> > The Free Software Foundation is not responsible for Debian Reference
> > translations.
>
> True.
If your "True" refers to this last sentence, then I of course agree.
--
:-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-)
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