On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 09:48:51AM -0700, justin bengtson wrote:
> i'd like some help and constructive criticism with this, especially regarding
> gaping holes. it's intended to be a "give credit where credit is due" type of
> license. this is only a first draft... the name can change! here goes...
I understand why you might want a shorter or less verbose license than the
GNU GPL, but I have to say that your license feels like it is trying to be
a professional lawyer-grade license, without the understanding of
Copyright law that should accompany authorship of such a license.
First of all, you do not have to accept the GPL. The GNU GPL contains the
offer of certain terms by which you may do things with software that the
Copyright laws of most countries otherwise deny without permission of the
Copyright holder. You can use a program all you like without having to
accept the GPL terms. You just can't distribute it to other people, in
any form, unless you do agree to those terms. This is an essential
freedom, argues RMS: The right to make your own changes to your own copy
of the program and keep them to yourself. You are also not required,
under the GPL to give source code to everyone - just those who have access
to the binaries. (Of course they can distribute both binaries and source
as widely as they'd like to and the GPL does not forbid them from doing
so.)
Second, the whole plagarism thing. It is ILLEGAL, under Copyright law, to
misrepresent the authorship of a work, in whole or in part. If I have
taken your work and put my name on it in place of yours, I do not need a
license clause to tell me that I'm doing something wrong, the law already
says so. And under the law, it's Copyright infringement to misrepresent
the origins of any work covered by Copyright. Legally a work in the
public domain can be misrepresented in the US, but as it happens the rest
of the world has this concept of Moral Rights which would prevent it.
You can not, in the United States, place anything into the public domain.
You can make the simple statement that you are doing so, but this is
really a Copyright license. The law is written with the assumption that
everyone wishes to profit from their work, no matter how trivial, and
therefore all works which are not barred from Copyright protection, are,
in fact, protected by Copyright. (If contested, you may have to prove
that you indeed are the original creator and therefore owner of the
Copyright, but there are ways to do that..)
The GNU GPL, while a great legal-political document, is really a badly
written license. A license explains the terms, pure and simple. The
long-winded speech about what is right and good and fair in the world of
Copyright law has little bearing on the license and detracts from the very
simple question: What may I do with this pile of code? What may I not?
I would be happy to offer more specific suggestions for your planned
license, but there are some important things to think about in the above.
As I am not an attorney and am not qualified to provide legal advice, you
may outright disregard my comments. I do have some experience in this
area, though.
--
Joseph Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cogito eggo sum
(I think therefore I am a waffle)
<Deek> "A good programmer can write FORTRAN in any language."
<Deek> knghtbrd has proven that you can write C++ in any language too.
<grin>
<Mercury> We are currently considdering if we should give him or prize, or
kill him..
<Mercury> (Of course, by all rights, this means we should give him the
prize, and then kill him.. <G>)
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