Chris Nandor wrote:
> Remember, we are trying to break the AL here, and I don't see this as
> significant brokenness. I said from the beginning that the AL could be
> cleaned up, but I am interested here in trying to break the existing one.
RFC 211, which was published after Chris wrote this, gives lots of examples
of "breaking" in the Artistic License. If folks come up with more, please
do send me patches to RFC 211, and I will add them.
> >>> A ''derivative work'' is a work based upon one or more preexisting
> >>> works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization,
> >>> fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art
> >>> reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a
> >>> work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of
> >>> editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications
> >>> which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a
> >>> ''derivative work''.
> >
> >> I don't think embedding the complete Standard Version of the interpreter
> >> could be considered a derivative work.
> >
> >I don't see how you can read the above paragraph and claim that it's not.
>
> I don't see how you can claim it is.
No court has given us clear guidance on that issue, but many copyright
lawyers have said that such an activity is a derivative work.
There may be copyright lawyers that would say that it isn't, but I don't
know of one saying so yet.
> >Like it or not, Larry hasn't required copyright assignments and therefore
> >no longer holds full legal title to all of Perl.
>
> I disagree.
Chris, you have a right to your opinion, but I believe these facts hold up
Russ' point. A quick examination the perl 5.6.0 source, shows that the
following people hold some copyright claim to parts of it:
Copyright (c) 1994-1999, Andreas Kaiser, Ilya Zakharevich
Copyright Tom Spindler, 1997-1999
Copyright by Mark Klein and Mark Bixby, 1996-1999
Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, Diomidis Spinellis
Copyright 1987-2000, Larry Wall
Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, Raymond Chen, Kai Uwe Rommel
Copyright (c) 1995-2000 Paul Marquess.
Copyright (c) 1986 by University of Toronto
Copyright (c) 1996-1999 Malcolm Beattie
Copyright (c) 1996-2000, Nick Ing-Simmons
Copyright (c) 1999 Olaf Flebbe [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright 1996 by Charles Bailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Copyright (c) 1983, 1985 The Regents of the University of California.
Copyright (c) 1997-8 Graham Barr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
Copyright 1997 Guido Flohr
COPYRIGHT (c) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Stratus Computer (DE), Inc.
Copyright (C) Tom Horsley, 1997
And, I probably missed a few.
Plus, since you aren't legally required under the Berne convention to put
the "Copyright notice" in place to claim copyright later, it's possible
there are other copyright holders as well. Plus, I might have missed a
number of them; I was just grepping for /Copyright/i.
> That's true. But if a contributor actually gives code to p5p / Larry for
> inclusion in perl, that contributor has given implicit agreement to the
> stated terms. Later on, the contributor might rescind that agreement, I
> suppose.
They are probably implicitly licensing the changes to Larry under
(Artistic|GPL). However, they are doubtfully giving Larry the full legal
right to grant exceptions under 4d. So, they could come later and say: "I
didn't give permission for FooBar Corp. to disobey the Artistic License in
that way".
> >> There is no need for a lawyer to compose the actual language. We are
> >> probably better off if a writer does. Lawyers are not well-versed, in
> >> general, in writing clearly.
> >
> >Comments like the above worry me a lot.
>
> And comments that are worried about such comments worry me a lot.
I agree with Chris on this point; I think it's ok if we right a license
draft, give it to a lawyer, get comments back, and iterate in that fashion.
As long as copyright lawyer tells us all the implications of our license,
there is no harm in writing it ourselves.
--
Bradley M. Kuhn - http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn
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