Bug#387783: [Debburn-devel] License of cdrkit - GPLv2 + additional restrictions
Le dimanche 24 septembre 2006 à 23:32 +0200, Francesco Poli a écrit : Jörg Schilling interprets this restriction as implied by trademark law in his country. I don't know whether his interpretation is a legally valid one (IANAL), even though I've heard of cases where courts prevented the attempt to use an exclusive right (copyright, trademark, ...) to block interoperability. Here, the restriction clearly forbids creating a derivative work that is a drop-in replacement of the original, and thus interferes with interoperability. It does, but to what extent? AIUI wodim doesn't output this text and can be a drop-in replacement without a problem. Replacing the text by a 'this software cannot return schily because it would infringe on Jörg Schilling's trademark' notice - or no notice at all - would seem like a fine solution. Dropping this restriction from cdrkit would be a solution, if a qualified lawyer confirms that we have the right to do so... I agree that we need some legal expertise to confirm that. Doesn't Debian or SPI have access to a lawyer for such cases? What is the appropriate procedure? Anyway, let's not split hairs on the validity of Joerg Schilling's claims: what we are talking about are clearly non-free restrictions (I hope we can agree on that...) and must thus be solved somehow. I think the problem is more about GPL-compatibility than about DFSG-freeness. DFSG #4 already allows licenses forbidding re-use of the name or version number, and this isn't much a different case here. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom
Bug#387783: [Debburn-devel] License of cdrkit - GPLv2 + additional restrictions
On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 13:49:35 +0200 Josselin Mouette wrote: Le dimanche 24 septembre 2006 à 23:32 +0200, Francesco Poli a écrit : [...] Here, the restriction clearly forbids creating a derivative work that is a drop-in replacement of the original, and thus interferes with interoperability. It does, but to what extent? AIUI wodim doesn't output this text and can be a drop-in replacement without a problem. I don't know whether there are any frontends around that request the string to cdrecord and check that the returned value is schily. There could exist some such frontends (not necessarily distributed by Debian!) and they could break as soon as wodim replaces cdrecord on the user's system! [...] Dropping this restriction from cdrkit would be a solution, if a qualified lawyer confirms that we have the right to do so... I agree that we need some legal expertise to confirm that. Doesn't Debian or SPI have access to a lawyer for such cases? What is the appropriate procedure? As Nathanael already said (on debian-legal), you could ask the DPL and/or the SPI board. But IANADD, so I'm not sure if there's a formal procedure for these cases... Anyway, let's not split hairs on the validity of Joerg Schilling's claims: what we are talking about are clearly non-free restrictions (I hope we can agree on that...) and must thus be solved somehow. I think the problem is more about GPL-compatibility than about DFSG-freeness. DFSG #4 already allows licenses forbidding re-use of the name or version number, and this isn't much a different case here. DFSG#4 allows forbidding re-use of the name of the work or of the version number, but doesn't allow restricting *behavioral* features of programs. I still think that this restriction is a DFSG-freeness issue (as well as an additional restriction w.r.t. the GNU GPL v2). Moreover, let's not forget there are other problematic restrictions: did you read my analysis in the debian-legal thread? You can find it here, for your convenience: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00099.html -- But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend. -- from _Coming to America_ . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpETYym5ztMA.pgp Description: PGP signature
Bug#387783: [Debburn-devel] License of cdrkit - GPLv2 + additional restrictions
Le vendredi 15 septembre 2006 à 23:51 +0200, Francesco Poli a écrit : Because the hard problems that you pointed out have been fixed. We do no longer return schily author ID, etc. You no longer return schily, but it seems that noone is allowed to create a modified version of cdrkit that returns schily again or that returns a SCG_AUTHOR string identical to yours. This is a non-free restriction that is not present in the GNU GPL v2. Jörg Schilling interprets this restriction as implied by trademark law in his country. Replacing the text by a 'this software cannot return schily because it would infringe on Jörg Schilling's trademark' notice - or no notice at all - would seem like a fine solution. After all, it isn't allowed to display (c) Microsoft corp. in a GPL program, but it doesn't cause any issue with the GPL. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Bug#387783: [Debburn-devel] License of cdrkit - GPLv2 + additional restrictions
On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 13:43:39 +0200 Josselin Mouette wrote: Le vendredi 15 septembre 2006 à 23:51 +0200, Francesco Poli a écrit : Because the hard problems that you pointed out have been fixed. We do no longer return schily author ID, etc. You no longer return schily, but it seems that noone is allowed to create a modified version of cdrkit that returns schily again or that returns a SCG_AUTHOR string identical to yours. This is a non-free restriction that is not present in the GNU GPL v2. Jörg Schilling interprets this restriction as implied by trademark law in his country. I don't know whether his interpretation is a legally valid one (IANAL), even though I've heard of cases where courts prevented the attempt to use an exclusive right (copyright, trademark, ...) to block interoperability. Here, the restriction clearly forbids creating a derivative work that is a drop-in replacement of the original, and thus interferes with interoperability. Replacing the text by a 'this software cannot return schily because it would infringe on Jörg Schilling's trademark' notice - or no notice at all - would seem like a fine solution. Dropping this restriction from cdrkit would be a solution, if a qualified lawyer confirms that we have the right to do so... After all, it isn't allowed to display (c) Microsoft corp. in a GPL program, but it doesn't cause any issue with the GPL. It depends on where and how that string is displayed. If it is a (false) copyright notice for the GPL'd program, then, yes, it's not allowed. If it is used, e.g., to refer to a work copyrighted by Microsoft, or, anyway, in a descriptive way, it could be allowed. Moreover, if displaying that string is a functional behavior of the GPL'd program (perhaps because it's a client program designed to interact with a server program that wants to receive the string in order to operate correctly), then I think sane courts would consider that to be allowed. Anyway, let's not split hairs on the validity of Joerg Schilling's claims: what we are talking about are clearly non-free restrictions (I hope we can agree on that...) and must thus be solved somehow. I think that whether those restrictions can be dropped from cdrkit is for a lawyer to say. Otherwise a workaround must be found (independently rewriting the problematic files, or forking from a previous unencumbered version of those files, or enhancing cdrskin/libburn and switching to that as a replacement, ...) A big thanks to anyone working on these issues! -- But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend. -- from _Coming to America_ . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpO3fWBJLS5w.pgp Description: PGP signature
