Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 10:41:46PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 02:09:06AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: Why doesn't it matter? If I've been sued because of something I've actually done that infringed the license, then surely the DFSG and Debian shouldn't be concerned with that (other than the question of whether what I've done is something that the DFSG requires of copyright holders); but if I'm being sued over something I *didn't* do, [...] If you're going to be sued for something you didn't do, and lose because in your absence you're assumed to have done it, why not go the whole hog and just have them assert you've used/distributed a program you've never actually used/distributed? In a court where a choice of venue clause holds water, in all likelihood the court will not deem the normal jurisdictional rules to be overridden until they're shown that you've *accepted* the license. If the plaintiff can't show this, the nuisance suit stops there. If they *can* show this, you get the choices mentioned before. You might still wind up with summary judgement against you in a foreign court if the copyright holder fools the judge and you don't have the resources to contest their claim; but that's more of a gamble, the copyright holder has to convince a judge both that you've accepted the license and that you've violated it. Yes, there is some risk of a nuisance suit when you haven't accepted the license, but that's our baseline which is unrelated to whether the license is free. If distributing code under the license increases the odds/decreases the cost of a malicious copyright holder being able to pull this off, and concommitantly increases the odds of a malicious copyright holder *trying* to pull this off, I don't think that should be ignored. AFAICS this is an issue only when there's a not completely trivial possibility that you have actually violated the license. I think it's also an issue when you have a malicious copyright holder who believes they can convince the /judge/ that there's a possibility. * If I get sued in Oregon, I have a wide range of local resources at my disposal to help me find appropriate legal representation; if I get sued in Australia, I'm stretching my connections pretty thin to find and evaluate legal counsel, and this process is going to cost more time and money on my part (and may leave me with inferior legal counsel anyway in the end due to logistical issues) For Australia, assuming you were being sued over free software stuff that you'd be doing in good faith, I think we could do a fairly good job helping you out. Is that going to be the case for anyone who redistributes Debian or distributes modified versions of packages received from us? Should a license problem be ignored on the grounds that we think the Free Software community will stick together in the event the problem clause is invoked? As an analogy, suppose that a license included the following clause: By distributing the covered work, you agree that the copyright holder can compel you at any time to play in an on-line black jack tournament at his website, geekblackjackstars.net, with an initial ante of $100. Should Debian consider this to be a free license because the clause won't necessarily be invoked and because some people win at blackjack? Clearly not. BTW, that site doesn't seem to exist. And it still doesn't, a whole 10 days later? Pff, doesn't anybody on these lists have a sense of entrepreneurship? The difference between blackjack and choice of venue is that in one case you're being compelled to do something, and in the other you're pre-determining an argument. AFAICS that breaks that analogy. In the blackjack case, you're only being compelled at the copyright holder's whim. In the choice of venue case, if there is no restriction preventing the clause from being invoked on licensees who don't have a legal presence in the named district, you are also being compelled to appear in court. The consequences for refusing to appear in court are different than the consequences for refusing to play blackjack, but to me they do seem analogous in that a requirement is being conditionally imposed on the licensee that has nothing to do with the software itself. If Debian has competent legal advice to the effect that this choice of venue language will only take effect for licensees that already have a legal presence in the named districts, then I withdraw my objection; but I don't think that's the plain English reading of the clause at hand. Two different analogous licenses might be: By distributing the covered work, you agree that the copyright holder can sue you for violations of the license. If you distribute the covered work, the licensor agrees not to sue you in any jurisdiction other than Berlin, Germany. I'd consider both those to be clearly free. Choice of venue goes
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
* Robert Millan [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070608 21:00]: On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 04:58:04PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: * Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070523 11:00]: Could someone make a page with GPLv2-only software, I'd be curious what would be affected. Maybe the easiest way would be to dump and format a page on the Wiki so that it could be commented upon? Given the current drafts for the GPLv3, I think GPLv2-only software will not go away. At least if that everyone is allowed to make this non-free by combining with code under the Affero GPL, and you are not allowed to make this copyleft by forbidding that, I'm stronly considering making new software GPLv2 only in the future, too. I doubt they did this intentionally. Can you ellaborate on it? Which phrase in particular? Did you send your concerns as comments to the latest draft? I think this is intentional, given that the latest draft explicitly says: |13. Use with the GNU Affero General Public License. | |Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permission to | link any covered work with a work licensed under version 3 (or any later | version published by the Free Software Foundation) of the GNU Affero General | Public License, and to convey the resulting combination. The terms of this | License will continue to apply to your covered work but will not apply to the | work with which it is linked, which will remain governed by the GNU Affero | General Public License. And since the current version of that license restricts running, which I consider the most elementary freedom. (What does availabity of source help me, when I am not even allowed to run it as I want?), and later versions might make all other kind of funny things, that simply is an anti-copyleft thing. With anti-copyleft I mean a free license that forbids to make it copyleft by forbidding to forbid to make it non-free. Other licenses trying this are the BSD protection license and some other bad jokes... Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 04:58:04PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: * Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070523 11:00]: Could someone make a page with GPLv2-only software, I'd be curious what would be affected. Maybe the easiest way would be to dump and format a page on the Wiki so that it could be commented upon? Given the current drafts for the GPLv3, I think GPLv2-only software will not go away. At least if that everyone is allowed to make this non-free by combining with code under the Affero GPL, and you are not allowed to make this copyleft by forbidding that, I'm stronly considering making new software GPLv2 only in the future, too. I doubt they did this intentionally. Can you ellaborate on it? Which phrase in particular? Did you send your concerns as comments to the latest draft? -- Robert Millan My spam trap is [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note: this address is only intended for spam harvesters. Writing to it will get you added to my black list. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 10:54:38PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 04:51:40AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 12:25:14PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: Additionally, personally I don't think it's unreasonable for people to say if you use my software in a way that I didn't want you to, I'll sue you in a court that works by a set of rules that I'm actually comfortable with. You know, it makes fighting those who do not follow your license the way you intended them to quite a bit easier. That's a strawman. The objection raised to choice-of-venue clauses is not what they specify to happen when the licensee has *infringed* the license, it's what they specify to happen when the licensee *hasn't* infringed the license but the copyright holder files a lawsuit against them anyway out of malice. I don't think that's meaningful; if I sue you in a court in Australia for not complying with debootstrap's license, and they find that you've infringed the license, it doesn't really matter if I'm doing that out of maliciousness or a genuine. Why doesn't it matter? If I've been sued because of something I've actually done that infringed the license, then surely the DFSG and Debian shouldn't be concerned with that (other than the question of whether what I've done is something that the DFSG requires of copyright holders); but if I'm being sued over something I *didn't* do, isn't it relevant that this license clause is going to cost me something that I wouldn't otherwise have to give up, just because the copyright holder has taken a dislike to me? - If I don't have the resources to fight the case in a court overseas, I risk summary judgement; the cost to me is the liberty to travel unmolested to Australia at some future date when I might have resources for travel. - If I do have the resources to fight the case overseas, I can file a motion to dismiss based on improper venue, which as a consequence of this license clause may or may not be accepted. - If the motion is granted, I can presumably ask for the plaintiff to pay my legal costs; but I presumably can't ask for the plaintiff to compensate me for my lost time (at least, this seems unlikely to be granted by this court since the existence of the contract's clause is likely to be a defense against assertions of bad faith; please correct me if I'm wrong). - If the motion is denied, I'm stuck litigating in a foreign court, which implies certain costs in time and money that I wouldn't otherwise have, some of which are not recoverable legal expenses and some of which are expenses that may not be awarded to the defendant in all jurisdictions and in all circumstances (concrete references here would be welcome): * If I get sued in Oregon, I have a wide range of local resources at my disposal to help me find appropriate legal representation; if I get sued in Australia, I'm stretching my connections pretty thin to find and evaluate legal counsel, and this process is going to cost more time and money on my part (and may leave me with inferior legal counsel anyway in the end due to logistical issues) * Effective realtime communication with the lawyer is more expensive (transoceanic phone calls), and more inconvenient due to timezone differences (fine, fine, not for *me*, but you know what I mean) * If I have to travel to Australia at any point during the suit, this is an expensive and time-consuming trip. AFAICS, it's likely that the logistical problems of mounting a transoceanic legal defense will also increase my up-front legal costs. These costs are recoverable if I win, but they may be large enough to make it infeasible for me to take the lawsuit all the way to the end at all. At least around here, most suits end up being settled out of court due to the uncertainty of a ruling in one's favor and the high cost of seeing litigation through; increased legal expenses imply an increased probability of settling out of court, which means the cost is whatever is specified in the settlement, plus lost time, plus whatever legal expenses are incurred up to that point. There's also the additional issue that an evil copyright holder may be more likely in the first place to file a lawsuit that they know they can't win, if they can do so in their own home jurisdiction at low cost to them with a higher possibility of a default judgement or an out-of-court settlement. I'll grant that the absolute theoretical minimum cost increase to someone targetted by the copyright holder as a result of this clause is still zero (and, in exceptional cases in exceptional jurisdictions, perhaps less than zero). But that looks to me like a pretty low-probabilty outcome; in spite of the difficulties in measuring the probability of particular outcomes, or their associated costs, I don't think they should be ignored as a fee. As an
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 08:17:42PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 01:13:44AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: It is a freedom that I have by default; if I accept the CDDL I no longer have that freedom[1]. [...] [1] Technically, not the right to choose a venue, but the right to not be sued in a venue where I have no legal presence. Err, that's not a violation of your rights, it's a waste of the court's time... If the court doesn't see it as a waste of its time, and issues you with a summons anyway, you're involved. Cf [0]. You might as well say you've got the right not to be flamed on a list you're not subscribed to. Addressing a flame to me that I will never see does me no harm. I would say that I have the right to not be *slandered* on a list that I'm not subscribed to; given the trends toward globalization and data mining of citizens, I wouldn't assume at all that a default judgement against me in some foreign land is equivalent to an unseen flame instead of an unseen slander. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] and a vaguely interesting note is: * actually suing based on the license might be complicated by a choice of venue That you can argue the latter is analogous to a fee isn't really very interesting. That some people are concerned about it is more so, though so far the only concrete concern I've seen is MJ's comment -- A possible arbitrary lawyer-fee-bomb, depending on the venue specified and its sanity. and that's not really very concrete either. How about a reference for that quote? I suspect it's from an analysis of the CDDL rather than a package, so it's not concrete because this needs to be checked for each venue used by an actual package. AIUI, star specifies Berlin, Germany, so I think Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] is maybe relevant and any EU venue could be a problem for us. So the other thing that needs checking is how those courts will behave if an unjustly-accused distributor does not attend court or employ a representative to attend. Any German-speakers willing to point us at a relevant gov.de document? My German language skills are not up to navigating legal German safely. I'm also worried by '3.4. Application of Additional Terms' discriminating against commercial support, but it only becomes a concrete problem if the Initial Developer or any Contributor has authorised support agents. No, punting to a GR [...] ends up with -legal folks complaining that the resolution doesn't make sense. I think that most are reasonable and do that only if the resolution includes no explanation. ] From: Anthony DeRobertis [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] Subject: Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL ] Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 17:15:40 -0500 ] [...] ] Alas, now that pi != 4*atan(1), how shall we proceed? Interpreting ] licenses and the DFSG is nowhere near as clear as mathematics and, ] unfortunately, just ignoring the GR would, I think, make us look like ] sore losers. because clearly everyone who voted for the winning option is the sort of person who would think pi can be redefined willy-nilly, or that the only reason to respect the GR is to avoid looking like sore losers... Anthony DeRobertis himself seemed to accept the above quote was hyperbole: ] It isn't quite as bad as pi = 3, as there is certainly some abiguity in ] both the DFSG and the GFDL. Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Can't we can both respect the GR as a project and let individual Developers note that they don't understand it? As I wrote at the time: ] It should be noted that even though the Standard Resolution ] Procedure resolved the disagreement, a 211:145 (roughly 3:2) split ] when comparing the first two options is hardly a great consensus. ] There remains a deep division over whether FDL'd works follow DFSG. Anyway, I welcome aj's realisation that giving good references is vital and I ask everyone to do that. I just wish his posts had more! Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] That's mostly because -legal won't even say that the GPLv2 is DFSG-free, except in so far as it's explicitly listed as being DFSG-free. Got a reference for that? GPLv2 is a very frequently-suggested DFSG-free licences, has been the subject of repeated analysis, http://lists.debian.org/search.html is in the FAQ, http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq the web page http://www.uk.debian.org/legal/licenses/ and probably other places. I don't think it's particularly interesting that periodically posters pop up on debian-legal thinking they've spotted a new flaw in GPLv2. I expect that [EMAIL PROTECTED] gets a number of those too - debian's difference is its openness. I think almost all of them end up agreeing once it's explained clearly. Hope that explains, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 02:09:06AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: Why doesn't it matter? If I've been sued because of something I've actually done that infringed the license, then surely the DFSG and Debian shouldn't be concerned with that (other than the question of whether what I've done is something that the DFSG requires of copyright holders); but if I'm being sued over something I *didn't* do, [...] If you're going to be sued for something you didn't do, and lose because in your absence you're assumed to have done it, why not go the whole hog and just have them assert you've used/distributed a program you've never actually used/distributed? AFAICS this is an issue only when there's a not completely trivial possibility that you have actually violated the license. - If I don't have the resources to fight the case in a court overseas, I risk summary judgement; the cost to me is the liberty to travel unmolested to Australia at some future date when I might have resources for travel. Speaking of which, the linux.conf.au 2008 CFP is open: http://linux.conf.au/presentations I suspect that anyone who can get their paper accepted will be able to get their travel costs covered by one of LCA, Debian or the Linux Foundation. (Kickass segues 'r' us) * If I get sued in Oregon, I have a wide range of local resources at my disposal to help me find appropriate legal representation; if I get sued in Australia, I'm stretching my connections pretty thin to find and evaluate legal counsel, and this process is going to cost more time and money on my part (and may leave me with inferior legal counsel anyway in the end due to logistical issues) For Australia, assuming you were being sued over free software stuff that you'd be doing in good faith, I think we could do a fairly good job helping you out. * Effective realtime communication with the lawyer is more expensive (transoceanic phone calls), and more inconvenient due to timezone differences (fine, fine, not for *me*, but you know what I mean) Yes, Australian lawyers seem to be in a very inconvenient timezone for me... ;) As an analogy, suppose that a license included the following clause: By distributing the covered work, you agree that the copyright holder can compel you at any time to play in an on-line black jack tournament at his website, geekblackjackstars.net, with an initial ante of $100. Should Debian consider this to be a free license because the clause won't necessarily be invoked and because some people win at blackjack? Clearly not. BTW, that site doesn't seem to exist. The difference between blackjack and choice of venue is that in one case you're being compelled to do something, and in the other you're pre-determining an argument. AFAICS that breaks that analogy. Two different analogous licenses might be: By distributing the covered work, you agree that the copyright holder can sue you for violations of the license. If you distribute the covered work, the licensor agrees not to sue you in any jurisdiction other than Berlin, Germany. I'd consider both those to be clearly free. Choice of venue goes beyond either of them, certainly. But I'm still not seeing a way in which it goes so far beyond them as to become non-free. Heck, is choice of venue actually different to the combination of those clauses? Simon Phipps' argument, presented at debconf last year, is (aiui) that the clause only comes into play when both parties are organisations that cross multiple jurisdictions anyway -- in which case they're both presumed to have a presence in the given jurisdiction anyway, and could reasonably be expected to be following its rules, afaics. Has this opinion been confirmed by a lawyer on *SPI's* payroll, not just by one on *Sun's* payroll? :) TTBOMK, no. ITYM acting on behalf of SPI rather than on SPI's payroll btw. :) [...] The current clause, though, puts the copyright holder in the dealer's seat, and the house always wins. Well, that's only true over the long term, and I don't think it's necessarily true even over the long term for court cases. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 07:55:18PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Mon, 4 Jun 2007 19:30:36 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: And I mean, I know what a GR is for, why are you telling me? It's still not a *good solution* for deciding these things; it's a last resort, and the only other options we currently have a ftpmaster decides and it's obvious to pretty much everybody. I'm rather surprised to hear you saying that, since you seem to have been the proposer of GR-2006-001... Sometimes you have to choose the best of a lot of bad options. When that happens, it's often good to spend some time trying to get better options for the future. [...] The official position of Debian is what we allow in main. That is to say? Bugs never happen?!? Nothing can possibly enter main by mistake or overlook?!? Of course it can -- official positions can be wrong, can be made by mistake or without due care, and can be changed. [...] Unfortunately, since -legal in general becomes an amorphous set of individuals who reserve the right to hold whatever opinions they like whenever questioned, there's little hope of -legal ever learning from its mistakes. Are you going to call the orwellian thought police, since I hold my *own* opinions?!? You don't need to call the thought police, you only have to think of them and they'll know to come! Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Tue, 05 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: Two different analogous licenses might be: By distributing the covered work, you agree that the copyright holder can sue you for violations of the license. If you distribute the covered work, the licensor agrees not to sue you in any jurisdiction other than Berlin, Germany. Heck, is choice of venue actually different to the combination of those clauses? Yes; choice of venue is better written as if you distribute the convered work, you agree for all suits covering the work to be held in Berlin, Germany. [...] The current clause, though, puts the copyright holder in the dealer's seat, and the house always wins. Well, that's only true over the long term, and I don't think it's necessarily true even over the long term for court cases. Considering Sun's apparent interpretation though, they could easily rewrite this clause to be in the position of resolving abiguities of jurisdiction, or a defensive only jurisidiction clause. Either would resolve my personal problems with the CDDL, and I believe would solve the problems most -legal contributors have with the license. Don Armstrong -- Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). -- Matt Welsh http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] No, punting to a GR [...] ends up with -legal folks complaining that the resolution doesn't make sense. I think that most are reasonable and do that only if the resolution includes no explanation. One of the inherent problems of resolving license discussions about specific licenses by GR is that you probably won't get a rationale, since everyone voting may have a different rationale. With the GFDL, for instance, I expect that among the people voting to allow it into main were people who believe that the GFDL license terms sans invarient sections truly are DFSG-free, people who feel the DFSG is too restrictive, people who think that they aren't DFSG-free but we should make an exception for the GFDL, people who feel the DFSG are only guidelines and shouldn't be applied restrictively, and probably several other opinions. There's no way of separating those out afterwards, and I don't think we're likely to come up with a reasonable ballot on a single license that would do so. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Wed, 6 Jun 2007 00:55:43 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 07:55:18PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Mon, 4 Jun 2007 19:30:36 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: And I mean, I know what a GR is for, why are you telling me? It's still not a *good solution* for deciding these things; it's a last resort, and the only other options we currently have a ftpmaster decides and it's obvious to pretty much everybody. I'm rather surprised to hear you saying that, since you seem to have been the proposer of GR-2006-001... Sometimes you have to choose the best of a lot of bad options. When that happens, it's often good to spend some time trying to get better options for the future. Could you please elaborate? I'm not sure I understand correctly: are you saying that you are unhappy with how GR-2006-001 worked out and that you are looking for better strategies for similar situations? -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpOdkyAGBSE6.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Hi, Am Montag, 4. Juni 2007 02:45:07 schrieb Wouter Verhelst: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 05:09:57PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Wouter Verhelst wrote: What I was trying to show is that the relevance of a copyright case brought against you in a jurisdiction outside of your immediate concern is zero, for all practical matters; that means you can simply ignore it, and nothing Bad will happen. Therefore, I don't think it makes it anything even remotely representing non-freeness. You might want to read Abkommen zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und dem Königreich Belgien über die gegenseitige Anerkennung und Vollstreckung von gerichtlichen Entscheidungen, Schiedssprüchen und öffentlichen Urkunden in Zivil- und Handelssachen No idea how it is called in Belgium, but it's the German part of a treaty from 1958 dealing precisely with that sort of thing. So, it seems extremely likely that if I win in Germany in a civil case, I can have this decision executed in Belgium. Additionally, you might want to check European law for similar agreements (which would mean that the jurisdiction of your immediate concern spans 20 countries). Thomas
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Jean-Christophe Dubacq wrote: I am not a specialist, but in France, private use of a work cannot be denied (as well as private copy, in some measure). Whether this applies only to countries following author rights doctrine instead of copyrights, I let it to someone more knowledgeable in this field. It applies to all countries who have implemented EC Directive 91/250/EC regarding copyright protection for coomputer programs. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31991L0250:EN:HTML Basic principles 1) use of software is one of the exclusive rights (art. 4(a)) 2) uses by a lawful acquirer are deemed not an infringement (art. 5(1)) 3) a license may restrict or annul item 2 (art. 5(1) first part) IOW I don't need a license to run GPL software. If the person who made the software available to me obeys the GPL, I'm a lawful acquirer and I couldn't care less about what the GPL says. Only when I redistribute the software do I need to worry about the GPL provisions. IANYL, TINLA. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Thomas Weber wrote: No idea how it is called in Belgium, but it's the German part of a treaty from 1958 dealing precisely with that sort of thing. So, it seems extremely likely that if I win in Germany in a civil case, I can have this decision executed in Belgium. Additionally, you might want to check European law for similar agreements (which would mean that the jurisdiction of your immediate concern spans 20 countries). Just see EC Regulation 44/2001: A judgment given in a Member State is to be recognised automatically, no special proceedings being necessary unless recognition is actually contested. A declaration that a foreign judgment is enforceable is to be issued after purely formal checks of the documents supplied. http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l33054.htm Most relevant is article 5(1) that says that in matters relating to a contract, [jurisdiction is] in the courts for the place of performance of the obligation in question. If I'm in the Netherlands and distribute CDDL software to a Belgian citizen while violating the CDDL, the copyright holder has to come to the Netherlands, choice-of-venue (mostly) notwithstanding. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote: If I'm in the Netherlands and distribute CDDL software to a Belgian citizen while violating the CDDL, the copyright holder has to come to the Netherlands, choice-of-venue (mostly) notwithstanding. From the summary: If the parties, one or more of whom is domiciled in the Community, have concluded a choice of jurisdiction clause * , the agreed court will have jurisdiction. The Regulation lays down a number of formalities that must be observed in such choice of jurisdiction agreements: the agreement must be in writing, or in a form which accords with practices which the parties have established between themselves or, in international trade or commerce, in a form which accords with a usage of which the parties are aware. * Choice of jurisdiction is a general principle of private international law under which the parties to a contract are free to designate a court to rule on any disputes even though that court might not have had jurisdiction on the basis of the factors objectively connecting the contract with a particular place. Don Armstrong -- Dropping non-free would set us back at least, what, 300 packages? It'd take MONTHS to make up the difference, and meanwhile Debian users will be fleeing to SLACKWARE. And what about SHAREHOLDER VALUE? -- Matt Zimmerman in [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 12:28:04AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Sun, 03 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: You're required to give up something you might value and otherwise demand compensation for, certainly, but there needs to be something more than that to violate the DFSG. giving up something that you might value [or] otherwise demand compensation for applies equally well to cash money as it does to any other intangible which has value. A requirement to send an email to the licensor if you possibly can isn't cash money either, but it sure seems to be a fee to me. It's not a fee in the normal sense of the word, but it is a restriction in the sense that if you're not able to do it (and you may well not be able to), you're not able to make use of the priveleges you're offered in return. That's where the analogy to a fee comes in -- it stops some people from being able to participate. For a choice of venue clause though, it only stops some people from being willing to participate; just as potentially giving up patent rights stops Microsoft from being willing to distribute Linux. The requirement to pet a cat, even if it is only required if convenient, also only stops some people from being willing to participate. It has also been considered non-free since the beginning of Debian. Cheers, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Am Montag, 4. Juni 2007 08:51:56 schrieb Arnoud Engelfriet: Thanks for finding an english text. Just see EC Regulation 44/2001: A judgment given in a Member State is to be recognised automatically, no special proceedings being necessary unless recognition is actually contested. A declaration that a foreign judgment is enforceable is to be issued after purely formal checks of the documents supplied. http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l33054.htm Most relevant is article 5(1) that says that in matters relating to a contract, [jurisdiction is] in the courts for the place of performance of the obligation in question. If I'm in the Netherlands and distribute CDDL software to a Belgian citizen while violating the CDDL, the copyright holder has to come to the Netherlands, choice-of-venue (mostly) notwithstanding. What about article 23(1)? If the parties, one or more of whom is domiciled in a Member State, have agreed that a court or the courts of a Member State are to have jurisdiction to settle any disputes which have arisen or which may arise in connection with a particular legal relationship, that court or those courts shall have jurisdiction. But actually, that wasn't my point. I only wanted to show that I'm living in X. If you sue me and win in Y, I just don't care can be an expensive attitude in the EU. Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Ups, a professional. I'd better be quiet now ;) Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 01:40:17AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: You're *not* giving up the right not to distribute any source, because you can always refrain from distributing the corresponding binaries and have no obligation to provide source. You're *not* giving up the right to distribute binaries without distributing the corresponding source, because, without a license, you would not have the right to distribute binaries in the first place (with or without source). By accepting the GPL, you instead gain the right to distribute binaries with source, and you simply do *not* gain the right to distribute binaries without source. Similarly, by accepting the CDDL, you are not giving up the right to choose a venue in case you get sued over the software It is a freedom that I have by default; if I accept the CDDL I no longer have that freedom[1]. Therefore it is a freedom that I'm giving up. instead, you are simply gaining the right to use, modify, and redistribute the software under a given set of rules (which simply does not include the right to choose a court in which to settle disagreements). That is what matters, and that is what makes the software free. No. The GPL grants certain additional, limited rights without taking away any rights that I already have. The CDDL grants certain additional, limited rights *in exchange for* me giving up a right that I have. Even if my argument would be flawed (which I don't think it is, but just in case), that wouldn't even matter. What matters is that DFSG#1 talks about a royalty or other fee--i.e. money--not giving up rights; and any interpretation of the text that says it does talk about giving up rights is incorrect to begin with. Great, I'll start working on the Indentured Servitude Public License; I trust I can count on your support when it comes time for NEW processing. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ [1] Technically, not the right to choose a venue, but the right to not be sued in a venue where I have no legal presence. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Don Armstrong wrote: On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote: If I'm in the Netherlands and distribute CDDL software to a Belgian citizen while violating the CDDL, the copyright holder has to come to the Netherlands, choice-of-venue (mostly) notwithstanding. From the summary: If the parties, one or more of whom is domiciled in the Community, have concluded a choice of jurisdiction clause * , the agreed court will have jurisdiction. True, if it's a EU country. Sorry for that omission. Signing away jurisdiction to the US is a lot more difficult. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote: Don Armstrong wrote: On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote: If I'm in the Netherlands and distribute CDDL software to a Belgian citizen while violating the CDDL, the copyright holder has to come to the Netherlands, choice-of-venue (mostly) notwithstanding. From the summary: If the parties, one or more of whom is domiciled in the Community, have concluded a choice of jurisdiction clause * , the agreed court will have jurisdiction. True, if it's a EU country. Sorry for that omission. Signing away jurisdiction to the US is a lot more difficult. I'd have to read the actual clause in the actual law, but the summary makes it sound like just one party's existance in the EU makes the jurisdiction clause apply. In any event, in the instant case (star) germany is the chosen jurisdiction. Don Armstrong -- EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN Don't be teased or humiliated. See their look of surprise when you step right up to a urinal and use it with a smile. Get Dr. Mary Evers' EQUAL-NOW Adapter (pat. appld. for) -- purse size, fool proof, sanitary -- comes in nine lovely, feminine, psychadelic patterns -- requires no fitting, no prescriptions. -- Robert A Heinlein _I Will Fear No Evil_ p470. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
The debian-legal checklist: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 11:28:22AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Posted by a non-DD, non-maintainer and non-applicant: Check. Anthony Towns writes: [...] And as far as the actual effects go, I'm not sure you're going to be any better off without that clause in your license: if you set foot in Australia, with an Australian judgement against you, there's a good chance of it being enforced; and if you don't, there seems to be a practical possibility of your extradition anyway, based on [0]. Extradition is for criminal cases, not civil cases. I cannot imagine how a choice of venue clause would significantly either help or hurt a criminal defendant. Confident assertion of legal facts, with little basis, no references, and without an IANAL disclaimer, or I am a lawyer and this is legal advice, or a I am a lawyer but this does not constitute legal advice: Check Since copyright is increasingly covered by criminal penalties (in at least Australia and the US) as well as civil ones, I don't think that dismissal is even particularly useful. As has been previously discussed on -legal -- several times, I might add -- there are a variety of reasons that the rest your argument is flawed. Condescending dismissal of arguments: Check. To summarize: Most of the expense of non-local defense litigation is in advance of any court judgment on the merits. The cost to dismiss a lawsuit for lack of personal jurisdiction is an order of magnitude (or more) less than litigating it through trial. It is harder to set aside a default judgment than to dismiss a complaint for improper venue. Confident assertion of legal facts, [...]: Check. In the example Don presented, of the Debian star maintainer removing some output from the Debian star package, that the star upstream claims constitutes a copyright notice, then there are the following options: 1. avoid the conflict by removing star from Debian 2. avoid the conflict by replacing the output at upstream's request 3. dispute the claim that they're copyright notices and keep acting At this point upstream likewise has some choices -- ignore the (perceived) license violation, sue in the court that's most convenient for them, or sue in the court that's most likely to act against you. If they ignore the violation, then that's where it ends. If they sue in the court that's convenient for them, then: 4. they need to demonstrate jurisdiction (which should be relatively easy even without a choice of venue clause, because Debian operates globally anyway: in the Berlin case ffis would be a potential target, I'd imagine) 5. they'd need to subpoena the respondent (ffis, pavel, SPI, whoever) following usual procedures 6. they'd need to convince the judge that the case is worth hearing and that they're correct At step (3) we've already decided upon a response to the claims, which we could file either with representation or by post at point (6). If those comments are dismissed by the judge and we're ruled against, we have another choice: 7. we can accept the ruling that we're violating the author's copyright, and remove the program or comply with upstream's request 8. we can continue doing things the way we think's appropriate, but not in places where we've been ruled against And if upstream doesn't like that, which they presumably wouldn't, 9. upstream can start asking other jurisdictions to enforce the penalties already indicated And as it happens, all of that applies without a choice of venue clause too, the only option you lose is the chance of dismissing the case on jurisdictional technicalities at point (6). Even if the license provides for recovery of costs and attorneys' fees It does provide for recovery of costs and attorneys' fees. No need to be hypothetical. Those are the costs of a choice-of-venue clause. The (apparently one and only) benefit is that it is cheaper for the licensor to sue people and/or the results of lawsuits are more predictable. The benefit is that it's clearer as to how the license will be enforced. Is it a big benefit? No, probably not. Supposedly Sun have it on their TODO list to remove it, though presumably it's safe to say they've been more focussed on getting Java under GPLv2 and seeing what happens with GPLv3 over the past little while. Is that truly acceptable in a free software license? Is it acceptable that a free software license makes it cheaper for the licensor to sue people, or that the results of lawsuits are more predictable? Of course it is. Is it acceptable that a free software license has drawbacks associated with it for potential licensees? Well that's a no-brainer too: all licenses (with the possible exception of public domain equivalents) have drawbacks of some kind. Cheers, aj signature.asc
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 11:14:16AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: But even so, when you say things like I'm personally more concerned about licensing than the average developer and I [...] expect people who disagree with my analysis to actually engage the analysis with counter arguments, come to a complete understanding of the problem, and then make a determination you are saying your understanding is more important than other people's. No, I'm saying that people who disagree should engage my analysis instead of remaining silent or discarding them with offhand comments. Holding people who agree with you to that standard might be a way to start? If I had time to do so, I'd consider it. Since I don't, I content myself with trying to make sure my messages approach this standard, setting an example instead. Well, when you hold people to different standards based on whether they agree with you or not, you can pretty safely expect that you'll end up with a pretty biassed group. In any event, the important thing (afaics) isn't to have a forum where regulars can post their understanding of issues, it's to help the people you're communicating with have a better appreciation for the complexities involved in their issue and how they might choose to approach them. That can mean pointing out possible drawbacks in existing licenses, explaining tradeoffs between licenses, or suggesting alternative ways of drafting licenses that avoid having to make some tradeoffs, but it doesn't mean making the tradeoffs for other people. Almost all this happens on -legal, actually. That's not my experience. From what I've seen, -legal mostly consists of people who aren't particularly experienced in free software development or professionally trained in any sort of legal analysis making unconditional claims about whether particular clauses are good or bad (mostly the latter) and how they'll be enforced. Obviously (I hope), I don't consider you to be inexperienced in free software development, but just in this thread you've made a reasonable number of unconditional statements, including ones that're simply wrong. I hope you can see why that can be frustrating, and why it can be more annoying when it's done by people whose only contribution to free software seems to be participating on -legal. I've personally been involved in trying to resolve the GFDL issue, making sure that the GPLv3 is DFSG free, and have been working along with Simon and a few others to try to fix the RFC issue. [In the case of the CDDL, it's interesting to note that this very issue was supposedly going to be fixed or at least looked at in an upcomming revision of the CDDL.] Well, the GFDL issues have been going to be fixed for some years now too; which, afaics, means that leaving Debian's interests up to folks on -legal (including yourself in this case) isn't very effective. Maybe it's not possible to be more effective on this score -- I'm not involved enough to say -- but I do know -legal could be a lot more effective in other respect, if it wasn't so insular: ie, less unconditional about what's free and less likely to inflate things that are regarded in the rest of the free software community as a non-issue (or a feature!) into a disaster wrt DFSG-freeness. No, punting to a GR is not a good solution -- it's slow to come to a resolution, it annoys developers who have to inform themselves about something they'd rather not worry about, and it ends up with -legal folks complaining that the resolution doesn't make sense. If it's the case that a signficant proportion of contributors to -legal and Debian Developers feel that an improper decision has been made, there's little else that can be done besides bringing it to a GR. What contributors to -legal feel is irrelevant to the above -- things go to a GR if, and only if, Debian Developers care sufficiently about it. And I mean, I know what a GR is for, why are you telling me? It's still not a *good solution* for deciding these things; it's a last resort, and the only other options we currently have a ftpmaster decides and it's obvious to pretty much everybody. What would make it more welcoming? A large part of the problem is the need to continuously point out counter arguments, [...] What makes it unwelcoming is the appearance of a consensus that doesn't brook argument, even when that consensus differs significantly from that of other sections of the free software (or open source) community. The problem is that it's very difficult to know if the consensus differens from the silent majority because the silent majority is nearly silent. When you're saying a license from the Free Software Foundation is non-free, it's *very easy* to tell you're going against another section of the free software community. We've done that with the Affero General Public License, the GNU Free Documentation License, and there's been the occassional attempt to
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 12:25:41AM -0700, Walter Landry wrote: Non-developer, non-maintainer, non-applicant: Check. Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For a choice of venue clause though, it only stops some people from being willing to participate; just as potentially giving up patent rights stops Microsoft from being willing to distribute Linux. The requirement to pet a cat, even if it is only required if convenient, also only stops some people from being willing to participate. It has also been considered non-free since the beginning of Debian. Condescending dismissal of arguments: Check. Is it really not obvious why -legal isn't taken very seriously sometimes? I don't consider the venue for deciding conflicts is chosen in advance as remotely equivalent to you must pet a cat. An analogy I would accept is something of the form you don't get to exercise your right/ability to where is an action, not the lack of an action. enforce your patents against other users of this software would be one example, distribute compiled code without source code would be another. If you're claiming you don't get to exercise your right to argue about jurisdiction is equivalent to you must pet a cat, then, IMO, you need to argue the same thing about you don't get to exercise your patent rights. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 06:49:54PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: If you're claiming you don't get to exercise your right to argue about jurisdiction is equivalent to you must pet a cat, then, IMO, you need to argue the same thing about you don't get to exercise your patent rights. You're aware that most of the people arguing that choice of venue clauses are non-free also hold the opinion that patent non-enforcement as a condition of the copyright license is also non-free? -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 02:42:24AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 06:49:54PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: If you're claiming you don't get to exercise your right to argue about jurisdiction is equivalent to you must pet a cat, then, IMO, you need to argue the same thing about you don't get to exercise your patent rights. You're aware that most of the people arguing that choice of venue clauses are non-free also hold the opinion that patent non-enforcement as a condition of the copyright license is also non-free? No, not at all. It's been years since I've followed -legal, and I certainly don't keep track of who thinks what. I fundamentally don't think it *matters* what individual subscribers to -legal think. What I care about is having a reasonable, widely understood definition of free software that meshes with the rest of the free software and open source community, that Debian can use to work out what software we'll distribute in main. I don't think it's remotely obvious that the DFSG rules out all patent non-enforcement clauses, I'm pretty sure it's not remotely obvious that the DFSG rules out choice of venue clauses, and so far I haven't seen any real reason why Debian needs to rule out those clauses. I can _certainly_ see why those sort of things might be more of a drawback than a benefit and we might want to discourage their use, but we can say bad in ways other than non-free. Cheers, aj, who suspects he's against patent non-enforcement clauses in the past signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 01:13:44AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: It is a freedom that I have by default; if I accept the CDDL I no longer have that freedom[1]. [...] [1] Technically, not the right to choose a venue, but the right to not be sued in a venue where I have no legal presence. Err, that's not a violation of your rights, it's a waste of the court's time... If the court doesn't see it as a waste of its time, and issues you with a summons anyway, you're involved. Cf [0]. You might as well say you've got the right not to be flamed on a list you're not subscribed to. Cheers, aj [0] http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1557842,00.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 07:30:36PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: Obviously (I hope), I don't consider you to be inexperienced in free software development, [...] To expand on that a bit more: IMHO, Debian is fundamentally about what its contributors want -- we're focussed on doing right by our users and the free software community, but ultimately, as far as Debian's concerned, the first and foremost representatives of both those groups are the users and free software community members who actually make Debian work. The opinions that matters are the ones belonging to people who're actually building Debian; and ultimately legal expertise is kind-of irrelevant to that. Microsoft might have some of the world's best experts on understanding IP law and the effects of the GPL, but as far as Debian's concerned, the newest of new-maintainers and the least contributors to Debian should have infinitely more say in what's sufficiently free for Debian. The point where legal expertise comes in is in understanding the consequences of legal texts -- this clause will prevent development in such-n-such a circumstance, or that clause will prevent distribution under some other conditions; not in deciding whether those circumstances or conditions are enough of a concern to actually make something non-free. Confident statements from non-developers on what is and isn't free enough isn't incredibly good at the best of times, and is actively harmful when it's got a history of not matching the way Debian actually works. And when analysis of licenses tends to amount to not much more than we've discussed this issue already, it's not free there's not much point to the debate at all, afaics. But if no one on -legal sees what I'm trying to get at by now, I guess there's not much point to this debate either. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 08:01:24PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 02:42:24AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 06:49:54PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: If you're claiming you don't get to exercise your right to argue about jurisdiction is equivalent to you must pet a cat, then, IMO, you need to argue the same thing about you don't get to exercise your patent rights. You're aware that most of the people arguing that choice of venue clauses are non-free also hold the opinion that patent non-enforcement as a condition of the copyright license is also non-free? No, not at all. It's been years since I've followed -legal, and I certainly don't keep track of who thinks what. I fundamentally don't think it *matters* what individual subscribers to -legal think. I'm just saying that you need to argue the same thing isn't much of a barrier, since AFAIK the people arguing against choice-of-venue clauses on this theory have already done so in the past and are likely to do so again if given cause ;) What I care about is having a reasonable, widely understood definition of free software that meshes with the rest of the free software and open source community, that Debian can use to work out what software we'll distribute in main. That's a good goal; but Debian has disagreed with other folks in the past because we believed their interpretations were irrational and contrary to the long-term interests of Free Software, and it's my own opinion that various folks in the wider community are in this position today, so I hope that such meshing is the result of a sustained dialogue and not just Debian giving in to whatever the folks with the cool technology of the day that everyone wants to use have are peddling as a license. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 04:07:30AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: What I care about is having a reasonable, widely understood definition of free software that meshes with the rest of the free software and open source community, that Debian can use to work out what software we'll distribute in main. That's a good goal; but Heh. Now there's a compressible phrase. :) (meshes does not mean matches or includes. When I joined we were more permissive than both the BSD and GNU camps (GNU complained about the BSD license, BSD complained about the GPL, we didn't mind either), but we've never done that blindly, as the KDE, Affero or GFDL stuff should attest. I don't see why you'd expect us to start now) Debian has disagreed with other folks in the past because we believed their interpretations were irrational and contrary to the long-term interests of Free Software, [...] I don't think you'd have to look very hard to find people who consider debian-legal's intepretations of various things to be irrational and contrary to the long-term interests of Free Software. Unfortunately trying to have a discussion between those viewpoints to resolve (or at least clarify) the differences isn't often successful. I've already listed some of the ways I think -legal regulars could change that situation, if they're interested. But I guess ultimately, along with James, Ryan, Joerg and Jeroen, I'm one of fairly few people who really don't have much cause for concern whether -legal becomes a really useful discussion area or not. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you're going to ignore the court case, it doesn't matter to you, but if you ever plan on travelling to germany or doing business with people in germany (or live in some part of germany that isn't close enough to berlin to defend yourself there) it can be a significant cost. Not sure whether it matters anyhow, but if you live in Germany and have fear of such clauses, you'd rather buy your stuff nowhere except the local grocery or supermarket. Gerichtsstand ist $place_where_the_selling_company_is_registered is a very common clause in written german selling or service contracts, not only but in particular if you buy online. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The debian-legal checklist: [...] In the example Don presented, of the Debian star maintainer removing some output from the Debian star package, that the star upstream claims constitutes a copyright notice, then there are the following options: [ rather long essay snipped ] Confident assertion of legal facts, with little basis, no references, and without an IANAL disclaimer, or I am a lawyer and this is legal advice, or a I am a lawyer but this does not constitute legal advice: little basis seems overly subjective to me, but besides that: Check Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
The troll checklist: Anthony Towns writes: The debian-legal checklist: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 11:28:22AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Posted by a non-DD, non-maintainer and non-applicant: Check. Ad hominem attack: Check. (For what it's worth, I am an upstream maintainer of one package in Debian (ircd-ircu) and another GPL'ed software package that is not. I am not inclined to adopt the obviously orphaned ircd-ircu package just to satisfy people who look at credentials over facts.) Anthony Towns writes: [...] And as far as the actual effects go, I'm not sure you're going to be any better off without that clause in your license: if you set foot in Australia, with an Australian judgement against you, there's a good chance of it being enforced; and if you don't, there seems to be a practical possibility of your extradition anyway, based on [0]. Extradition is for criminal cases, not civil cases. I cannot imagine how a choice of venue clause would significantly either help or hurt a criminal defendant. Confident assertion of legal facts, with little basis, no references, and without an IANAL disclaimer, or I am a lawyer and this is legal advice, or a I am a lawyer but this does not constitute legal advice: Check Blatant and proud ignorance of the field: Check, check and check. (I am not a lawyer. Under US law, I am not required to declare that when I make legal commentary. As a rule, I do not offer legal advice to anyone, since I do not wish to practice law.) Since copyright is increasingly covered by criminal penalties (in at least Australia and the US) as well as civil ones, I don't think that dismissal is even particularly useful. Totally missing the point: Check. (Choice of venue is for civil cases. Extradition is for criminal cases. Your attempt to link the two is irrelevant to whether choice of venue is free.) As has been previously discussed on -legal -- several times, I might add -- there are a variety of reasons that the rest your argument is flawed. Condescending dismissal of arguments: Check. I was -- and am -- in no mood to repeat the full reasons for these positions for the fourth or fifth time. If you cannot bother to read the archives, that is your loss. To summarize: Most of the expense of non-local defense litigation is in advance of any court judgment on the merits. The cost to dismiss a lawsuit for lack of personal jurisdiction is an order of magnitude (or more) less than litigating it through trial. It is harder to set aside a default judgment than to dismiss a complaint for improper venue. Confident assertion of legal facts, [...]: Check. I said it was a summary and that it had been discussed on -legal before. Citations are available in the archives. In the paragraph above, except for the last sentence (which has been supported by others in this thread), the data are also from my personal experience of being sued in a California federal court while I was a resident of Virginia. That experience is a major reason that I am so adamantly against this kind of clause in licenses for free software. In the example Don presented, of the Debian star maintainer removing some output from the Debian star package, that the star upstream claims constitutes a copyright notice, then there are the following options: 1. avoid the conflict by removing star from Debian 2. avoid the conflict by replacing the output at upstream's request 3. dispute the claim that they're copyright notices and keep acting At this point upstream likewise has some choices -- ignore the (perceived) license violation, sue in the court that's most convenient for them, or sue in the court that's most likely to act against you. If they ignore the violation, then that's where it ends. If they sue in the court that's convenient for them, then: 4. they need to demonstrate jurisdiction (which should be relatively easy even without a choice of venue clause, because Debian operates globally anyway: in the Berlin case ffis would be a potential target, I'd imagine) 5. they'd need to subpoena the respondent (ffis, pavel, SPI, whoever) following usual procedures 6. they'd need to convince the judge that the case is worth hearing and that they're correct Debian's global activities do not in general affect jurisidiction over individuals, so (4) primarily applies to Debian rather than its developers or end users. Nitpick: The plaintiff would need to issue a summons to the defendant. A subpoena is for testimony or other fact discovery[1]. A defendant does not become a respondent until he responds to a particular filing[1]; the plaintiff would usually also be a respondent to certain motions[1]. [1]- Ask Wikipedia, Google, or whatever floats your boat. These are not obscure legal facts or specific instances, they are basic terms. Would you take someone seriously who had strong
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 08:27:13AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: The troll checklist: Heh. Free advice: the best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. Anthony Towns writes: The debian-legal checklist: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 11:28:22AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Posted by a non-DD, non-maintainer and non-applicant: Check. Ad hominem attack: Check. I'm sorry, but I don't get why anyone considers that an ad hominem attack. Confident assertion of legal facts, with little basis, no references, and without an IANAL disclaimer, or I am a lawyer and this is legal advice, or a I am a lawyer but this does not constitute legal advice: Check Blatant and proud ignorance of the field: Check, check and check. (I am not a lawyer. Under US law, [...]) Uh, dude, IANAL is a way of indicating that you may not actually have a clue what you're talking about because it's all just amateur opinions. Once upon a time -legal used to be littered with it; now days the concept that regular posters to -legal might be mistaken seems to be rather alien. As has been previously discussed on -legal -- several times, I might add -- there are a variety of reasons that the rest your argument is flawed. Condescending dismissal of arguments: Check. I was -- and am -- in no mood to repeat the full reasons for these positions for the fourth or fifth time. If you cannot bother to read the archives, that is your loss. See, given that as an ftpmaster I'm one of the folks who actually implements the policy on what's accepted into main or not, it's not my loss at all. 4. they need to demonstrate jurisdiction (which should be relatively easy even without a choice of venue clause, because Debian operates globally anyway: in the Berlin case ffis would be a potential target, I'd imagine) Debian's global activities do not in general affect jurisidiction over individuals, so (4) primarily applies to Debian rather than its developers or end users. The CDDL primarily applies to Debian rather than end-users anyway, being about distribution and development (at least in so far as we distribute CDDL software anyway)... In any event, the example Don raised specifically talked about Debian being the respondent. Nitpick: The plaintiff would need to issue a summons to the defendant. A subpoena is for testimony or other fact discovery[1]. A defendant does not become a respondent until he responds to a particular filing[1]; the plaintiff would usually also be a respondent to certain motions[1]. [1]- Ask Wikipedia, Google, or whatever floats your boat. These are not obscure legal facts or specific instances, they are basic terms. Would you take someone seriously who had strong programming opinions but thought CC was the name of a C compiler or claimed to know the Pearl _scripting_ language? It's interesting that you started the mail offended about the ad hominem attack of noting you're not a developer; yet somehow you think a computer expert who tries to avoid paying attention to legal arguments getting subpoena and summons confused is an ignoramus who shouldn't be taken seriously. And that is exactly an ad hominem fallacy -- attacking the person in order to discredit their arguments, even though the flaws the person may have don't actually affect their argument. The argument which, I'll note that you didn't actually address at all. How many free software licenses have been enforced thanks to choice of venue? It doesn't matter, simplicity isn't a requirement for freeness. Not all drawbacks are shifted costs. The effect of choice of venue is to shift a significant potential cost from the software licensor to the software's users. Disclaimers of warranty and liability do that too. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Anthony Towns writes: Uh, dude, IANAL is a way of indicating that you may not actually have a clue what you're talking about because it's all just amateur opinions. Once upon a time -legal used to be littered with it; now days the concept that regular posters to -legal might be mistaken seems to be rather alien. In dealing with areas that I have researched thoroughly and lived through, I am not afraid to say that facts are facts. When I am not sure, I throw in appropriate qualifiers (such as I cannot imagine xxx, At least in the US, ... or even IANAL). When I do not think I have enough good information to make a useful contribution, I make no comment. When appropriate, I cite the relevant documents. I am no stranger to the idea that I might be wrong. When someone points out facts that contradict my position, I pay attention. When the only critiques are based on me not having a secret decoder ring -- whether the ring means JD or DD -- I tend to discount them. I do not pretend Debian should pay much attention to whether I think choice of venue is an appropriate tradeoff for the DFSG, for the reasons you mention. I do believe that many of the arguments in favor of choice of venue clauses are factually wrong[1], that those should be corrected before a decision is made, and that the decision should not be a casual one. [1]- e.g. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/05/msg00140.html [snip] Nitpick: The plaintiff would need to issue a summons to the defendant. A subpoena is for testimony or other fact discovery[1]. A defendant does not become a respondent until he responds to a particular filing[1]; the plaintiff would usually also be a respondent to certain motions[1]. [1]- Ask Wikipedia, Google, or whatever floats your boat. These are not obscure legal facts or specific instances, they are basic terms. Would you take someone seriously who had strong programming opinions but thought CC was the name of a C compiler or claimed to know the Pearl _scripting_ language? It's interesting that you started the mail offended about the ad hominem attack of noting you're not a developer; yet somehow you think a computer expert who tries to avoid paying attention to legal arguments getting subpoena and summons confused is an ignoramus who shouldn't be taken seriously. And that is exactly an ad hominem fallacy -- attacking the person in order to discredit their arguments, even though the flaws the person may have don't actually affect their argument. I have not attacked your position by attacking you. I have pointed out where and why your posts were wrong, stated why I did not think my corrections needed to be backed up by specific citations, and asked if you would take seriously someone who made analogous errors of fact in a different area. You asserted in another post that -legal was often not taken seriously by the rest of Debian; it seems fair to point out why there may be similar feelings in the other direction, at least as far as legal analysis goes. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, 4 Jun 2007 20:53:11 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: [...] To expand on that a bit more: IMHO, Debian is fundamentally about what its contributors want -- we're focussed on doing right by our users and the free software community, but ultimately, as far as Debian's concerned, the first and foremost representatives of both those groups are the users and free software community members who actually make Debian work. It seems you are implying that analyzing licenses and spending time to reply to questions sent to debian-legal is *not* a contribution to the Debian Project. If you really think that participating to debian-legal is not a contribution to the Debian Project, then please have a GR to abolish this list, so that I can stop wasting my time in dissecting issues and providing analyses that will get ignored by decision-makers. I used to be happy with the Debian Project having a transparent and open license analysis process, but it seems that this is just hypocrisy: the real decisions about which packages are acceptable for main are taken by a few people who seem to deliberately ignore any advice from debian-legal. Just like the FSF and OSI, who accept or reject licenses behind closed doors, without any real public explanation of the rationale... Your attitude towards debian-legal participants and towards non-DDs is rather insulting and does not encourage me to consider the idea of applying for the NM process. [...] And when analysis of licenses tends to amount to not much more than we've discussed this issue already, it's not free there's not much point to the debate at all, afaics. On the contrary, you could read the archived discussions and explain why you think the arguments made are invalid. I think there's not much point in repeating arguments that have already been made in the past (and are publicly archived for future reference), unless new data or counter-arguments are provided. But if no one on -legal sees what I'm trying to get at by now, I guess there's not much point to this debate either. Frankly speaking, it seems to me that you are trying to persuade debian-legal regulars to act as yes men who blindly follow what the majority of the open source community does. Hence, it seems you're trying to make debian-legal become pointless and useless. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgp8eBREqCXYU.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, 4 Jun 2007 20:01:24 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: [...] What I care about is having a reasonable, widely understood definition of free software that meshes with the rest of the free software and open source community, that Debian can use to work out what software we'll distribute in main. Then, I think you have to start by reconciling the open source community with the free software community: OSI and FSF already have a non-negligibly different set of accepted licenses. *Red Warning* This message is from a non-DD, non-maintainer and non-applicant. As a consequence, everything I say has to be checked and double-checked. Debian developers, instead, know the truth by definition and never say anything wrong: hence, no need to check what a DD says. Seriously, could you please stop this discrimination against non-DDs? I think Debian users should have the right to express their opinions and arguments on Debian lists: whatever they say should be considered for its merits, just like it should be done for Debian developers. It's not that users are second-class citizens or Harijans: after all the Debian Social Contract is a promise made by Debian developers to the Free Software Community (which, IMO, includes free software users). -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpa962MPShRu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, 4 Jun 2007 19:30:36 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: [...] And I mean, I know what a GR is for, why are you telling me? It's still not a *good solution* for deciding these things; it's a last resort, and the only other options we currently have a ftpmaster decides and it's obvious to pretty much everybody. I'm rather surprised to hear you saying that, since you seem to have been the proposer of GR-2006-001... [...] The official position of Debian is what we allow in main. That is to say? Bugs never happen?!? Nothing can possibly enter main by mistake or overlook?!? [...] Unfortunately, since -legal in general becomes an amorphous set of individuals who reserve the right to hold whatever opinions they like whenever questioned, there's little hope of -legal ever learning from its mistakes. Are you going to call the orwellian thought police, since I hold my *own* opinions?!? -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpFcSwbFQLaj.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Since it was requested, allow me to put forward a simple example of a case where choice of venue coupled with choice of law is suboptimal. Star is licensed under a modified CDDL license, which specifies Berlin, Germany as the choice of law and venue. If the author of Star decides that the Debian maintainer has incorrectly removed a copyright notice,[1] he could terminate the license under 6.1, and bring action in Berlin for copyright infringement; the maintainer and any other parties to the action (people to whom the work was distributed after notification of breech) would then have to defend themselves in Berlin instead of notifying the court that the venue was improper (or whatever the German equivalent is.) Considering the saber rattling that has come from star's upstream over precisely this issue in cdrecord, it's not so far fetched. On Sun, 03 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 09:29:08PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Choice of venue clauses can short circuit the normal determination of jurisdiction in civil cases in some jurisdictions in some cases. Contracts and licenses in general short-circuit the normal determination of rights under common or legislated law in some jurisdictions in some cases too. Of course; this is a refutation of the thesis that choice of venue clauses are legally void, not a claim that they are unique. Since this is giving up a right normally enjoyed in exchange for the ability to use or modify a work, it appears be a fee, and as such fails DFSG 1. You're not giving up any rights, you're gaining the right to modify and distribute the software under certain conditions, just as you are under the GPL. We don't give up rights under the GPL that we otherwise enjoy though; we only gain ones in specific circumstances. In the case of the CDDL, we lose rights even in the case where we're only using the work. You're required to give up something you might value and otherwise demand compensation for, certainly, but there needs to be something more than that to violate the DFSG. giving up something that you might value [or] otherwise demand compensation for applies equally well to cash money as it does to any other intangible which has value. A requirement to send an email to the licensor if you possibly can isn't cash money either, but it sure seems to be a fee to me. The DFSG are a set of *guidelines*, if you can't explain violations in simple, understandable terms, they're not violations. This is my understanding as well; I'm only explaining the application to DFSG 1 to attempt to appease strict constructionists. I'm personally using feel as shorthand for my understanding of the legal situtation regarding this clause and its relation to the DFSG That's great, but *your understanding* isn't any more important than anyone else's. I'm not claiming that it is; my point is that my understanding is not *less* important than anyone else's. I've done what everyone should do to come to an understanding. There's something fundamentally wrong with the way discussions work on debian-legal that people think that simply posting their understanding is a valuable contribution. What else can we do? We take input, we examine it, we respond with our understanding of how the input meshes together. I don't believe we're capable of presenting absolute truth. The reason why it's not is that it doesn't provide any good way of resolving disagreements: you can either revert to authority (such as ftpmaster's), you can resort to polls (such as a GR or an informal one on forums.debian.net), or you can attack people who hold different opinions in the hopes that they'll stop speaking and thus not be heard in future. Or we can try to understand the basis for our positions, and either come to a place where we agree, or have completely plumbed the argument so that we agree to disagree. This is my goal. I don't believe we've come to this position on the CDDL yet. If we end up agreeing to disagree, then we should punt, and use the GR process to decide whether the work goes in main or not, and have each side write up a explanation of the problems surrounding the license, and publicise it with those that agree signing on to it. implying that other people aren't sufficiently concerned about licensing matters, aren't actually engag[ing] the analysis with counter arguments, don't have a complete understanding of the problem in order to stop them mak[ing] a determination sounds like a pretty good match for the last case. It's very much the opposite, actually. I'd like nothing more than to have people who disagree with my understanding attack the rationale behind my understanding so at the end of the day, no matter how wrong my understanding starts, I end up getting things right. I like to believe that many -legal contributors have this mindset as well. Ultimately Debian's policy isn't going to be decided by whoever understands legal
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
* Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070603 05:49]: On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 08:30:56PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: Count me in. I don't feel comfortable with choose-of-venue at all. This attitude is exactly why there's a disconnect between regular posters and subscribers to debian-legal and other members of the project. How you feel about a license isn't any more important than the other people's feelings that happen to be opposite to you. The above isn't analysis, it's grandstanding. I really have to excuse for grandstanding. It's sometimes easy to lose a proper standard of discussion when faced with people thinking attacking people is making an argument. Bernhard R. Link And to the feelings point. Considering what restrictions and fees are a problem and which are not needs to look at the problematic cause with their meaning for people. Feelings about what are real dangers one would rather insure against and what is only common risk of life are an important part here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 10:54:36AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Tue, 22 May 2007, Sam Hocevar wrote: 3. Nexenta: Despite their incompatibility, Debian accepts both the CDDL and GPLv2 as valid free software licences and would welcome any solution to the distribution of a Debian system based on OpenSolaris. This is not the case, unfortunatly, and it really would be wise in the future to consult with people who are familiar with the arguments surrounding such licenses before expressing Debian's opinion to the FSF. The CDDL's clause 9 is very much not appropriate for works in main, and to the best of my knowledge, works licensed solely under the CDDL have never been accepted in main.[1] To underline, the following clauses in the CDDL are problematic: 9. MISCELLANEOUS [...] This License shall be governed by the law of the jurisdiction specified in a notice contained within the Original Software (except to the extent applicable law, if any, provides otherwise), excluding such jurisdiction's conflict-of-law provisions. Any litigation relating to this License shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts located in the jurisdiction and venue specified in a notice contained within the Original Software, with the losing party responsible for costs, including, without limitation, court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses. [...] You agree that You alone are responsible for compliance with the United States export administration regulations (and the export control laws and regulation of any other countries) when You use, distribute or otherwise make available any Covered Software. It's not appropriate for a Free Software license to require users of software to give up rights that they would normaly have in their own jurisdiction. I understand that argument, but I do think it requires a leap of logic (or at least some creative interpretation) to get from the DFSG to this position. While I can see why some people do not want CDDL-licensed software in main for the above reason, I do not think it is fair to call it the Debian position that this is the case; at least not yet. Counter-arguments: * The bit (except to the extent applicable law, if any, provides otherwise) means you don't necessarily have to give up all your rights. There are parts of copyright law in most jurisdictions that give unalienable rights to users; those fall under the above provision, by definition. The net result of your first clause therefore may be, depending on circumstances, that users actually get _more_ rights than what they started out with if that provision wasn't there, because their own copyright law doesn't give them nearly as much rights as the copyright law in the country where the software was written would. * Your second quote is a non-issue. The same is true for GPL-licensed software; if not, then why did we have to consult two lawyers back when we moved crypto to main? And why do we still have such insane procedures today when some crypto-using software gets through NEW? (you don't see them because ftp-masters handle them, but they're still there). Additionally, personally I don't think it's unreasonable for people to say if you use my software in a way that I didn't want you to, I'll sue you in a court that works by a set of rules that I'm actually comfortable with. You know, it makes fighting those who do not follow your license the way you intended them to quite a bit easier. -- Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 12:25:14PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: Additionally, personally I don't think it's unreasonable for people to say if you use my software in a way that I didn't want you to, I'll sue you in a court that works by a set of rules that I'm actually comfortable with. You know, it makes fighting those who do not follow your license the way you intended them to quite a bit easier. That's a strawman. The objection raised to choice-of-venue clauses is not what they specify to happen when the licensee has *infringed* the license, it's what they specify to happen when the licensee *hasn't* infringed the license but the copyright holder files a lawsuit against them anyway out of malice. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Le dimanche 03 juin 2007 à 00:33 +1000, Anthony Towns a écrit : That a poster to debian-legal doesn't think a license meets the DFSG isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when that poster isn't a DD, a maintainer or someone in the n-m queue. You really can't refrain, can you? -- .''`. : :' : We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code. `. `' We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to `-our own. Resistance is futile. signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 04:51:40AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 12:25:14PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: Additionally, personally I don't think it's unreasonable for people to say if you use my software in a way that I didn't want you to, I'll sue you in a court that works by a set of rules that I'm actually comfortable with. You know, it makes fighting those who do not follow your license the way you intended them to quite a bit easier. That's a strawman. The objection raised to choice-of-venue clauses is not what they specify to happen when the licensee has *infringed* the license, it's what they specify to happen when the licensee *hasn't* infringed the license but the copyright holder files a lawsuit against them anyway out of malice. I don't think that's meaningful; if I sue you in a court in Australia for not complying with debootstrap's license, and they find that you've infringed the license, it doesn't really matter if I'm doing that out of maliciousness or a genuine. And as far as the actual effects go, I'm not sure you're going to be any better off without that clause in your license: if you set foot in Australia, with an Australian judgement against you, there's a good chance of it being enforced; and if you don't, there seems to be a practical possibility of your extradition anyway, based on [0]. Simon Phipps' argument, presented at debconf last year, is (aiui) that the clause only comes into play when both parties are organisations that cross multiple jurisdictions anyway -- in which case they're both presumed to have a presence in the given jurisdiction anyway, and could reasonably be expected to be following its rules, afaics. [0] http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/05/06/1178390140855.html Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 12:28:04AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: If the author of Star decides that the Debian maintainer has incorrectly removed a copyright notice,[1] he could terminate the license under 6.1, He could claim the license is terminated under 6.1, but presumably the Debian maintainer would dispute such a claim. and bring action in Berlin for copyright infringement; the maintainer and any other parties to the action (people to whom the work was distributed after notification of breech) would then have to defend themselves in Berlin instead of notifying the court that the venue was improper (or whatever the German equivalent is.) The court in Berlin would have to not throw the case out on their own accord (in spite of the difficulty in having your side of the case presented, and in spite of the jurisdictional issues, the questionability of the claim in the first place, and the difficulty in showing harm), rule against you in absentia (agreeing with the arguments presented), and could then only take action in so far you already operate in its sphere of influence, or in so far as it can convince your government to extradite you or enforce its rulings for them. Should someone be willing to do that, and a court is willing to go through all those steps with a choice of venue clause, what makes you think they'd not do so in the absence of one? On Sun, 03 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: Since this is giving up a right normally enjoyed in exchange for the ability to use or modify a work, it appears be a fee, and as such fails DFSG 1. You're not giving up any rights, you're gaining the right to modify and distribute the software under certain conditions, just as you are under the GPL. We don't give up rights under the GPL that we otherwise enjoy though; Some people do. Microsoft considers the right to enforce its properly obtained patents worth going to the trouble of distributing coupons instead of SuSE itself, eg. we only gain ones in specific circumstances. In the case of the CDDL, we lose rights even in the case where we're only using the work. What makes you think the latter is true? I don't endorse the claim that copyright licenses can take away usage rights if you're not making use of the ability to modify or distribute that they offer you. In some cases it may be enough to provide a simple notice like that to bind a user, but that's dependent on your jurisdiction as a user more than a choice of venue clause, and I can't see any reason to think it applies to the CDDL even so. You're required to give up something you might value and otherwise demand compensation for, certainly, but there needs to be something more than that to violate the DFSG. giving up something that you might value [or] otherwise demand compensation for applies equally well to cash money as it does to any other intangible which has value. A requirement to send an email to the licensor if you possibly can isn't cash money either, but it sure seems to be a fee to me. It's not a fee in the normal sense of the word, but it is a restriction in the sense that if you're not able to do it (and you may well not be able to), you're not able to make use of the priveleges you're offered in return. That's where the analogy to a fee comes in -- it stops some people from being able to participate. For a choice of venue clause though, it only stops some people from being willing to participate; just as potentially giving up patent rights stops Microsoft from being willing to distribute Linux. It's *possible* that it's still obnoxious enough that it's too much to ask, but so far I can't see any significant cost to choice of venue that makes it any worse than all the other weird and wacky things people put in free software licenses. The DFSG are a set of *guidelines*, if you can't explain violations in simple, understandable terms, they're not violations. This is my understanding as well; I'm only explaining the application to DFSG 1 to attempt to appease strict constructionists. The OSI lists are that way: :) I'm personally using feel as shorthand for my understanding of the legal situtation regarding this clause and its relation to the DFSG That's great, but *your understanding* isn't any more important than anyone else's. I'm not claiming that it is; my point is that my understanding is not *less* important than anyone else's. I've done what everyone should do to come to an understanding. I'm glad to see you write that; though I was referring more to Francesco's post and similar than yours. But even so, when you say things like I'm personally more concerned about licensing than the average developer and I [...] expect people who disagree with my analysis to actually engage the analysis with counter arguments, come to a complete understanding of the problem, and then make a determination you are saying your understanding is more important than other people's.
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Anthony Towns writes: I don't think that's meaningful; if I sue you in a court in Australia for not complying with debootstrap's license, and they find that you've infringed the license, it doesn't really matter if I'm doing that out of maliciousness or a genuine. And as far as the actual effects go, I'm not sure you're going to be any better off without that clause in your license: if you set foot in Australia, with an Australian judgement against you, there's a good chance of it being enforced; and if you don't, there seems to be a practical possibility of your extradition anyway, based on [0]. Extradition is for criminal cases, not civil cases. I cannot imagine how a choice of venue clause would significantly either help or hurt a criminal defendant. As has been previously discussed on -legal -- several times, I might add -- there are a variety of reasons that the rest your argument is flawed. To summarize: Most of the expense of non-local defense litigation is in advance of any court judgment on the merits. The cost to dismiss a lawsuit for lack of personal jurisdiction is an order of magnitude (or more) less than litigating it through trial. It is harder to set aside a default judgment than to dismiss a complaint for improper venue. Even if the license provides for recovery of costs and attorneys' fees plus interest, a successful non-local defendant has to pay significant out-of-pocket expenses and will probably end up in the red on the whole case due to his time and money being tied up in the lawsuit rather than its normal use. Those are the costs of a choice-of-venue clause. The (apparently one and only) benefit is that it is cheaper for the licensor to sue people and/or the results of lawsuits are more predictable. Is that truly acceptable in a free software license? Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 12:28:04AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: If the author of Star decides that the Debian maintainer has incorrectly removed a copyright notice,[1] he could terminate the license under 6.1, [...] Should someone be willing to do that, and a court is willing to go through all those steps with a choice of venue clause, what makes you think they'd not do so in the absence of one? The difference is in the cost of defending against such an action; in the normal case you have the ability to make the entire claim go away by notifying the court that the venue is improper. In the case of a choice of venue clause, you first have to invalidate the choice of venue, which increases the cost. If you're going to ignore the court case, it doesn't matter to you, but if you ever plan on travelling to germany or doing business with people in germany (or live in some part of germany that isn't close enough to berlin to defend yourself there) it can be a significant cost. we only gain ones in specific circumstances. In the case of the CDDL, we lose rights even in the case where we're only using the work. What makes you think the latter is true? I don't endorse the claim that copyright licenses can take away usage rights if you're not making use of the ability to modify or distribute that they offer you. Unlike the GPL, the CDDL doesn't separate use from modification. Since use (or at least performance of a work) is a right that is reserved to the copyright holder, you need some level of permission to do so. But even so, when you say things like I'm personally more concerned about licensing than the average developer and I [...] expect people who disagree with my analysis to actually engage the analysis with counter arguments, come to a complete understanding of the problem, and then make a determination you are saying your understanding is more important than other people's. No, I'm saying that people who disagree should engage my analysis instead of remaining silent or discarding them with offhand comments. Holding people who agree with you to that standard might be a way to start? If I had time to do so, I'd consider it. Since I don't, I content myself with trying to make sure my messages approach this standard, setting an example instead. What else can we do? We take input, we examine it, we respond with our understanding of how the input meshes together. I don't believe we're capable of presenting absolute truth. Who is we in the above? For someone who's not a regular on -legal, it doesn't sound like it includes me. I'd like to believe it includes every rational being. In any event, the important thing (afaics) isn't to have a forum where regulars can post their understanding of issues, it's to help the people you're communicating with have a better appreciation for the complexities involved in their issue and how they might choose to approach them. That can mean pointing out possible drawbacks in existing licenses, explaining tradeoffs between licenses, or suggesting alternative ways of drafting licenses that avoid having to make some tradeoffs, but it doesn't mean making the tradeoffs for other people. Almost all this happens on -legal, actually. Some of it happens more frequently on other lists, since drafting licenses is not something that -legal does, but many of the contributors to -legal are involved in making sure that new versions of licences that are drafted are obviously DFSG Free. I've personally been involved in trying to resolve the GFDL issue, making sure that the GPLv3 is DFSG free, and have been working along with Simon and a few others to try to fix the RFC issue. [In the case of the CDDL, it's interesting to note that this very issue was supposedly going to be fixed or at least looked at in an upcomming revision of the CDDL.] No, punting to a GR is not a good solution -- it's slow to come to a resolution, it annoys developers who have to inform themselves about something they'd rather not worry about, and it ends up with -legal folks complaining that the resolution doesn't make sense. If it's the case that a signficant proportion of contributors to -legal and Debian Developers feel that an improper decision has been made, there's little else that can be done besides bringing it to a GR. What would make it more welcoming? A large part of the problem is the need to continuously point out counter arguments, [...] What makes it unwelcoming is the appearance of a consensus that doesn't brook argument, even when that consensus differs significantly from that of other sections of the free software (or open source) community. The problem is that it's very difficult to know if the consensus differens from the silent majority because the silent majority is nearly silent. there are some things that are widely agreed to be free, some things that are widely agreed to be
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, 03 Jun 2007, Don Armstrong wrote: On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: Debian does accept the CDDL as a free license (at least when the choice of venue is Berlin). Indeed; I wasn't aware of the CDDL ever being accepted in main; had I paid more attention to it, I would have brought this issue up sooner. It would be useful in the future if a statement of the policy of ftpmaster could be made when such a determiniation of acceptability of a work for main, especially when a work is reasonably controversial on -legal. Adopting pre-existing arguments for or against specific clauses of the license from -legal should be straight forward, and it'd be easy for those in agreement to sign on to the opinion of ftpmaster using their GPG keys. Unfortunatly, the start of this thread and a terse message to 350624-done is the only publicly available information that I'm aware of about the decision regarding this license. Don Armstrong -- There's no problem so large it can't be solved by killing the user off, deleting their files, closing their account and reporting their REAL earnings to the IRS. -- The B.O.F.H.. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, 3 Jun 2007 21:46:30 +0200 Wouter Verhelst wrote: [...] If it isn't, then the GPL is also non-free, by the very same rationale: the fact that you are required to produce source when so asked if you do distribute binaries from source under the GPL means that you are giving up a right (the right not to distribute any source) which you might otherwise have, which could be considered to be a fee. This argument is flawed. You're *not* giving up the right not to distribute any source, because you can always refrain from distributing the corresponding binaries and have no obligation to provide source. You're *not* giving up the right to distribute binaries without distributing the corresponding source, because, without a license, you would not have the right to distribute binaries in the first place (with or without source). By accepting the GPL, you instead gain the right to distribute binaries with source, and you simply do *not* gain the right to distribute binaries without source. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpEfeNTd2JPp.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 01:18:56AM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Sun, 3 Jun 2007 21:46:30 +0200 Wouter Verhelst wrote: [...] If it isn't, then the GPL is also non-free, by the very same rationale: the fact that you are required to produce source when so asked if you do distribute binaries from source under the GPL means that you are giving up a right (the right not to distribute any source) which you might otherwise have, which could be considered to be a fee. This argument is flawed. It is not. You're *not* giving up the right not to distribute any source, because you can always refrain from distributing the corresponding binaries and have no obligation to provide source. You're *not* giving up the right to distribute binaries without distributing the corresponding source, because, without a license, you would not have the right to distribute binaries in the first place (with or without source). By accepting the GPL, you instead gain the right to distribute binaries with source, and you simply do *not* gain the right to distribute binaries without source. Similarly, by accepting the CDDL, you are not giving up the right to choose a venue in case you get sued over the software; instead, you are simply gaining the right to use, modify, and redistribute the software under a given set of rules (which simply does not include the right to choose a court in which to settle disagreements). That is what matters, and that is what makes the software free. Even if my argument would be flawed (which I don't think it is, but just in case), that wouldn't even matter. What matters is that DFSG#1 talks about a royalty or other fee--i.e. money--not giving up rights; and any interpretation of the text that says it does talk about giving up rights is incorrect to begin with. -- Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 11:28:22AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Anthony Towns writes: I don't think that's meaningful; if I sue you in a court in Australia for not complying with debootstrap's license, and they find that you've infringed the license, it doesn't really matter if I'm doing that out of maliciousness or a genuine. And as far as the actual effects go, I'm not sure you're going to be any better off without that clause in your license: if you set foot in Australia, with an Australian judgement against you, there's a good chance of it being enforced; and if you don't, there seems to be a practical possibility of your extradition anyway, based on [0]. Extradition is for criminal cases, not civil cases. I cannot imagine how a choice of venue clause would significantly either help or hurt a criminal defendant. That makes it even better. If you get sued and convicted as a private person in a jurisdiction that is not yours, there are two possible outcomes: * You try to defend yourself, and might win or lose depending on the case. If you go to the jurisdiction where you are being sued, the end result might be that enforcement is likely. * You do nothing, and nothing happens You see, if a judge in the U.S. decides that I am guilty as charged based upon evidence brought before him, I couldn't care less. Belgium does not extradite its own citizens unless those have been convicted by Belgian judges and found guilty; so as long as I do not do anything which might be illegal by Belgian law, there's nothing to stop me from not following the license. Sure, that probably means I should be wary of going to the U.S. while convicted there, but perhaps I can live with that. And indeed, since extradition isn't for civil cases, they wouldn't even ask for extradition in the first place. On top of that, the licensor couldn't even sue me in Belgium, since then *I* could invoke the choice-of-venue clause to prevent that. Hadn't thought of that before, but I'm starting to like these clauses. -- Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Wouter Verhelst wrote: If you get sued and convicted as a private person in a jurisdiction that is not yours, there are two possible outcomes: * You try to defend yourself, and might win or lose depending on the case. If you go to the jurisdiction where you are being sued, the end result might be that enforcement is likely. * You do nothing, and nothing happens I'm not sure what any of this has to do with choice of venue; the only thing choice of venue alters is your ability to stop the case in the initial phases by advertising that venue is improper in that jursidiction, not your ability to decide that ignoring German law is the appropriate tactic. On top of that, the licensor couldn't even sue me in Belgium, since then *I* could invoke the choice-of-venue clause to prevent that. They'd probably come to Belgium to get the German decision enforced, actually. They're fairly close, after all. Don Armstrong [Who has no idea if these sorts of clauses even work in Germany or Belgium] -- Three little words. (In decending order of importance.) I love you -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/graphics/batch35.php http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 05:09:57PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Wouter Verhelst wrote: If you get sued and convicted as a private person in a jurisdiction that is not yours, there are two possible outcomes: * You try to defend yourself, and might win or lose depending on the case. If you go to the jurisdiction where you are being sued, the end result might be that enforcement is likely. * You do nothing, and nothing happens I'm not sure what any of this has to do with choice of venue; By itself, nothing. But in a lawsuit in the context of a license with a choice-of-venue clause, either you live in the jurisdiction that is claimed in the license (in which case not much changes wrt what would be the case if there were no choice-of-venue clause in the first place), or you do not (in which case the above is appropriate). the only thing choice of venue alters is your ability to stop the case in the initial phases by advertising that venue is improper in that jursidiction, not your ability to decide that ignoring German law is the appropriate tactic. What I was trying to show is that the relevance of a copyright case brought against you in a jurisdiction outside of your immediate concern is zero, for all practical matters; that means you can simply ignore it, and nothing Bad will happen. Therefore, I don't think it makes it anything even remotely representing non-freeness. If you are a company or other organization which is large enough that choice-of-venue clauses do matter, then you probably do have contacts with a lawyer in the appropriate jurisdiction whom you can ask to represent you, anyway. [...] [Who has no idea if these sorts of clauses even work in Germany or Belgium] Seen how the Belgian Government wrote the first license in /usr/share/doc/libbeid2/copyright (in particular section 6.3 of that license), I guess they do. -- Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Wouter Verhelst writes: On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 11:28:22AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Anthony Towns writes: I don't think that's meaningful; if I sue you in a court in Australia for not complying with debootstrap's license, and they find that you've infringed the license, it doesn't really matter if I'm doing that out of maliciousness or a genuine. And as far as the actual effects go, I'm not sure you're going to be any better off without that clause in your license: if you set foot in Australia, with an Australian judgement against you, there's a good chance of it being enforced; and if you don't, there seems to be a practical possibility of your extradition anyway, based on [0]. Extradition is for criminal cases, not civil cases. I cannot imagine how a choice of venue clause would significantly either help or hurt a criminal defendant. That makes it even better. If you get sued and convicted as a private person in a jurisdiction that is not yours, there are two possible outcomes: * You try to defend yourself, and might win or lose depending on the case. If you go to the jurisdiction where you are being sued, the end result might be that enforcement is likely. * You do nothing, and nothing happens Civil cases do not have convictions (or guilt), just as they do not have extradition. Civil cases have judgments and liability. (I assume this is a case of linguistic differences rather than legal ignorance.) I cannot speak to other systems, but your first case is wrong: Simply appearing in one US court to defend oneself against claims would not pass the minimum contacts test that is used to determine whether personal jurisdiction exists. You also oversimplified the second case to ignore the situation where a judgment in one jurisdiction is enforced in the defendant's own jurisdiction. This applies in particular to US courts due to regional divisions (namely, Federal circuits and state lines). Finally, you have omitted a third case: the defendant moves (probably successfully) to have the suit dismissed for improper venue. This has notable benefits for the defendant, including the chance to have reasonable costs awarded -- and that chance goes up, with respect to the first action, if it is re-filed elsewhere later. You see, if a judge in the U.S. decides that I am guilty as charged based upon evidence brought before him, I couldn't care less. Belgium does not extradite its own citizens unless those have been convicted by Belgian judges and found guilty; so as long as I do not do anything which might be illegal by Belgian law, there's nothing to stop me from not following the license. Sure, that probably means I should be wary of going to the U.S. while convicted there, but perhaps I can live with that. And indeed, since extradition isn't for civil cases, they wouldn't even ask for extradition in the first place. On top of that, the licensor couldn't even sue me in Belgium, since then *I* could invoke the choice-of-venue clause to prevent that. Hadn't thought of that before, but I'm starting to like these clauses. Good for you. I would not ask you to avoid these clauses for yourself. However, they are considerably less appealing to those who do not have the same legal system or tolerance of avoiding arbitrary countries. As I understand them, DFSG conformance and freedoms are not a function of particular people's convenience. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Mon, 2007-06-04 at 02:45 +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: What I was trying to show is that the relevance of a copyright case brought against you in a jurisdiction outside of your immediate concern is zero, for all practical matters; that means you can simply ignore it, and nothing Bad will happen. Therefore, I don't think it makes it anything even remotely representing non-freeness. This is not true. There is such a thing as comity, in which those who have won judgments in one court can get another court to recognize the judgment and compel payment. This happens in international contexts, even without a treaty. For example, if a French court issues a judgment against a US citizen, a US court will at least seriously consider giving effect to the judgment. And this happens *without* anything like retrying the case. In federal states, such as the US, this is particularly serious, because the federal constitution *compels* states to give effect to each other's court judgments. Thomas signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
You're *not* giving up the right not to distribute any source, because you can always refrain from distributing the corresponding binaries and have no obligation to provide source. You're *not* giving up the right to distribute binaries without distributing the corresponding source, because, without a license, you would not have the right to distribute binaries in the first place (with or without source). By accepting the GPL, you instead gain the right to distribute binaries with source, and you simply do *not* gain the right to distribute binaries without source. Similarly, by accepting the CDDL, you are not giving up the right to choose a venue in case you get sued over the software; instead, you are simply gaining the right to use, modify, and redistribute the software under a given set of rules (which simply does not include the right to choose a court in which to settle disagreements). That is what matters, and that is what makes the software free. Even if my argument would be flawed (which I don't think it is, but just in case), that wouldn't even matter. What matters is that DFSG#1 talks about a royalty or other fee--i.e. money--not giving up rights; and any interpretation of the text that says it does talk about giving up rights is incorrect to begin with. I am not a specialist, but in France, private use of a work cannot be denied (as well as private copy, in some measure). Whether this applies only to countries following author rights doctrine instead of copyrights, I let it to someone more knowledgeable in this field. Of course, private means private (not the familial group). -- JCD -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 02:53:43PM +0300, Lars Wirzenius wrote: On ti, 2007-05-22 at 13:30 +0200, Sam Hocevar wrote: 1. The GPLv3: the latest draft did not raise major objections from -legal and despite its concerns with the strategies developed in some sections, Debian does consider it DFSG-free. Debian will however not push for its adoption, mainly because we still have much software that is GPLv2-only in the distribution. Why it that a valid, or even relevant reason to avoid pushing GPLv3? That's been answered already, but, IMO, a sufficient and better reason to avoid pushing GPLv3 is just that there's no need for Debian to push *any* particular free license. As long as its DFSG-free, we don't really need to care -- we might still offer opinions, but we don't have to go any further. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 10:54:36AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: and to the best of my knowledge, works licensed solely under the CDDL have never been accepted in main.[1] star | 1.5a57-1 | oldstable | source, alpha, arm, [...] star | 1.5a67-1 | stable | source, alpha, amd64, [...] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/s/star/star_1.5a57-1/star.copyright http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=350624 HTH. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
debian-devel re-added. On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 03:40:36PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Sat, 2 Jun 2007 21:50:15 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 10:54:36AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: and to the best of my knowledge, works licensed solely under the CDDL have never been accepted in main.[1] star | 1.5a57-1 | oldstable | source, alpha, arm, [...] star | 1.5a67-1 | stable | source, alpha, amd64, [...] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/s/star/star_1.5a57-1/star.copyright http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=350624 Quoting from the bug log, Anthony Towns wrote: | The CDDL mightn't be the best license in the world, and isn't GPL | compatible, but it's still DFSG-free. Closing this bug with this | message. I do *not* agree that the CDDL meets the DFSG, especially when a choice of venue is in place. That a poster to debian-legal doesn't think a license meets the DFSG isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when that poster isn't a DD, a maintainer or someone in the n-m queue. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Anthony Towns writes: debian-devel re-added. On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 03:40:36PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Sat, 2 Jun 2007 21:50:15 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 10:54:36AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: and to the best of my knowledge, works licensed solely under the CDDL have never been accepted in main.[1] star | 1.5a57-1 | oldstable | source, alpha, arm, [...] star | 1.5a67-1 | stable | source, alpha, amd64, [...] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/s/star/star_1.5a57-1/star.copyright http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=350624 Quoting from the bug log, Anthony Towns wrote: | The CDDL mightn't be the best license in the world, and isn't GPL | compatible, but it's still DFSG-free. Closing this bug with this | message. I do *not* agree that the CDDL meets the DFSG, especially when a choice of venue is in place. That a poster to debian-legal doesn't think a license meets the DFSG isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when that poster isn't a DD, a maintainer or someone in the n-m queue. A blatant appeal to authority in place of facts or analysis isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when arguments for the contrary position have been made but not answered. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Jun 02, Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A blatant appeal to authority in place of facts or analysis isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when arguments for the contrary position have been made but not answered. s/arguments/opinions/ -- ciao, Marco signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, 03 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: debian-devel re-added. On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 03:40:36PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Sat, 2 Jun 2007 21:50:15 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 10:54:36AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: and to the best of my knowledge, works licensed solely under the CDDL have never been accepted in main.[1] star | 1.5a57-1 | oldstable | source, alpha, arm, [...] star | 1.5a67-1 | stable | source, alpha, amd64, [...] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/s/star/star_1.5a57-1/star.copyright http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=350624 Quoting from the bug log, Anthony Towns wrote: | The CDDL mightn't be the best license in the world, and isn't GPL | compatible, but it's still DFSG-free. Closing this bug with this | message. I do *not* agree that the CDDL meets the DFSG, especially when a choice of venue is in place. That a poster to debian-legal doesn't think a license meets the DFSG isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when that poster isn't a DD, a maintainer or someone in the n-m queue. It's not like there aren't DDs who feel that it isn't DFSG free; Steve Langasek and myself have consistently argued against it, and I doubt we're the only two. That said, can the ftpmaster who approved the inclusion of star in main speak up and give their rationale? Don Armstrong -- Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you really want to test his character, give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Jun 02, Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A blatant appeal to authority in place of facts or analysis isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when arguments for the contrary position have been made but not answered. s/arguments/opinions/ Yes, there were a number of court opinions cited to illustrate that choice of venue (aka forum selection) clauses are quite often binding. This was in contrast to claims from the CDDL is DFSG compliant crowd that the clause had no effect. That was one of the unanswered facts that I had in mind -- although I suspect your shorthand was not actually in reference to that. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sat, 02 Jun 2007, Steve Langasek wrote: On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 12:12:14PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Sat, 02 Jun 2007, Don Armstrong wrote: That said, can the ftpmaster who approved the inclusion of star in main speak up and give their rationale? Actually, I must take this back; it's almost certain that ftpmaster did not approve this, Er, isn't that what AJ's closure message *is*? It could be. Of course, last time I checked, AJ wasn't primarily doing NEW processing, which is the area of responsibility that my original message was (incorrectly) aimed at. Don Armstrong -- DIE! -- Maritza Campos http://www.crfh.net/d/20020601.html http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 10:13:56AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Sun, 03 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: debian-devel re-added. On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 03:40:36PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Sat, 2 Jun 2007 21:50:15 +1000 Anthony Towns wrote: On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 10:54:36AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: and to the best of my knowledge, works licensed solely under the CDDL have never been accepted in main.[1] star | 1.5a57-1 | oldstable | source, alpha, arm, [...] star | 1.5a67-1 | stable | source, alpha, amd64, [...] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/s/star/star_1.5a57-1/star.copyright http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=350624 Quoting from the bug log, Anthony Towns wrote: | The CDDL mightn't be the best license in the world, and isn't GPL | compatible, but it's still DFSG-free. Closing this bug with this | message. I do *not* agree that the CDDL meets the DFSG, especially when a choice of venue is in place. That a poster to debian-legal doesn't think a license meets the DFSG isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when that poster isn't a DD, a maintainer or someone in the n-m queue. It's not like there aren't DDs who feel that it isn't DFSG free; Steve Langasek and myself have consistently argued against it, and I doubt we're the only two. Yes, I think that licensor-oriented choice of venue clauses in free software licenses are at best a bug, and at worst make the license fail the intent of the DFSG. However, the ftpmasters appear to disagree, and the practical consequences of these clauses do not appear so great (nor so persuasive) that I feel the need to insist there's been an error. Cheers, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 11:10:19AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Anthony Towns writes: On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 03:40:36PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: I do *not* agree that the CDDL meets the DFSG, especially when a choice of venue is in place. That a poster to debian-legal doesn't think a license meets the DFSG isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when that poster isn't a DD, a maintainer or someone in the n-m queue. A blatant appeal to authority in place of facts or analysis isn't particularly useful information, and is even less so when arguments for the contrary position have been made but not answered. On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 10:13:56AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: It's not like there aren't DDs who feel that it isn't DFSG free; Steve Langasek and myself have consistently argued against it, and I doubt we're the only two. That said, can the ftpmaster who approved the inclusion of star in main speak up and give their rationale? On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 08:30:56PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: Count me in. I don't feel comfortable with choose-of-venue at all. This attitude is exactly why there's a disconnect between regular posters and subscribers to debian-legal and other members of the project. How you feel about a license isn't any more important than the other people's feelings that happen to be opposite to you. The above isn't analysis, it's grandstanding. And if you really want to have licenses determined by how people feel rather than analysing the effects of the license in real world situations as compared to what's actually written in the DFSG, I expect you'll find we just end up with more GRs like the the GFDL GR that doesn't match commonly held opinions on debian-legal at all. If you're a non-DD, non-maintainer, or whatever, and you have new insight to add to license/DFSG analysis, that's great! That's exactly what the list is for. If you just want to post about your opinion on whether we should consider something DFSG-free or not, do it in a way that respects the fact that there are plenty of other contributors to Debian who might happen to hold opinions different to yours. And also realise that the only place your opinion is actually going to have some effect is in packages you maintain, or if we hold a poll or a vote, and posting to -legal isn't participating in either of those. Cheers, aj signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, 03 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote: How you feel about a license isn't any more important than the other people's feelings that happen to be opposite to you. The above isn't analysis, it's grandstanding. My mistake; I assumed the references I provided earlier to the analysis done in 2005 and 2006 were sufficent. Allow me to summarize and repeat the problems with choice of venue clauses for the benifit of those who have not read the threads which I referenced earlier: Choice of venue clauses can short circuit the normal determination of jurisdiction in civil cases in some jurisdictions in some cases. In order to return to a sane jurisdiction, you generally must first get the choice of venue clause vacated, and only then do you start the normal change of venue process. Since there is no compulsion to agree to a license and the work is not being sold, it's less likely that such a clause will be vacated in comparison to the equivalent clause in shrinkwrap licenses.[1] Since this is giving up a right normally enjoyed in exchange for the ability to use or modify a work, it appears be a fee, and as such fails DFSG 1. Finally, by placing works under licenses with such clauses into non-free, we advise people that they should be examining the license more closely before deciding whether or not they should (or can) use the software. And if you really want to have licenses determined by how people feel rather than analysing the effects of the license in real world situations as compared to what's actually written in the DFSG, I expect you'll find we just end up with more GRs like the the GFDL GR that doesn't match commonly held opinions on debian-legal at all. I'm personally using feel as shorthand for my understanding of the legal situtation regarding this clause and its relation to the DFSG not the way the clause effects me emotionally or what my DFSG dartboard said when I threw my official -legal flaming darts at it. I'm well aware that I'm personally more concerned about licensing matters than the average developer, but then again, that's also why I (perhaps naïvely) expect people who disagree with my analysis to actually engage the analysis with counter arguments, come to a complete understanding of the problem, and then make a determination. And also realise that the only place your opinion is actually going to have some effect is in packages you maintain, or if we hold a poll or a vote, and posting to -legal isn't participating in either of those. My goal is to convince ftpmasters and developers that my analysis is reasonable, and that these works with licenses containing these kinds of clauses have no place in main. Failing that, I can only educate users and not install those packages myself, hoping that unsuspecting users do not get caught out by upstreams which have decided to become litigious.[2] Don Armstrong 1: I have no idea of the odds of such things happening, though. It definetly varies from district to district in the US, not to mention other countries. 2: Which, unfortunatly enough, is a legitimate concern considering the upstream of this particular package. -- If you find it impossible to believe that the universe didn't have a creator, why don't you find it impossible that your creator didn't have one either? -- Anonymous Coward http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=167556cid=13970629 http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 09:29:08PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Choice of venue clauses can short circuit the normal determination of jurisdiction in civil cases in some jurisdictions in some cases. Contracts and licenses in general short-circuit the normal determination of rights under common or legislated law in some jurisdictions in some cases too. Since this is giving up a right normally enjoyed in exchange for the ability to use or modify a work, it appears be a fee, and as such fails DFSG 1. You're not giving up any rights, you're gaining the right to modify and distribute the software under certain conditions, just as you are under the GPL. There's no fee involved, any more than there is under the GPL's requirement to release your modifications under the GPL or to provide source when you distribute binaries. You're required to give up something you might value and otherwise demand compensation for, certainly, but there needs to be something more than that to violate the DFSG. It's possible that there's actually something bad about choice of venue, but analogising it to a fee just makes the discussion completely opaque to anyone who's not interested in theoretical DFSG analysis. If the DFSG doesn't have a clause that covers why it's bad, we can change the DFSG; but if we don't have a good, simple explanation why it's bad for actual free software users and developers, there's no need to be claiming it's non-free. The DFSG are a set of *guidelines*, if you can't explain violations in simple, understandable terms, they're not violations. Equally, just because something doesn't directly and clearly contradict some specific text in the DFSG, it may still be a real violation. And if you really want to have licenses determined by how people feel rather than analysing the effects of the license in real world situations as compared to what's actually written in the DFSG, I expect you'll find we just end up with more GRs like the the GFDL GR that doesn't match commonly held opinions on debian-legal at all. I'm personally using feel as shorthand for my understanding of the legal situtation regarding this clause and its relation to the DFSG That's great, but *your understanding* isn't any more important than anyone else's. Nor is Francesco's, nor is Bernhard's. There's something fundamentally wrong with the way discussions work on debian-legal that people think that simply posting their understanding is a valuable contribution. The reason why it's not is that it doesn't provide any good way of resolving disagreements: you can either revert to authority (such as ftpmaster's), you can resort to polls (such as a GR or an informal one on forums.debian.net), or you can attack people who hold different opinions in the hopes that they'll stop speaking and thus not be heard in future. I'm well aware that I'm personally more concerned about licensing matters than the average developer, but then again, that's also why I (perhaps na?vely) expect people who disagree with my analysis to actually engage the analysis with counter arguments, come to a complete understanding of the problem, and then make a determination. And implying that other people aren't sufficiently concerned about licensing matters, aren't actually engag[ing] the analysis with counter arguments, don't have a complete understanding of the problem in order to stop them mak[ing] a determination sounds like a pretty good match for the last case. Ultimately Debian's policy isn't going to be decided by whoever understands legal issues the best, it's going to be decided by the developers who contribute to Debian, whether they fully understand things or not. Trying to limit the discussion to experts is all very well, but it'll just leave non-experts ignoring the discussions when they end up making the ultimate decision. My goal is to convince ftpmasters and developers that my analysis is reasonable, and that these works with licenses containing these kinds of clauses have no place in main. Failing that, I can only educate users and [...] If the project doesn't adopt your views, then promoting them to users as though they're an official consensus isn't educat[ing] users, it's misleading them. That shouldn't stop you from promoting your opinion *as your opinion*, but honesty demands that you at least make it clear where official policy ends and your opinion begins. FWIW, I don't think ftpmaster's opinion is final, discussion on -legal is nice but ultimately irrelevant is a satisfactory way of deciding official policy on this. But while discussion on debian-legal of views such as non-DDs opinions aren't official Debian policy, the GFDL without invariant sections is a free license, choice of venue doesn't stop a license (eg the MPL or CDDL) from being a free license, the dissident test doesn't need to be passed by all DFSG-free licenses, RFCs don't need to be free is more or less unwelcome -- or at the very least seen as
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: However, most contracts -- any negotiated contract, and many standard form contracts -- may specify a venue for court actions arising from the contract. That is generally the same in Germany and, AFAIK, Switzerland. I'm not sure about specialities like shrink-wrap licenses, but if you rent a car or buy a refrigerator, it's common. Regards, Frank -- Dr. Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Don Armstrong wrote: To underline, the following clauses in the CDDL are problematic: 9. MISCELLANEOUS [...] This License shall be governed by the law of the jurisdiction specified in a notice contained within the Original Software (except to the extent applicable law, if any, provides otherwise), The consensus is that choice-of-law is acceptable (provided it's the law of a 'reasonable' jurisdiction) excluding such jurisdiction's conflict-of-law provisions. Haven't heard any opinion about this exclusion Any litigation relating to this License shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts located in the jurisdiction and venue specified in a notice contained within the Original Software, ...but this is choice of jurisdiction, and many of us think this is *not* free. If Sun turned nasty and decided to sue me, I should not have to hire a *California* lawyer or fly there simply in order to defend myself. This is the problematic part. Without choice-of-jurisdiction, I could simply have my lawyer file a reply saying No alleged infrigement took place in California, throw this out, you have to file suit in my home state. This clause could be used in an acceptable manner, of course: if the notice contained within the Original Software stated that it was in fact subject to the jurisdiction and venue of whatever court would normally have jurisdiction, then this clause would really be moot. :-) with the losing party responsible for costs, including, without limitation, court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses. Haven't heard much if any comment on this. [...] You agree that You alone are responsible for compliance with the United States export administration regulations (and the export control laws and regulation of any other countries) when You use, distribute or otherwise make available any Covered Software. Probably OK. Doesn't cause non-US people to be covered by export regulations anyway. It's not appropriate for a Free Software license to require users of software to give up rights that they would normaly have in their own jurisdiction. Don Armstrong -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Nathanael Nerode writes: with the losing party responsible for costs, including, without limitation, court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses. Haven't heard much if any comment on this. Fee shifting distorts the default legal environment in the United States. European courts often award costs to the winner even with no license clause to that effect. I am not sure about the rest of the world. There are good arguments to be made on each side, but I think a free software license is not an appropriate place to make them, or an appropriate vehicle to enforce the licensor's views on the issue. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Am 2007-05-22 13:30:24, schrieb Sam Hocevar:
3. Nexenta: Despite their incompatibility, Debian accepts both the
CDDL and GPLv2 as valid free software licences and would welcome any
^^
Can this start a flame now? (I mean cdrtools = Jürg Schilling?)
Then the fork cdrkit was a shoot in the oven!
Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
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Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 07:27:36PM +0200, Michelle Konzack wrote: Am 2007-05-22 13:30:24, schrieb Sam Hocevar: 3. Nexenta: Despite their incompatibility, Debian accepts both the CDDL and GPLv2 as valid free software licences and would welcome any ^^ Can this start a flame now? (I mean cdrtools = Jürg Schilling?) Then the fork cdrkit was a shoot in the oven! CDDL is a valid free software license. It has just the tiny little problem that it's not compatible with the GPL, at least, it's Debian's position for now. There is no troll, only misunderstanding from your end :) -- ·O· Pierre Habouzit ··O[EMAIL PROTECTED] OOOhttp://www.madism.org pgp6PZ41aj5zn.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 07:27:36PM +0200, Michelle Konzack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 2007-05-22 13:30:24, schrieb Sam Hocevar: 3. Nexenta: Despite their incompatibility, Debian accepts both the CDDL and GPLv2 as valid free software licences and would welcome any ^^ Can this start a flame now? (I mean cdrtools = Jürg Schilling?) Then the fork cdrkit was a shoot in the oven! The problem with cdrtools was not CDDL but the mix of CDDL and GPL, which are incompatibles. Mike -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Tue, 22 May 2007, Sam Hocevar wrote: 3. Nexenta: Despite their incompatibility, Debian accepts both the CDDL and GPLv2 as valid free software licences and would welcome any solution to the distribution of a Debian system based on OpenSolaris. This is not the case, unfortunatly, and it really would be wise in the future to consult with people who are familiar with the arguments surrounding such licenses before expressing Debian's opinion to the FSF. The CDDL's clause 9 is very much not appropriate for works in main, and to the best of my knowledge, works licensed solely under the CDDL have never been accepted in main.[1] To underline, the following clauses in the CDDL are problematic: 9. MISCELLANEOUS [...] This License shall be governed by the law of the jurisdiction specified in a notice contained within the Original Software (except to the extent applicable law, if any, provides otherwise), excluding such jurisdiction's conflict-of-law provisions. Any litigation relating to this License shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts located in the jurisdiction and venue specified in a notice contained within the Original Software, with the losing party responsible for costs, including, without limitation, court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses. [...] You agree that You alone are responsible for compliance with the United States export administration regulations (and the export control laws and regulation of any other countries) when You use, distribute or otherwise make available any Covered Software. It's not appropriate for a Free Software license to require users of software to give up rights that they would normaly have in their own jurisdiction. Don Armstrong 1: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/09/msg00026.html -- A one-question geek test. If you get the joke, you're a geek: Seen on a California license plate on a VW Beetle: 'FEATURE'... -- Joshua D. Wachs - Natural Intelligence, Inc. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Am 2007-05-24 19:44:38, schrieb Mike Hommey:
On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 07:27:36PM +0200, Michelle Konzack [EMAIL
PROTECTED] wrote:
Am 2007-05-22 13:30:24, schrieb Sam Hocevar:
3. Nexenta: Despite their incompatibility, Debian accepts both the
CDDL and GPLv2 as valid free software licences and would welcome any
^^
Can this start a flame now? (I mean cdrtools = Jürg Schilling?)
Then the fork cdrkit was a shoot in the oven!
The problem with cdrtools was not CDDL but the mix of CDDL and GPL,
which are incompatibles.
OK.
Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
Systemadministrator
Tamay Dogan Network
Debian GNU/Linux Consultant
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Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On May 24, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is not the case, unfortunatly, and it really would be wise in the future to consult with people who are familiar with the arguments surrounding such licenses before expressing Debian's opinion to the FSF. Do you mean the ftpmasters, don't you? It's not appropriate for a Free Software license to require users of software to give up rights that they would normaly have in their own jurisdiction. But still, it's not forbidden by the DFSG. -- ciao, Marco signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Thu, 24 May 2007, Marco d'Itri wrote: On May 24, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is not the case, unfortunatly, and it really would be wise in the future to consult with people who are familiar with the arguments surrounding such licenses before expressing Debian's opinion to the FSF. Do you mean the ftpmasters, don't you? If I had meant only the ftpmasters, I would have said so. That said, I did point to a message written by Joerg (an ftpmaster) about this particular license. It's not appropriate for a Free Software license to require users of software to give up rights that they would normaly have in their own jurisdiction. But still, it's not forbidden by the DFSG. The DFSG is a set of guidelines; there are many things that licenses can do which would be anathema to Free Software but are not specifically excluded by the DFSG. That said, the typical argument is that giving up your right to have cases tried in your local venue is a fee or royalty, and as such violates DFSG �1. If you put your mind to it, I'm sure you can come up with others. Don Armstrong -- I shall require that [a scientific system's] logical form shall be such that it can be singled out, by means of emperical tests, in a negative sense: it must be possible for an emperical scientific system to be refuted by experience. -- Sir Karl Popper _Logic of Scientific Discovery_ �6 http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Le jeudi 24 mai 2007 à 10:54 -0700, Don Armstrong a écrit : This License shall be governed by the law of the jurisdiction specified in a notice contained within the Original Software (except to the extent applicable law, if any, provides otherwise), excluding such jurisdiction's conflict-of-law provisions. Any litigation relating to this License shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts located in the jurisdiction and venue specified in a notice contained within the Original Software, with the losing party responsible for costs, including, without limitation, court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses. Please stop the choice-of-law bullshit. This clause is moot, we can ignore it. [...] You agree that You alone are responsible for compliance with the United States export administration regulations (and the export control laws and regulation of any other countries) when You use, distribute or otherwise make available any Covered Software. It's not appropriate for a Free Software license to require users of software to give up rights that they would normaly have in their own jurisdiction. Being responsible for compliance does not mean compliance is necessary for using the software. Even if it would, US law only applies to US citizens; there's no way a Russian can violate these regulations. -- .''`. : :' : We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code. `. `' We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to `-our own. Resistance is futile. signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Josselin Mouette writes: Le jeudi 24 mai 2007 à 10:54 -0700, Don Armstrong a écrit : This License shall be governed by the law of the jurisdiction specified in a notice contained within the Original Software (except to the extent applicable law, if any, provides otherwise), excluding such jurisdiction's conflict-of-law provisions. Any litigation relating to this License shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts located in the jurisdiction and venue specified in a notice contained within the Original Software, with the losing party responsible for costs, including, without limitation, court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses. Please stop the choice-of-law bullshit. This clause is moot, we can ignore it. Moot in what venues? I live in a state that has enacted the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), which -- among other things -- gives effect[1] to choice of venue clauses in shrink-wrap licenses unless a party can show that the choice is unreasonable and unjust. US courts have made that barrier rather high in practice. I'm not a fan of judging licenses free because Debian thinks certain clauses are moot. If the clause is in fact moot, the license is buggy. If the clause is not moot -- at the time of upload or some point afterwards -- it can cause significant harm. Michael Poole [1]- http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/ucita/ucita200.htm is a copy; see section 110.
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Le jeudi 24 mai 2007 à 15:36 -0400, Michael Poole a écrit : Please stop the choice-of-law bullshit. This clause is moot, we can ignore it. Moot in what venues? I live in a state that has enacted the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), which -- among other things -- gives effect[1] to choice of venue clauses in shrink-wrap licenses unless a party can show that the choice is unreasonable and unjust. US courts have made that barrier rather high in practice. I'm not a fan of judging licenses free because Debian thinks certain clauses are moot. If the clause is in fact moot, the license is buggy. If the clause is not moot -- at the time of upload or some point afterwards -- it can cause significant harm. The reason why the relation between the author and the user would come to court can not be the user suing the author, only the author suing the user for violating his copyright. I don't know about the US - and if this is enough to make a license non-free, this will give another reason to resurrect the non-us archive - but in other countries, the author could only sue the user in the latter's juridiction (if the juridiction word ever makes sense). Whatever is written in the license text will not change that. -- .''`. : :' : We are debian.org. Lower your prices, surrender your code. `. `' We will add your hardware and software distinctiveness to `-our own. Resistance is futile. signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On May 24, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The DFSG is a set of guidelines; there are many things that licenses can do which would be anathema to Free Software but are not specifically excluded by the DFSG. But still, the first two sentences of the SC read: We provide the guidelines that we use to determine if a work is free in the document entitled The Debian Free Software Guidelines. We promise that the Debian system and all its components will be free according to these guidelines. I do not see other criteria listed. That said, the typical argument is that giving up your right to have cases tried in your local venue is a fee or royalty, and as such violates DFSG ?1. And typically I disagree with such an argument, for the reason that this is not a fee nor a royalty and so stays outside the scope of the DFSG. -- ciao, Marco signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 03:15:28PM +0200, Sam Hocevar wrote: On Tue, May 22, 2007, Lars Wirzenius wrote: On ti, 2007-05-22 at 13:30 +0200, Sam Hocevar wrote: 1. The GPLv3: the latest draft did not raise major objections from -legal and despite its concerns with the strategies developed in some sections, Debian does consider it DFSG-free. Debian will however not push for its adoption, mainly because we still have much software that is GPLv2-only in the distribution. Why it that a valid, or even relevant reason to avoid pushing GPLv3? Because software under the GPLv3 is incompatible with GPLv2-only software, while GPLv2 or above software is compatible with both. Could someone make a page with GPLv2-only software, I'd be curious what would be affected. Maybe the easiest way would be to dump and format a page on the Wiki so that it could be commented upon? -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/| | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keyserver: subkeys.pgp.net | my NPO: cfsg.org | |join the new debian-community.org to help Debian! | |___ Unless I ask to be CCd, assume I am subscribed ___| pgpgycK3ybwrM.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
* Kevin Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070523 11:00]: Could someone make a page with GPLv2-only software, I'd be curious what would be affected. Maybe the easiest way would be to dump and format a page on the Wiki so that it could be commented upon? Given the current drafts for the GPLv3, I think GPLv2-only software will not go away. At least if that everyone is allowed to make this non-free by combining with code under the Affero GPL, and you are not allowed to make this copyleft by forbidding that, I'm stronly considering making new software GPLv2 only in the future, too. Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Wed, May 23, 2007, Kevin Mark wrote: Because software under the GPLv3 is incompatible with GPLv2-only software, while GPLv2 or above software is compatible with both. Could someone make a page with GPLv2-only software, I'd be curious what would be affected. Maybe the easiest way would be to dump and format a page on the Wiki so that it could be commented upon? I have started working on such a page, based on /usr/share/doc copyright files rather than source code. There is simply too much software for now to do anything else than semi-automatic skimming: http://people.zoy.org/~sam/gpl/ Regards, -- Sam. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Sam Hocevar wrote: I have started working on such a page, based on /usr/share/doc copyright files rather than source code. There is simply too much software for now to do anything else than semi-automatic skimming: http://people.zoy.org/~sam/gpl/ This helps greatly. A quick skim of the first few copyright files that don't mention version 2 or later suggests that some of them mention version 2 explicitly but some of them just don't mention a version; the latter may occur due to incorrect construction of the copyright file, or because the software itself didn't specify a version, but software which doesn't specify a version of the GPL seems rare. Could you perhaps divide the software which doesn't mention version 2 or later into three groups: those mentioning version 2, those mentioning version 1, and those not mentioning either? Thanks, Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 06:27:22PM +0200, Sam Hocevar wrote: On Wed, May 23, 2007, Kevin Mark wrote: Because software under the GPLv3 is incompatible with GPLv2-only software, while GPLv2 or above software is compatible with both. Could someone make a page with GPLv2-only software, I'd be curious what would be affected. Maybe the easiest way would be to dump and format a page on the Wiki so that it could be commented upon? I have started working on such a page, based on /usr/share/doc copyright files rather than source code. There is simply too much software for now to do anything else than semi-automatic skimming: http://people.zoy.org/~sam/gpl/ To that point, I wondered why there was not some kind simplified symbol table created for the licenses used: either a numeric or alphanumeric string. Like 'GPLV1','BSD', etc. with some master table that can be used and added to when needed. With the intention to create an easily parsible field so that ascertaining statistics is do-able. And also to determine how many distinct licenses Debian contains? Mr. Zoy, Thanks for the license page. -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/| | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keyserver: subkeys.pgp.net | my NPO: cfsg.org | |join the new debian-community.org to help Debian! | |___ Unless I ask to be CCd, assume I am subscribed ___| -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Tue, May 22, 2007, Lars Wirzenius wrote: On ti, 2007-05-22 at 13:30 +0200, Sam Hocevar wrote: 1. The GPLv3: the latest draft did not raise major objections from -legal and despite its concerns with the strategies developed in some sections, Debian does consider it DFSG-free. Debian will however not push for its adoption, mainly because we still have much software that is GPLv2-only in the distribution. Why it that a valid, or even relevant reason to avoid pushing GPLv3? Because software under the GPLv3 is incompatible with GPLv2-only software, while GPLv2 or above software is compatible with both. Developing or promoting GPLv3 software deliberately creates incompati- bilities (and I'm not only referring to linking with libraries, but also reusing code). What does pushing mean in this context? Recommending its use. I prefer to be cautious until we have proper figures about how much software we have under each of the various GPL licensing options, and how the different parts depend on each other. Regards, -- Sam. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
Sam Hocevar [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Because software under the GPLv3 is incompatible with GPLv2-only software, while GPLv2 or above software is compatible with both. Developing or promoting GPLv3 software deliberately creates incompati- bilities (and I'm not only referring to linking with libraries, but also reusing code). The FSF are fairly clear that they strongly recommend GPLv2 or later for exactly this reason. -- \ People's Front To Reunite Gondwanaland: Stop the Laurasian | `\ Separatist Movement! -- wiredog, http://kuro5hin.org/ | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
