Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Sat, Feb 19, 2000 at 11:57:00PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 03:15:40AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: I suggest that the virality clause be limited, not removed, and /allow/ including GPLed software in non-GPLd software as long as all the non-GPLd parts of the program are distributed under a Free Software license. I find it interesting that you characterize the GPL's protective nature as virality. Personally, I'd characterize proprietary licenses as viral. I was only using what I perceived to be the most common way to mean a license restriction that requires all code linked to or from a certain program to be licensed under the same license as the program. In THAT sense most proprietary licenses are not viral as they don't care what you link to them, as long as you don't distribute the program itself. I agree that this term does have some negative overtones but I feel that strong copyleft is not exactly the same thing. I didn't mean it negatively, anyhow. ... If this change is made, Free Software will still have the advantage over proprietary software, as it would still be illegal for proprietary software to link to GPLd libraries. QPL is a proprietary license. Clause 3b makes it so. Clause 3b? I fail to see why this would make it non-free. If the modifier did not choose to release their modifications as Free Software, the initial developer still has the right to force this by releasing those modifications under the QPL. Definetely not copyleft, but not worse than BSDL. And you're allowed to make unpublished modifications, as the clause is only activated When modifications to the Software are released. DFSG allows proprietary licenses. GPL does not. I'm not sure what you mean by that... Of course DFSG doesn't allow proprietary licenses. Its very goal is to define what's Free and what's proprietary (unless you're using a different definition of free). The QPL is considered Free by all of DFSG, OSD (irrelevant here) and the FSF. I can't think of any other important Free Licenses definitions. Please clarify? :) Perhaps you're thinking of authoring a GPL-like license which allows any DFSG software to be combined? That could indeed be useful but is not what I had in mind. I did mean upgrading the GPL. DFSG doesn't even require that licenses not contradict each other. Hmm... Why would it need to require that? If a product has contradicting licenses, it would be illegal to distribute by definition, and its Free license would be already contradicted. -- Raul Thank you for your comments! - Adi Stav
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
Chris Lawrence wrote: On Feb 17, Andreas Pour wrote: [...] I don't see why, after you've gone to such pains to establish that the on a module license doesn't change when a module is linked with a GPLed program. Why have you decided that this is a necessary step for this case? B/c the LGPL says so. It says you can change the license to GPL, but then it is no longer under the LGPL. Now you want to have it both ways. However, the LGPL prohibits it. Apparently you can't read and/or comprehend English. That's obvious, isn't it? I can't speak or write it, either. I mailed this morning that just because something is put under the GPL once, that does not necessarily mean that everyone else has to use it under the GPL too. Your ignorance of this fact (and your not challenging it) imply that all you're doing is trolling. Let's test my English comprehension, shall we? A good place to start is the actual LGPL language, wouldn't you agree? Section 3 states: Section 3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2 instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices. Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy. This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library. Now, let's look at it sentence by sentence, so even I can comprehend it. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. OK, so this means I can use the GPL with the LGPL-licensed code, like libc. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2 instead of to this License. OK, so I must change *all* the notices that refer to the LGPL to refer to the GPL. That means there no longer is *any* notice that the library is licensed under the LGPL; each notice refers to the GPL. It's not like the Perl license, which says you can apply either Artistic or GPL (or in this case LGPL or GPL); no, the only license referred to is now the GPL. The next sentence is not relevant to my point. Do not make any other change in these notices. OK, I cannot change the notices in any other way. That means I cannot, for example, add a new notice that refers to the LGPL. Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy. Now look. My change is irreversible. Now the GPL applies to *all* subsequent copies and derivative works thereof. Notably, the LGPL does not apply to it. If both licenses were to apply to it, it would say something like, Please show my where I made my reading and comprehension errors, kind teacher. Besides which, this is irrelevant to your example of grep+libc, since in linking grep with libc you don't modify any of libc's code, nor do you patch libc with code that would make it come under the GPL. First of all, as I have pointed out, libc does in fact *contain* GPL code -- namely, libio. Secondly, the point is quite relevant to some people's arguments (of which you may or may not be one, I don't know). Some people have argued that Section 2(b) requires that when you link GPL'd code with a library, then that library *must* be licensed under the GPL (the argument is based on Section 3(a) requiring the complete source code to an executable to be distributed under the terms of Section 2). Since grep is GPL'd, and it links with libc, the obvious conclusion, for those who make the argument, is that libc must be licensed under the GPL. The LGPL permits you to make derivative works of the library under either the GPL or the LGPL. That does not mean that once you do this (which we haven't anyway), you can never make another derivative work under the LGPL Have you, perchance, read the LGPL? Or does your superior knowledge of English reading and comprehension permit you to dispense with such formalities? , or even that you have to treat the original under the GPL for ever and in eternity (which is what you seem to imply in this paragraph). Perhaps my English problems are causing me to misunderstand the term irreversible in the LGPL. Could you kindly explain to me what that means? [ childish flames snipped
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 02:45:15AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: I was only using what I perceived to be the most common way to mean a license restriction that requires all code linked to or from a certain program to be licensed under the same license as the program. In THAT sense most proprietary licenses are not viral as they don't care what you link to them, as long as you don't distribute the program itself. I agree that this term does have some negative overtones but I feel that strong copyleft is not exactly the same thing. I didn't mean it negatively, anyhow. I think you're referring to the GPL property I think of as transitive rights. [As in transitive closure, not transitive verb.] ... If this change is made, Free Software will still have the advantage over proprietary software, as it would still be illegal for proprietary software to link to GPLd libraries. QPL is a proprietary license. Clause 3b makes it so. Clause 3b? b. When modifications to the Software are released under this license, a non-exclusive royalty-free right is granted to the initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer. I fail to see why this would make it non-free. If the modifier did not choose to release their modifications as Free Software, the initial developer still has the right to force this by releasing those modifications under the QPL. Definetely not copyleft, but not worse than BSDL. And you're allowed to make unpublished modifications, as the clause is only activated When modifications to the Software are released. Unpublished modifications are irrelevant. And, the BSD license lets you use whatever additional license you choose on modified works -- as long as you retain the original. The QPL *requires* that you allow the original author to re-release it under any other license that the original author chooses. This can be as proprietary or restrictive as the original author chooses. Needless to say, if you don't have the authority to grant this kind of copyright you can't incorporate someone else's code into a QPL mod. [And this is the biggest conflict between the QPL and the GPL.] DFSG allows proprietary licenses. GPL does not. I'm not sure what you mean by that... Of course DFSG doesn't allow proprietary licenses. I don't know why you bother saying that you don't know what I mean at the same time you contradict me. You should at least explain what you mean... Its very goal is to define what's Free and what's proprietary (unless you're using a different definition of free). The QPL is considered Free by all of DFSG, OSD (irrelevant here) and the FSF. I can't think of any other important Free Licenses definitions. Each Free License is itself a Free License definition of sorts (based on what other licenses can be combined in a work). The BSD license defines a very relaxed sort of freedom which just means that the author gets credit for their work. The GPL defines a much more specific sort of freedom which guarantees that developers can continue to work on whatever forks they choose. Etc. Please clarify? :) Perhaps you're thinking of authoring a GPL-like license which allows any DFSG software to be combined? That could indeed be useful but is not what I had in mind. I did mean upgrading the GPL. I hope you understand that I think of what you're suggesting as downgrading the GPL. If you were really thinking of taking a license and adding more guarantees of freedom you'd be talking about the LGPL -- or, if its protections aren't strong enough for you, you'd be talking about upgrading it so that those protections are stronger. Instead you're talking about weakening the GPL so that it can be legally used in conjunction with QPLed software without getting proper permission from the original authors. DFSG doesn't even require that licenses not contradict each other. Hmm... Why would it need to require that? If a product has contradicting licenses, it would be illegal to distribute by definition, and its Free license would be already contradicted. That's the case when the GPL is involved. In other cases the result may be more ambiguous (perhaps granting only the rights of the union of the respective licenses, or perhaps not -- I doubt there's a general rule for the general case of this sort of thing). -- Raul
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 07:50:31PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: Section 3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2 instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices. Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy. This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library. Now, let's look at it sentence by sentence, so even I can comprehend it. Excuse me. Your sentence by sentence treatment managed to completely ignore that third paragraph of section 3. What do you think it means? -- Raul
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
Raul Miller wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 07:50:31PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: Section 3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2 instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices. Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy. This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library. Now, let's look at it sentence by sentence, so even I can comprehend it. Excuse me. Your sentence by sentence treatment managed to completely ignore that third paragraph of section 3. Well, it's clearly not a requirement, it's a suggestion/commentary, so not especially relevant in determining one's obligations under the LGPL. What do you think it means? Let's see, I think it suggests that you might want to do this irreversible conversion if you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library. I also think it suggests that the authors of the LGPL did not agree with the interpretation that requires the complete source code to be licensed under the GPL (esp. when considered with the preamble language which states in a textual and legal sense, the linked executable is a combined work, a derivative of the original library, and the ordinary General Public License treats it as such, which does signal the belief that the complete source code for purposes of Section 3(a) of the GPL would include the library), though I would not rely on one license to interpret a different one. I suppose that since you think I ignored this suggestive sentence that you think somehow it changes the meaning of the preceding paragraphs? Ciao, Andreas
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Sat, Feb 19, 2000 at 05:23:43PM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 03:15:40AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: It appears that the easiest way to solve many license incompatibility problems involving the GPL and other free licenses would be to add a new version of the GPL, since that would not be difficult (unlike rewriting huge projects) and because the people who actually have the power to do that support our ends (unlike the KDE team and Troll). Flawed premise. I would be offended if the next version of the GPL allowed people to use my software with stuff I didn't intend when I wrote it. So obviously a change to the GPL which allows KDE to suddenly be a non-issue doesn't support my ends. Hmm, this is an FSF trust issue. Let's see: if a developer did not trust the FSF, or wanted the license of their software never to change, they could have licensed their program as This program can be redistributed under the terms of the GPL version 2 and none other (I wonder how much software is actually licenses this way? Hmm). If you really didn't really want people to use you software in any other way than the way the GPL described at the time you read it, this is exactly what you should have done... A new GPL version wouldn't be published to fix a typo. By allowing the users to use any later version of the GPL at their option you are effectively saying I realize that the GPLv2 may have flaws and problems that are not known now but may be found in the future. I trust the FSF, when finding such a problem, to publish a new and better version of the GPL, which could then be used with my old programs. I trust the FSF to make sure that the new version of the GPL still helps working towards the same ends as I understood the FSF was working towards at the time when I applied the GPL to my program. Such a problem was now found. The question now would be whether the new version of the GPL can still be considered to be working towards the same ends as software authors could understood the FSF to be working towards at the time (say, from the FSF web site and publications -- not from the GPL itself, as this is the part that could be changed). I say it would. The distinction the FSF makes in its writings is between Free and proprietary, not GPLd and non-GPLd. In contrast, the GPL itself does not admit the existence of a difference between Free and non-Free software, only between GPLd and non-GPLd. This has probably been done because it is easier to describe it this way in legalese, and because of the copylefted nature of the GPL which requires that code remains GPLd. So a reasonable person would have to assume that newer versions of the GPL would change to become more and more helpful in encouraging the use of Free Software. There would be no reason to assume that the GPL represents the true moral stand and goals of the FSF -- those were described quite clearly in other places, and the GPL *IS* expected to change over time. I want a solution to the KDE problem as much as anyone, but not if it means changing the GPL just for KDE. No way. Not just for KDE! It's a general problem... It's an issue that concerns every linking between the GPL and other copylefted licenses and so in a sense it's a GPL issue. Today you cannot link GPLd code with the (free!) Qt library. Tomorrow GNOME will want to use Gecko libraries better but will not be able to do so because of too much non-GNOME GPLd code. And next year Microsoft will release all of their device drivers under some nice, friendly copylefted Free license and Linus won't be able to integrate them into the kernel because the license might not be GPL-compatible. I'm probably not helping my cause either, but no license is perfect and the GPLv2 is no exception. The QPL is probably a lot less perfect than most, and many other licenses have other issues, and still they are Free licenses. The GPLv2's main problem is that it is HIGHLY incompatible with other Free licenses. And this incompatibility does not address ANY important issue. None whatsoever. It causes incompatibility within our own software, which is supposed to be the peak of interoperability and reuse, and it cause our community to fracture. There was a reason why the FSF recommended allowing users to apply future versions of the GPL, and this is exactly it. It's a safety valve for use in case when the world changes and the old version of the GPL is no longer as good. The GPLv2 was last edited in 1991. How could the FSF know? The entire problem is just a remainder from the days when the world consisted of GPL, BSDL and proprietary. Now the world is different, and it's time to readjust the GPL. Now, if to think about it in a more practical manner, will most people really not want their GPLd libraries to be linked to by non-GPLd Free software? Evidence suggests not, as this is exactly what is happening right now, with the KDE copyright law enfringement. None of them complained about the
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 07:50:31PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: Section 3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2 instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices. Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy. This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library. Now, let's look at it sentence by sentence, so even I can comprehend it. Raul Miller wrote: Excuse me. Your sentence by sentence treatment managed to completely ignore that third paragraph of section 3. On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 08:31:42PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: Well, it's clearly not a requirement, it's a suggestion/commentary, so not especially relevant in determining one's obligations under the LGPL. I disagree with your suggestion that it's not relevant. I'd even go so far as to say that commentary which is included in the license is more relevant than what you or I have to say. What do you think it means? Let's see, I think it suggests that you might want to do this irreversible conversion if you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library. Ok. I also think it suggests that the authors of the LGPL did not agree with the interpretation that requires the complete source code to be licensed under the GPL (esp. when considered with the preamble language which states in a textual and legal sense, the linked executable is a combined work, a derivative of the original library, and the ordinary General Public License treats it as such, which does signal the belief that the complete source code for purposes of Section 3(a) of the GPL would include the library), though I would not rely on one license to interpret a different one. I suppose that since you think I ignored this suggestive sentence that you think somehow it changes the meaning of the preceding paragraphs? I think it points at a flaw in what you've been stating. You've been implying that the irreversible change mentioned in Section 3 is a requirement for cases where libc is used as a Library. But this third paragraph clearly indicates that Section 3 is optional. That the use of Section 3 is for cases where the code (for example, the lgpled libc code) would not be not used as a library. [For that matter, the first sentence of the first paragraph also clearly indicates that Section 3 is optional, but the third paragraph has the advantage of showing why the option is available.] To use a phrasing similar to what you've been using in other contexts: a Library need not be a Program. -- Raul
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 04:19:08AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: There was a reason why the FSF recommended allowing users to apply future versions of the GPL, and this is exactly it. It's a safety valve for use in case when the world changes and the old version of the GPL is no longer as good. Based on what I've read, I'd think that GPLv3 would probably get rid of the special exception which allows the use of GPLed code on proprietary operating systems. I certainly don't think it's reasonable to expect that the GPL would change in a fashion where modifications to a part of a program can't be distributed under the GPL. Nor do I expect it's reasonable to expect the GPL to change in a fashion which would allow Troll to re-release GPLed code under whatever license they choose. You'll note that your suggestion would have to be equivalent to one of these cases. -- Raul
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 08:04:10PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 02:45:15AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: I was only using what I perceived to be the most common way to mean a license restriction that requires all code linked to or from a certain program to be licensed under the same license as the program. In THAT sense most proprietary licenses are not viral as they don't care what you link to them, as long as you don't distribute the program itself. I agree that this term does have some negative overtones but I feel that strong copyleft is not exactly the same thing. I didn't mean it negatively, anyhow. I think you're referring to the GPL property I think of as transitive rights. [As in transitive closure, not transitive verb.] Aren't the restrictions transitive as well? IANAL... ... If this change is made, Free Software will still have the advantage over proprietary software, as it would still be illegal for proprietary software to link to GPLd libraries. QPL is a proprietary license. Clause 3b makes it so. Clause 3b? b. When modifications to the Software are released under this license, a non-exclusive royalty-free right is granted to the initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer. I fail to see why this would make it non-free. If the modifier did not choose to release their modifications as Free Software, the initial developer still has the right to force this by releasing those modifications under the QPL. Definetely not copyleft, but not worse than BSDL. And you're allowed to make unpublished modifications, as the clause is only activated When modifications to the Software are released. Unpublished modifications are irrelevant. And, the BSD license lets you use whatever additional license you choose on modified works -- as long as you retain the original. The QPL *requires* that you allow the original author to re-release it under any other license that the original author chooses. This can be as proprietary or restrictive as the original author chooses. Needless to say, if you don't have the authority to grant this kind of copyright you can't incorporate someone else's code into a QPL mod. [And this is the biggest conflict between the QPL and the GPL.] Hmm. Reusing code between different licenses is not the issue... There are many compatibility problems between licenses. But not even to be able to reuse code between software that use the same license seems problematic to me. You are right *hit forhead with palm*, the QPL is not a Free license because it does not allow code reuse. It is strange that DFSG does not mention code reuse anywhere. This should be after Derived Works: Code Reuse The license must allow combining different works or parts of works distributed under the same license, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original works. Then WHY did the FSF approve the QPL? Harmony was already on its way... DFSG allows proprietary licenses. GPL does not. I'm not sure what you mean by that... Of course DFSG doesn't allow proprietary licenses. I don't know why you bother saying that you don't know what I mean at the same time you contradict me. You should at least explain what you mean... I was responding to what I thought was the most likely meaning of what you said, which was that DFSG allowed proprietary licenses. Its very goal is to define what's Free and what's proprietary (unless you're using a different definition of free). The QPL is considered Free by all of DFSG, OSD (irrelevant here) and the FSF. I can't think of any other important Free Licenses definitions. Each Free License is itself a Free License definition of sorts (based on what other licenses can be combined in a work). The BSD license defines a very relaxed sort of freedom which just means that the author gets credit for their work. The GPL defines a much more specific sort of freedom which guarantees that developers can continue to work on whatever forks they choose. Etc. When looking at things from this angle... The problem of GPL incompatibility with other licenses (not necessarily the QPL) results from the GPL's definition of Freedom being different from that of the DFSG (or the FSF or whatever). Were the definitions identical there would be no Free but GPL-incompatible licenses listed on the FSF's license page. Is this the case? If so, would you say the GPL is too strict or the FSF too relaxed? Please clarify? :) Perhaps you're thinking of authoring a GPL-like license which allows any DFSG software to be combined? That could indeed be useful but is not what I
Re: ITP: vice and vice-roms
Moving to Debian-Legal... On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 08:11:49PM -0600, Zed Pobre wrote: I've been having a conversation with the upstream authors of VICE, and they believe that the rights to those firmware ROMs have been released. Released? By whom? And how? Copyright law is usually very explict - copyright transfers must be in writting, and you can't lose copyright just by ignoring abuses of it. I note further that those ROMs are currently being distributed within the US on such major mirrors such as metalab.unc.edu. Irrelevant. Cf. the whole KDE incident - they do it is not a sufficent excuse. -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Only a nerd would worry about wrong parentheses with square brackets. But that's what mathematicians are. -- Dr. Burchard, math professor at OSU
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
Adi Stav [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Then WHY did the FSF approve the QPL? Harmony was already on its way... Since when does the FSF approve of the QPL? The GNU webpage at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html says the following: The Qt Public License (QPL). This is a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible with the GNU GPL. It also causes major practical inconvenience, because modified sources can only be distributed as patches. We recommend that you use QPL-covered software packages only when absolutely necessary, and certainly don't use the QPL for anything that you write. This is hardly an indication of approval.
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 09:35:20PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 04:19:08AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: There was a reason why the FSF recommended allowing users to apply future versions of the GPL, and this is exactly it. It's a safety valve for use in case when the world changes and the old version of the GPL is no longer as good. Based on what I've read, I'd think that GPLv3 would probably get rid of the special exception which allows the use of GPLed code on proprietary operating systems. About time. It won't change the status of software older than GPLv3 though. change in a fashion where modifications to a part of a program can't be distributed under the GPL. Nor do I expect it's reasonable to expect the GPL to change in a fashion which would allow Troll to re-release GPLed code under whatever license they choose. You'll note that your suggestion would have to be equivalent to one of these cases. I don't see how... I didn't suggest allowing GPL code or its modifications to be relicenses as any Free license, only that it can linked to it. -- Raul
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 10:38:26PM -0500, Ben Pfaff wrote: Adi Stav [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Then WHY did the FSF approve the QPL? Harmony was already on its way... Since when does the FSF approve of the QPL? The GNU webpage at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html says the following: The Qt Public License (QPL). This is a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible with the GNU GPL. It also causes major practical inconvenience, because modified sources can only be distributed as patches. We recommend that you use QPL-covered software packages only when absolutely necessary, and certainly don't use the QPL for anything that you write. This is hardly an indication of approval. My bad. I meant approved the QPL as a Free license, which they have. - Adi Stav
Re: ITP: vice and vice-roms
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 10:13:44PM -0600, Zed Pobre wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 09:36:05PM -0600, David Starner wrote: Moving to Debian-Legal... On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 08:11:49PM -0600, Zed Pobre wrote: I've been having a conversation with the upstream authors of VICE, and they believe that the rights to those firmware ROMs have been released. Released? By whom? And how? Copyright law is usually very explict - By Commodore, presumably when the company ceased to exist. Didn't they sell the rights to them, or transfer them to some debtor? copyright transfers must be in writting, and you can't lose copyright just by ignoring abuses of it. How about by ceasing to exist? IIRC, ceasing to exist just takes the copyrights with you, and no one has the right to use them. (All at once, We love the copyright laws! We love the copyright laws! (-: ) BTW, if you're making a posting only to debian-legal, make sure to CC me on it, since I'm not subscribed. Okay. Realize I'm just a noisy observer, and have never gotten around to actually being a maintainer, so someone else more authoritive ought to speak up. -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Only a nerd would worry about wrong parentheses with square brackets. But that's what mathematicians are. -- Dr. Burchard, math professor at OSU
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 09:35:20PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: [I don't expect it's reasonable for the GPL to] change in a fashion where modifications to a part of a program can't be distributed under the GPL. Nor do I expect it's reasonable to expect the GPL to change in a fashion which would allow Troll to re-release GPLed code under whatever license they choose. You'll note that your suggestion would have to be equivalent to one of these cases. On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 05:46:00AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: I don't see how... I didn't suggest allowing GPL code or its modifications to be relicenses as any Free license, only that it can linked to it. QPLed code can't be distributed under the GPL. Code which is linked into the program is part of the program. What part of that don't you understand? -- Raul
Re: ITP: vice and vice-roms
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 10:31:01PM -0600, David Starner wrote: IIRC, ceasing to exist just takes the copyrights with you, and no one has the right to use them. (All at once, We love the copyright laws! We love the copyright laws! (-: ) Hmm.. This is an interesting situation. I don't think it would be Congress' intent for copyright to cover a work after all those having an interest in profits it may produce have perished. After all, the constitution provides only for promoting the progress of useful arts by securing for a limited amount of time the author's exclusive right to their works. If the author is gone, and so is anyone that the author had designated to benefit from their work, then copyright no longer works to satisfy the requirements of Article 1 Section 8 and is likely no longer permitted. Article 1 Section 8 is the only thing granting Congress the authority to abridge speech or the press. Other than that, Congress shall make no law... Until recently, copyright law was entirely civil. So assuming the copyright owner was dead and there were no heirs, nobody could sue you for infringement and thus for practical purposes, the copyright no longer existed. It seems recently enacted legislation (NET, DMCA?) has made copyright infringement a criminal matter as well now - so even if the copyright holder isn't around to go after you for infringement, law enforcement might. Of course, IANAL, so it's better ask one. Also, the situation will likely be different in countries where copyright is not permitted only by such a limited exception to otherwise free speech / free press or where copyright law is still entirely civil. -- Brian Ristuccia [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 08:04:10PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: [discussing the concept that some people call viral] I think you're referring to the GPL property I think of as transitive rights. [As in transitive closure, not transitive verb.] On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 05:34:47AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: Aren't the restrictions transitive as well? IANAL... Copyright law defaults to complete restriction. Licenses grant rights (copy rights) to others. Thus restrictions simply a failure to grant certain rights. So restrictions are always transitive: you can't grant a right that you don't have. The GPL is somewhat unique in that it makes any extra restriction equivalent to complete restriction. Where most copyrights allow redistribution under more limited rights, the GPL does not. Thus, the GPL is about as close as you can get to restrictions not being transitive. The QPL *requires* that you allow the original author to re-release it under any other license that the original author chooses. This can be as proprietary or restrictive as the original author chooses. Needless to say, if you don't have the authority to grant this kind of copyright you can't incorporate someone else's code into a QPL mod. [And this is the biggest conflict between the QPL and the GPL.] Hmm. Reusing code between different licenses is not the issue... There are many compatibility problems between licenses. But not even to be able to reuse code between software that use the same license seems problematic to me. You are right *hit forhead with palm*, the QPL is not a Free license because it does not allow code reuse. It is strange that DFSG does not mention code reuse anywhere. This should be after Derived Works: That's because code reuse wasn't seen as a relevant issue for building a distribution. The DFSG is simply an attempt to define our minimal requirements to maintain a piece of software as a part of our distribution. Code Reuse The license must allow combining different works or parts of works distributed under the same license, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original works. Then WHY did the FSF approve the QPL? Harmony was already on its way... Harmony was dropped, by the people who were writing it, when Troll claimed that they were going to solve the GPL incompatability issues. Unfortunately, if the QPL is supposed to represent that solution, Troll lied about what they were going to do. [Then again, I hadn't archived any exact quotes -- perhaps they only lied by implication.] DFSG allows proprietary licenses. GPL does not. I'm not sure what you mean by that... Of course DFSG doesn't allow proprietary licenses. I don't know why you bother saying that you don't know what I mean at the same time you contradict me. You should at least explain what you mean... I was responding to what I thought was the most likely meaning of what you said, which was that DFSG allowed proprietary licenses. Well, I consider the QPL to be a proprietary license, for example... Its very goal is to define what's Free and what's proprietary (unless you're using a different definition of free). The QPL is considered Free by all of DFSG, OSD (irrelevant here) and the FSF. I can't think of any other important Free Licenses definitions. Each Free License is itself a Free License definition of sorts (based on what other licenses can be combined in a work). The BSD license defines a very relaxed sort of freedom which just means that the author gets credit for their work. The GPL defines a much more specific sort of freedom which guarantees that developers can continue to work on whatever forks they choose. Etc. When looking at things from this angle... The problem of GPL incompatibility with other licenses (not necessarily the QPL) results from the GPL's definition of Freedom being different from that of the DFSG (or the FSF or whatever). Were the definitions identical there would be no Free but GPL-incompatible licenses listed on the FSF's license page. Is this the case? If so, would you say the GPL is too strict or the FSF too relaxed? The GPL existed for something like a decade before the DFSG came into existence. I believe that what the FSF mean by Free but GPL-incompatible is code which can be distributed non-commercially in source code, even though there's some sort of other restriction on it. Perhaps you're thinking of authoring a GPL-like license which allows any DFSG software to be combined? That could indeed be useful but is not what I had in mind. I did mean upgrading the GPL. I hope you understand that I think of what you're suggesting as downgrading the GPL. If you were really thinking of taking a license and adding more guarantees of freedom you'd be talking about the LGPL -- or, if its protections aren't
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
Raul Miller wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 07:50:31PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: Section 3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2 instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices. Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy. This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library. Now, let's look at it sentence by sentence, so even I can comprehend it. Raul Miller wrote: Excuse me. Your sentence by sentence treatment managed to completely ignore that third paragraph of section 3. On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 08:31:42PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: Well, it's clearly not a requirement, it's a suggestion/commentary, so not especially relevant in determining one's obligations under the LGPL. I disagree with your suggestion that it's not relevant. I'd even go so far as to say that commentary which is included in the license is more relevant than what you or I have to say. What do you think it means? Let's see, I think it suggests that you might want to do this irreversible conversion if you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library. Ok. I also think it suggests that the authors of the LGPL did not agree with the interpretation that requires the complete source code to be licensed under the GPL (esp. when considered with the preamble language which states in a textual and legal sense, the linked executable is a combined work, a derivative of the original library, and the ordinary General Public License treats it as such, which does signal the belief that the complete source code for purposes of Section 3(a) of the GPL would include the library), though I would not rely on one license to interpret a different one. I suppose that since you think I ignored this suggestive sentence that you think somehow it changes the meaning of the preceding paragraphs? I think it points at a flaw in what you've been stating. But of course you do :-). You've been implying that the irreversible change mentioned in Section 3 is a requirement for cases where libc is used as a Library. Well, it seems you misquoting me is becoming an annoying ritual. What I said is that under the interpretation -- an interpretation that obviously is not mine -- that Section 3(a)/Section 2(b) of the GPL require the complete source code -- including library source code (like qt) -- to be licensed under the GPL, libc would have to be licensed under the GPL. The next step in the reasoning is that if libc has to be licensed under the GPL, you have to go through the Section 3 (LGPL) conversion. But this third paragraph clearly indicates that Section 3 is optional. That the use of Section 3 is for cases where the code (for example, the lgpled libc code) would not be not used as a library. It's just an example. Anyway, I don't think libc has to be licensed under the GPL when linked with a GPL Program, for the very same reason I don't think Qt has to be licensed under the GPL when linked with a GPL Program. [For that matter, the first sentence of the first paragraph also clearly indicates that Section 3 is optional, but the third paragraph has the advantage of showing why the option is available.] To use a phrasing similar to what you've been using in other contexts: a Library need not be a Program. Good. So you now agree that the complete source code of Section 3(a) of the GPL does not have to be licensed under the GPL. But no, of course you don't. What I find fascinating is that after all these e-mails debating with you, I really don't know what you think. And that, my friend, means I really should not be debating with you anymore. Ciao, Andreas
Re: ITP: vice and vice-roms
On Sun, 20 Feb 2000, David Starner wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 10:13:44PM -0600, Zed Pobre wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 09:36:05PM -0600, David Starner wrote: Moving to Debian-Legal... On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 08:11:49PM -0600, Zed Pobre wrote: I've been having a conversation with the upstream authors of VICE, and they believe that the rights to those firmware ROMs have been released. Released? By whom? And how? Copyright law is usually very explict - By Commodore, presumably when the company ceased to exist. Didn't they sell the rights to them, or transfer them to some debtor? I would check with whoever currently owns the Amiga IP. Or someone remaining in the Amiga community. The Commodore bankruptcy saga was followed with great interest. Lynn
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
Raul Miller wrote: You've been implying that the irreversible change mentioned in Section 3 is a requirement for cases where libc is used as a Library. On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 12:27:45AM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: Well, it seems you misquoting me is becoming an annoying ritual. What I said is that under the interpretation -- an interpretation that obviously is not mine -- that Section 3(a)/Section 2(b) of the GPL require the complete source code -- including library source code (like qt) -- to be licensed under the GPL, libc would have to be licensed under the GPL. The next step in the reasoning is that if libc has to be licensed under the GPL, you have to go through the Section 3 (LGPL) conversion. Except that libc (or any other LGPLed library) is not the complete source code for grep (or any other GPLed program which might use libc or some other LGPLed library). You do realize that, I hope. When applying the GPL when multiple licenses are involved means that the work as a whole is a collective work, and the individual licenses remain. But this third paragraph clearly indicates that Section 3 is optional. That the use of Section 3 is for cases where the code (for example, the lgpled libc code) would not be not used as a library. It's just an example. Anyway, I don't think libc has to be licensed under the GPL when linked with a GPL Program, for the very same reason I don't think Qt has to be licensed under the GPL when linked with a GPL Program. It's statements like this that make me think you don't understand collective copyrights. Why else would you bother making such assertions? [For that matter, the first sentence of the first paragraph also clearly indicates that Section 3 is optional, but the third paragraph has the advantage of showing why the option is available.] To use a phrasing similar to what you've been using in other contexts: a Library need not be a Program. Good. So you now agree that the complete source code of Section 3(a) of the GPL does not have to be licensed under the GPL. But no, of course you don't. Once again, libc is not the complete source code. In some examples, it's a part of the complete source code, but the individual parts get to retain their own licenses. What I find fascinating is that after all these e-mails debating with you, I really don't know what you think. And that, my friend, means I really should not be debating with you anymore. What I find mystifying is not that we disagree, but that when I try to pin down the point on which we disagree -- when I try to re-state it in my own words -- that you disagree with me on what issue it is that we're disagreeing on. It's as if you really agree with me on all the issues, but you've simply chosen to disagree with me on general principles. -- Raul
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 11:40:39PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 09:35:20PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: [I don't expect it's reasonable for the GPL to] change in a fashion where modifications to a part of a program can't be distributed under the GPL. Nor do I expect it's reasonable to expect the GPL to change in a fashion which would allow Troll to re-release GPLed code under whatever license they choose. You'll note that your suggestion would have to be equivalent to one of these cases. On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 05:46:00AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: I don't see how... I didn't suggest allowing GPL code or its modifications to be relicenses as any Free license, only that it can linked to it. QPLed code can't be distributed under the GPL. Code which is linked into the program is part of the program. What part of that don't you understand? I can't see how it would allow Troll to re-release GPL code under the QPL, or (more to the point, as I've agreed that the QPL should not considered a Free license) how anyone could re-release GPL code under a different Free license other than the GPL. Anyhow, if you consider any Free license a good enough license than additions or mofifications to your code under such a license are also ok. -- Raul - Adi Stav
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 10:07:27PM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: QPLed code can't be distributed under the GPL. Code which is linked into the program is part of the program. What part of that don't you understand? I can't see how it would allow Troll to re-release GPL code under the QPL, or (more to the point, as I've agreed that the QPL should not considered a Free license) how anyone could re-release GPL code under a different Free license other than the GPL. Ok, so you've agreed that QPL should not be considered a free license. Wouldn't you then say that if QPLed code is incorporated into a GPLed program that that part of the GPLed program would not be free? Anyhow, if you consider any Free license a good enough license than additions or mofifications to your code under such a license are also ok. But if the QPL is not a Free license, why should it be considered good enough? Not sure I'm understanding your point... -- Raul
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
Raul Miller wrote: On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 02:23:59PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: OK, perhaps we are making progress after all. It appears that you have now abandoned the argument that Qt itself must be licensed under the GPL. So if that is true, all you require is that the collective work in kghostview/Qt be licensed under the GPL, with collective work having the meaning provided in the Copyright Act. Please clarify/correct any mistake in the above summary, and we can proceed from there. I'm not sure what kind of distinction you're trying to draw. I'm asking a very straight-forward question: if you link a dynamic library to a GPL Program, does the source code of the library have to be licensed under the GPL? I think you are really waffling on this issue. Please give a straight answer to this question. [ . . . ] I find this statement puzzling. Is it not your position that libc is not part of the complete source code? You stated that above. If that is true, then Qt must also not be part of the complete source code. If you disagree with this, please explain why libc is not, and Qt is, part of the complete source code, for purposes of Section 3(a) of the GPL. I agree that libc is part of the complete source code for programs like grep on a Debian system. Yet it is not the complete source code for those programs. This doesn't seem to me to be a very puzzling idea.. would you think that libc represents the complete source code for grep? Furthermore, I agree that libqt would also be a part of the complete source code for programs like kghostview. The difference between libc and kghostview is that while libc has a license which grants all the rights required by the GPL for grep, libqt doesn't have a license which grants all the rights required by the GPL for kghostview. I know the licenses are different. The question is still, does the complete source code to a GPL program have to be licensed under the GPL? In particular, if grep links to libc, does libc have to be licensed under the GPL, under your reading of Sections 3(a)/2(b) of the GPL? [ ... ] By some examples you mean if you take some libc source code and use it in a GPL'd program. I am referring strictly to the case of dynamic linking. In that situation, do you see libc/Qt being part of the complete source code for purposes of GPL Section 3(a), or not? A simple Yes I do/No I don't, for the following reasons . . . . answer would be nice :-). I do see it as being a part of the complete source code -- however, I do not see it as representing the complete source code. Which is to say that I consider the GPL relevant as a collective copyright which applies to the library for that case. Please explain what that means. How does the collective copyright apply to a component of the collective work? When I read the Copyright Act it is clear to me that a collective copyright is separate from the component works. Ciao, Andreas
Re: ITP: vice and vice-roms
On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 10:31:01PM -0600, David Starner wrote: IIRC, ceasing to exist just takes the copyrights with you, and no one has the right to use them. (All at once, We love the copyright laws! We love the copyright laws! (-: ) Copyright is property just like anything else, and it is either sold, or transferred to heirs or debtors. It does not cease to exist (if it did, then there would be no copyright and hence the work would be in the PD). IANAL, and I know very little of law outside Finland. -- %%% Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho % [EMAIL PROTECTED] % http://www.iki.fi/gaia/ %%% (John Cage)
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 12:01:49AM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: On Sun, Feb 20, 2000 at 08:04:10PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: [discussing the concept that some people call viral] I think you're referring to the GPL property I think of as transitive rights. [As in transitive closure, not transitive verb.] On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 05:34:47AM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: Aren't the restrictions transitive as well? IANAL... Copyright law defaults to complete restriction. Licenses grant rights (copy rights) to others. Thus restrictions simply a failure to grant certain rights. So restrictions are always transitive: you can't grant a right that you don't have. The GPL is somewhat unique in that it makes any extra restriction equivalent to complete restriction. Where most copyrights allow redistribution under more limited rights, the GPL does not. Thus, the GPL is about as close as you can get to restrictions not being transitive. Thank you :) The QPL *requires* that you allow the original author to re-release it under any other license that the original author chooses. This can be as proprietary or restrictive as the original author chooses. Needless to say, if you don't have the authority to grant this kind of copyright you can't incorporate someone else's code into a QPL mod. [And this is the biggest conflict between the QPL and the GPL.] Hmm. Reusing code between different licenses is not the issue... There are many compatibility problems between licenses. But not even to be able to reuse code between software that use the same license seems problematic to me. You are right *hit forhead with palm*, the QPL is not a Free license because it does not allow code reuse. It is strange that DFSG does not mention code reuse anywhere. This should be after Derived Works: That's because code reuse wasn't seen as a relevant issue for building a distribution. The DFSG is simply an attempt to define our minimal requirements to maintain a piece of software as a part of our distribution. I thought the DFSG was written of moral reasons rather than practical... But in that case, why not allow any freely-distributable binaries? If the binaries don't conform to policy they cannot be included anyhow. Code Reuse The license must allow combining different works or parts of works distributed under the same license, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original works. Then WHY did the FSF approve the QPL? Harmony was already on its way... Harmony was dropped, by the people who were writing it, when Troll claimed that they were going to solve the GPL incompatability issues. Unfortunately, if the QPL is supposed to represent that solution, Troll lied about what they were going to do. [Then again, I hadn't archived any exact quotes -- perhaps they only lied by implication.] I see... But what I meant was that I was surprised that the FSF added the QPL to its list of Free licenses. Maybe there are other points to consider that might mean the QPL is Free? One possible point I can think of is that since it's not likely that there will be any initial developers other than Troll using the QPL, so the problem of reusing QPL code in other QPL products will never be relevant. DFSG allows proprietary licenses. GPL does not. I'm not sure what you mean by that... Of course DFSG doesn't allow proprietary licenses. I don't know why you bother saying that you don't know what I mean at the same time you contradict me. You should at least explain what you mean... I was responding to what I thought was the most likely meaning of what you said, which was that DFSG allowed proprietary licenses. Well, I consider the QPL to be a proprietary license, for example... Its very goal is to define what's Free and what's proprietary (unless you're using a different definition of free). The QPL is considered Free by all of DFSG, OSD (irrelevant here) and the FSF. I can't think of any other important Free Licenses definitions. Each Free License is itself a Free License definition of sorts (based on what other licenses can be combined in a work). The BSD license defines a very relaxed sort of freedom which just means that the author gets credit for their work. The GPL defines a much more specific sort of freedom which guarantees that developers can continue to work on whatever forks they choose. Etc. When looking at things from this angle... The problem of GPL incompatibility with other licenses (not necessarily the QPL) results from the GPL's definition of Freedom being different from that of the DFSG (or the FSF or whatever). Were the definitions identical there would be no Free but GPL-incompatible licenses listed on the FSF's license page. Is this the case? If so, would
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 02:23:59PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: OK, perhaps we are making progress after all. It appears that you have now abandoned the argument that Qt itself must be licensed under the GPL. So if that is true, all you require is that the collective work in kghostview/Qt be licensed under the GPL, with collective work having the meaning provided in the Copyright Act. Please clarify/correct any mistake in the above summary, and we can proceed from there. Raul Miller wrote: I'm not sure what kind of distinction you're trying to draw. On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 03:39:47PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: I'm asking a very straight-forward question: if you link a dynamic library to a GPL Program, does the source code of the library have to be licensed under the GPL? I think you are really waffling on this issue. Please give a straight answer to this question. Let me ask you a straightforward question: if you dissolve sugar in water, can you make the sugar boil? [Seems to me that while you can make the sugar water boil, the sugar itself does not. There might be some rather exceptional conditions where you could make sugar boil, but they have very little to do with the conditions where sugar water boils.] Similarly, the program, which includes the library, has to be license under the GPL while the library -- considered as an entity unto itself -- does not. If this doesn't make sense to you then I'd say that your question is, in fact, not at all straightforward. I find this statement puzzling. Is it not your position that libc is not part of the complete source code? You stated that above. If that is true, then Qt must also not be part of the complete source code. If you disagree with this, please explain why libc is not, and Qt is, part of the complete source code, for purposes of Section 3(a) of the GPL. I agree that libc is part of the complete source code for programs like grep on a Debian system. Yet it is not the complete source code for those programs. This doesn't seem to me to be a very puzzling idea.. would you think that libc represents the complete source code for grep? Furthermore, I agree that libqt would also be a part of the complete source code for programs like kghostview. The difference between libc and kghostview is that while libc has a license which grants all the rights required by the GPL for grep, libqt doesn't have a license which grants all the rights required by the GPL for kghostview. I know the licenses are different. The question is still, does the complete source code to a GPL program have to be licensed under the GPL? In particular, if grep links to libc, does libc have to be licensed under the GPL, under your reading of Sections 3(a)/2(b) of the GPL? The library (using LGPL terminology) has to grant permission to be included in the collective work (the Program, using GPL terminology), and the work as a whole is distributed under the terms of the collective license. So: the complete source code has to be licensed under the GPL, but some of the individual elements of it do not. By some examples you mean if you take some libc source code and use it in a GPL'd program. I am referring strictly to the case of dynamic linking. In that situation, do you see libc/Qt being part of the complete source code for purposes of GPL Section 3(a), or not? A simple Yes I do/No I don't, for the following reasons . . . . answer would be nice :-). I do see it as being a part of the complete source code -- however, I do not see it as representing the complete source code. Which is to say that I consider the GPL relevant as a collective copyright which applies to the library for that case. Please explain what that means. How does the collective copyright apply to a component of the collective work? When I read the Copyright Act it is clear to me that a collective copyright is separate from the component works. The collective copyright is a separate license from that which is applied to some of the component works. The collective copyright applies to the work as a whole. The work as a whole is distributed under the terms of the collective copyright. Where individual copyrights apply (which are different from the collective copyright) they must make it legal for those individual parts to be distributed under the collective copyright. I don't understand what part of this isn't clear to you. In earlier messages I thought you indicated you understood these concepts and agreed with them. -- Raul
UCITA bans GPL
We all know that UCITA alters the requirements for warranties on software - making free software providers responsible for providing warranties, but exempting commercial software providers from this requirement. I believe that this law could be construed as banning distribution of GPL software. This is good! As we know, it is illegal to distribute GPL software if all the freedoms (and restrictions) of the GPL cannot be distributed along with the software. The software was distributed with no warranty to current license-holders in Virginia (and any other UCITA areas) and they are required, by the GPL, to distribute the software only under the same terms that they received it under. They will not be able to do that. Anyone they distribute the software to would be required to extend warranty protection to any further recipients - which requires imposing restrictions on redistribution on them - which is, of course, prohibited. The GPL sort of makes an exception if a warranty is required by law. But I believe that one could argue that UCITA does not require a warranty in the sense that the GPL was presumably referring to - for example, if a state had a law requiring that all products must come with certain warranty provisions. In fact, UCITA does not require software distributors to provide a warranty at all. It merely states a method for disclaiming warranty that does not happen to be compatible with any known methods for distributing GPL software. This will, in effect, make it impossible to distribute the software. I think we should argue that GPL software, because of this problem, cannot be distributed at all. First, it would accomplish the goal of avoiding liability for software warranty issues; presumably Microsoft, or some other proprietary-software company, will begin suing free software authors indiscriminately. Second, it would make lawmakers (and the public) realize they have been hoodwinked - and it will make companies with a large stake in the integrity of the free software process (IBM being the most obvious) realize that they cannot have their cake and eat it, too. A few headlines along the lines of Linux banned in Virginia ought to wake people up - hopefully leading to the eventual repeal of the UCITA. Yes, this is a form of take my ball and go home. :} I would love to hear any arguments on whether this would be an effective legal strategy.
Re: GPLv3 suggestion to solve KDE/QT problem and others
That's because code reuse wasn't seen as a relevant issue for building a distribution. The DFSG is simply an attempt to define our minimal requirements to maintain a piece of software as a part of our distribution. On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 11:25:53PM +0200, Adi Stav wrote: I thought the DFSG was written of moral reasons rather than practical... I'd say that morality represents adoption of practical decisions by a group of people. But in that case, why not allow any freely-distributable binaries? If the binaries don't conform to policy they cannot be included anyhow. What about buggy freely-distributable binaries? What about freely-distributable binaries which impose structure on our system which conflicts with other software on our system? If we don't have permission to modify the software, and distribute changes, then it's better to leave distribution of that software to someone who can deal with such issues. ... But what I meant was that I was surprised that the FSF added the QPL to its list of Free licenses. Maybe there are other points to consider that might mean the QPL is Free? I think you're reading too much into the mere appearance of the QPL on that page, and not reading enough into the accompanying text. Also, I should point out that the FSF is not associated with Debian, except as an upstream author. Talk about changing the GPL doesn't really belong on debian-legal... Yes... But these issues do affect Debian a lot. There has been a lot of talk lately of the KDE problem, and I thought that one solution (changing the GPL) did not get sufficient attention. There's been a lot of talk about the KDE issue for at least the last two years. You see, Debian tries to get along with upstream authors, but we do ask that they give us proper licenses before we distribute their code. But in the case of KDE, we've been under a lot of pressure to distribute code without proper licenses. And this is particularly troubling, because some significant parts of KDE were written by non-KDE authors. That, and there was serious talk on the part of Troll that they were going to re-release the QPL under a license which fixes this issue. But changing the GPL in a fashion which violates its rationale (which is spelled out in the preamble of the license) just plain doesn't strike me as a good solution. -- Raul
Re: UCITA bans GPL
On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 04:47:10PM -0500, William T Wilson wrote: We all know that UCITA alters the requirements for warranties on software - making free software providers responsible for providing warranties, but exempting commercial software providers from this requirement. Note that the UCITA is not law, and there's a lot of people who think it would be a bad idea for it to be made law (attorney generals of about half the states, the senior staff of the federal trade commission, the motion picture association of america, the newspaper association of america, the association of research libraries and a number of computer oriented groups, such as the ACM and the FSF). Note that the UCITA makes it legal to hide the terms of an agreement until after you make payment. Note that the UCITA makes it legal to consider accessing a product as consent to its terms. Note that the UCITA makes it illegal to even discuss product flaws. [This would probably be ruled unconstitutional, even if the UCITA passes, but that would take a lot of time and dedication on someone's part]. I believe that this law could be construed as banning distribution of GPL software. This is good! How does this benefit you? -- Raul
Re: Licensing Problems with Debian Packages (Was Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation)
Raul Miller wrote: [ ... ] On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 03:39:47PM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote: I'm asking a very straight-forward question: if you link a dynamic library to a GPL Program, does the source code of the library have to be licensed under the GPL? I think you are really waffling on this issue. Please give a straight answer to this question. Let me ask you a straightforward question: if you dissolve sugar in water, can you make the sugar boil? [Seems to me that while you can make the sugar water boil, the sugar itself does not. There might be some rather exceptional conditions where you could make sugar boil, but they have very little to do with the conditions where sugar water boils.] Similarly, the program, which includes the library, has to be license under the GPL while the library -- considered as an entity unto itself -- does not. If this doesn't make sense to you then I'd say that your question is, in fact, not at all straightforward. [ ... ] I know the licenses are different. The question is still, does the complete source code to a GPL program have to be licensed under the GPL? In particular, if grep links to libc, does libc have to be licensed under the GPL, under your reading of Sections 3(a)/2(b) of the GPL? The library (using LGPL terminology) has to grant permission to be included in the collective work (the Program, using GPL terminology), and the work as a whole is distributed under the terms of the collective license. So: the complete source code has to be licensed under the GPL, but some of the individual elements of it do not. [ ... ] Please explain what that means. How does the collective copyright apply to a component of the collective work? When I read the Copyright Act it is clear to me that a collective copyright is separate from the component works. The collective copyright is a separate license from that which is applied to some of the component works. The collective copyright applies to the work as a whole. The work as a whole is distributed under the terms of the collective copyright. Where individual copyrights apply (which are different from the collective copyright) they must make it legal for those individual parts to be distributed under the collective copyright. I don't understand what part of this isn't clear to you. In earlier messages I thought you indicated you understood these concepts and agreed with them. I have concluded that you don't understand the relevant principles of copyright law. As it seems you feel the same way about me, any further discussion is pointless. Ciao, Andreas
Re: UCITA bans GPL
On Mon, 21 Feb 2000, Raul Miller wrote: Note that the UCITA is not law, and there's a lot of people who think it would be a bad idea for it to be made law (attorney generals of about half On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 05:33:04PM -0500, William T Wilson wrote: But there are a lot of people that think it should be made law - such as the Virginia state legislature. Virginia, Washington and Delware all gain a major part of their revenue from the people backing this proposal. [Ironically, the attorney general of Washington is among those opposing this proposal.] Note that the UCITA makes it legal to hide the terms of an agreement ... Oh yes, there are many flaws with UCITA. Many many flaws. I'm not arguing the relative merits of UCITA - I'm pretty sure that just about everybody here already knows just how bad it really is. I'm curious why the MPAA opposes it. It seems like they wouldn't really stand to lose anything? I believe that it's because MPAA is also a consumer of intellectual property. I believe that this law could be construed as banning distribution of GPL software. This is good! How does this benefit you? In places where discussion has been closed (i.e. Virginia) it gets the legislators to realize they just passed a very bad law. In any case, we don't want GPL software distributed in a place where the authors can be made monetarily liable for trivial problems with their software. I don't think the Virginia legislature would care much that they can't legally distribute GPL software. BTW: I don't believe that even the anti-discussion aspects of UCITA would be ruled unconstitutional, since it is not the government that would be setting the standards for when things can or cannot be discussed. It would simply make it very easy for a corporation to obtain NDA-strength restrictions on their end users. I disagree, but I don't care enough to explain my reasoning. -- Raul
