Forward: Re: On the possibility of changing the license of Adobe CMap files
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Hi all,
Masayuki Hatta and some of Japanese are considering how to treat Adobe
CMap files. CMap is very important for CJK Ghostscript/PDF, but is
non-free on Debian because this license says 'not altered'.
Hatta has asked to Adobe has responsibility of this kind, and received
negative answer. He has already sent mail about this processes to
debian-legal/devel by Cc:, but something prevented his mail (SMTP
blocking?).
I post again the mail he wants to send.
Please add Cc: mhatta when you reply this thread.
- -- From here
Hi all,
I was trying to negotiate with Adobe to make their CMap files (those
have been debianized as gs-cjk-resource, cmap-adobe-* and
xpdf-{chinese-*,japanese,korean}, all in non-free[*1]) DFSG-free.
Dr. Ken Lunde and other Adobe people deliberately inspected the issue
and rejected my request. As I noted in the mail, those CMaps are
crucial for CJKV font handling and I couldn't find any easy
alternatives, so in consideration of recent kick non-free out
movement, this is more urgent and bigger problem than ever for us CJKV
people.
Do you have any idea to cope with this situation? Or does anyone come
up with possible proposal so that Adobe can be persuaded? I
appreciate your help.
Regards,
MH
- --
Masayuki Hatta
[EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[*1] Basically, no modification allowed is the problem. Similar to
those of GFDL with invariant cl. or RFC documents.
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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:22:03 -0800
From: Ken Lunde [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: On the possibility of changing the license of Adobe CMap files
In-reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Masayuki Hatta [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED], debian-legal@lists.debian.org,
David Lemon [EMAIL PROTECTED], Harold Grey [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-id: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.553)
Hatta-san,
I apologize for taking so long to reply to this request, but we needed
sufficient time to carefully consider the request, and to think about
the consequences, both good and bad. The short reply is that we shall
decline this request, for reasons explained below.
1) We have been meticulously managing the CMap files that we created,
giving particular focus and attention to the Unicode CMap files over
the past several years, and are also very carefully version-controlling
them. We now support UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32, including mappings
beyond the BMP, for all of public character collection. The only CMap
files that we are actively developing are the UTF (Unicode) ones. In
fact, all of the CMap files are managed through UTF-32 encoding, and my
CMap compiler automatically generates the UTF-8 and UTF-16 ones in
order to ensure that all three types are 100% compatible, and differ
only by encoding.
2) I can trace virtually all of the changes made over the years. We
have spent significant effort developing these files. In short, the
name space of CMap files is important, as well as their overall
integrity. This is due to the fact that a large number of clients use
these CMap files, and very much depend on their integrity.
3) I do understand the request that you have made, specifically to make
these files freely modifiable, even in memory, in the form of patches
that are applied on-the-fly. I also understand that this request does
not necessarily mean that everyone will suddenly start modifying CMap
files. They simply want the freedom to do so.
4) We are concerned about someone making a modification to a CMap file
and failing at it, meaning that the CMap file either no longer
functions due to a simple syntax error, or does not work as expected.
It would become extremely difficult to track such problems, if they
were to be reported. Such problems could also cause users to think that
the fault lies with Adobe. Basically, as long as the name space of CMap
files is preserved, and the CMap files are not modified, I can reliably
trace issues through various versions. Making these files Open Source
defeats this. If developers have specific requests for CMap files, I
will consider them if they are reasonable. I consider my email box open
in this regard. In fact, I very much like to hear from developers who
are using our CMap files.
5) I consider the ability to freely modify CMap files comparable to
redefining ASCII. There are incalculable ripple effects that can result
from unwarranted modifications. While I am aware of many of the clients
who are using our CMap files, there are undoubtedly numerous other
clients of which I am not aware. These are the consequences that are
not easily measured.
I don't consider it a bad thing to have our CMap files in a non-free
area of Debian Linux. In fact, I consider it an honor that you have
chose to include our CMap files in
Re: Forward: Re: On the possibility of changing the license of Adobe CMap files
O Xoves, 29 de Xaneiro de 2004 ás 17:06:06 +0900, Kenshi Muto escribía: Do you have any idea to cope with this situation? Or does anyone come up with possible proposal so that Adobe can be persuaded? I appreciate your help. They claim that integrity of the CMap files is the main issue. Would it be possible for them to release an unsupported fork of the CMap files under a different, more liberal license? In this way the official, supported CMap files would be unaltered, and there would be a product with a free license that would likely be equivalent to Adobe's (though with no guarantees). -- Tarrío (Compostela)
Re: debian-legal review of licenses
On Jan 25, 2004, at 13:19, Daniel Quinlan wrote: I wasn't asking for anything binding, maybe advance approval is not quite the right word. Obviously, a patent or some other problem could easily chuck some piece of software into non-free. We've found several times that it can take a while to notice all the non-free aspects of a complex license. Consider that originally it seemed GFDL w/o invariant sections was free, but then after re-appraising the situation we found even that wasn't. How many of the currently-known problems with the GFDL weren't found until our second or third look at it?
Re: Forward: Re: On the possibility of changing the license of Adobe CMap files
The comparison is made to altering the ascii mapping -- but the ascii mapping is not copyrightable. It's just a sequence of characters, as valid as any other and preferred only because of broad adoption. Are these CMap files actually copyrightable as creative works? -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
mysql license update
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Interestingly enough, I just stumbled upon the following: http://www.mysql.com/products/opensource-license.html It appears that the mysql folks now provide an exception for derivative works linked against php. Hopefully (assuming debian-legal is ok w/ it), this means we can start linking php4 against mysql4. CC'ing debian-legal for clarification. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFAGTBT78o9R9NraMQRAn7FAJ9w1z2OGVDL+VCAL3yJTtWDyG53NgCguoeI BdVmXptO38GOH9UNBrViL0g= =jcvB -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: mysql license update
Scripsit Andres Salomon [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mysql.com/products/opensource-license.html It appears that the mysql folks now provide an exception for derivative works linked against php. Hopefully (assuming debian-legal is ok w/ it), this means we can start linking php4 against mysql4. So it seems. However, beware of works that include php and mysql as well as third-party code with the original un-excepted GPL. -- Henning Makholm Al lykken er i ét ord: Overvægtig!
Re: Forward: Re: On the possibility of changing the license of Adobe CMap files
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 10:19:56AM -0500, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: The comparison is made to altering the ascii mapping -- but the ascii mapping is not copyrightable. It's just a sequence of characters, as valid as any other and preferred only because of broad adoption. Are these CMap files actually copyrightable as creative works? Glancing at them... probably not. This is sweat-of-the-brow stuff. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: moving fceu to main
Hello Adam, Adam Gashlin wrote: Hello, I'm Halley's Comet Software, and I noticed (during a completely unrelated web search) that you had a question about the license to my game Escape From Pong. If there's anything I can do to help you in this regard, such as changing to some more standard license, let me know. At the time I wrote it I was not thinking about anyone actually reading it... Thanks for contacting me. The only issue with the license is that it doesn't explicitly allow distribution of modified versions. We need this to ensure compliance with the Debian Free Software Guidelines [0] which we use to determine what software we will allow in our distribution. For more detail on Debian and how we view free software see http://www.debian.org/intro/free. The BSD license is a standard license that does pretty much what you want. You can view an example of a BSD style license at http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license. If you like it, I would suggest using that exact language (with your name or Halley's Comet Software as the copyright owner), and then just putting the game up for download on your site with the new license in both the source code and optionally in a file called LICENSE. I'm also big fan of FCEU, though not in any form other than the windows version. Well, we can always convert you over to Linux later ;-) --Joe [0] http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
License Conflict in slmodem-2.9.5
There is a license conflict that technically prohibits the distribution of your software. Most of your code contains a non-copyleft but permissive license. However, modem_at.c carries a GPL license. This in itself is not a huge problem. Your license is substantially similar to other licenses that the FSF says are GPL compatible (e.g. the ZPL or the Cryptix General License). The inclusion of the GPL licensed file triggers the requirements of section 2b of the GPL, which requires that the entire work be GPL'd. As I said before your license is compatible with the GPL so this on a cursory review wouldn't be a problem. However, you do not include source for the dsplibs.o or the amrlibs.o file. This conflicts with section 3 of the GPL that requires the source code be made available. Solutions to the problem are as follows: 1) License all files under the GPL and include source for the two object files. 2) Change the license on modem_at.c. How you do this depends upon to what degree you own the copyright to this code. a) You have complete copyright to the code and remove the GPL license replacing it with your existing license. Alternatively, you could dual license (i.e. say you can use either your license or the GPL). Both of these are essentially the same as your license is GPL compatible anyway. b) You do not have complete copyright and adapted the code from a GPL source. In which case you are violating that persons copyright as you are not including any copyright indicating that. I suspect due to the lack of the copyright notice for something like that that this isn't the case. However, if it is you would need to get the permission to relicense the code under your license or rewrite the code from scratch. I believe this conflict is relatively easy to resolve. I anticipate you can do 2a and continue on. I'm also CC'ing debian-legal on this as they distribute your code in the sl-modem-daemon package. The package is currently in non-free. Doing 1 would result in it being able to move to free (unless someone else sees another problem). However, until 2 is done I'd suspect Debian is going to have to remove the package. Additionally, there are other files (kernel-ver.c, all the files in patches and scripts) which do not contain any license at all. Appropriate copyright notices should be added to them. The debian startup script appears to have been contributed by a 3rd party so you'd need to contact that individual to get the appropriate copyright notice. And the ALSA patches would need to be GPL licensed in order to be applied and used. It may be useful to include a COPYING file that applies your license to any file that doesn't say otherwise within its contents. If you have any questions about this please let me know. I'll be more than happy to spend some time with you explaining the problems and working with you to reach a resolution to this licensing problem. -- Ben Reser [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ben.reser.org Conscience is the inner voice which warns us somebody may be looking. - H.L. Mencken
Virus found in mail from you!
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Re: Forward: Re: On the possibility of changing the license of Adobe CMap files
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 07:10:52PM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 10:19:56AM -0500, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: The comparison is made to altering the ascii mapping -- but the ascii mapping is not copyrightable. It's just a sequence of characters, as valid as any other and preferred only because of broad adoption. Are these CMap files actually copyrightable as creative works? Glancing at them... probably not. This is sweat-of-the-brow stuff. Adobe is probably busy lobbying to get a certain bill passed which will rectify that little defect in U.S. copyright law. http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2item=2857 -- G. Branden Robinson| We either learn from history or, Debian GNU/Linux | uh, well, something bad will [EMAIL PROTECTED] | happen. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Bob Church signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: License bugs for sarge
Henning Makholm wrote: I ran over Nathanael's list of bugs to provide an independent assessment from a d-l point of view; here are my findings. Note that some of the activity seems to be in response to pings from NN earlier today. Thanks for doing this, by the way. Once I'd made a list of the bugs, which took too damn long, I got tired and failed to do any further analysis.
JasPer License Issues: Some Potentially Good News
Hi Folks: [I have tried to include everyone that was involved in the discussions on the JasPer software license on the distribution list for this email. Quite a number of people were involved. I hope that I did not miss anybody.] I have some potentially good news. Image Power seems to be agreeable to revising the JasPer software license to address the concerns raised by you and other members of the open-source community. I have appended the first preliminary draft of the new license to this email for your feedback. I would very much appreciate your comments, as it would be a waste to go through the trouble to change the license for you folks if the result will not meet your needs. BTW, the new license was largely copied from the open-source-certified X11 license. Image Power has added condition 3 and I wonder if this is alright. The IBM Public License (certified by the Open Source Initiative) also seems to have a similar type of clause. So, this appears not to go against the spirit of open source. Thanks, Michael --- Michael Adams, Assistant Professor Dept. of Elec. and Comp. Engineering, University of Victoria P.O. Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, CANADA E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Web: www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams --- cut here --- JasPer License Version 2.0 Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Image Power, Inc. Copyright (c) 1999-2000 The University of British Columbia Copyright (c) 2001-2003 Michael David Adams All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person (the User) obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: 1. The above copyright notice and this permission notice (which includes the disclaimer below) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. 2. The name of a copyright holder shall not be used to endorse or promote products derived from the Software without specific prior written permission. 3. If User breaches any term of this license or commences an infringement action against any copyright holder then the User's license and all sublicenses that have been granted hereunder by User to other parties shall terminate. THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LICENSE. NO USE OF THE SOFTWARE IS AUTHORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT UNDER THIS DISCLAIMER. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, OR ANY SPECIAL INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. THE USER ACKNOWLEDGES THAT NO ASSURANCES ARE PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS THAT THE SOFTWARE DOES NOT INFRINGE THE PATENT OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF OTHER PARTIES. EACH COPYRIGHT HOLDER DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY TO THE USER FOR CLAIMS BROUGHT BY ANY PARTY BASED ON INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OR OTHERWISE. AS A CONDITION TO EXERCISING THE RIGHTS GRANTED HEREUNDER, EACH USER HEREBY ASSUMES SOLE RESPONSIBILITY TO SECURE THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS NEEDED, IF ANY. THE SOFTWARE IS NOT FAULT-TOLERANT AND IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN MISSION-CRITICAL SYSTEMS, SUCH AS THOSE USED IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, DIRECT LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES, OR WEAPONS SYSTEMS, IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE OR PRODUCT COULD LEAD DIRECTLY TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE (HIGH RISK ACTIVITIES). THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR HIGH RISK ACTIVITIES.
Re: JasPer License Issues: Some Potentially Good News
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 06:50:32PM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: I have some potentially good news. Image Power seems to be agreeable to revising the JasPer software license to address the concerns raised by you and other members of the open-source community. I have appended the first preliminary draft of the new license to this email for your feedback. I would very much appreciate your comments, as it would be a waste to go through the trouble to change the license for you folks if the result will not meet your needs. Well, it's *better*, but... BTW, the new license was largely copied from the open-source-certified X11 license. Image Power has added condition 3 and I wonder if this is alright. The IBM Public License (certified by the Open Source Initiative) also seems to have a similar type of clause. So, this appears not to go against the spirit of open source. We're free software, not open source. We don't always agree with OSI. But that's irrelevant. Clause 3 is nothing like the comparable clause in the IBM Public License, and is entirely unacceptable. 3. If User breaches any term of this license or commences an infringement action against any copyright holder then the User's license and all sublicenses that have been granted hereunder by User to other parties shall terminate. The breach of license stuff is harmless, I think (and a no-op, because that's implicit in the nature of licenses). The part where it says that commencing any legal action against any copyright holder terminates the license is no good. You are presumably comparing it to the patent license termination clause in the IBM Public License, but that's not the same at all. The IBM Public License says this: If Recipient institutes patent litigation against a Contributor with respect to a patent applicable to software (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit), then any patent licenses granted by that Contributor to such Recipient under this Agreement shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. In addition, if Recipient institutes patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Program itself (excluding combinations of the Program with other software or hardware) infringes such Recipient's patent(s), then such Recipient's rights granted under Section 2(b) shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. This says, approximately, that if you sue somebody for *patent* infringement then your *patent* license is revoked (section 2(b) is a patent license for the covered work). Your copyright license is unaffected. In addition, there are usually no applicable patents[0], so the clauses are no-ops anyway and therefore harmless. The copyright license itself is unaffected by any patent lawsuits you may care to bring. Software must be freely distributed, not rented in exchange for a promise not to file lawsuits. Revocation clauses which take the form If you bring a lawsuit against us, you may no longer use our software are not acceptable. The IBM Public License is usually acceptable because it usually doesn't mean that. The proposed JasPer license does mean that, and so is no good. [I don't believe we have ever decided what to do about the IBM Public License if we should find a case where the patent revocation clause is a serious problem, but it is likely that we would reject the offending piece of software. Hard to say though; we'd need to consider the specific case] [0] It is IBM policy to carefully check everything they release under this license to see what, if any, patents of theirs it infringes; I can't remember their policy on when they'll permit something to be released if there are applicable patents, but it's not often. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: JasPer License Issues: Some Potentially Good News
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 06:50:32PM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: Hi Folks: [I have tried to include everyone that was involved in the discussions on the JasPer software license on the distribution list for this email. Quite a number of people were involved. I hope that I did not miss anybody.] I have some potentially good news. Image Power seems to be agreeable to revising the JasPer software license to address the concerns raised by you and other members of the open-source community. I have appended the first preliminary draft of the new license to this email for your feedback. I would very much appreciate your comments, as it would be a waste to go through the trouble to change the license for you folks if the result will not meet your needs. BTW, the new license was largely copied from the open-source-certified X11 license. Image Power has added condition 3 and I wonder if this is alright. The IBM Public License (certified by the Open Source Initiative) also seems to have a similar type of clause. So, this appears not to go against the spirit of open source. Thanks, Michael --- Michael Adams, Assistant Professor Dept. of Elec. and Comp. Engineering, University of Victoria P.O. Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, CANADA E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Web: www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams --- cut here --- JasPer License Version 2.0 Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Image Power, Inc. Copyright (c) 1999-2000 The University of British Columbia Copyright (c) 2001-2003 Michael David Adams All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person (the User) obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: 1. The above copyright notice and this permission notice (which includes the disclaimer below) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. 2. The name of a copyright holder shall not be used to endorse or promote products derived from the Software without specific prior written permission. 3. If User breaches any term of this license or commences an infringement action against any copyright holder then the User's license and all sublicenses that have been granted hereunder by User to other parties shall terminate. I am uncomfortable with this. I am not sure what the canonical debian-legal position is. This is also not compatible with the GPL, if that's an issue for you. THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LICENSE. NO USE OF THE SOFTWARE IS AUTHORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT UNDER THIS DISCLAIMER. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, OR ANY SPECIAL INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. THE USER ACKNOWLEDGES THAT NO ASSURANCES ARE PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS THAT THE SOFTWARE DOES NOT INFRINGE THE PATENT OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF OTHER PARTIES. EACH COPYRIGHT HOLDER DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY TO THE USER FOR CLAIMS BROUGHT BY ANY PARTY BASED ON INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OR OTHERWISE. AS A CONDITION TO EXERCISING THE RIGHTS GRANTED HEREUNDER, EACH USER HEREBY ASSUMES SOLE RESPONSIBILITY TO SECURE THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS NEEDED, IF ANY. THE SOFTWARE IS NOT FAULT-TOLERANT AND IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN MISSION-CRITICAL SYSTEMS, SUCH AS THOSE USED IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, DIRECT LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES, OR WEAPONS SYSTEMS, IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE OR PRODUCT COULD LEAD DIRECTLY TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE (HIGH RISK ACTIVITIES). THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR HIGH RISK ACTIVITIES. This disclaimer is much better. I believe the last one prohibited use in nuclear facilities. This one merely states that it is NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN such systems. -- Brian M. Carlson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0x560553e7 signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: JasPer License Issues: Some Potentially Good News
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 06:50:32PM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: I have some potentially good news. Image Power seems to be agreeable to revising the JasPer software license to address the concerns raised by you and other members of the open-source community. I have appended the first preliminary draft of the new license to this email for your feedback. I would very much appreciate your comments, as it would be a waste to go through the trouble to change the license for you folks if the result will not meet your needs. First of all I want to thank you for considering this issue and working with us to try and resolve it. BTW, the new license was largely copied from the open-source-certified X11 license. Image Power has added condition 3 and I wonder if this is alright. The IBM Public License (certified by the Open Source Initiative) also seems to have a similar type of clause. So, this appears not to go against the spirit of open source. Unfortunately, it still isn't acceptable. Your license differs from the IBM Public License in a subtle way. The IBM license grants a patent license to any patent held by a contributor when that contributors contribution alone or together with the entire program would necessarily violate the patent to sell or use the software. This is an important distinction to understand because it plays a key role in the differences. The IBM license then goes on to revoke only the patent license I described above if patent litigation is initiated against any of the contributors. The copyright license is maintained. All of the recipients rights are revoked if they fail to comply with and remedy any failures to comply with the license. The difference here is that copyright license terms are never revoked unless you failed to comply with the license. The patent license is an additional right that most existing licenses don't give. So some people feel it is acceptable to allow it to be taken away. Basically a patent license is not a required right to meet the OSD so potentially taking the right away is not going to cause problems with meeting the OSD. However, I should note that this interpretation is not without controversy within the community. If you look in the archives of debian-legal you will find extensive debate about the issue of patent licensing in free software licenses. I'll detail the problems with your new license below and propose how to fix it. JasPer License Version 2.0 Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Image Power, Inc. Copyright (c) 1999-2000 The University of British Columbia Copyright (c) 2001-2003 Michael David Adams All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person (the User) obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: 1. The above copyright notice and this permission notice (which includes the disclaimer below) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. 2. The name of a copyright holder shall not be used to endorse or promote products derived from the Software without specific prior written permission. This so far is perfectly acceptable. :) 3. If User breaches any term of this license or commences an infringement action against any copyright holder then the User's license and all sublicenses that have been granted hereunder by User to other parties shall terminate. But this clause is where we start running into issues. The biggest issue here is that you're potentially taking away the license of an innocent party. Imagine the following scenario. A certain company X is a distributor of Linux software. They include your software in their distribution. A few years later they aren't doing so well and new management is brought in. This management believes that your code infringes on some copyright they claim to own. They take you to court. Now all the users who received your software from company X have technically lost their license to use your software. At least this is the way I read your license and taking into consideration your usage of sublicense from your last license. This really isn't acceptable. (Any similarites to real situations is purely coincidence :). Since your license no longer even mentions granting the right to sublicense, you probably can simply ommit the phrase and all sublicenses that have been granted hereunder by User to other parties shall terminate. IBM's license only revokes the rights of the person taking the specific actions. Also you're attaching the rights granted under the license to a not taking copyright (or presumably patent) enforcement actions. This won't be accepted. The community in
Re: JasPer License Issues: Some Potentially Good News
On 2004-01-30 02:50:32 + Michael Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW, the new license was largely copied from the open-source-certified X11 license. There is no such thing as open-source-certified that I know of. There is no X11 license certified by OSI. What do you mean here? wdiff says it is extensively different to the current ones used by X.org and the XFree86 Project. It is closer to the XFree86 Project's one, so I start from that base. Image Power has added condition 3 and I wonder if this is alright. The IBM Public License (certified by the Open Source Initiative) also seems to have a similar type of clause. So, this appears not to go against the spirit of open source. It looks very broad. I think it should limit itself to the offending user and infringement action concerning the Software, at least. Having your licence terminate because the upstream accused the JasPer project of infinging their copyright on some other software would be very annoying. Do IBM have one public licence or many? Certainly, IBM's Common Public Licence has a very different clause to this, limited in scope and only about patents. On to the licence. The top bit is the same as XFree86's licence 1.0, up until: including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: Why was sublicense deleted from the list of granted rights in the XFree86 Project licence? That act is referred to in clause three. Clause 1 is fine, but 2 and 3 are new (but we already have examples of 2). The disclaimer has been extensively reworded BUT STILL APPEARS TO BE IN POINTLESS CAPITALS TO MAKE IT HARD TO READ. CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. THE USER ACKNOWLEDGES THAT NO ASSURANCES ARE PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS THAT THE SOFTWARE DOES NOT INFRINGE THE PATENT OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF OTHER PARTIES. Is it valid to talk about Intellectual Property Rights under your local laws? Should you spell out Patents, Copyrights or Trademarks instead? This is in two places in your disclaimer. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Help with SPIN License
[I'm not subscribed to debian-legal; please cc: me with any replies.] I'm considering packaging the Spin model checker[1], but I have apparently lost the brain cells that might have let me understand the license agreement. Do you all have any thoughts about it? Tommy McGuire [1] Spin is a popular software tool that can be used for the formal verification of distributed software systems. The tool was developed at Bell Labs in the original Unix group of the Computing Sciences Research Center, starting in 1980. The software has been available freely since 1991, and continues to evolve to keep pace with new developments in the field. In April 2002 the tool was awarded the prestigious System Software Award for 2001 by the ACM. http://spinroot.com/spin/whatispin.html The license follows: SPIN Commercial License _ LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. SPIN SOFTWARE PUBLIC LICENSE AGREEMENT PLEASE READ THIS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING. BY CLICKING ON THE ACCEPT BUTTON BELOW, OR BY DOWNLOADING, INSTALLING, USING, COPYING, MODIFYING OR DISTRIBUTING THE SOFTWARE OR DERIVATIVE WORKS THEREOF, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO BE BOUND BY THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, CLICK ON THE DO NOT ACCEPT BUTTON BELOW AND THE INSTALLATION/DOWNLOAD PROCESS WILL NOT CONTINUE. 1. DEFINITIONS 1.1 Agreement means this Lucent Technologies Inc. SPIN Software Public License Ag reement. 1.2 Contributor(s) means any individual or entity that creates or contributes to a Modification of the Original Software. 1.3 Licensee means an individual or a legal entity entering into and exercising r ights under this Agreement or future versions thereof. For the purposes hereunder, Licensee includes any entity that controls, is cont rolled by, or is under common control with Licensee. For purposes of this definition, co ntrol means (i) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management o f such entity, whether by contract or otherwise; or (ii) ownership of fifty percent (50%) or more of the controlling shares or b eneficial ownership of such entity. Licensee is also referred to herein as You. 1.4 Licensed Software means the Original Software, Modifications, or any combinat ion of the Original Software and Modifications. 1.5 LUCENT means Lucent Technologies Inc., a Delaware corporation having an offic e at 600 Mountain Ave., Murray Hill, NJ 07974, its related companies and/or affil iates. 1.6 SPIN Software means the source code for the logic model checking system named SPIN, developed, copyrighted, and distributed by LUCENT. 1.7 Modification(s) means any addition, deletion, change, or improvement to the O riginal Software or prior Modifications thereto. Modifications do not include addition s to the Original Software or prior Modifications which (i) are separate modules of soft ware which may be distributed in conjunction with Licensed Software; or (ii) are not deriv ative works of the Licensed Software itself. 1.8 Object Code means machine readable software code. 1.9 Original Contributor means LUCENT. 1.10 Original Software means the SPIN Software, in both Source Code form and Objec t Code form, and any associated documentation as originally developed by Original Cont ributor, and as originally furnished under this Agreement. 1.11 Recipient means any individual or legal entity receiving the Licensed Softwar e under this Agreement, including all Contributors, or receiving the Licensed Software under another license agreement as authorized herein. 1.12 Source Code means human readable software code. 2.0 GRANT of Rights 2.1 Subject to the terms of this Agreement, Original Contributor grants to Licensee , a royalty-free, nonexclusive, non-transferable, worldwide license, subject to third party intellectual proper ty claims, to use, reproduce, modify, execute, display, perform, distribute and sublicense, the Original Soft ware (with or without Modifications) in Source Code form and/or Object Code form for commercial and/o r non-commercial purposes subject to the terms of this Agreement. This grant includes a nonexclusive and non-transferable license under any patents which Original Contributor has a right to license and which, but fo r this license, are unavoidably and necessarily infringed by the execution of the inherent functionality of the Original Software in the form furnished under this Agreement. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as conferring by implication, estoppel or otherwise any license or right under any existing or future patent claim which is directed to a combination of the functionality of the Original Software with the functionalit y of any other software programs, or a combination of hardware systems other than the combination of the Original Software and the hardware or firmware into which the Original Software is loaded. Distribution of Licensed S
Re: JasPer License Issues: Some Potentially Good News
Scripsit Brian M. Carlson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3. If User breaches any term of this license or commences an infringement action against any copyright holder then the User's license and all sublicenses that have been granted hereunder by User to other parties shall terminate. I am uncomfortable with this. I am not sure what the canonical debian-legal position is. No matter what we usually think about various patent self-defense schemes, I hope we can all agree that this one is so ridiculously overbroad that it is very clearly non-free. (For example, it discriminates against literary authors). This disclaimer is much better. I can't read it. May I suggest M-x downcase-region? -- Henning Makholm Det er jo svært at vide noget når man ikke ved det, ikke?
Re: JasPer License Issues: Some Potentially Good News
On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 04:21:13AM +, Henning Makholm wrote: This disclaimer is much better. I can't read it. May I suggest M-x downcase-region? Lawyers can't write disclaimers using lower case letters. It's a medical problem. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Help with SPIN License
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 10:21:08PM -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [I'm not subscribed to debian-legal; please cc: me with any replies.] I'm considering packaging the Spin model checker[1], but I have apparently lost the brain cells that might have let me understand the license agreement. Do you all have any thoughts about it? Good fucking GRIEF. This is the worst license I have seen in a long time. I'm not surprised you can't comprehend it. It's not even proper English - it's got the spaces in the wrong fucking places. The opening paragraph is inexplicably in all capitals and seems to think it is a web page. I gave up after working through the first clause of actual license, rather than definitions. Please just ask upstream for a license that isn't completely retarded. I can't bear to read this thing any longer; I feel a deep burning need to slay the author. Actually analysing it could take DAYS. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Help with SPIN License
Scripsit [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4.0 MODIFICATIONS. You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of t he complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifica tions created or contributed to by You. Debian-legal usually views such clauses as non-free. Original Contributor and/or other Contributors shall have unrestricted, n onexclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free rights, to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense an d distribute Your Modifications, and to grant third parties the right to do so, including without limitation as a part of or with the Licensed Software; And this is even worse - upstream wants the right to re-release my modifications as proprietary code. 6.0 TERMINATION 6.1 The licenses and rights granted under this Agreement shall terminate automatica lly if (i) You fail to comply with all of the terms and conditions herein; or (ii) You initiate or participat e in any intellectual property action against Original Contributor and/or another Contributor. Argh. A termination clause that triggers by any legal action that relates to intellectual property. 11.0 LICENSE VERSIONS. LUCENT, at its sole discretion, may from time to time publish a revised and/or new version of this Agreement (each such revised or new version shall carry a disti nguishing version number) which shall govern all copies of Licensed Software downloaded after the posting of s uch revised or new version of this Agreement. This is badly worded. Would it cover copies that are downloaded from, say, a Debian mirror after Lucent decides to revoke the license? -- Henning Makholm Ambiguous cases are defined as those for which the compiler being used finds a legitimate interpretation which is different from that which the user had in mind.
