Re: openssl vs. GPL question
Michael K. Edwards wrote: Do you know whether the NSS implementation is being certified at source code level (a very unusual arrangement) using the sort of maneuvers mentioned in the Linux Journal article on DMLSS? I'm not able to say - it's not my area. If you are interested, news://news.mozilla.org/netscape.public.mozilla.crypto is the place to ask. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On 20050606T165853-0400, Jeff King wrote: So what's wrong with a license like: You may do anything with this work that you would with a work in the public domain. I have occasionally used the following notice: Written by Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho. You may treat this file as if it were in the public domain. -- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Debian developer http://kaijanaho.info/antti-juhani/blog/en/debian
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 04:58:53PM -0400, Jeff King wrote: _Probably_ a Dutch judge would treat the above statement as a license that means do whatever you want, since he's supposed to reconstruct the intention of the author from such a vague statement. And do whatever you want seems the intention. Yes, it is the intention. How about a license like: Do whatever you want. The only argument I have heard against this is that you (or your heirs) may later say Oh, but I didn't really mean *anything*. Which seems silly to me, but perhaps that's why I'm a programmer and not a lawyer. Lawyers are pretty silly people, yes. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tuesday 07 June 2005 06:47 am, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 04:58:53PM -0400, Jeff King wrote: _Probably_ a Dutch judge would treat the above statement as a license that means do whatever you want, since he's supposed to reconstruct the intention of the author from such a vague statement. And do whatever you want seems the intention. Yes, it is the intention. How about a license like: Do whatever you want. The only argument I have heard against this is that you (or your heirs) may later say Oh, but I didn't really mean *anything*. Which seems silly to me, but perhaps that's why I'm a programmer and not a lawyer. Lawyers are pretty silly people, yes. Perhaps lawyers are silly, but I think the law is getting a bad rap in this conversation. The issue is not with evil heirs but with termination rights and market forces. Consider for a moment a budding artist who writes a really great song. Since she's unknown she has to distribute it through a label, who has all of the market power in the deal. The result of the deal is she is poorly compensated. The song goes on to be a humongous hit and the record label makes a ton of money while our poor artist remains pennyless. To resolve this sad and not uncommon story, Congress granted the copyright holders an inalienable termination right which allows the author to revoke a license or assignment 35 years after the transfer (its a 5 year window after 35, so at 40 the chance to terminate expires). Which means that if the evil record label wants to continue to make money from the song it has to renegotiate the terms with the author or her heirs... presumably the popularity of the song puts the author in a much better position, market power wise, and will net the author a better deal than the first time 'round. Note that this right is inalienable... under no circumstances can the author give away or renounce the right. The reason is the same policy as above. If the author could sell the termination right, then the evil record label would require such a sale and still give the same lower level of compensation. By making in inalienable, the law ensures the author cannot be dooped into doing something foolish for a short-term benefit. Of course, this means that it is practically impossible to put something into the public domain prior to the expiration of the copyright. You really can't even wait 35 years after you release the software, because its 35 years from the grant... and since you can't grant the software to the public you would have to wait 35 years with each particular individual before their license becomes truly irrevocable. Certainly it is frustrating, but I think there are sound policy reasons behind the law. -Sean -- Sean Kellogg 2nd Year - University of Washington School of Law GPSS Senator - Student Bar Association Editor-at-Large - National ACS Blog [http://www.acsblog.org] c: 206.498.8207 e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 02:36:27PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: To resolve this sad and not uncommon story, Congress granted the copyright holders an inalienable termination right which allows the author to revoke a In other words, for their own good, Congress removed people's right to license their own creations however they see fit; they restricted freedom to preserve it. And as expected, it backfires as soon as an unexpected situation arises--such as people honestly wanting to give their creation to the world, for free, guaranteeing that the work will always remain under those terms. Certainly it is frustrating, but I think there are sound policy reasons behind the law. I disagree strongly. It's restricting what I can do with my own works, denying me the basic right to give it away for free, without the threat of revocation down the line. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tuesday 07 June 2005 02:49 pm, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 02:36:27PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: To resolve this sad and not uncommon story, Congress granted the copyright holders an inalienable termination right which allows the author to revoke a In other words, for their own good, Congress removed people's right to license their own creations however they see fit; they restricted freedom to preserve it. And as expected, it backfires as soon as an unexpected situation arises--such as people honestly wanting to give their creation to the world, for free, guaranteeing that the work will always remain under those terms. Yes... because SO many works are released directly into the Public Domain... foolish Congress, protecting the rights of the many over the obscure wishes of the few. If you really want to ensure your works stay forever free, then make sure you teach your mate and offspring (the only folks who can exercise your termination right other than yourself) the value of your decisions. I like the Public Domain, don't get me wrong... but I dislike strong armed corporations more, so I think the balance struck by Congress works pretty well. Certainly it is frustrating, but I think there are sound policy reasons behind the law. I disagree strongly. It's restricting what I can do with my own works, denying me the basic right to give it away for free, without the threat of revocation down the line. You sound like a corporate lawyer... they would love nothing more than for the freedom of contract to be absolute. Imagine situations where you sign away 1st amendment speech rights to get a job, or maybe whistle-blower protections. Oh yes, it would truly be a brave new world if your way of thinking ruled the day. -Sean -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Well-drafted anti-DRM clause [was: Re: GFDL redux, all over again, yet another time]
On Tue, 31 May 2005 23:25:00 -0400 Nathanael Nerode wrote: You may not impose any terms or any technological measures on the Work, the Derivative Work or the Work incorporated in a Collective Work that alter or restrict the terms of this Licence or any rights granted under it or have the effect or intent of restricting the ability of any person to exercise those rights; Does this allow distribution on DRM-encumbered media as long as an unencumbered copy is distributed alongside? IIRC, this was told many times to be an important right... -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgp6gyqLRL6nH.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 06:33:38PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: On 6/5/05, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No disagreement here (except the implication that non-free use is the only goal--the goal is free use everywhere, and non-free use is just part of everywhere). Permissive licenses are close to public domain, and reasons for using the two are similar. Change everywhere to allowed for every person, regardless of the restrictions they then impose and I'll agree with you. Everywhere is rather silly -- there are many galaxies which will never be graced with the presence of software package $FOO.. I'm missing the point of the word-nitpick. Permissive licenses try to minimize the obstacles they present to reusing code. That said, both copyleft and public domain allow distribution to any person. The distinction is the kind of restrictions which are allowed in the context of that distribution. Public Domain allows the receiver to impose arbitrary restrictions. Copyleft restricts the receiver from imposing arbitrary restrictions. By imposing restrictions itself, which make the code impossible to use in many projects, ranging from simple GPL-incompatible projects to outright proprietary ones. (Hmm. That sounds a little inflammatory, but isn't intended to be; it's intended only as a statement of fact, acknowledging the trade the GPL makes.) The GPL very deliberately makes a trade: in exchange for less free use (eg. more restrictions), it tries to encourage giving code back to the commons and all that. GPL-licensed code is not usable, for example, in proprietary software; or even in mostly-free programs that simply have a few GPL-incompatible plugins for interoperability (eg. OpenSSL). It also assumes that the authors of the GPLed content were unaware that those restrictions would be imposed on their software and that they object. Er, so you're saying GPL-licensed code is usable in GPL-incompatible programs, as long as you think the authors won't object? I'm pretty sure you don't think that, so I assume I'm misunderstanding something. That's not a bug, of course; it's explicitly intended to discourage proprietary development, and many people who use the GPL actively wish to do so, and don't consider that restriction a problem. That's fine. But people who don't wish to do so--who, in contrast, don't consider proprietary use of code a problem, and wish to minimize political, practical and legal barriers to reuse--often prefer permissive licenses. If that's your philosophy, then you may well not want to force people to include your 20-line license, either, since that can introduce practical problems. (I'm not sure why this seems to be a controversial statement; it seems self-evident to me.) The situation here is that even though the legal properties of public domain works seem self evident, in the general case they are not. I'm a little confused. The subthread was about the costs, benefits and rationale of including a clause that says this license must be preserved on all copies, which shows up in the *-BSD and X11 licenses. Not that I mind tangenting to other relevant topics, I'm just not sure how we got there. :) For example, there are cases where an author who has released a work into the public domain may not be allowed to have a copy of that work. Do you mean that it's possible that an author might claim to release a work into the public domain, but not actually have the right to do so (eg. contractually)? That's true, but is true of all licenses ... -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 02:36:27PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: Yes, it is the intention. How about a license like: Do whatever you want. The only argument I have heard against this is that you (or your heirs) may later say Oh, but I didn't really mean *anything*. Which seems silly to me, but perhaps that's why I'm a programmer and not a lawyer. Perhaps lawyers are silly, but I think the law is getting a bad rap in this conversation. The issue is not with evil heirs but with termination rights and market forces. Consider for a moment a budding I think there are actually two issues we're talking about. I was mentioning a line of reasoning I have seen here[1], which indicates that we must be explicit in crafting PD-ish licenses, because our heirs can bring suit, saying that the original author couldn't have really meant to do something so clearly to his detriment. You are, as you say, talking about termination rights. But wouldn't those be just as much an issue here as they are with, say, the GPL? -Peff [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00485.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 04:48:57PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: Yes... because SO many works are released directly into the Public Domain... I have been on this list for about 6 weeks, and I have seen no less than three active threads regarding public domain licenses. A minority, perhaps, but certainly there are people interested in this. wishes of the few. If you really want to ensure your works stay forever free, then make sure you teach your mate and offspring (the only folks who can exercise your termination right other than yourself) the value of your decisions. I'm not worried about my works staying free. I'm worried about people who want to use my works being sure that my works will stay free. I like the Public Domain, don't get me wrong... but I dislike strong armed corporations more, so I think the balance struck by Congress works pretty well. Well, clearly I don't. :) The root cause of this problem is Congress, not an inherent balance. I don't *want* to license my work to a corporation in an irrevocable way. I want to put it in the public domain in an irrevocable way. But because there's no explicit way to do that (and I must fake my way through by using an extremely permissive license), both cases fall under the same category. With well-written legislation, they don't need to. You sound like a corporate lawyer... they would love nothing more than for the freedom of contract to be absolute. Imagine situations where you sign Now you're just being mean. I happen to agree completely with Glenn's statements. I'm not only not a corporate lawyer, but am spending considerable effort trying to figure out how in the world to just give away intellectual works which I have created on my own time. I'm sorry if that seems cold-hearted and corporate to you. -Peff -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tuesday 07 June 2005 06:10 pm, Jeff King wrote: I think there are actually two issues we're talking about. I was mentioning a line of reasoning I have seen here[1], which indicates that we must be explicit in crafting PD-ish licenses, because our heirs can bring suit, saying that the original author couldn't have really meant to do something so clearly to his detriment. Hmm... specious reasoning if you ask me. Under the copyright act your heirs get one chance to revoke your assignments, regardless of how crazy the assignment may be, and that's codified in (s)203, Termination Rights. The argument that is being made in the e-mail you referenced sounds like an unconscionable argument... which is often made, but rarely sustained in the contracts setting (it requires the clause to make the court BLUSH... yes, blushing, a legal concept). I don't believe such a doctrine exists in IP outside of the IP misuse doctrine... but that's a doctrine that deals with attempting to leverage IP to gain more rights than granted under the statute (like... I grant you use of patent, but you agree that I am the exclusive owner of the patent for the next 40 years, even though the patent will expire in 20). I don't see how that would be applicable in public domain setting. But to be clear, there is no such thing as dedication to the public domain... its just not possible under the copyright statute. Same goes for patents... you have to be very careful if you want to intentionally void your patent and dedicate it to the public. All of these near-public domain licenses are attempting to create PD-like conditions, but they are still copyright licenses and are subject to termination and the like. You are, as you say, talking about termination rights. But wouldn't those be just as much an issue here as they are with, say, the GPL? Oh yes, termination rights are certainly an issue with the GPL. However, you can't exercise termination rights on a work unless you control 50% of the work. I suggest that most projects that will be around in 35 years are of such size that no one person will have true majority control. -Peff [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00485.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tuesday 07 June 2005 06:21 pm, Jeff King wrote: On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 04:48:57PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: Yes... because SO many works are released directly into the Public Domain... I have been on this list for about 6 weeks, and I have seen no less than three active threads regarding public domain licenses. A minority, perhaps, but certainly there are people interested in this. Oh, its true.. debian-legal sees lots of traffic on this topic. Its actually really amazing when you think about it. I think it would be really interesting to do a study on who is doing free software development and what kind of licenses they are using. Is the GPL losing ground?! Based on debian-legal traffic, it would sure seem so... but I think that's because most questions about the GPL have long been answered. Would be interesting to know... the GPL 3.0 drafters should would love to know. wishes of the few. If you really want to ensure your works stay forever free, then make sure you teach your mate and offspring (the only folks who can exercise your termination right other than yourself) the value of your decisions. I'm not worried about my works staying free. I'm worried about people who want to use my works being sure that my works will stay free. Its a reasonable concern... but think about the movie industry. I make a movie and license a I Write the Songs from Barry Manilow. Movie is a total failure in the box office, perhaps because it features a song by Barry Manilow, and falls into obscurity. 34 years late the movie is discovered and becomes a total cult classic with millions of back order copies. I go to have millions of copies made up for sale when I get a call from Manilow's heirs... they don't like the movie, are exercising their termination rights, and refuse to license back to me. That's it... I'm done, shows over. Even this story of a hard working corporation just trying to make good movies failed to convince Congress to remove the termination provision. I like the Public Domain, don't get me wrong... but I dislike strong armed corporations more, so I think the balance struck by Congress works pretty well. Well, clearly I don't. :) The root cause of this problem is Congress, not an inherent balance. I don't *want* to license my work to a corporation in an irrevocable way. I want to put it in the public domain in an irrevocable way. But because there's no explicit way to do that (and I must fake my way through by using an extremely permissive license), both cases fall under the same category. With well-written legislation, they don't need to. Thankfully the Copyright Act is not set in stone, and with efforts like iPAC and CDC, copyright reform will eventually come. I doubt its going spell the end of copyrights as perhaps the FSF may want, but what it might do is write in some specific sections that provide statutory muscle to licenses like the GPL. I hope that when that reform comes, Congress seriously considers a definitive way to put works (copyright and patent) into the public domain. As I see it, the availability of a clear PD dedication method shouldn't interfere with the termination policy, since anything short of a pure PD dedication would remain subject to termination. It seems doubtful that a record label will accept an artist putting a work into the PD just to avoid a termination rights dispute 35 years down the road. You sound like a corporate lawyer... they would love nothing more than for the freedom of contract to be absolute. Imagine situations where you sign Now you're just being mean. I happen to agree completely with Glenn's statements. I'm not only not a corporate lawyer, but am spending considerable effort trying to figure out how in the world to just give away intellectual works which I have created on my own time. I'm sorry if that seems cold-hearted and corporate to you. I'm really not trying to be mean. These are the sorts of disputes I have everyday in law school. Lawyers LOVE the idea of the freedom to contract. People who understand the world around them, have all the facts, and the ability to walk away should want an absolute right to contract. But I believe the law has a responsibility to those who can't always look out for themselves, who need protection from those who would take advantage of them or deny them their rights under the law. Its a fine balance, its not an easy one to achieve, and its the stuff of many a judicial opinion and law review article. If you can articulate a clear policy that meets both objectives, I know 9 people in black robes in DC who would love to hear it. -Sean -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 06:26:46PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: You are, as you say, talking about termination rights. But wouldn't those be just as much an issue here as they are with, say, the GPL? Oh yes, termination rights are certainly an issue with the GPL. However, you can't exercise termination rights on a work unless you control 50% of the work. I suggest that most projects that will be around in 35 years are of such size that no one person will have true majority control. It's not so much projects that are actually around for 35 years. Rather, if you maintain a project for, say, three or four years, I reuse large chunks of it in my own project, and my project outlives yours. Decades later, you (or your heirs) have a change of heart, and revoke the license you originally granted to me for your project, which I require to use your code in mine. You don't control 50% of my work, but you easily control 50% of the work you licensed. If I want my work to remain free, I have to excise your code from it--which, decades later, probably won't be possible. It's a textbook failure of the tentacles of evil test. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tuesday 07 June 2005 06:43 pm, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 06:26:46PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: You are, as you say, talking about termination rights. But wouldn't those be just as much an issue here as they are with, say, the GPL? Oh yes, termination rights are certainly an issue with the GPL. However, you can't exercise termination rights on a work unless you control 50% of the work. I suggest that most projects that will be around in 35 years are of such size that no one person will have true majority control. It's not so much projects that are actually around for 35 years. Rather, if you maintain a project for, say, three or four years, I reuse large chunks of it in my own project, and my project outlives yours. Decades later, you (or your heirs) have a change of heart, and revoke the license you originally granted to me for your project, which I require to use your code in mine. You don't control 50% of my work, but you easily control 50% of the work you licensed. If I want my work to remain free, I have to excise your code from it--which, decades later, probably won't be possible. It's a textbook failure of the tentacles of evil test. No argument from me... but it is the system we've got here in the States and FOSS developers should plan accordingly, just as is expected of anyone else who enters into the world of copyrights. -Sean -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On 6/7/05, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 06:33:38PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: On 6/5/05, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No disagreement here (except the implication that non-free use is the only goal--the goal is free use everywhere, and non-free use is just part of everywhere). Permissive licenses are close to public domain, and reasons for using the two are similar. Change everywhere to allowed for every person, regardless of the restrictions they then impose and I'll agree with you. Everywhere is rather silly -- there are many galaxies which will never be graced with the presence of software package $FOO.. I'm missing the point of the word-nitpick. Permissive licenses try to minimize the obstacles they present to reusing code. You're focussing on a particular class of obstacle and ignoring another class. If you want to talk about minimizing, you really need to specify in unambiguous terms the metric which is being minimized. Put differently, not all obstacles are equivalent. You seem to be trying to talk about this in an impartial manner, but as long as you talk in terms of minimizing all obstacles you're not doing so. The GPL very deliberately makes a trade: in exchange for less free use (eg. more restrictions), it tries to encourage giving code back to the commons and all that. GPL-licensed code is not usable, for example, in proprietary software; or even in mostly-free programs that simply have a few GPL-incompatible plugins for interoperability (eg. OpenSSL). It also assumes that the authors of the GPLed content were unaware that those restrictions would be imposed on their software and that they object. Er, so you're saying GPL-licensed code is usable in GPL-incompatible programs, as long as you think the authors won't object? I'm pretty sure you don't think that, so I assume I'm misunderstanding something. Where the authors declare this intention openly, and unambiguously, that's exactly what I mean. There are other edge cases, but they're not as interesting. That's not a bug, of course; it's explicitly intended to discourage proprietary development, and many people who use the GPL actively wish to do so, and don't consider that restriction a problem. That's fine. But people who don't wish to do so--who, in contrast, don't consider proprietary use of code a problem, and wish to minimize political, practical and legal barriers to reuse--often prefer permissive licenses. If that's your philosophy, then you may well not want to force people to include your 20-line license, either, since that can introduce practical problems. (I'm not sure why this seems to be a controversial statement; it seems self-evident to me.) The situation here is that even though the legal properties of public domain works seem self evident, in the general case they are not. I'm a little confused. The subthread was about the costs, benefits and rationale of including a clause that says this license must be preserved on all copies, which shows up in the *-BSD and X11 licenses. Not that I mind tangenting to other relevant topics, I'm just not sure how we got there. :) We got here because of statements drawing analogies between those licenses and public domain licenses, and because of statements indicating that public domain or near public domain licenses were the goal. Also, because the specific example most recently posted in this thread included explicit relicening permission. For example, there are cases where an author who has released a work into the public domain may not be allowed to have a copy of that work. Do you mean that it's possible that an author might claim to release a work into the public domain, but not actually have the right to do so (eg. contractually)? That's true, but is true of all licenses ... No. Though I'll agree that that's also a possibility. I gave more detail on this issue in the message you are quoting. -- Raul
