Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au writes: On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 03:49:25PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: The answer to the question in the subject is simple: NO. Thankyou for your opinion. I note you seemed to neglect to mention that you're not a lawyer. So, do you have anything to say about what Nathanael said? How does his not being a lawyer make his statement false? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: compatibility of bsd and gpl
Matthew Wala wrote: And people can copypaste that code out of your project and reuse it elsewhere under the original (BSD) terms. Doesn't section 2b say that projects reusing BSD code from a GPL'd project have to be GPL'd? The GPL applies to the combination of the old BSD code and the newly added GPL code. The GPL cannot change the license terms of the BSD parts. So when you remove all GPL parts, there no longer is an obligation to treat the BSD code the same way as the GPL parts. The FSF addresses this in their GPL FAQ for the case that the other code is public domain: If a program combines public-domain code with GPL-covered code, can I take the public-domain part and use it as public domain code? You can do that, if you can figure out which part is the public domain part and separate it from the rest. If code was put in the public domain by its developer, it is in the public domain no matter where it has been. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CombinePublicDomainWithGPL I don't see a reason why this answer would be different for BSD licensed code as opposed to public domain code. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 11:42:14PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au writes: On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 03:49:25PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: The answer to the question in the subject is simple: NO. Thankyou for your opinion. I note you seemed to neglect to mention that you're not a lawyer. So, do you have anything to say about what Nathanael said? How does his not being a lawyer make his statement false? I don't think the point was that the statement is false, rather that it is unfounded. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 07:07:00PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: So what? Distributing GPL works *with* sources is also not clear of legal liability. Those liabilities occur in either case, so they're not particularly interesting to discuss. Doing something that is against the letter and spirit of a software license is just not a position that we should put ourselves in. But they are interesting. The original argument was about sourceless firmware. Consider these two cases: 1. distributing firmware without corresponding sources 2. distributing packages and source code to a patented implementation of something In case 1, it depends on whether or not you consider (firmware == software) to be true. If yes, then it is against the letter and the spirit of the GPL. That may require an actual court case to figure out. If no, it is just against the spirit, but still legal. In case 2, there is no disputing that it is illegal, if software patents are indeed legal in $jurisdiction. Now, in such a case, it is agianst the spirit of the GPL, while still in complete compliance with the letter of the GPL and generally still illegal. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
On Wed, 18 Oct 2006, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 07:07:00PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: So what? Distributing GPL works *with* sources is also not clear of legal liability. Those liabilities occur in either case, so they're not particularly interesting to discuss. Doing something that is against the letter and spirit of a software license is just not a position that we should put ourselves in. But they are interesting. Interesting in a theoretical aspect perhaps, but not at all relevant to the instant discussion. The original argument was about sourceless firmware. Consider these two cases: 1. distributing firmware without corresponding sources 2. distributing packages and source code to a patented implementation of something These are two separate cases. The analogous case would be 2) without distributing source and 2) as you currently have it. Regardless, that distribution in compliance with relevant licenses doesn't necessarily absolve you of all liabilities is well known, and not an issue I'm terribly intersted in discussing in the abstract. [And if for some reason it was readable into my initial response, that was definetly not the intention.] Don Armstrong -- If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that, too. -- W. Somerset Maugham http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
On Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 02:16:04AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: Regardless, that distribution in compliance with relevant licenses doesn't necessarily absolve you of all liabilities is well known, and not an issue I'm terribly intersted in discussing in the abstract. [And if for some reason it was readable into my initial response, that was definetly not the intention.] OK. I'll drop it then. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Yahoo! DomainKeys license
I think I'll just give up on this and work on packaging ALT-N's libdkim and getting Exim to support it instead. Not much fun spending time on something that's already been superseded, especially if it's not going to be in Etch. The only reason was that Yahoo and some others still DK-sign, not DKIM-sign, outgoing mail. -- Magnus Holmgren[EMAIL PROTECTED] (No Cc of list mail needed, thanks) On Wednesday 18 October 2006 03:35, Nathanael Nerode took the opportunity to say: Magnus Holmgren wrote: OK, another stab at this beast! I've been in contact with Mark Delany, the Yahoo! engineer that wrote the draft and administrates the DomainKeys SourceForge project. HINAL though, AFAIK. On Saturday 17 June 2006 19:41, Joe Smith took the opportunity to say: snip Below is my initial analysis of the licence. The licence url is: http://domainkeys.sourceforge.net/license/softwarelicense1-1.html, and I have included a complete copy at the end of this message. Ok, 1.1 does not seem to grant the right to sell the code/program. Section 1.2 grants the right to sell for the sole purpose of implementing a sender verification solution in connection with e-mail.. I'm not sure if limiting the scope of Sale is allowed by the DFSG or not. But section 1.1 grants the right to modify and distribute the code. Without an explicit limitation that must mean that one can charge any consideration for it. Section 1.2 grants the right to infringe on the patents with the code (and modifications to it) insofar it's needed to implement a sender verification solution etc. But that's a patent license, and that can't be directly connected to the code. They also license their patent claims under their Patent License v 1.2, which says nothing about any particular code. Anyway, section 1.2 can't limit the ways the code can be used with respect to copyright, you can't expect them to completely waive their patents, and the impact of patents on DFSG-freeness has already been discussed at length. I'm slightly concerned that the specification is an Internet-Draft. More distubing is that the Licence give a URL for the Draft, but the URL does not work. Section 3.3 says You must create Your own product or service names or trademarks for Your Licensed Code and You agree not to use the term DomainKeys in or as part of a name or trademark for Your Licensed Code.. This may be a problem, considering the name of the package. Actually this is a weird restriction. Suppose I don't want *any* product or service names or trademarks, and I want to use the code in an anonymous fashion. Must I invent a trademark? :-/ According to Mark Delany it's OK to call the package that as long as the source code is unmodified. The DFSG specifically allows licenses that require name changes if the code is modified. Section 3.5 is a you must obey the laws section. Section 3.8 is choice of law and venue. Yes, those are the problematic ones. Instances of both have been discussed here and are disliked by many, We're all OK with choice of law if it seems to be a reasonable legal system (we'd probably be disturbed by This license shall be interpreted under the laws of the Taliban). Choice of venue is generally considered unacceptable because it allows nuisance lawsuits by the license issuer, and specifically allows the license issuer to drag the licensee to strange faraway courts to defend him/herself. but was there consensus as to whether such clauses go against the DFSG? DFSG 6 perhaps, if breaking the law is a Fields of Endeavor. civil disobedience perhaps would be a better description. I don't know whether this is DFSG-free or not. It probably is, but it's not very friendly. OK, choice of venue can be nasty, but at least one is entitled to get legal notice and a chance to respond in writing before having to physically appear before the court for oral deliberations? Is that true everywhere? I hope so but I don't know. It looks like Yahoo was indeed trying to create a a Free licence, or at least an Open-Source licence. However, it clearly fails the part 10 of the OSD (it is not technology nutral, as it is specific to e-mail), and is quite likely to be running afoul of the DFSG. It should at least be uploadable to non-free. But in that case Exim can't be linked with it unless Exim is moved to contrib, which is unacceptable. Seeing as DomainKeys is experimental and even obsolete already, but still not replaced with DKIM at Yahoo (for instance), the value of these packages can be questioned. OTOH, DKIM is still experimental too. I think it can make sense to include DomainKeys packages in Etch and drop them again for the next release. I found one more problem, a big one. 3.4. You may choose to distribute Licensed Code or modifications under this Agreement or a different agreement, provided
Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
This one time, at band camp, Don Armstrong said: On Wed, 18 Oct 2006, Anthony Towns wrote: On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 03:49:25PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: The answer to the question in the subject is simple: NO. Thankyou for your opinion. I note you seemed to neglect to mention that you're not a lawyer. That should be abundantly apparent to anyone who has been paying attention. Regardless, it doesn't dismiss the crux of the argument: baring competent legal advice to the contrary,[1] distributing sourceless GPLed works is not clear of legal liability. Doing otherwise may put ourselves and our mirror operators in peril. I think the argument here revolves around whether the GPL is a contract to our users, or a license from the copyright holders. If it is a license from the copyright holders, than the only ones who can sue Debian for distribution of sourceless GPL'ed works are, er, the people who originally gave out those works in that form. I understand there is some contention around whether this claim is accurate (and I claim no deep understanding of international copyright and contract law to make a claim for either side), but I think that is the fairly simple counter argument. -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CC's responses to v3draft comments
On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:56:02 -0400 Nathanael Nerode wrote: [...] OK. Let's declare victory and move on. Proposed statement: We believe that the draft CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licenses appear to be Free Licenses, so that most works licensed under them will probably satisfy the DFSG. Please note that Debian evaluates the freeness of each work independently. Issues beyond copyright licensing sometimes come into play. And particular licensors may specify different interpretations of the license text. So this statement does not mean that Debian will automatically consider every work licensed under these licenses to be free. I'm not convinced: even if you read the anti-TPM clause as meaning what it seems to mean (despite all the loud claims by parallel distribution opposers...), there still are other unsolved issues. See my analysis and the subthread that followed: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/08/msg00078.html I'll try to re-summarize my concerns below. They are already summarized in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00178.html but got no reply at all (am I being considered a troll?!?). Clause 4(a) states, in part: | If You create a Collection, upon notice from any Licensor You | must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collection | any credit as required by clause 4(d), as requested. If You | create an Adaptation, upon notice from any Licensor You must, | to the extent practicable, remove from the Adaptation any | credit as required by clause 4(d), as requested. How can a license (allow a licensor to) forbid an accurate credit and meet the DFSG at the same time? Hypothetical example: Walter Writer writes the novel _Good Title_, under CC-by-v3 and Nazi Ned creates an annotated version, titled _Good Title, from a neo-nazi Perspective_. Assume that Nazi Ned states by Nazi Ned and Walter Writer Walter requests to be removed from authorship credits. Fairly enough. Ned removes his name. I don't think that the above credit would be accurate, so no problem here. What if Ned stated the following? by Nazi Ned, based on Walter Writer's _Good Title_ Is that acceptable? Or can Walter request (under clause 4(a)) that his name be removed from the based on ... statement? Clause 4(d) states, in part: | in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such | credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors | of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these | credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits | for the other contributing authors. Credit must be at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors. Even if the licensor's contribution is not comparable to others? I don't see this restriction as DFSG-free. I mean: Walter Writer incorporates a short poem by Paul Poet into a novel that includes 21 chapters written by Cindy Coauthor and 25 chapters written by Walter himself. Walter wants to put a credit for all contributing authors and lists his name (that is, Walter Writer) and Cindy Coauthor in 12 pt fonts, followed by credit for Paul Poet in 11 pt fonts. It seems reasonable to me, but, nonetheless, credit for Paul would not be at least as prominent as the credits for the other authors: that is to say, the license wouldn't allow Walter to do so. If it said at least as prominent as the credits for the authors of other comparable contributions, it would be OK, but the actual clause doesn't say this, unfortunately. -- But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend. -- from _Coming to America_ . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpGu1LZDkFyy.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:06:19 +0100 Stephen Gran wrote: This one time, at band camp, Don Armstrong said: [...] baring competent legal advice to the contrary,[1] distributing sourceless GPLed works is not clear of legal liability. Doing otherwise may put ourselves and our mirror operators in peril. I think the argument here revolves around whether the GPL is a contract to our users, or a license from the copyright holders. If it is a license from the copyright holders, than the only ones who can sue Debian for distribution of sourceless GPL'ed works are, er, the people who originally gave out those works in that form. I understand there is some contention around whether this claim is accurate (and I claim no deep understanding of international copyright and contract law to make a claim for either side), but I think that is the fairly simple counter argument. How so? Let's assume that *only* copyright holders can sue the Debian Project and mirror operators (whether this is true or false is irrelevant for this discussion). What makes you think that every and each copyright holder acted in good faith when started to distribute firmware under the terms of the GNU GPL v2, while keeping the source code secret? Some copyright holder could be deliberately preparing a trap, in order to be able to sue at whim, whenever he decides he wants to. Moreover, maybe the undistributability could be intended: some copyright holder could have intentionally chosen the GNU GPL v2, while retaining source code, in order to be the *only one* legally allowed to distribute that firmware (you know, forcing users to visit his website and stuff like that...). Or even worse, who says that the copyright holder is actually aware that the firmware is distributed inside a GPL'd driver? In some cases, the firmware blob could be included in the driver without retaining proper copyright and permission notices. The blob could *appear* to be GPL'd, while it's not. Hope that helps. -- But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend. -- from _Coming to America_ . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpqWzSt6KAkm.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Kernel Firmware issue: are GPLed sourceless firmwares legal to distribute ?
Francesco Poli writes: What makes you think that every and each copyright holder acted in good faith when started to distribute firmware under the terms of the GNU GPL v2, while keeping the source code secret? Some copyright holder could be deliberately preparing a trap, in order to be able to sue at whim, whenever he decides he wants to. If the prospective plaintiff is the person who submitted opaque or object code, the relevant affirmative defense here is called estoppel. Pick your favorite form of estoppel -- several apply. Other copyright holders could sue with at least a colorable position, but not the one who added the sourceless code in the first place. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
