Re: Doubt about a government license
Muammar Wadih El Khatib Rodriguez [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I was thinking of doing an ITP of a program which is called mpich2. But I am not sure about the license which mpich2 is under with. [0] I'd be glad if you can help me. What do you think about the licence? Could be this software included in Debian? It's customary on this list to include the license text itself for future reference in the discussion, and so it appears in the archives. I've done so in this message. = COPYRIGHT The following is a notice of limited availability of the code, and disclaimer which must be included in the prologue of the code and in all source listings of the code. Copyright Notice + 2002 University of Chicago Permission is hereby granted to use, reproduce, prepare derivative works, and to redistribute to others. This software was authored by: Argonne National Laboratory Group W. Gropp: (630) 252-4318; FAX: (630) 252-5986; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] E. Lusk: (630) 252-7852; FAX: (630) 252-5986; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mathematics and Computer Science Division Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne IL 60439 GOVERNMENT LICENSE Portions of this material resulted from work developed under a U.S. Government Contract and are subject to the following license: the Government is granted for itself and others acting on its behalf a paid-up, nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in this computer software to reproduce, prepare derivative works, and perform publicly and display publicly. DISCLAIMER This computer code material was prepared, in part, as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States, nor the University of Chicago, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. = The text says a few different things, but the grant of license seems to be exactly this: Permission is hereby granted to use, reproduce, prepare derivative works, and to redistribute to others. There are no conditions attached, and that seems to grant every freedom required for inclusion in Debian. Seems free to me. -- \ I think a good gift for the President would be a chocolate | `\ revolver. And since he's so busy, you'd probably have to run up | _o__) to him real quick and hand it to him. -- Jack Handey | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Logo trademark license vs. copyright license
Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, Apr 19, 2007 at 07:02:11PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: Firstly, much of this thread seems to be taken up by people saying that the project can't disallow things which we don't think reflect badly on debian but other people generally do. Why is this different? Huh? Do I understand right that you're asking me to justify others' contributions to this thread? No. I'm asking why this is any different. If we should protect our goodwill, then my concern is justified. Secondly, if any debian developers think sweatshop-sewn shirts of cotton subsidised by one of the world's richest countries reflect well on the project, The inverse of reflects badly is not reflects well, it's does not reflect badly. If any debian developers think sweatshop-sewn shirts of subsidised cotton does not reflect badly on the project, that's disappointing and contrary to recent surveys in the news. Now, any got a reply to the substance rather than the language? Why should we protect goodwill in one narrow way while allowing it to slip away in another more widespread way? I believe gambling debian goodwill on our derivatives is less dangerous than the current gambling of debian goodwill on unethical merchandise. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 12:37:16PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: Josip Rodin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Also, nobody cares for statements that can be normalized to 'you can do all this, except that, that, that, and that', and those should also be avoided if we want readers to take the spirit of the document seriously. I don't see how that's at all true. Contrariwise, I would hope you agree that a document that says we will always do this, and never do that, but which is routinely violated in practice, is one that readers will not take seriously. Personally, I don't see distributing non-modifiable license texts to be violating the social contract. I don't think anyone ever will consider that to be the case, either. Like people have said before: this is pointless nitpicking. I hope this never gets to vote; I don't want to be considered part of a bunch of crazy fanatics, which is exactly what we'll be if it does. -- Fun will now commence -- Seven Of Nine, Ashes to Ashes, stardate 53679.4 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 12:37:16PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: Yes, the social contract says that the Debian system and all of its components will be fully free; but for all practical intents and purposes (heh), the accompanying license texts are as much a component of the system as is the media the system is distributed on. I don't see the relevance of this. If you're referring to the GPL-specific exception for source code No, I'm not, I'm referring to the second sentence in the document, 'We promise that the Debian system and all its components will be free according to these guidelines.'. Yes, you can't do without it, but you also can't start obsessing on it because the matter can soon get absurd after that. (There is no free hardware to run it on, oh my!) When hardware is something distributable by the Debian project as part of Debian, then this might be relevant; it isn't an issue with current technology. License texts *are* distributed by Debian, now, under terms that are non-free. This behaviour doesn't match the Social Contract. Sure, they are technically being distributed, but not as something the social contract cares about. (Pardon the personification.) Lawyers would likely ask us - what would be the legal purpose of addressing this concern? Why would lawyers ask us that, and why are their questions about the Social Contract germane here? It's not a legally-binding document. My point exactly. There is no reason to apply the we must clarify everything and anything in order to not get sued legal logic. Trying to clarify the social contract by elaborating on peripheral things that aren't immediately obvious, is basically nitpicking, and it shouldn't be done. I would think thazt *only* things which are immediately obvious are exempt from the need for clarification. Anything else needs to at least be considered on its merits, and not dismissed because it's not immediately obvious. It is being considered on its merits, it's not dismissed because it's not immediately obvious, but because it's nitpicking. Also, nobody cares for statements that can be normalized to 'you can do all this, except that, that, that, and that', and those should also be avoided if we want readers to take the spirit of the document seriously. I don't see how that's at all true. Contrariwise, I would hope you agree that a document that says we will always do this, and never do that, but which is routinely violated in practice, is one that readers will not take seriously. Except that we seem to disagree on whether the obligatory distribution of licenses, regardless of their own license, falls under the that which we promised never to do. -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
On Mon, 2007-04-23 at 12:37 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: License texts *are* distributed by Debian, now, under terms that are non-free. This behaviour doesn't match the Social Contract. Is there any package in Debian which includes a license that is not being distributed as the terms of use and distribution of some particular piece of software also distributed by Debian? I think not -- each license text distributed by Debian is the collection of terms under which a particular piece of software is distributed. They are included only because copyright exists. If copyright would cease to exist, there would be no reason to continue the inclusion of these license texts in Debian. They could be removed from (or altered in) Debian without any implications. That cannot be said of the actual software components in Debian. The language of the Social Contract and DFSG make a clear separation between a component of the Debian System and a license. Neither implies that the license is a component of the Debian System. Instead, they use the conventional and usual definition of a license: an extension and use of copyright law to regulate the use, distribution, modification, etc. of a work. Inclusion of the license text in a file along with the files that comprise the Debian System only happens to be the only way to convey these terms to the user. If we would distribute Debian on physical media only, then we could deliver the license texts printed on paper, and the distinction would be more obvious. Also, consider DFSG §10: The GPL, BSD, and Artistic licenses are examples of licenses that we consider free. Then recall that the meta-license of the GPL permits no modification (relaxed by FSF policy to be permitted when the preamble is removed and the license is renamed and all references to its original name are removed [0]). Why would the DFSG need an exception or clarification when it already says that such a license is ok? [0] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL I don't see how that's at all true. Contrariwise, I would hope you agree that a document that says we will always do this, and never do that, but which is routinely violated in practice, is one that readers will not take seriously. No violation has been shown to exist. A concern has been raised, but it is the result of a misunderstanding and/or misinterpretation of the Social Contract and DFSG. It is not the same as an actual violation. Thus, there's no need to change the documents in question. -- Fabian Fagerholm [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
Egad, it sounds like you actually live in an evil parallel universe where idealism is inherently dishonest and false. That universe must really suck. :) There's a difference between idealism and lying about adhering to one's ideals. Please, try to remember the spirit of those promises, rather than trying to find gremlins in them. Utter crap. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 09:48:51AM -0400, Clint Adams wrote: Egad, it sounds like you actually live in an evil parallel universe where idealism is inherently dishonest and false. That universe must really suck. :) There's a difference between idealism and lying about adhering to one's ideals. Yeah, and we're not lying about adhering to our ideals simply by distributing the obligatory license data. If we weren't doing that, we'd have no product of our ideals because we couldn't distribute it. (Oh my god we betrayed our idealism by adhering to the copyright law!!!1!) Please, try to remember the spirit of those promises, rather than trying to find gremlins in them. Utter crap. I'm automatically impressed by your argument there. :P -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Intel IA-32 EL License - ok for non-free?
(Not on the list, please CC me on replies) hey, ia64 cpus have dropped hardware i386 support in exchange for non-free software emulation, known as IA-32 EL. I took a cursory look at the license, and I'm wondering if its even viable to upload to non-free. The text of this license is available here: http://www3.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/219741.htm It seems pretty clear that the intent is to permit redistribution, but I'm unsure about some of the restrictions. I'd like to collect a list of issues with this license (if any) with respect to non-free and see if Intel is willing to change them. The one that sticks out to me is: * Section 4: Updates requires commerically reasonable efforts to supply our customers with updates that Intel distributes. If this means we cannot say no to an update from Intel, that does not sound reasonable for non-free. But perhaps we are exempt from this since 1) non-free isn't officially part of Debian and 2) we are a non-commercial entity making commercially feasibility null? -- dann frazier -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Intel IA-32 EL License - ok for non-free?
On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 03:42:10PM -0600, dann frazier wrote: * Section 4: Updates requires commerically reasonable efforts to supply our customers with updates that Intel distributes. If this means we cannot say no to an update from Intel, that does not sound reasonable for non-free. But perhaps we are exempt from this since 1) non-free isn't officially part of Debian and 2) we are a non-commercial entity making commercially feasibility null? There is also the issue that Intel's update policy may not mesh well with the stable release update policy. What about a downloader that lives in contrib and just polls the Intel site (or whatever, it can be cron-based or only happen when the admin executes it) and downloads the whole thing, including any updates? Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sánchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
Josip Rodin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 12:37:16PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: License texts *are* distributed by Debian, now, under terms that are non-free. This behaviour doesn't match the Social Contract. Sure, they are technically being distributed, but not as something the social contract cares about. (Pardon the personification.) Then we come again to the point of this discussion. The Social Contract makes a promise we are not keeping. You say it's not ... something the social contract cares about. That's not at all clear from reading it -- the social contract makes a straightforward promise, which has no exception for this, yet we're acting as though such an exception were there. Only by reading a thread like this, or some other discussion which has no obvious connection from the Social Contract, can newcomers learn this exception under which we act. That's what the proposed GR is seeking to rectify. -- \ I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then | `\I thought 'Why should I? He never reads any of mine.' -- | _o__) Spike Milligan | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
Josip Rodin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 09:48:51AM -0400, Clint Adams wrote: There's a difference between idealism and lying about adhering to one's ideals. Yeah, and we're not lying about adhering to our ideals simply by distributing the obligatory license data. If we weren't doing that, we'd have no product of our ideals because we couldn't distribute it. That's a false dichotomy. It ignores the option to tell the truth: i.e., to make our promise match our behaviour, if we feel that behaviour is right. -- \ I like to fill my bathtub up with water, then turn the shower | `\on and pretend I'm in a submarine that's been hit. -- Steven | _o__) Wright | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
Fabian Fagerholm [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Also, consider DFSG §10: The GPL, BSD, and Artistic licenses are examples of licenses that we consider free. Then recall that the meta-license of the GPL permits no modification (relaxed by FSF policy to be permitted when the preamble is removed and the license is renamed and all references to its original name are removed [0]). Why would the DFSG need an exception or clarification when it already says that such a license is ok? Because the meta-license of the GPL is *not* free, as you pointed out. The licenses are free, because they grant the right freedoms for a work when applied to that work. The license texts are not free, because they do not have those same freedoms. -- \There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though | `\ nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is. -- | _o__) Albert Einstein | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
On Tue, Apr 24, 2007 at 08:24:39AM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: There's a difference between idealism and lying about adhering to one's ideals. Yeah, and we're not lying about adhering to our ideals simply by distributing the obligatory license data. If we weren't doing that, we'd have no product of our ideals because we couldn't distribute it. That's a false dichotomy. It ignores the option to tell the truth: i.e., to make our promise match our behaviour, if we feel that behaviour is right. Again the truth. We're not getting anywhere with this. ... imagining notes saying you need to be able to read and write in order to use our mailing lists, because otherwise we're being dishonest to all those poor users who expect us to tell the truth about it ... -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
Wouter Verhelst [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Personally, I don't see distributing non-modifiable license texts to be violating the social contract. I'm curious to know how you reconcile Social Contract §1 and DFSG §3, and the fact that we distribute non-modifiable texts in Debian. -- \ Yesterday I saw a subliminal advertising executive for just a | `\second. -- Steven Wright | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue
On Tue, Apr 24, 2007 at 08:07:03AM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: The Social Contract makes a promise we are not keeping. You say it's not ... something the social contract cares about. That's not at all clear from reading it -- the social contract makes a straightforward promise, which has no exception for this, yet we're acting as though such an exception were there. The social contract is not making any exceptions; the law of the land is. It goes without saying that we will be applying the copyright law to our stuff; should we explicate the fact that we do that, just in case someone thinks that by implicitly abiding by the copyright law we're doing something Wrong(TM)? What else do we have to account for? Maybe talk about how developer time is not free and it's possible for it to shrink to zero one day, invalidating the whole deal. Maybe talk about how we can easily be derelict in communicating with upstream. Maybe talk about hiding some of the stuff we get at the BTS because it's marked by anti-spam filters. Talk about the delay in publishing data from the BTS because the computers are not infinitely fast. Hey, the fourth clause is very general, let's dissect that one, too - let's explicate how all volunteers have a mind of their own and each has the option of prioritizing differently, even if slightly. Sometimes there will be computing environments which we think we can't adjust to - let's say so clearly. What if we fail to provide an integrated system of high-quality materials? Let's put the fact that we may be carrying lower quality materials up front. We could go on and on, stating all those promises we are not keeping. (We should really be having an existential crisis by now...) -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Intel IA-32 EL License - ok for non-free?
On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 06:07:44PM -0400, Roberto C. S?nchez wrote: On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 03:42:10PM -0600, dann frazier wrote: * Section 4: Updates requires commerically reasonable efforts to supply our customers with updates that Intel distributes. If this means we cannot say no to an update from Intel, that does not sound reasonable for non-free. But perhaps we are exempt from this since 1) non-free isn't officially part of Debian and 2) we are a non-commercial entity making commercially feasibility null? There is also the issue that Intel's update policy may not mesh well with the stable release update policy. Exactly, and according to their definition of Intel Updates it does not. What about a downloader that lives in contrib and just polls the Intel site (or whatever, it can be cron-based or only happen when the admin executes it) and downloads the whole thing, including any updates? Possibly - but I'd prefer to persuade Intel to fix up their licensing first and workaround it as a last resort. I plan to contact them with any issues we uncover in this thread. -- dann frazier -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Confusion about license wording
Hello, In the conditions paragraph below, I am wondering whether: (1) The last sentence is necessary (i.e. does the word corresponding in the first sentence imply the last sentence?). (2) In the last sentence, does the phrase must reflect all modifications mean that all past, present, and future modifications must also be included? I think that including past modifications is prohibitive and including future modifications is impossible. 8 All copies and substantial portions of the Software (the Subsets) and their corresponding source code (the Code) must include the above copyright notice and this permission notice. The Subsets must be distributed with the Code or with information on how to obtain the Code for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee. The Code must reflect all modifications made to the Subsets. 8 Thanks for your consideration. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
