Re: Cypherpunks anti-License
On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Hubert Chan wrote: I have created a package for hashcash, which is released under the Cypherpunks anti-License[1]. A potential sponsor (as I am not a DD yet) has some questions about the license -- in particular the Non Litigation section. I was wondering if you folks could give your opinion on this section, and on the entire license in general. [1] http://www.cypherspace.org/CPL Please cc me, as I am not subscribed to the list. Since it explicitly grants the right to relicense, it's really irrelevant. If you don't like the license, substitute any or no license. -- FINE, I take it back: UNfuck you! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: A possible approach in solving the FDL problem
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, Fedor Zuev wrote: On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote: JKOn Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 07:50:32PM +0900, Fedor Zuev wrote: JK According FDL, You may not use technical measures to JK obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the _copies_ JK _you_ _make_ _or_ _distribute_. You has no obligations regarding JK you own copy of document. You only cannot distribute document and JK limit access to it in the same time. JKHowever, if you _make_ a copy by using the cp command on your own JKsystem, you are subject to the rule you quoted, and you can't put it on JKan encrypted filesystem. Again. You demand from licensce to cure a problem, nonexistent under any jurisdiction I heard about. Computer is a single tangible medium, and any internal technological process whithin it, you aware or even not aware about (How about, for example, a dynamic memory regeneration? Hundreds of thousands copies of RAM per second btw) is completely irrelevant to the copyright, and, consequently, licences. _MAI Systems v. Peak Computer_ (991 F.2d 511) says otherwise. To quote part: The district court's grant of a summary judgment on MAI's claims of copyright infringement reflects its conclusion that a 'copying' for purposes of copyright law occurs when a program is transferred from a permanent storage device to a computer's RAM. This conclusion is consistent with its finding, in granting the preliminary injunction, that: 'the loading of copyrighted software from a storage medium (hard disk, floppy disk, or read only memory) into the memory of a central processing unit (CPU) causes a copy to be made. In the absence of ownership of the copyright or express permission by license, such acts constitute copyright infringement.' We find that this conclusion is supported by the record and the law. JKIt's also possible to interpret _make_ to cover JKa download initiated by you, since a new copy of the program is JKcertainly being made. No. At the moment of download you not have the copy of licence that shipped with the package. So, you cannot agree or not agree with this licence to get or not get the right to make copy. For initial download you anyway need an another source of right. Distributor consent, usually. Distributor has this right, according to _his_ copy of licence. And licence do not demand from a distributor to control medium of downloader`s copy. Licence only demand not to encrypt work himself. Upon download, a new license gets granted from the FSF to yourself. Given that breaking shrinkwrap can constitute acceptance of a license, it is not that much of a stretch to say that double-clicking or issuing a get foo to your download client isn't enough to constitute acceptance of a license. - -- * You are not expected to understand this. - --comment from Unix system 6 source, credited to Lions and Johnson Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE/PENw+ZSKG3nWr3ARAnR5AJ9KRQUzPXkFQbxLFxwOivuTTcEKbACeIA38 t+KL6qgBjaWhJuH6QRYevdI= =fs2a -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Linux kernel complete licence check, Q.0 - Q.10
On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: I don't think the OED is on line, but if it is, I'd be grateful for a URL. It is, but it's a rather expensive subscription to actually look up words. Safer to assume that it isn't in mailing-list contexts. Edmund -- * You are not expected to understand this. --comment from Unix system 6 source, credited to Lions and Johnson Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who: finger me for GPG key
Re: [aspell-devel] Problems with aspell-en license
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Brian Nelson wrote: Kevin Atkinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Brian Nelson wrote: I'm working on packaging the new upstream GNU/aspell, and I've discovered a problem with the (attached) license of the English dictionary. The license, which is a mishmash of mostly free licenses,is not DFSG free as I understand it due to the DEC Word list license (beginning on line 134). RMS said the word lists were OK. Here is what he said to me. You can email him for confirmation: I think it is safe for us to use those wordlists. The person who avoided texts marked copyright was operating under an erroneous idea of how copyright law works, but if all he did with those texts was make word lists, this should not be a problem anyway. If these wordlists have been deemed free for any use, then the copyright should be changed. To me, a license that states, To the best of my knowledge, all the files I used to build these wordlists were available for public distribution and use, at least for non-commercial purposes, isn't a really license at all since it doesn't grant a user any clear rights. IANAL, of course. Actually it isn't a granting of right, but a Testimonial that those rights exist. It means that you have recourse if sued to go after the one making the Testimony for your costs. In Debian, a Testimony that rights exist has usually been enough to cover for a license, but the term license for that is rather ambiguous, I'd agree. - -- Armageddon means never having to say you're sorry. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE9slt/+ZSKG3nWr3ARArZbAKDaeudCHVlqyyRtSUfxFX58WVI/kQCdHCiY I6XdpnXwfLsLtIbbRrywrAg= =cJSI -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [aspell-devel] Problems with aspell-en license
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 01:30:04AM -0600, John Galt wrote: Actually it isn't a granting of right, but a Testimonial that those rights exist. It means that you have recourse if sued to go after the one making the Testimony for your costs. In Debian, a Testimony that rights exist has usually been enough to cover for a license, but the term license for that is rather ambiguous, I'd agree. The usage of the phrase to the best of my knowledge indicates to me that the person who wrote this is trying to avoid getting sued. If that phrase isn't enough to avoid liability if the best of his knowledge is wrong, he might want to change this anyway. No, it's legal boilerplate. You can't testify to things that AREN'T to the best of your knowlege. At worst it's redundant. And if it *is* sufficient to avoid liability (eg. it's noncommittal), I'd imagine it wouldn't be much of a Testimony. (At least that's what the text Brian quoted said.) - -- Armageddon means never having to say you're sorry. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE9smC1+ZSKG3nWr3ARAtrRAKCJ+Fs2K1zVwsrvL3HFIJi6/P9m2gCg4E7A fwhuOhcJfDyTK+yD/GDDa88= =StAW -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Regarding linux-kernel-conf and Qt
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 14 Oct 2002, Branden Robinson wrote: On Mon, Oct 14, 2002 at 03:05:19PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Debian has simply refrained from distributing some programs which had code covered by the GPL yet linked to Qt at a time where distributing such programs would have been illegal. /me wearily makes his plea for reason and sanity yet again s/would have been illegal/could have been infringing of the copyright license on other software distributed by Debian/ Copyright infringement is historically a tort, not a crime. Ahem. really lousy singing Young man Are you listenin to me I say: young man while you were asleep congress did some nasty little things and copyright violation is now cri-mi-n-al let's hear it for the D-M-C-A /really lousy singing Different copyright holders of GPL-licensed software feel differently about whether dynamic linking of their code into a GPL-incompatible work constitutes an infrigment of their copyright. Because the FSF holds the copyright on a great many GPL-licensed works, and because they do feel that such linking constitutes infringment, Debian refrained from distributing many programs that linked to Qt. But we did not exhaustively catalog every case. - -- Be Careful! I have a black belt in sna-fu! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED] -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE9rNRO+ZSKG3nWr3ARAgA+AKCFJK98KRV9t0RYQuhCjFWHWGzRGgCeOiUq jZNd1smWHlsNvrbl9BrFDD8= =4X1g -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: what license is ?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 26 Sep 2002, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: On Wed, 2002-09-25 at 20:17, Santiago Vila wrote: This is the (in)famous advertising clause. [...] It does not prevent the program from being DFSG-free, [...] How does it not violate DFSG 9? You are on one today, aren't you? First, the Sun codicil to the OpenSSL license (4-clause BSD warmed over) is okay, but the OpenSSL/4-clause BSD/libevent license isn't?! My question is how can the Sun codicil be okay when it states the following? * * The Contribution is licensed pursuant to the OpenSSL open source * license provided above. * Either the 4-clause BSDL violates DFSG 9 or it doesn't. However, it really doesn't matter, as DFSG 10 overrides IMHO (yeah, yeah, Mr. Bushnell, we've been over whether DFSG 10 overrides the rest before, and this isn't the time and place for it), and DFSG 10 specifically mentions the [4-clause] BSD license as free (note that in the metadata of the DFSG, the DFSG predates UCB's modification, so the 3-clause BSDL didn't exist as such then, so BSD means 4-clause BSD). My hat is off to you: rarely has someone so successfully argued both sides of an issue in 17 minutes flat. - -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE9k3yT+ZSKG3nWr3ARAoIHAJ0XvF12Zaq5feJuMjzwZbhwjsGM6ACdGl3a pQb+aua20CdRWphKaoeG6jE= =2GMG -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: BSD GPL / deb with 2 licenses?
The BSD Daemon is under the license at http://www.mckusick.com/beastie/mainpage/copyright.html The big problem there is that the grant is only to individuals for personal use. I'd assume that any other use has to be negotiated with McKusick himself. DFSG free? I can't feature any scenario in which it would be: the main license discriminates against groups, and any other licensing would be Debian-specific. On Sat, 14 Sep 2002, Rene Engelhard wrote: Hi, I am the maintainer of the muttprint package. I heard from upstream that the FreeBSD port folks do have the BSD Daemon as logo for muttprint and ship in in their port. I want it to include in muttprint package for those using them on the *BSD ports if they want to... Upstream told me that he is not allowed to distribute it in this original tarball because BSD vs. GPL. Is that right (muttprint is under GPL). So, I want to know if upstream's thoughts are right and it is forbidden to add the Daemon? And what's with the deb? Am I allowed to put the eps [1] or the patch creating it[2] in if I have in the copyright file something like: For all files except Beastie.eps: GPL Beastie.eps: BSD You can find the And if that's not good, would it be good to fetch the patch creating Beastie directly from the net during postinst and remove the image during preinst? Any advice would be appreciated. Regards, Rene [1] This eps was sent to me by the FreeBSD port maintainer, I put it for now on http://people.debian.org/~rene/debian/muttprint/addons/images/Beastie.eps [2] http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/print/muttprint/files/patch-ae -- Be Careful! I have a black belt in sna-fu! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: BSD GPL / deb with 2 licenses?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Prepare for armageddon, we agree...:) On 16 Sep 2002, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The BSD Daemon is under the license at http://www.mckusick.com/beastie/mainpage/copyright.html The big problem there is that the grant is only to individuals for personal use. I'd assume that any other use has to be negotiated with McKusick himself. DFSG free? I can't feature any scenario in which it would be: the main license discriminates against groups, and any other licensing would be Debian-specific. We should remove it; it's not DFSG. For future reference, Kirk's policy is pretty liberal. The individuals for personal use grant is above. His policy for other uses is: 1) He gets one of whatever the logo is on (t-shirt, whatever), and 2) He has to judge it to be in good taste. For example, he told me he would not be happy with a herd of gnus chasing down a terrified BSD daemon, but a BSD daemon and a Gnu shaking hands would be just fine. Thomas - -- Be Careful! I have a black belt in sna-fu! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED] -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE9h36v+ZSKG3nWr3ARApf5AKCN+k6hKDus6wRxd1jqfTEzHAZUuQCghrf/ uAORxUxPlQBSWyfmYPymFY4= =SW5B -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: PDFlib license clarification request
It hasn't substantially changed since Aladdin's PS reader was put into
non-free (gs-aladdin).
On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Ardo van Rangelrooij wrote:
Hi,
I'm ITP'ing PDFlib which has an Aladdin Free Public License. The
full text is available from
http://www.pdflib.com/pdflib/aladdin-license.pdf
which in short and non-legal terms comes down to
- you may develop free software with PDFlib, provided you make all of your
own source code publicly available
- you may develop software for your own use with PDFlib as long as you don't
sell it
- you may redistribute PDFlib non-commercially
- you may redistribute PDFlib on digital media for a fee if the complete
contents of the media are freely redistributable.
I'm not so sure about the last two items. They smell like non-free to me.
I also intend to package the Perl module PDFlib (Debian poackage will be
called 'libpdflib-perl') which has the same license as Perl itself. This
one has to go in contrib if PDFlib goes in non-free.
The module Apache::AxKit::Language::AxPoint of the AxKit package and Perl
module XML::Handler::AxPoint are dependent on that Perl module. Am I right
in thinking these latter two also have to go in contrib then?
Thanks,
Ardo
--
void hamlet()
{#define question=((bb)||(!bb))}
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Re: [hpoj-devel] Bug#147430: hpoj: Linking against OpenSSL licens ing modificat ion (GPL)
In fact, serious thought ought to be given to using HP's solution as an
example to others that have to deal with a similar problem. It sounds
like almost the perfect OpenSSL-GPL linking exception.
On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Branden Robinson wrote:
[sorry for the broad CC]
On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 08:05:10PM -0700, PASCHAL,DAVID (HP-Roseville,ex1)
wrote:
Is this solution OK for everybody?
I see nothing objectionable from a DFSG perspective in the language you
have proposed.
Thanks for working on this issue!
--
void hamlet()
{#define question=((bb)||(!bb))}
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Re: Endorsements (was Re: GPL compatibility of DFCL)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Sat, 15 Jun 2002, Branden Robinson wrote: On Sat, Jun 15, 2002 at 05:51:23PM -0500, Chris Lawrence wrote: Wouldn't the endorsements issue be best resolved by licensing the endorsements separately from the rest of the document? Names are not subject to copyright protection, and not everyone has the money or inclination to trademark his or her name. True enough, but what if they were legally binding electronic signatures? Let someone try to attach a signature where it wasn't supposed to be and watch them go to jail PDQ I'm not crazy about drawing any more extra-copyright concepts into the license than I have to. - -- When you are having a bad day, and it seems like everybody is trying to tick you off, remember that it takes 42 muscles to produce a frown, but only 4 muscles to work the trigger of a good sniper rifle. Who is John galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQE9DCfO+ZSKG3nWr3ARAuJLAJ9lXoNTgR2mrwVQGDOtoWVOuQrG9gCfd/8X TI6iPb9nir3U5t9XUI93h7Q= =eLvU -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: linux gpl question
On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, David Starner wrote: On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 09:35:44PM -0600, John Galt wrote: No, he doesn't have to do anything at all with his patches. They aren't the FSF's to define the license for. For ONLY the work he authored or has the rights of authorship in, he may do whatever he wishes with it. A patch to a program is a derivative work of the program, in most cases. Hence, you need permission of the copyright owner to distribute it; lacking direct permission (rather painful for the kernel), you have to distribute it under the GPL if you distribute it. Only assuming that you distribute the patched kernel as a unit. It is entirely feasable to distribute the patches as a separately copyrightable entity. -- Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: linux gpl question
On 25 Apr 2002, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, he doesn't have to do anything at all with his patches. They aren't the FSF's to define the license for. For ONLY the work he authored or has the rights of authorship in, he may do whatever he wishes with it. However, his patches are patches *of Linux*, and so if he distributes the patched Linux, he is required to distribute the full source, because Linux is copyable only under the terms of the GPL and that's what the GPL requires. If he doesn't like that, his only option is to refrain from copying the Linux binaries at all. I'm really wondering why you even bothered to point this out. You restate my point rather complicatedly and mostly wrongly, then added a huge assed dose of the obvious. Why? BTW, he is only required to provide the GPL'd stuff when asked: there is no law, clause, or any other thing on God's green earth that is forcing him to give up his rights of authorship in code he wrote (gee, does it sound like I'm repeating myself?). RMS of course has nothing to do with it, but the authors of Linux, whose work on Linux is all GPL'd, certainly do. The license clause that apparently causes the author to have to GPL his separatable work comes from the FSF, not from the authors of the Linux kernel. -- Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Preprints/Reprints of Academic Papers in Packages
I am fully aware of the fact that Debian contains GPL'd stuff. But what does a GPL definition of source have to do with a DFSG 2 determination? On 17 Mar 2002, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What does the GPL definition have to do with Debian? Perhaps you were unaware of it. Many Debian packages contain GPL'd elements. Thomas -- Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Preprints/Reprints of Academic Papers in Packages
On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Sun, Mar 17, 2002 at 10:59:27PM -0700, John Galt wrote: I submit since postscript is turing complete, postscript documents are actually already in source form. A Turing-complete system is one in which the behaviour of a universal Turing machine can be completely emulated. Er. That would include compiled binaries, and they're not source; what does turing completeness have to do with whether a file is source or not? Okay, provide a definition of source that includes interpretive languages such as Perl. I submit that any definition of source so broad as to include a perlscript must necessarily include a postscript document. I think that a PDF is source if it's human-editable, and not if it's practically uneditable PDF code generated from something else. The GFDL tries to make this distinction for HTML. ...and fails miserably IMHO. One thing that must necessarily fall into the not source category is ASCII-armored encrypted text, yet the GFDL allows it as a transparent copy, for an example. GPG is available to the general public, it is editable with cat or sed with the proper key if you so desire, and the output from gpg is pipeable. -- Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Preprints/Reprints of Academic Papers in Packages
On 17 Mar 2002, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I am fully aware of the fact that Debian contains GPL'd stuff. But what does a GPL definition of source have to do with a DFSG 2 determination? The context was not asking that question. No, in context, the GPL never even came in to the discussion until Sam Hartman used it's definition. The context was about the DFSG-freeness of integral documentation, like the RFCs included in bind-doc. I've already treated on the source-ness of a postscript document in an agnostic fashion other places in this discussion, and I'll not reiterate it here. Needless to say, CM Connelly's question is on the applicability of DFSG 2 on documents. Saying that the context is other than this is disingenuous at best, fallacious at worst. -- Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Preprints/Reprints of Academic Papers in Packages
On 17 Mar 2002, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Okay, provide a definition of source that includes interpretive languages such as Perl. I submit that any definition of source so broad as to include a perlscript must necessarily include a postscript document. I think we can just use the same one as the GPL, which seems pretty clear and usable: whatever form is most preferred for making changes. What precisely is the form most preferred for making changes in RFCs? What precisely is the form most preferred for making changes in the GPL? That's really quite good enough, and should satisfy everyone except the occasional troll. Given your historical definition of troll, that pretty much means that you exempt most of humanity from your reasonableness qualification... That's really quite good enough, and should satisfy everyone except most of humanity just doesn't work. -- Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Preprints/Reprints of Academic Papers in Packages
On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Glenn Maynard wrote:
On Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 12:15:41AM -0700, John Galt wrote:
Okay, provide a definition of source that includes interpretive languages
such as Perl. I submit that any definition of source so broad as to
include a perlscript must necessarily include a postscript document.
The form of a {program,document} that is intended for modification. This
includes perl scripts (unless they've been run through an obfuscator),
human-editable HTML, and human-editable PDF. It clearly doesn't include
most generated PDF.
So the Free Software Manifesto doesn't have any source at all, since it's
an invariant, and therefore not intended for modification? I'm going to
go ahead and open a can of worms here and ask if Pine has a source, since
it is clearly not intended for modification other than by UW. Do DJB
programs have a source: they're also clearly not intended for
modification.
I recall Roxen coming with a Tetris module, called GPL (I believe), with
obfuscated source. Gah.
There's also the case where there's no human-editable forms; ie, a document
created in Word, saved as DOC and exported to HTML. Now there's no source at
all.
Isn't a Word doc clearly intended for modification, with Word?
the rest elided, I see no more point in each of us reiterating our
similar positions on the GFDL in new and conflicting ways
--
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Preprints/Reprints of Academic Papers in Packages
On 17 Mar 2002, Sam Hartman wrote: C == C M Connelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: C Many packages contain preprints or reprints of academic papers C as part of their documentation. In many cases, there is no C ``source'' available for these documents -- they are C distributed as PostScript or PDF files. One case that seems fairly clear to me is cases where the upstream doesn't have the source either. If the upstream would be stuck editing the ps or pdf if they wanted to modify the document, then that document is its own source code at least under the GPL definition. What does the GPL definition have to do with Debian? -- Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Preprints/Reprints of Academic Papers in Packages
On Sat, 16 Mar 2002, C.M. Connelly wrote: Many packages contain preprints or reprints of academic papers as part of their documentation. In many cases, there is no ``source'' available for these documents -- they are distributed as PostScript or PDF files. Postscript is source. One assumes, of course, that upstream has the right to relicense the documents, or that the documents are under a DFSG-free license already... Examples of packages that include such documents include (but are certainly not limited to) bind-doc, cricket, ddd-doc, fastlink, and tetex-doc. My feeling is that as ``historical documents'' -- frozen documents describing some early state or underlayment of the software, and not day-to-day documentation -- we shouldn't worry that much about not having the source for these documents. Others may disagree, believing that we need to have source for everything that we distribute. What precisely would be source for a postscript document? Would it change if postscript was turing-complete? I'm thinking that the first priority is ensuring that Debian has rights to distribute IAW the DFSG, and that's a substantial question in some of the aforementioned cases... In any case, I think that it would be useful to come to some conclusion about whether or not it's okay to include such documents in main at all, and, if so, under what conditions. Some questions that occur to me include 1. If such a document is in a subdirectory of a GPLed program, is that enough permission to distribute it, even if the document itself has no distribution (or copyright) information attached to it (or in a file in the same directory)? Only if the grantor of the GPL rights is the same as the author of the document. I can grant you GPL rights to the Microsoft Windows source, for all the good it'll do you. 2. Do we need a specific statement from the author(s) (or original publisher) allowing us (and anyone else) to distribute the document? If my addendum to 1 above isn't satisfied, yes. 3. Do we need to build the document from source to feel confident about distributing it? I submit since postscript is turing complete, postscript documents are actually already in source form. 4. If we actually do have source, are we allowed to create a typeset version (DVI, PS, PDF) or some other form of ``compiled'' documentation (texi, HTML) and distribute that without the source? One would assume that this question becomes meaningless if the typesetting language is turing complete, since one would never presume to say that a perlscript, for example, isn't in source form because perl is turing complete. 5. If an ``article'' or ``technical report'' really is the only documentation for a program, should we try to get the author to provide the source with a license that allows modification -- keeping the original document(s) intact, as historical records, but still allowing the documentation to evolve as the program changes? Ahh, the crux. We get back to the Question Of The Hour: are there special rules for documentation. The short answer is that the jury's still out on that one, and probably will be for the forseeable future. The long answer is that you can't even tell what sides the debaters are on without an updated scorecard. Anyway, just some ideas to kick around CMC +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Man cannot be civilised, or be kept civilised by what he does in his spare time; only by what he does as his work. W.R. Lethaby +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ C.M. Connelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] SHC, DS +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ -- Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: WARNING: Crypto software to be included into main Debian distribution
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 The T7 countries are all under Boycott. You'd get arrested exporting ANYTHING to them. Is a Cigar an armament? Can you get real honest-to-god Havana Cigars? On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Walter Landry wrote: Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au wrote: And frankly, no, you _can't_ export code and say Do whatever you want with it in that sense: you can't export gcc to a T7 country and tell them, go ahead, use it to build a nuclear arsenal. Excuse me? Why can't I do that? There are no export restrictions on software like gcc. There is for hydrodynamic simulation codes (oddly enough, you can't give them to North Korea, but Iraq seems fine) and crypto, but not for compilers. I am free to give them the code and tell them (to quote Theo De Raadt) to use it for any purpose they wish to use it, including modification, use, peeing on, or even integration into baby mulching machines or atomic bombs to be dropped on Australia. snip - -- Armageddon means never having to say you're sorry. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD4DBQE8gaJo+ZSKG3nWr3ARAjXpAJjw9YfCcAw8KWJTUGQEDpJ3yQdXAJwNBDhU Pnu8a/3/QfCEowiWk7yH2Q== =u25j -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: LDP licences
To: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] Um, yeah. On 7 Dec 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm sorry, did I say anything to you at all? Blah blah blah. Who said you did? Were you addressed, um, *ever* on this list? -- There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with suitable application of High Explosives. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: LDP licences
On 7 Dec 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: On 7 Dec 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Were you addressed, um, *ever* on this list? John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Um, yeah. How would you know? Because they used your name? No, that's not it. Waah! It's all about me losing arguments! -- There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with suitable application of High Explosives. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: LDP licences
On Fri, 7 Dec 2001, Colin Watson wrote: Could somebody please have a quick look at these three licences? http://www.linuxdoc.org/COPYRIGHT.html It prohibits pseudonymous/anonymous modification, which may very well be a no-op, but pseudonymity is outside the scope of Debian as I am repeatedly and consistently reminded by certain nameless individuals (how's that for irony :) http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP-COPYRIGHT.html Ugh, derivative works have to be cleared with the author. Probably can come under the AEgis of DFSG 4, but there's the question of what happens when you can't get ahold of the author? Historically, requiring intervention of an author is held to make a license non-free, and I can see no compelling reason to make an exception in this case. http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/XWindow-User-HOWTO-1.html#ss1.5 NICE! BSDL for text, and practically perfection incarnate. If you gotta push a documentation license, this is the one to push. I believe that the first and third are simple DFSG-free copyrights, while the second is not (it requires modified versions to be approved by the author before distribution). Can somebody please confirm this? Thanks, -- Be Careful! I have a black belt in sna-fu! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: LDP licences
I'm sorry, did I say anything to you at all? On 7 Dec 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It prohibits pseudonymous/anonymous modification, which may very well be a no-op, but pseudonymity is outside the scope of Debian as I am repeatedly and consistently reminded by certain nameless individuals (how's that for irony :) And yet, you keep bringing it up. As far as I know, however, the only people who have criticized your noxious behavior here all have names. It's only you that's hiding. Thomas -- Be Careful! I have a black belt in sna-fu! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian Package for Phylip - stripped to 3 questions
On Thu, 22 Nov 2001, Tille, Andreas wrote: Hello Joe just tried to clean up my rather confuse posting. Just forget about that and try to find a suggestion for a DFSG free license which complies with Joes requirements. Unfortunately I doubt we will not find such a license. Kind regards Andreas. -- Forwarded message -- Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 08:38:49 -0800 (PST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Tille Andreas [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Debian Package for Phylip Andreas Tille -- Moreover I cleaned up the lines a little bit. Sorry for the inconvience and the long posting. I doubt anyone will respond as they still have to read through over 300 lines of stuff first. You might try to just raise a few questions: 1. Does any version of GPL restrict how much money redistributers can charge for the software? The artistic sort of does, but that's not really a VERSION of the GPL _per se_, it's a completely different license. 2. Does any version of GPL require the software developer to be paid a royalty on money charged for redistribution? 3. Does any version of GPL restrict people in any way from charging for people to run the software on the seller's machine? Or require a royalty to the software developer for this? I think that the artistic may do all the author wants and still be DFSG free... It's just GPL imcompatible. I suspect the answer to all three questions is no, but would be happy to hear what the Debian folks think is the case. He's right, the GPL is completely not indicated in this case. -- Pardon me, but you have obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a damn. email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Licence question
On Thu, 8 Nov 2001, Martin Schulze wrote: Maximilian Reiss wrote: I intend to package the liquid kde theme by mosfet. (www.mosfet.org/liquid.html). The Licence problem is, that this theme is under qpl, but is linked against kdelibs (gpl). I was told that this is a problem. Is there any chance to get it into debian? Wasn't the QPL vs. GPL thing resolved nowardays? IIRC, it was solved by putting the relevant portions under GPL more than anything else. I heard there is a way if I ask the copyright owner of the gpl software if it is ok to link it. Is this right? Get him to write it into his license. Regards, Joey -- You have paid nothing for the preceding, therefore it's worth every penny you've paid for it: if you did pay for it, might I remind you of the immortal words of Phineas Taylor Barnum regarding fools and money? Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: xfig-doc has license problems in examples
On 22 Oct 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Actually they are, if they wish to effectively maintain the copyright: They can choose to enforce against some people and not others, and have complete liberty. By failing to prosecute one violation promptly, they could lose the right to prosecute that one at all (though they might still be able to enjoin any future copying). I assume that this is a perfectly fine situation with the FSF. Ironic, but yes, it's their right. Of course the DoJ hasn't exactly cared about having willing plaintiffs for a few years now when it comes down to criminal tacks: look at Adobe v Skylarov(sp?). Otherwise, one could claim that they were copying the CPDL instead of the GPL. There isn't really a squatter's rights doctrine for IP, but I'd be willing to bet that sooner or later a judge is going to get tired of all of this submarine patenting and selective copyright enforcement and start handing down decisions that are remarkably similar to squatter's rights. For copyright, if you don't prosecute violations promptly, then you lose the right to prosecute that violation at all. (I believe the technical term for this is laches, and it applies to just about any civil case.) laches is individual cases, I'm talking about the broad case of if you fail to prosecute flagrant violations, you lose the right to prosecute any at all. Think of Xerox's trademark... Selective copyright enforcement is perfectly fine; it's just that if you fail to enforce against John Doe, you might lose the right to enforce against him at all. But it's perfectly fine to prosecute John Doe but not Mary Roe, and you have complete discretion. The only problem in this case is the laches of John Doe may carry over to Mary Roe by Mary claiming that she copied John rather than you. Since the FSF is rather persnickitey about who it wishes to grant rights to, this may end up biting the FSF on the ass, but that's not our worry. Nor is much about this, since the CDPL itself is not really licensed at all. Basically, if the GPL were to be lached by someone who used a DFSG free license upon their version, we could bootstrap the GPL-as-DFSG-work such that we don't really need to make a special case for documentation or licenses, and remove one of our most glaring inconsistencies. Other than that, lached copies of the GPL are really just trivial excursions. For patents, it's even more liberal: laches never applies to patent violations. So even if you let John Smith get away with it for five years, you can still come and sue later. There's an explicit provision in law against any kind of squatters' rights in the case of patents, alas. THAT's the first vulnerability in the whole house of cards: Unisys is probably going to make it to the floor of Congress sooner or later: prolly after the war, that's going to start the flood of IP reform. At least I hope that scenario didn't die with the Constitution Thomas -- Be Careful! I have a black belt in sna-fu! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: installing on RiscPC
On Tue, 16 Oct 2001, Wookey wrote: On Sat 06 Oct, John Galt wrote: On Fri, 5 Oct 2001, Wookey wrote: The current license in full is: Terminology --- 1. The `original author' contained here in is Russell King, currently contactable at [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2. The `source code' refers to the machine-readable source code, suitable for compilers to create the program, which is the form used to make modifications to that code. 3. The `program' refers to the machine-executable code which is derived from this source code. Copy these sources as much as you want! It's totally free of charge, and as such is provided WITHOUT warranty. This program is supplied AS IS, and as such, all damages, loss of data, inaccurate data, loss of earnings, failure of the program and costs caused through use of this program are entirely your own, and not the authors nor contributors. The following conditions are imposed on this source code and program: 1. Any changes should be forwarded to the original author for inclusion in a later release of the tools. 2. You may modify the sources at your own will. However, if you modify the sources or use the sources in your own programs, you must give due credit to the original author which must be visible to the user of your program. 3. You may not redistribute the programs nor the source code, in hole or in part, under the same name(s) as the original program/source names. DFSG 4/Pine issues. Actually, couple this with #2 above, and I cannot see the case where you are allowed to distribute patches. You are allowed to change the whole program, but a one-line patch has no authority between clauses 2 and 3, despite clause 2's implicit declaration. Changes should be forwarded upstream (clause 1), and there's no other mechanism at all to distribute patch files, therefore there is no way at all this license can pass DFSG 3, despite the watering down of the under the same license clause, since a conduit upstream is in no way a form of distribution. John, sorry to be dense, but could you explain what you mean above in but a one-line patch has no authority between clauses 2 and 3, despite clause 2's implicit declaration - I can't parse it meaningfully at all (as I assume I am missing a pile of context regular reders of -legal have) Clause 2 grants the right of modification, but makes no mention of the explicit right to distribute said modifications. Clause 3 grants the right of redistribution, but only treats the right to distribute modifications implicitly: that is, it specifically forbids distributing modified copies under the same name. Neither clause has the explicit right to distribute modified copies. In Copyright law, what is not explicitly granted is forbidden. I gather that the consensus is that this license is non-free, although clause 1 is not fatal in itself. Is that right?. I'd like to go back to the author (who thinks it is free) with some cogent but polite arguments to see if he can be persuaded to relax things, but feel ill-qualified as licenses is not my strong point. Basically, Debian needs the explicit right to distribute modified copies, or show's over. Given his desire to retain an obvious 'I wrote this' display and sight of patches (neither of which seem particularly unreasonable in themselves), can anyone suggest a free license he could use instead, or the changes required to this one to make the softwre distributable in Debian. Just a modification of clause 2 or 3 that says that if you follow the rest of the license, you DO have the right to distribute modified copies, not just basing clause 3 on the premise that you do. And possibly a weakening of clause 1 such that the should is effective rather than just window dressing: perhaps a helper clause--`but nothing in this license requires you to do so' or somesuch. If that doesn't work then we really have to write our own equivalent. 4. All other forms of modification are strictly prohibited. I'm trying to see a place where this isn't a no-op. If we can find one, that kills the license, regardless of the previous three clauses. That is, if there exists a case where clause 4 becomes meaningful, and prohibits an otherwise legitimate distribution, the license is non-free. 5. A copy of this copyright notice must be included with any distribution or redistribution of this source code, and with any subsequent program distribution. thanx for your help. Wookey -- Be Careful! I have a black belt in sna-fu! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: installing on RiscPC
On Fri, 5 Oct 2001, Wookey wrote: Just to clarify this a little for -legal readers: There is a set of boot utils for the risc PC that are necesary to partition the drive and boot a kernel, written by Russell King (arm kernel maintainer). These are not curretnly distributed with debian-arm boot-floppies because we don't think the license is DFSG compliant. It would be very nice if they could because it doesn't look like anyone else is going to writing replacements in a hurry. The author thinks it is sufficiently free and doesn't want to change it (see previous mail). So can we include this or not? Any good arguments for persuading the author that in fact the licence isn't free? part of this software is needed by boot-floppies - just putting the software in non-free isn't going to help this aspect as I presume it's no good having b-f build-depends on something in non-free. Perhaps we could find te resources to re-implement that bit... The current license in full is: Terminology --- 1. The `original author' contained here in is Russell King, currently contactable at [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2. The `source code' refers to the machine-readable source code, suitable for compilers to create the program, which is the form used to make modifications to that code. 3. The `program' refers to the machine-executable code which is derived from this source code. Copy these sources as much as you want! It's totally free of charge, and as such is provided WITHOUT warranty. This program is supplied AS IS, and as such, all damages, loss of data, inaccurate data, loss of earnings, failure of the program and costs caused through use of this program are entirely your own, and not the authors nor contributors. The following conditions are imposed on this source code and program: 1. Any changes should be forwarded to the original author for inclusion in a later release of the tools. 2. You may modify the sources at your own will. However, if you modify the sources or use the sources in your own programs, you must give due credit to the original author which must be visible to the user of your program. 3. You may not redistribute the programs nor the source code, in hole or in part, under the same name(s) as the original program/source names. DFSG 4/Pine issues. Actually, couple this with #2 above, and I cannot see the case where you are allowed to distribute patches. You are allowed to change the whole program, but a one-line patch has no authority between clauses 2 and 3, despite clause 2's implicit declaration. Changes should be forwarded upstream (clause 1), and there's no other mechanism at all to distribute patch files, therefore there is no way at all this license can pass DFSG 3, despite the watering down of the under the same license clause, since a conduit upstream is in no way a form of distribution. 4. All other forms of modification are strictly prohibited. I'm trying to see a place where this isn't a no-op. If we can find one, that kills the license, regardless of the previous three clauses. That is, if there exists a case where clause 4 becomes meaningful, and prohibits an otherwise legitimate distribution, the license is non-free. 5. A copy of this copyright notice must be included with any distribution or redistribution of this source code, and with any subsequent program distribution. Wookey -- Armageddon means never having to say you're sorry. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: ITP: kernel-patch-selinux
First of all, I doubt that you're going to have too much trouble getting a response from SElinux. They've been pretty good on responding to their mailinglist: which, I might add, I see more than one Debian Developer has contributed to, yet you have not. It would behoove you to actually look as if you really cared before ITPing. Secondly, since Debian's warranty is no warranty, I fail to see how the expression of that in a license makes it non-free. Thirdly, isn't this a question for -legal? On Sat, 22 Sep 2001, Russell Coker wrote: I intend to package the kernel patch for NSA Security Enhanced Linux. Below is all the details on licenses. My interpretation of the below license details (copied from the web site) is that the kernel patch is under the GPL and everything is fine. However is the issue about warranty exclusion etc which requires agreement before download going to force me to use non-free for my package? I know I could ask upstream for clarification of this issue, however the NSA takes a long time to prepare public statements, and I imagine that things will take longer now than they would have a few weeks ago... License statement from http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/license.html : All source code found on this site is released under the same terms and conditions as the original sources. For example, the patches to the Linux kernel, patches to many existing utilities, and new programs and libraries available here are released under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The patches to some existing utilities and libraries available here are released under the terms and conditions of the BSD license. I downloaded the patch from http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/src-disclaim.html which has the following disclaimer: Before downloading this software, you must accept the warranty exclusion and limitation of liability which appears below. WARRANTY EXCLUSION I expressly understand and agree that this software is a non-commercially developed program that may contain bugs (as that term is used in the industry) and that it may not function as intended. The software is licensed as is. NSA makes no, and hereby expressly disclaims all, warranties, express, implied, statutory, or otherwise with respect to the software, including noninfringement and the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY In no event will NSA be liable for any damages, including loss of data, lost profits, cost of cover, or other special, incidental, consequential, direct or indirect damages arising from the software or the use thereof, however caused and on any theory of liability. This limitation will apply even if NSA has been advised of the possibility of such damage. I acknowledge that this is a reasonable allocation of risk. -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FYI: Zope Public License 1.1 vague, contradictory, and not DFSG-free
This is interesting in a weird sort of way. If we're going to let copyrighted licenses stand in our way, I guess cut-n-pasting parts of the GPL for use in discussion is out too. So far the consensus has been that copyrighting a license is a no-op, since you can't copyright a contract. As for the rest, the ZPL is a trivial rewrite of the 4 clause BSDL (which may have some repercussions if Zope were ever to press the issue of infringement on the license itself above and beyond the absurdity of a contract being copyrighted), and the extra clause is debatable WRT DFSG 4, which I note is already being done. Basically, this whole part of the argument is a large no-op, and really shouldn't have been brought up in the first place unless you think it's time to consider the copyright on licenses as a valid thing in determining the DFSG-freeness or worth of inclusion in Debian of the program covered, in which case I say cry havoc and loose the dogs of war. On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, Branden Robinson wrote: First, the license text itself: Copyright (c) Zope Corporation. All rights reserved. If that refers to the text of the license itself, I may be violating the license on the license text itself by quoting it for critical purposed. Of course, in a society where Fair Use is recognized, that's not the case, but I'm not sure the United States is such a society these days. However, that's beyond the scope of this mail. -- EMACS == Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Missing Attachment (T.Rex license)
It's a copy of the QPL. This means it's GPL incompatible because of the requirement to grant upstream a royalty free license. ISTR that the QPL has previously been adjudged DFSG free, the reason that KDE was out of Debian for a while is that KDE mixed QPL and GPL stuff (solved by a GPL'd version of Qt), not because the QPL was non-free. On Thu, 6 Sep 2001, Ryszard Lach wrote: I'm very sorry, I forgotten the attachment. Ryszard Lach. -- * You are not expected to understand this. --comment from Unix system 6 source, credited to Lions and Johnson Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who: finger me for GPG key
Re: mplayer / divx
The sperry patent is international. http://www.cpe.surrey.ac.uk/support/faq/gif_lzw.htm The funny part is the selfsame stuff that makes GIF viewers non-free is blithely in gzip. Ah well, consistency has never been a hallmark of patents WRT non-free. On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Hamish Moffatt wrote: On Wed, Aug 29, 2001 at 01:02:50AM -0400, Brian Ristuccia wrote: Additionally, it's still unclear if instructions (computer or not) explaining how to perform a patented process are capable of being restricted by a patent. Traditionally, patents have applied only to building/performing the invention, not to writing code or books about how to make/do it. In the past, Debian has allowed source code which explains how to perform patented processes such as LZW encoding to be distributed from non-US. Isn't that only because those patents (in particular LZW) don't apply outside of the US? Hamish -- Sacred cows make the best burgers Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!!!
RE: Questions concerning S/390 OCO-modules
Okay, so there's a way to set up an entirely DFSG s390, just not if you have this OSA. It looked as if the entire networking code had a non-free component. I hope you all realize that you have to make contrib/disks-s390 to hold the OSA bootfloppies until IBM decides to make OSA DFSG free? I really don't see how Debian can NOT distribute the OSA stuff, I just think that the splash screen can't be worded strongly enough. This isn't an optional thing we're talking about, it's hardware: if you got it, you need the OCO modules to get your computer to work. Pragmatism wins. On Sat, 18 Aug 2001, Stephen Frazier wrote: The OCO modules are only needed if you are using an OSA on your s390. Their are many other ways to attach a s390 to a network that doesn't use an OSA. They were used long before the recent introduction of the OSA and still work. IBM has said it is their intention to make the OSA driver open code as soon as they get permission. Until they do you could have 2 bootfloppies one with the OCO modules for people who only have an OSA to communicate with and one with out for everyone else. Stephen Frazier Information Technology Unit Oklahoma Department of Corrections 3400 Martin Luther King Oklahoma City, OK 73111-4298 Tel.: (405) 425-2549 Fax: (405) 425-2554 -Original Message- From: John Galt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 1:45 AM To: Jochen Röhrig Cc: Walter Landry; debian-legal@lists.debian.org; debian-s390@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Questions concerning S/390 OCO-modules Wait a minute here, is this going where I think it's going? The bootfloppies for s390 have non-free modules on them!? Does this requirement of non-free modules ever get remedied, or are these s390 modules going to saddle the entire arch for the forseeable future? On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Jochen Röhrig wrote: I assume by installer you mean a package that asks the user to download the modules from the IBM site to a certain place in the filesystem and then goes on with installation? This makes only sense if the user already has a network connection. But he won't have a connection without the modules (s)he is just about to install (at least in most if the cases). So at least at bootstrap time (where we need the modules on the ramdisk) this is not really an alternative... Best regards, Jochen -- The Internet must be a medium for it is neither Rare nor Well done! a href=mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]John Galt /a -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- The Internet must be a medium for it is neither Rare nor Well done! a href=mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]John Galt /a
Re: ns network simulator licenses
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE
OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE OR
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
Carnegie Mellon encourages (but does not require) users of this
software or intellectual property to return any improvements or
extensions that they make, and to grant Carnegie Mellon the rights to
redistribute these changes without encumbrance.
--
* tclAppInit.c --
*
* Provides a default version of the main program and Tcl_AppInit
* procedure for Tcl applications (without Tk).
*
* Copyright (C) 2000 USC/ISI
* Copyright (c) 1993 The Regents of the University of California.
* Copyright (c) 1994-1995 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
*
* See the file license.terms for information on usage and redistribution
* of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES.
The license.terms file can be found in the tcl distribution.
--
* Copyright (c) 2000, Nortel Networks.
* All rights reserved.
*
* License is granted to copy, to use, to make and to use derivative
* works for research and evaluation purposes.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
* IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
* WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
*
--
To find copyright types:
grep Copyright *.{cc,h} \
| awk '{print $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10, $11, $12;}' \
| sed -e 's/199.//g' -e 's/200.//g' t | sort | uniq
--
There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million
keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare
would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true.
Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Free way to decompress LZW archives?
On Sat, 28 Jul 2001, Junichi Uekawa wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] immo vero scripsit Debian needs permission to modify as well. There has been a substantial non-interest in .LZW decompressors since the Unisys thing in '94, so I doubt that lha would be put in main Please tell me what a .LZW decompressor is. I thought gunzip could decompress such thing which was generated by compress command. LZW decompressor is the same as a .Z decompressor: decompress. Gunzip can do UNIX Compress. How it gets around the Sperry patent (4,558,302) yet a .GIF doesn't is beyond me. However my impression is that lha compresses using a combination of the LZSS and Huffman encoding, which I believe is not LZW. LZSS is based on LZ77, so has one of two dates of origination: either 1977 or 1982. It looks as if Storer and Szymanski never patented it, so it came out of patent in 1997. LZSS IS LZ77 and Huffman, BTW, and Huffman came out of patent in the seventies. However, reading the source code gives me an impression that they might be doing something similar to LZW, but I am no longer quite sure of details. Probably not, LZW is based on LZ78. regards, junichi -- a mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Who is John Galt?/a Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product. -- Ferenc Mantfeld
Re: Free way to decompress LZW archives?
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Dylan Thurston wrote: I recently came across some data published as a .LZW archive which I want to process. It seems that the standard program for dealing with the archives, lha, is non-free. I found a web page documenting the format; is there any obstruction to producing a free compressor/decompressor? Has anyone tried to convince the authors to free their program? http//www.cpe.surrey.ac.uk/support/faq/gif_lzw.htm Probably impossible. lha is under the Sperry patent. The Sperry patent should sunset RSN: it was granted in 1985, 16 years ago. http//www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/whatis.htm shows how long a patent is for--20 years. Until 2005, don't bother trying: you'll only be looking at a jail term. And what is the actual copyright on the lha program? The 'copyright' file in the package just lists the authors, and the README file is in Japanese. There's an old, English readme file giving permission to distribute; is that still current? Debian needs permission to modify as well. There has been a substantial non-interest in .LZW decompressors since the Unisys thing in '94, so I doubt that lha would be put in main even if the copyright license were to be written by the committee of RMS, Bruce Perens, and ESR themselves (assuming they could agree on a license and WOULD sanction a LZW decompressor). As far as the currency of a grant of license, it's current unless there's a sunset date. Thanks, Dylan Thurston -- FINE, I take it back: UNfuck you! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Free way to decompress LZW archives?
Replying to my own message, with a WORKING colon key. On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, John Galt wrote: On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Dylan Thurston wrote: I recently came across some data published as a .LZW archive which I want to process. It seems that the standard program for dealing with the archives, lha, is non-free. I found a web page documenting the format; is there any obstruction to producing a free compressor/decompressor? Has anyone tried to convince the authors to free their program? http://www.cpe.surrey.ac.uk/support/faq/gif_lzw.htm Probably impossible. lha is under the Sperry patent. The Sperry patent should sunset RSN: it was granted in 1985, 16 years ago. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/whatis.htm shows how long a patent is for--20 years. Until 2005, don't bother trying: you'll only be looking at a jail term. And what is the actual copyright on the lha program? The 'copyright' file in the package just lists the authors, and the README file is in Japanese. There's an old, English readme file giving permission to distribute; is that still current? Debian needs permission to modify as well. There has been a substantial non-interest in .LZW decompressors since the Unisys thing in '94, so I doubt that lha would be put in main even if the copyright license were to be written by the committee of RMS, Bruce Perens, and ESR themselves (assuming they could agree on a license and WOULD sanction a LZW decompressor). As far as the currency of a grant of license, it's current unless there's a sunset date. Thanks, Dylan Thurston -- FINE, I take it back: UNfuck you! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Free way to decompress LZW archives?
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Dylan Thurston wrote: On Tue, Jul 24, 2001 at 11:17:27PM -0600, John Galt wrote: On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Dylan Thurston wrote: I recently came across some data published as a .LZW archive which I want to process. It seems that the standard program for dealing with the archives, lha, is non-free. I found a web page documenting the format; is there any obstruction to producing a free compressor/decompressor? Has anyone tried to convince the authors to free their program? http//www.cpe.surrey.ac.uk/support/faq/gif_lzw.htm Probably impossible. lha is under the Sperry patent. The Sperry patent should sunset RSN: it was granted in 1985, 16 years ago. http//www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/whatis.htm shows how long a patent is for--20 years. Until 2005, don't bother trying: you'll only be looking at a jail term. Just to be clear: the term is now 20 years from time of first application, right? When was the patent applied for? Yes, 20 years from date of application. Unfortunately, the uspto's search engine is down, so your guess is as good as mine as to when the patent was applied for. The cpe.surrey.ac.uk link says 1985, but it's unclear as to when it was applied for Anyway, thanks for the pointers! I'll try to convince the source to change their file formats. Prolly the best thing to do anyhow. .LZW is archaic and not all that popular anymore. Your best bets are pkzip or gzip, depending on if you want to go with the most popular or the most socially conscious. Thanks, Dylan Thurston -- FINE, I take it back: UNfuck you! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Group Copyright
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote: IANAL. On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 03:37:11PM -0600, John Galt wrote: A license is a contract, and wording within is binding. Even on people under 18 years of age? I think this is the biggest I was mostly talking about binding on the developers. If a license isn't binding on the copyright owner, licensing is a non-issue, because the result is undistributable by definition. loophole of all in the practice of licenses; any click-wrap license must not apply to users under 18, since no contract has the power to bind them under most law in the US. I imagine copyright licenses, having to do with redistribution and modification, have a better standing with regard to this age group, since even they are in theory restricted from copying and modifying copyrighted works without a license. Of course, in UCITA states, click-wrap licenses may bind even those under 18, though I cannot tell for sure. However you seem to be talking about the copyright grantee. It's simple: if the grant of copyright is not binding on you, you don't have the right to make copies. There is no middle ground. In all cases of minors having the right to repudiate contracts, the minor must make things such that it was as if the contract never existed: they must return the merchandise a check paid for or they must destroy all copies made under a grant of copyright, to give two examples. What does everybody think? - Jimmy Kaplowitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- FINE, I take it back: UNfuck you! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Group Copyright
On 20 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: I'm snipping the normal John Galt obstructionism, off-topic political commentary, and attempts to confuse issues, and responding only to the real questions. No, snippage around you usually means an attempt to redefine the argument. John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This is dangerous, because the group has no legal reality as a rule. It doesn't mean you lose copyright, certainly, but it injects a vest doubt into who is the group. For example, if you write something, put it in the project, so that it's owned by the group, and then stop participating in the group, there is now an anomaly. The group name no longer accurately reflects the actual authors of the code; would the court follow the current membership of the group or not? We've been over this, and my randroid philosophy is closer to the truth than this claptrap. Unorganized groups are becoming closer to having legal standing. Group membership can become a real problem, but I assume that they'd be smart enough to make contingency plans around that. The status of unorganized groups is in great legal limbo. Sure, courts do the best they can when confronted with the situation, but if you want to avoid hassle, the best thing to do is *avoid hassle* and not just shove it around. If you think dealing with a long contributors list in copyrights is hassle, then surely you don't want the extra hassle of dealing with the status of an unorganized group in court. A long way from your first refutation, which was that unorganized groups categorically have no legal standing. Yeah, so? It's thorny, but it IS an option. BTW, most of the laws you mentioned are for publically held companies, not closely held ones. Um, that's not really true. The hassle of corporation law is really quite awful; there are a lot of books promising incorporate yourself now as the great solution to lots of things, and in practice, it's strikingly bad. But it's not so horrible you shouldn't ever do it. It's just that to do it right requires considerable legal expertise. If you don't do that, then there is real risk of doing it wrong. And the point of this whole exercise is to avoid hassle. The hassle of dealing with a badly-maintained corporation or badly-setup corporation is considerable (go ask the NetBSD project). The way you put it, it's no point for a small business to incorporate. This is belied by the number that do each year. http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html#Legal Lists that there are about 2 million C corporations in existence compared to 1 million partnerships. Considering that partnerships are the elder, it would figure that if partnership (the list of thirty names) were scalable, it would be numerically superior. Since the goal in this discussion was to avoid hassle, you only do that if you are careful to get the corporation set up *right*, and not just set up and hoping its right, and trusting the court to settle it out later. This is usually a winner. Note that number (4) and number (3) really boil down to this one. Except that it need not be a third party; it could just as easily be a lead developer on the project. The FSF is always a fine choice; by assigning code to the FSF you don't lose any of your rights at all over it. (The standard FSF assignment is not just a complete transfer of all rights.) This is also the most sub-optimal, and 4 and 3 are assigning rights to a actual stakeholder: I explicitly used third party here--one who is not by definition a stakeholder. Well, by assignment I mean actual legal assignment. I read (3) and (4) as informal changes in what you put in the copyright statements and not legal transfers of copyright. A license is a contract, and wording within is binding. As is usual, when you get to the meat of the issue, you suddenly stop giving arguments. Why exactly is it sub-optimal to assign to a third-party you trust, especially (as with FSF assignments) you don't lose any of your rights in the process? Who says you don't lose any of your rights? Is the FSF willing to sign contracts to that effect? Thomas -- a mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Who is John Galt?/a Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product. -- Ferenc Mantfeld
Re: Group Copyright
On 20 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I assume of course that you have cites on this? Please provide them. Cites? What on earth are you talking about? Had you quoted the entirety, it would have been patently obvious. Your paragraph that the cite call was referring to was: Free software politics is appropriate on Debian lists (at least, relevant Debian lists). Complaining about the details of American corporation law is not. Random slams on government is not. When have complaints about American law been called off topic before, save by you? When has free software politics been called on topic (this one is tougher: nobody ever makes reference to something being on topic)? I'm saying I don't think that it's appropriate for you to toss in pointless Randroid nonsense into discussions. It obstructs your own point to build in little diatrabes-against-government. And it runs the risk (hereby demonstrated!) that you'll successfully derail us from useful conversation and convert it into a flame war. I'm saying that what you think is not the canon as to what's on topic around here. As for derailment: it takes two to tango. -- a mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Who is John Galt?/a Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product. -- Ferenc Mantfeld
Re: Group Copyright
On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, Joseph Carter wrote: Lots of free software projects are developed by fairly large groups. It seems to be a common practice for everyone who contributes to a project to be added to the Copyright notice at the top of the file. Is this actually wise? IIRC, should it become necessary, legal action cannot be taken by just one or two of the Copyright holders - it has to be everybody. The statute in question is 17USC501(b): http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/501.html It looks to my reading that the only thing a co-owner of a copyright needs to do when suing is to serve notice on all of the other co-owners. Often, the copyright file and the credits file tend to become merged over time, so it does become a munge. OTGH, who wants to be seen as denying authors their due authorship rights? Of course, under Berne, they have them by default, so the copyright file need not even contain their name in order for them to have standing to sue. Another habit I've seen is for projects to list their group as the Copyright holder, even if their group is not an incorporated entity. This much at least I _know_ is a problem, since no such legal person exists to defend their rights. If the fiction that a corporation has rights as a person is granted, it only follows that the next step in the progression is that unincorporated groups start to get the same rights. It's as screwed up as a football bat, but that's never stopped the .gov before. However, the worst case is that this makes the copyright a pseudonymous work, subject to the copyright laws thereon, which still means that infringement isn't the smartest thing to do...:) How then should free software projects handle Copyright? Advice would be appreciated. I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever worry about this. As a necessary evil :) Seriously, the only real way to deal with it is to do what is the most comfortable thing for the group. Imposition of solutions by fiat is not going to win any support, and may very well lose talent permanently. -- The Internet must be a medium for it is neither Rare nor Well done! a href=mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]John Galt /a
Re: Group Copyright
On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Joseph Carter wrote: On Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 01:53:30AM -0600, John Galt wrote: How then should free software projects handle Copyright? Advice would be appreciated. I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever worry about this. As a necessary evil :) Seriously, the only real way to deal with it is to do what is the most comfortable thing for the group. Imposition of solutions by fiat is not going to win any support, and may very well lose talent permanently. I think you misjudge the intent here.. When this has come up before, one group was unsure how to handle it. The group in question is much smaller now (for the moment) but includes some of the same people from the last group who are still totally lost as to how to do it properly. Best the last group came up with was... Copyright (C) whenver contributors of such-and-such group See the file readme.foo for details ...with that file containing everyone's name, contact information, etc, for all major contributions. (major defined as anything you as the author of the contributor of the code deem to be - with the singular exception of one person who contributed the unrolling of a pair of for loops which iterated through three-float arrays, which we didn't want anyway. But I digress..) Anyway, I'm not sure if that is any better than just listing 30 lines of names. In fact, I suspect it's worse. I can see where you are going. The alternatives I see are pretty much five: 1) the list of thirty names 2) the group/readme 3) list two or three primary contacts (the Berne riff kind of means that all thirty still have standing to sue). 4) incorporate (some places incorporation requires some small number [anywhere from 1 to 5] of incorporators, and a few bucks to the state: Idaho requires one and $30, for example). 5) assign rights to a trusted third party or a third party that all agree should recieve them. Bounce some of these off them and see if anybody has any that won't work, but if we change it to this... ideas. I'd be interested in how your group finally solves this one. -- The Internet must be a medium for it is neither Rare nor Well done! a href=mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]John Galt /a
Re: Group Copyright
On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Joseph Carter wrote: On Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 04:03:02AM -0600, John Galt wrote: I can see where you are going. The alternatives I see are pretty much five: 1) the list of thirty names If there is no legal problem with this, it's reasonable. True, but this is the outcome that we're trying to avoid, as it's sub-optimal. 2) the group/readme If there is no legal problem with this, it's better (because it's less of a hassle!) I'm thinking it could be construed as a DBA. 3) list two or three primary contacts (the Berne riff kind of means that all thirty still have standing to sue). Don't you still have to notify everyone? What if some people cannot be contacted? Must notice be served in any particular manner or does an email count? (This is what worries me in the first place..) Written notice (basically court service). As far as cannot be contacted, if publishing in the paper's enough for service on the Defendant, I'm sure it should be good enough for a potential Plaintiff. 4) incorporate (some places incorporation requires some small number [anywhere from 1 to 5] of incorporators, and a few bucks to the state: Idaho requires one and $30, for example). Oregon requires one person, $50 fee, $10 fee for name reservation for 120 days (I assume while the process is underway to ensure you get your name?) and uslaw.com will apparently help you generate Articles of Incorporation along with other canned legal documents for a (surprisingly) small fee. I'm fairly sure it's not actually as simple as that - I'm thinking taxes immediately. Anyway, I'm not sure everyone is going to be interested in taking that risk, and I'm not sure I blame them. No, I can't either. But I'd be remiss if I didn't at least tell you about it. 5) assign rights to a trusted third party or a third party that all agree should recieve them. And this is even riskier. True enough. The risk is usually outweighed by the intangibles associated with the third party. If they aren't free software zealots, perhaps some other charity like the local church or something. Bounce some of these off them and see if anybody has any that won't work, but if we change it to this... ideas. I'd be interested in how your group finally solves this one. I'll talk to them. I can't promise a quick resolution but will follow up if we reach any major conclusion that we're all 100% sure is right or so. -- The Internet must be a medium for it is neither Rare nor Well done! a href=mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]John Galt /a
Re: Group Copyright
On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Joseph Carter wrote: On Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 05:20:09AM -0600, John Galt wrote: 2) the group/readme If there is no legal problem with this, it's better (because it's less of a hassle!) I'm thinking it could be construed as a DBA. ? The group name would be as if a partnership filed a Does Business As. Don't you still have to notify everyone? What if some people cannot be contacted? Must notice be served in any particular manner or does an email count? (This is what worries me in the first place..) Written notice (basically court service). As far as cannot be contacted, if publishing in the paper's enough for service on the Defendant, I'm sure it should be good enough for a potential Plaintiff. I don't have access to newspapers in foriegn continents. ;) But I get the idea. Anyway, I'm not sure everyone is going to be interested in taking that risk, and I'm not sure I blame them. No, I can't either. But I'd be remiss if I didn't at least tell you about it. Well supposedly SPI already exists for this purpose, however SPI and Debian both cower in fear from the mere potential of a cease-and-desist letter because someone got the bright idea that one might be possible under a silly US currently law being actively challenged which most legal scholars have already condemned as unconstitutional. Given that, Ask Dmitriy Sklyarov how ineffectual it is At this point, I don't have any dillusions that SPI has the desire nor the ability to defend itself from a $5 small claims suit, let alone initiate legal proceedings on behalf of someone else in defense of the GPL. 5) assign rights to a trusted third party or a third party that all agree should recieve them. And this is even riskier. True enough. The risk is usually outweighed by the intangibles associated with the third party. If they aren't free software zealots, perhaps some other charity like the local church or something. I can just envision being able to declare it sinful to violate the GPL. It would throw a few BSD guys I know into fits. ;) Definite potential there just for the sake of watching them sputter about the evils of GNU for an hour or so. =D Most of the BSD types that care about the BSD/GPL thing already think that the GPL advocates have a holier than thou attitude anyways... -- The Internet must be a medium for it is neither Rare nor Well done! a href=mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]John Galt /a
Re: Group Copyright
On 20 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If the fiction that a corporation has rights as a person is granted, it only follows that the next step in the progression is that unincorporated groups start to get the same rights. It's as screwed up as a football bat, but that's never stopped the .gov before. However, the worst case is that this makes the copyright a pseudonymous work, subject to the copyright laws thereon, which still means that infringement isn't the smartest thing to do...:) Can you *please* leave out the Randroid political commentary? When you leave out the stumping for the FSF. -- Here is wisdom. Let him that hath wisdom count the number of the BSD: for it is the number of a man; and his number is VI VI VI. (ir-reve-rent-lations 13:17-19) Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Group Copyright
On 20 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 1) the list of thirty names This is annoying, but works fine. What are you trying to say here that hasn't already been said? 2) the group/readme This is dangerous, because the group has no legal reality as a rule. It doesn't mean you lose copyright, certainly, but it injects a vest doubt into who is the group. For example, if you write something, put it in the project, so that it's owned by the group, and then stop participating in the group, there is now an anomaly. The group name no longer accurately reflects the actual authors of the code; would the court follow the current membership of the group or not? We've been over this, and my randroid philosophy is closer to the truth than this claptrap. Unorganized groups are becoming closer to having legal standing. Group membership can become a real problem, but I assume that they'd be smart enough to make contingency plans around that. 3) list two or three primary contacts (the Berne riff kind of means that all thirty still have standing to sue). That's no good at all. All are still copyright owners, so you're deliberately misleading the people who get the code. Indeed, Debian relies all the time on the assumption that we are talking to the real authors when we talk to the authors listed on the code. Or maybe the court would deem this kind of thing as a defacto assignment to those primary contacts by all the other authors. I have no idea. Better to decide what you actually want and do that, than play dice. I think that this is actually a de facto agency rather than an assignment, there needs to be an actual action to assign rather than mere assenting to an implicit contract. 4) incorporate (some places incorporation requires some small number [anywhere from 1 to 5] of incorporators, and a few bucks to the state: Idaho requires one and $30, for example). Incorporation is more hassle than that. You are required to have annual corporate meetings, for example. And file a variety of reports. That corporation now has assets (and accordingly, income); as a result, it must file an inormational report with the IRS. Yeah, so? It's thorny, but it IS an option. BTW, most of the laws you mentioned are for publically held companies, not closely held ones. Incorporation is a reasonable thing for larger groups, like NetBSD or maybe Apache. If Gnome weren't part of GNU, it would make sense there too. Incorporation is reaasonable for anything that a member wants to do the paperwork on. I know of many people that have corporations to do nothing more than hold title to their home. 5) assign rights to a trusted third party or a third party that all agree should recieve them. This is usually a winner. Note that number (4) and number (3) really boil down to this one. Except that it need not be a third party; it could just as easily be a lead developer on the project. The FSF is always a fine choice; by assigning code to the FSF you don't lose any of your rights at all over it. (The standard FSF assignment is not just a complete transfer of all rights.) This is also the most sub-optimal, and 4 and 3 are assigning rights to a actual stakeholder: I explicitly used third party here--one who is not by definition a stakeholder. Thomas -- Here is wisdom. Let him that hath wisdom count the number of the BSD: for it is the number of a man; and his number is VI VI VI. (ir-reve-rent-lations 13:17-19) Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Group Copyright
On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Joseph Carter wrote: On Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 08:46:19AM -0600, John Galt wrote: Ask Dmitriy Sklyarov how ineffectual it is Isn't he the guy who treatened to sue over archives? If so, then yeah, I was shocked and dismayed to see something resembling a backbone for a nice change of pace. Regarding legal absurdities relating to xine-css, drivers for the CueCat, and other would-be proprietary stuff, we'll see. I don't have a lot of faith in this sort of thing until the DMCA in the US and probably similar laws elsewhere are struck down as the sad jokes that they are. No, he's the russian being held without bail for cracking Adobe's encryption. I can just envision being able to declare it sinful to violate the GPL. It would throw a few BSD guys I know into fits. ;) Definite potential there just for the sake of watching them sputter about the evils of GNU for an hour or so. =D Most of the BSD types that care about the BSD/GPL thing already think that the GPL advocates have a holier than thou attitude anyways... They're partly right - the attitude comes from the FSF and many people using the license. Whether or not it's bad is a personal judgement. In any event, the GPL is basically the best license for what it does at the moment. People wouldn't use it if there were something better. So far, there isn't. This is true, so logically I'd avoid any assignment to the FSF if there were any BSD zealots. Perhaps the EFF or CAUCE... -- Here is wisdom. Let him that hath wisdom count the number of the BSD: for it is the number of a man; and his number is VI VI VI. (ir-reve-rent-lations 13:17-19) Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
On 17 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You're right, but this is also precedent setting: the first time that a choice of law of a state where UCITA is in effect (it took effect 7/1) has been used in an otherwise free license that was submitted as a candidate to d-l. This may take some time to work out. I don't see why. Feel free to do research; if you turn up something curious, we can ask a lawyer. But still, that's no reason to delay just because of FUD. Of course, part of the FUD is courtesy of the FSF... http:www.gnu.org/philosophy/ucita.html Indeed, it might be better to just ask Eben Moglen directly. -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
Here's IMHO the relevant issues in the UCITA: Section 108: a license may be shown as agreed to if a party is shown to have made use of information or access that could have been available if the license was agreed on. This means that the clickwrap is given statutory standing, as if this was news. Restated in Section 210, with the added caveat of no more than $5K of value transferred... Section 307 gets hairy: SECTION E. (e) Neither party is entitled to receive copies of source code, schematics, master copy, design material, or other information used by the other party in creating, developing, or implementing the information. [section g later allows that a license may override this] Short of express wording giving a grant of the right to use the source code, a UCITA license fails DFSG 2 (OpenPBS grants it, in the preamble). Of course, any license that fails to treat source code is often held to be in violation of DFSG 2, so this is no added burden, just a removal of the benefit of the doubt in corner cases. Section 308 grants a DFSG free license: (B) the license expressly grants the right to incorporate or use the licensed information or informational rights with information or informational rights from other sources in a combined work for public distribution or public performance. A perpetual license, subject to breach Please note that if the source code is given with a program, as provided for above, and section B is not toggled, the license is NOT perpetual: it is time limited to a reasonable time, and may be revoked with seasonable notice. Non-free may very well be nondistributable with a UCITA choice of law. This Source code/no section 308(B) setup is precisely the case in the OpenPBS license. Veridian may very well revoke the license with seasonable notice. Seasonable is not really defined in section 101 other than as a reasonable amount of time. This is more of a caution than a real deal breaker though: the DFSG has no mechanism for transience in licenses (if the founding docs argument ever gets resolved in favor of allowing modification, this is where I'd suggest modifying the DFSG: make provision for disallowing most time-limited grants). Section 502 implies that title to a copy vests only on a sale or as provided for in the license. The comment section goes to great lengths to push the idea that a lack of title does not mean a lack of possession or control, but the plain fact is that under UCITA, you very well may not have clear title to any software on your computer if you're VRMS clean. This also doesn't break the DFSG, but is still chilling. Now the title thing comes into play: If a source code with non-308(B) license is ever terminated, the title of the copy never vested with the licensee, so as per section 618, the copy must be held for delivery or disposed of as required by licensor. Again the term reasonable time flies around. All in all, The only time that UCITA has a direct effect on the DFSG freeness of a program is when it's already non-free. When DFSG 2 is passed, but there's no explicit DFSG 7 wording, the license is time limited and very much at the whim of the licensor, so it very well may be in Debian's best interest to increase the scrutiny on those cases, but there is no real wording within the DFSG to deal with transitory licenses. The transitory nature of the DFSG 2-clean-and-no-DFSG 7-wording licenses also has the tertiary effect of allowing an information owner to tell every Debian user to remove a piece of software or face civil penalties within a release cycle (unless, of course, the release cycles get much longer, in which case the copyright would expire before the next release :). Again, the URL is http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/ulc/ucita/ucitaFinal00.htm for those of you playing along at home On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, John Galt wrote: On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Raul Miller wrote: On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 09:28:04PM -0600, John Galt wrote: It seems that the PBS license has the choice of law clause for Virginia, a UCTIA state. In the past, this was enough to make a license questionable. Is it enough reason to make it non-free on it's own? Remember, the choice of law thing actually makes a weird sort of sense, as it IS a click-wrap license, and UCTIA gives a click-wrap the force of law. Bleah. I think here we should show that there's some specific problem with UCTIA and the OpenPBS license -- I don't think it's fair to reject the software because there might be a problem, but we're too ignorant to know whether one actually exists. You're right, but this is also precedent setting: the first time that a choice of law of a state where UCITA is in effect (it took effect 7/1) has been used in an otherwise free license that was submitted as a candidate to d-l. This may take some time to work out. The clause itself is innocuous, but the undercurrrent of UCITA may very well change relatively straightforward meanings within
Re: PBS License
On 17 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Of course, part of the FUD is courtesy of the FSF... http:www.gnu.org/philosophy/ucita.html Um, that's not FUD, though it's a little F. But it's why UCITA is a bad law. It's not why we can't use a free software license that involves a choice-of-law in a UCITA state. And the reason it's bad law has not much to do with the present issue, and certainly not because it changes the meanings of words or the interpretation of licenses. The instant problem with it is that it Actually it sort of does: see my long missive on UCITA. imposes mandatory warranties of a certain sort. What's problematic with [section 401]: (1) for the duration of the license, that no person holds a rightful claim to, or interest in, the information which arose from an act or omission of the licensor, other than a claim by way of infringement or misappropriation, which will interfere with the licensee's enjoyment of its interest; and [2+ deal with exclusive licenses]? 402 deals with truth in advertising: if you say it, according to UCITA, you'd best back it up. Hardly an onerous obligation. Sections 403, 404, and 405 all start with unless the warranty is disclaimed or modified..., so Debian's NO WARRANTY motd covers that. The bit about shrink-wrap licenses you also misunderstood. The fact that people used to agree to the PBS license by shrink-wrap is not relevant. The point about shrink-wrap is that if you have a shrink-wrap license, there are things you can do to avoid the automatic warranty provisions. You can avoid them by a disclaimer in ALL cases, not just shrinkwrap. UCITA is a problem, but not a problem which people can't understand, and not a problem which somehow magically infects any license that mentions a state that passed UCITA. Thomas -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 5. Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for the OpenPBS software and any modifications and/or additions to the OpenPBS software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and all modifications and additions to the Software must be freely redistributable by any party (including Licensor) without restriction. GPL-ish stuff, the only problem is that you theoretically cannot use the OpenPBS license on contributed code, since it implies restrictions (there goes DFSG 3). In fact, the only way you could theoretically contribute code is to make the contributions PD, since ANY license implies restrictions of SOME type on redistribution. I don't follow this argument. In what way does the X11 licence restrict redistribution? With the XFree86 license, it's tough to find a restriction, but they have one: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. this necessarily restricts the redistribution to copies carrying a copy of the license. Not only is this non-free, Even if contributions did have to be PD, why would this make it non-free? DFSG 3: under the same terms as the license. Even if we put aside my strict definition of restriction, this license is not going to qualify under it's own clause 5. but the packager must realize that they are going to have to give away any authorship rights on their modifications and release them to the public domain. I don't see what is to stop an evil packager from releasing a patch with a licence saying that the patch may be freely redistributed but not modified, for example. How would it propagate without the implicit restriction of coupling the license with the product? In fact, you cannot even require that your name stay attached to your changes after they leave your hands, as that could be construed to be a restriction. Your name would presumably appear in the licence. If anyone were to remove the licence, the code would become unredistributable, because no one would have permission any more. This would arguably violate clause 5, so I would guess that your name would have to stay attached even if you made your modification PD. If it's PD, what license? (Stupid theoretical question that we shouldn't waste time discussing: Would Debian be happy to redistribute a package with a copyright notice that says: I am not the author of this software. I have deleted all references to the name of the author. However, I haven't modified the licence other than by deleting the author's name, so you can see that it was allowed for me to delete the author's name and that the software is DFSG-free. Personally, before redistributing something like that I would want to see both the original licence and an explanation for why the name has been deleted, and I would also be worried about the inalienable moral rights that exist in certain countries.) Edmund -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: PBS License
On 17 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: With the XFree86 license, it's tough to find a restriction, but they have one: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. this necessarily restricts the redistribution to copies carrying a copy of the license. But that's not an additional restriction. You are just confused The license doesn't say ADDITIONAL restriction, it simply says restrictions. Adding words that are not there to make it free is not only dishonest, it's stupid. (again). And you are basically trying to impede the progress of the Debian project. Please stop. Arguing that a license is vague enough to be non-free is impeding? Then you've been impeding Debian ever since you subscribed to this list (I believe the first argument you and I had on this list was you taking the position that the Artistic license was too vague to be DFSG free), and you haven't stopped yet. In fact, I'd say that you're the second largest detractor from the SNR around here, my responses to your non-licensure based tangents being the first. I'll not stop responding to messages just because you can't take the heat, so the ball's entirely in your court. This list is for discussion of licenses to find a consensus as to the DFSG freeness of them, and I was discussing my position: that of the PBS license being non-free. You chime in by implying that my motives are not yours. You're right: my motives are to ensure that all possible objections that can come up about a license do come up, so the consensus opinion is fully informed. All you have to add to this is a misinterpretation of the license terms and a request that I cease. Who's impeding the progress of Debian? Please note that I have taken the original requestor off the CC list, as I really don't think that they would get a very good impression of Debian when you fall to your usual rhetoric about how I am not a part of Debian and you are so therefore your unsupported word should take precedence over my supported word. If you have something valid to say about the license, feel free to re-CC them. If you have nothing more than personal attacks, please leave the CC list as is, as I think that Edmund can take care of himself in this regard. -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
On 17 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The license doesn't say ADDITIONAL restriction, it simply says restrictions. Adding words that are not there to make it free is not only dishonest, it's stupid. You are patently attempting to misread the license. But it can't hurt to just ask the authors. Yes, I am trying to misread the license. Worse yet, I'm succeeding. Clause 5 is capable of being construed in a manner that denies the right of modification. This, coupled with the choice of law clause placing it in a UCTIA state, makes it unsuitable for main. BTW, the authors have already spoken, and the license is what they said. There is no further need for their input. To be precise, their input is actually detrimental: they might explain away a flaw and then engage in a stealth attack. Remember UW and Pine? Arguing that a license is vague enough to be non-free is impeding? No, but raising specious arguments is impeding. Again, when are you going to stop impeding? Then you've been impeding Debian ever since you subscribed to this list (I believe the first argument you and I had on this list was you taking the position that the Artistic license was too vague to be DFSG free), and you haven't stopped yet. I think you're incorrect. In any case, the Artistic license isn't the point here; the issue is the PBS license. It would be impeding work No, it's not the point, the point is that you're engaging in behaviors you call in others impeding. The self same behavior you used in the case of the DFSG-free-by-definition Artistic license is now the behavior you damn in my use in the case of the questionably-DFSG-free PBS. They have a word for that kind of personality trait: hypocrisy. to start asking whether the X license is really free, or the GPL. It's not even impeding work to ask if the PBS license is free. But it is impeding work to raise specious claims about the X license. I think you need to learn a new word: CONTEXT. The fact is that ALL licenses are restrictive in some form or another, otherwise there wouldn't be a need for them. Pointing out the restriction in the X license was done at the behest of Edmund, and it's only germane to this discussion in the fact that you couldn't even license your changes to OpenPBS under it, arguably one of the LEAST restrictive licenses in existence. My point still stands that the only way to make changes IAW clause 5 is to release them PD, as ANY license contains restrictions. Please do us all a favor and open up a nice tall can of Shut The Hell Up and drink it all up. Thomas -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED]: GPL-ish stuff, the only problem is that you theoretically cannot use the OpenPBS license on contributed code, since it implies restrictions (there goes DFSG 3). In fact, the only way you could theoretically contribute code is to make the contributions PD, since ANY license implies restrictions of SOME type on redistribution. I don't follow this argument. In what way does the X11 licence restrict redistribution? With the XFree86 license, it's tough to find a restriction, but they have one: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. this necessarily restricts the redistribution to copies carrying a copy of the license. I don't see that as a restriction on free redistribution as it doesn't prevent anyone from distributing an unmodified copy of the Software. This is true, but you asked for a restriction. I gave you one, albeit a trivial one. It does constitute a (very minor and trivial) restriction on free redistribution of modified versions of the Software, yes, but clause 5 didn't say anything about modification. I think that the trivial restriction may very well violate clause 5. BTW, clause 5 IS about modification, it's the clause treating with modification. Other than the preamble, nothing else gives you the right to modify, so I would HOPE that clause 5 says something aboug modification...:) Not only is this non-free, Even if contributions did have to be PD, why would this make it non-free? DFSG 3: under the same terms as the license. Even if we put aside my strict definition of restriction, this license is not going to qualify under it's own clause 5. 3. Derived Works The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. A PD modification can be distributed under any terms at all so it can certainly be distributed under the same terms as the original licence (whatever they were). No, actually PD is NO terms at ALL. If there's a restriction, it isn't public domain. If there's a restriction, under Berne it's copyrighted, since the only way under Berne to release your copyright interest is to gift it, and an encumbered gift is not legally a gift. You seem to have a different interpretation of DFSG 3 which means that a modifier must have the right to be as restrictive as the original author. It seems to me unlikely that this is what was intended by the authors of the DFSG. I also think my interpretation is the more natural one just from looking at the text of DFSG 3 in isolation. Not the right to be as restrictive, the right to not be bothered with multiple licenses on the same file. under the same terms as the original license means to me that a license must allow modifications to go out under the same license, not for restrictive reasons, but for ease of use reasons. DFSG 3 gives the end-user the right to not have a license enforce a tangled mess of licenses on the final merged code. Thus Debian is ensuring the author's option to Do What is Right (tm), and that is to minimize the number of different licenses on the same bit of code. but the packager must realize that they are going to have to give away any authorship rights on their modifications and release them to the public domain. I don't see what is to stop an evil packager from releasing a patch with a licence saying that the patch may be freely redistributed but not modified, for example. How would it propagate without the implicit restriction of coupling the license with the product? That's an SEP (Somebody Else's Problem). You can't distribute it by pigeon post out of a black hole, either, but who cares? But that's not a license's call. If a license stated that you couldn't redistribute by pigeon post out of a black hole, that'd be a DFSG 6 violation, as it's been discussed before that the fact that something's impossible doesn't necessarily disqualify it as a field of endeavor (IIRC it was use of RTLinux patches in the *BSD kernel...). In fact, you cannot even require that your name stay attached to your changes after they leave your hands, as that could be construed to be a restriction. Your name would presumably appear in the licence. If anyone were to remove the licence, the code would become unredistributable, because no one would have permission any more. This would arguably violate clause 5, so I would guess that your name would have to stay attached even if you made your modification PD. If it's PD, what license? I meant the author's statement that the software is PD. Perhaps this isn't technically a licence, but it serves the same function. Anway, let's not get too sidetracked. As far as the original question in concerned, you are claiming: (1) The PBS
Re: PBS License
On 17 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Yes, I am trying to misread the license. Worse yet, I'm succeeding. Hrm. Maybe you're actually Yogi Berra redivivus. Clause 5 is capable of being construed in a manner that denies the right of modification. The point is not whether it is capable of such a construal, but whether that is the natural construal. No, the point is that we assume a hostile grantor of the license. Thus the construal is one that may be used against Debian or it's distributors. This, coupled with the choice of law clause placing it in a UCTIA state, makes it unsuitable for main. BTW, the authors have already spoken, and the license is what they said. There is no further need for their input. I think that's not true; certainly it is often possible to negotiate with authors and ask them to change or clarify their license. What happens to code released under the original license then, does it just dry up and blow away? Take a look at: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/203.html They have to notify EVERYBODY that clicked on the i agree button before the old license gets terminated, and notification may not be less than TWO YEARS before the date of termination. We can reopen this conversation in 2003 if you like, but ATM the license is as written. Secondly, code can always be moved from non-free to main based on new licensure. Debian CANNOT survive a copyright infringement suit because of improper due diligence on the part of d-l. To be precise, their input is actually detrimental: they might explain away a flaw and then engage in a stealth attack. Remember UW and Pine? Um, yes, actually I do. UW never made a representation that it later denied. It was not then clear that we needed separate permission to distribute modified versions. It's not that we asked them and they said fine, it's that we never asked, and then they said um, nope. Right, and the license was read with no thought of the construal of the terms. And I'm doingwhat? No, it's not the point, the point is that you're engaging in behaviors you call in others impeding. The self same behavior you used in the case of the DFSG-free-by-definition Artistic license is now the behavior you damn in my use in the case of the questionably-DFSG-free PBS. They have a word for that kind of personality trait: hypocrisy. Sometimes questioning the free status of a license is very important. Sometimes it is merely impeding the project from making forward progress. It depends on the exact details of the situation. The Artistic license was ambiguous in certain ways that needed The Artistic license was listed in the DFSG as a free license! The DFSG would need to be changed to get around that fact. examination. Moreover, we knew the authors, and we knew they were supporters of free software, and questioning the license served the worthwhile goal of getting a clearer license out of them. NUTS! It happened LONG after Wall released Perl under the GPL only! In fact, it happened LONG after Wall assigned his rights to CPAN. It is my opinion that the OpenPBS license (after the flag day passes) is DFSG free. Here's why. If I want to release a change to the code, a modified version, I must release it free for everyone with no restrictons. But DFSG 3 says under the same terms as the original: it doesn't say for free. But then it's public domain. And hey! If it's public domain, it has *no restrictions*, and so absolutely anyone can do something like, oh, say, add it to OpenPBS and distribute the combined total product under the OpenPBS license. Ummm, no. Are you that confused about derivative works that you think that bouncing it from author to distributor changes the fact that it's a modification? The only one that can get around the fact that it's a modification is Veridian, since they hold the rights to the original code. I don't believe it's GPL compatible for this reason, but that doesn't make it non-free. A modified version can be released under the terms of the original license (all that dfsg requires), as long as the NO! The modifications can be released without restriction. What part of that are you missing? THE LICENSE IS A RESTRICTION! person doing so places their changes in the public domain. But they can do that, and if they do it, then they are able to release the combined product under the PBS license. Thomas -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Raul Miller wrote: On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 03:56:10PM -0600, John Galt wrote: The license doesn't say ADDITIONAL restriction, it simply says restrictions. Adding words that are not there to make it free is not only dishonest, it's stupid. DFSG doesn't require that we be able to combine material under different licenses. No, it requires releasability under the SAME license. Clause 5 requires modifications to be released with NO restrictions at all, and all licenses necessarily restrict rights, including the OpenPBS license. Therefore modifications cannot be released under the OpenPBS license. -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Raul Miller wrote: On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 07:16:08PM -0600, John Galt wrote: No, it requires releasability under the SAME license. Clause 5 requires modifications to be released with NO restrictions at all, and all licenses necessarily restrict rights, including the OpenPBS license. Therefore modifications cannot be released under the OpenPBS license. I agree that the OpenPBS license requires modifications to be public domain. However, I don't see how this conflicts with DFSG. DFSG says: quote 3. Derived Works The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. /quote And, public domain works can be distributed under the OpenPBS license. You're the second one to say that the second half of DFSG 3 is irrelevant in this case. This solves one of my problems. The second is more thorny. It seems that the PBS license has the choice of law clause for Virginia, a UCTIA state. In the past, this was enough to make a license questionable. Is it enough reason to make it non-free on it's own? Remember, the choice of law thing actually makes a weird sort of sense, as it IS a click-wrap license, and UCTIA gives a click-wrap the force of law. Thanks, -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
On 17 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Possibly, but I'm not convinced that I have yet. Is there a reason anyone associated with Debian should bother trying to convince you? Only the obvious ones. But, no, there's really no reason for anyone associated with Debian to hope that any sort of rational conversation could happen with me after you start slinging mud. -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
On 17 Jul 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This solves one of my problems. The second is more thorny. It seems that the PBS license has the choice of law clause for Virginia, a UCTIA state. In the past, this was enough to make a license questionable. Is it enough reason to make it non-free on it's own? Remember, the choice of law thing actually makes a weird sort of sense, as it IS a click-wrap license, and UCTIA gives a click-wrap the force of law. What's the this you are referring to? That it has a choice of law clause, or that the clause refers to a UCTIA state? The choice of law in Virginia. Cf Python 1.6 and web2ldap We don't like choice of law clauses, but there's no reason that they make something non-free. No, python 1.6 was undistributable because of GPL hooks, and web2ldap never made it to distribution Thomas -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: PBS License
THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS AGREEMENT AND UNDERSTAND IT. BY PRESSING ACCEPT BELOW, YOU CONSENT TO BE BOUND BY ITS TERMS AND CONDITIONS. Grrr! A click-wrap! KILL THEM NOW! This isn't going to affect DFSG freeness, however it DOES have implications on the efficacy of the license, since a click-wrap implies an abridgement of fair use: you cannot use a presumably fairly gotten program without signing away your rights, so the consent may be considered to be under duress. Worse: a click-wrap with a choice of law clause putting it in Virginia. Hanging's too good for the bastard that wrote this license. -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On Fri, 29 Jun 2001, Marcelo E. Magallon wrote: I really hope this is the last post on this *way* off-topic subthread. I've set Mail-Followup-To accordingly, I hope you respect that. EOT here. -- EMACS == Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: JESUS H CHRIST ON A POGO STICK WHAT is your major malfuction? It's not good enough for you to start on your John Galt's not part of Debian kick, but you now have to start on others?! I have some suggestions for the horse you rode in on: I have serious doubts as to whether you're physically capable of the acts I'd require of you. Next time I see this shit, I'm going to have a long talk with the Tech Comittee and DPL: this is out of line and I've a feeling most people know it. Keep slinging your stones at me, twit, because everyone else here is too good for the likes of you. You just don't get it. Debian is not your little whipping boy to poke at and mock from afar. You don't do us even the most basic of minimal No it isn't. Debian's one of my favorite distros, and I hate to see it being brought down by the likes of you. Every time you tell someone that they aren't a part of Debian, at least one person (more likely five or six: people have been known to listen) is lost to Debian, possibly forever. Every time I get on a rant, at least one person is disgusted with ME and probably learns how to use a killfile. In my case, there may be some collateral attrition, but I figure that the attrition is going to happen anyway: can you feature someone who is so disgusted with the whole of the Debian project because of one of my rants not being disgusted with any of about a dozen others? I'm a symptom of a larger disease, you're the only one who consistently plays the you aren't in Debian card. courtesies of introducing yourself, and you antagonize everyone in the This tired old tripe again? Why don't you get it through your head that for all intents and purposes, the only name I will ever use within Debian is John Galt? You know, it's this kind of hassle that bothers me the most about Debian. Not the fact that you hassle me: I can live with that. The fact that any pseudonymous person would have a similar hassle. The fact that there's always people like yourself that are more than willing to push somebody out because they aren't like them. Perhaps your biggest peeve with Hoffman isn't whether they are wrong or right, it's because their Finger information lists them as none. It does fit with your constant _ad hominem_ attacks against me... Project, and you have the temerity to say this? Get off your high horse. MY high horse? Who's attempting to drum out yet another victim? And you're *not* part of Debian. Does that fact bother you? Whether or not I am a part of Debian, if I ever catch you attempting to exclude another person, I will stop at nothing to see you bodily removed from Debian, preferably with my bootprint on your ass. The fact that I am not a part of Debian bothers me just enough that I hate to see people who play exclusionary games with Debian. Au contraire. Subversion of licenses is fair: look at the OpenSSL debate (round 1, a few months ago). I didn't say it was unfair. I said it was unfriendly. I'm not the friend of Microsoft; I have no problem subverting their licenses. But someone who subverts the GPL for the aid of anti-free-software forces is our enemy. Who cares about the fairness of the action, I was talking about fair versus foul (in bounds versus out of bounds to be more precise). You said that talking about subversions of the GPL was foul, yet not too many months ago there was a thread about rewriting OpenSSL (which I note that is now an ongoing project on ftp.gnu.org...). Since I participated in this discussion, I obviously don't see it as foul. Just so you know, legality really has little to do with fairness in the sense you were using it. I doubt the veracity, but I cannot doubt that there was little regard for fairness... people might subvert the GPL, so that the FSF can fix them, then you should bring such issues up in private with the FSF. Bringing them up When did Debian get reattached to the FSF? Why should Debian care what the FSF thinks (other than as much as Debian should care about any Open Source source [pun intended])? Debian has absolutely no control over the text of the GPL. If you are our friend, and you think a change to the GPL would improve it, then you simply have to talk to the FSF, because only the FSF can change the GPL. I think I alluded to this fact once... This IS an old topic, and I've spoken about it at length. Let it suffice to say that it is NOT complimentary to the FSF that this is true. Neither is netiquette-nazism, but this is the umpteenth message that you've sent today on the subject. Is that Godwin I hear fluttering in the breeze? http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On Wed, 27 Jun 2001, John Galt wrote: legality really has little to do with fairness in the sense you were using it. Replying to myself: there ws supposed to be a URL here, but I deleted it and forgot to delete the commentary. FWIW here's the deleted URL... http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma/ HEY! I SAID I wanted to delete it! I doubt the veracity, but I cannot doubt that there was little regard for fairness... -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No it isn't. Debian's one of my favorite distros, and I hate to see it being brought down by the likes of you. Every time you tell someone that they aren't a part of Debian, at least one person (more likely five or six: people have been known to listen) is lost to Debian, possibly forever. You're not a developer. I don't know why you think repeating that fact is supposed to alienate everyone. It's not. What is supposed to alienate everyone is YOU telling them that they aren't. Telling ME is one thing: I figure that if they don't know enough about Debian that they know who all the flame-warriors are it's just as well that they wait a few years to become a DD. This tired old tripe again? Why don't you get it through your head that for all intents and purposes, the only name I will ever use within Debian is John Galt? I want to know what name you use *outside* Debian. Isn't that clear by now? That's the mimimal courtesy you won't give us. I can see you I owe YOU courtesy?! ROTFLMAO at a party. Hi, my name is Alex, who are you? You can call me John. That's not my real name, but I'll only call myself John around you. You must be a real treat! Ever been to a Cypherpunks meeting? That's _de rigeur_ behavior there... Actually, it goes something like Hi, my name is ''alfred von neumann'', but you can call me John. BTW, let me clue you in to something: you're no more Thomas Bushnell than I am John Galt. Both of them are arbitrary assemblages of letters that once can only hope has a uniqueness that allows you to differentiate yourself from all the other pinkish bipeds around... Yours just got chosen for you by your parents (well, not really: they chose three names for you I'll bet...), mine got chosen for me when I logged into a BBS many moons ago and I had to pick an 8 character handle. Whether or not I am a part of Debian, if I ever catch you attempting to exclude another person, I will stop at nothing to see you bodily removed from Debian, preferably with my bootprint on your ass. Exclusion isn't the point. You, and Hoffman, if you have the talents and the other necessary requirements, are welcome to join the Project. But until you do so, it is simply a fact that you aren't part of Debian. Horsefeathers. Exclusion is the WHOLE point. The unsaid part of any line that starts you aren't a part of... is almost always ...and won't be as long as I can help it. So long as you throw qualifier in like IF you have the talents and [IF you have] the other necessary requirements you're being exclusionary. In Hoffman's case, it was uncalled for. In your usual tripe with me, it's pathetic: the only power you have over me being included is rhetorical. In fact, everyone who knows any better already knows that the only power you have is rhetorical, but you don't usually reserve your comments to those who know better now do you? Now Hoffman hasn't really been hostile. I think he's just following ratholes, trying to understand a complicated thing. I wanted to make clear that following every rathole can actually be destructive. No, you just wanted to make it clear that you would brook no subversion of the GPL, even if it were perfectly legal. To do this, you browbeat everyone with how offtopic it was and used the DD keyring like a club. Could you look REALLY far up and tell me the best places to find worms? You see, it's fishing season, and I could use some bait... Thomas -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It's not. What is supposed to alienate everyone is YOU telling them that they aren't. Telling ME is one thing: I figure that if they don't know enough about Debian that they know who all the flame-warriors are it's just as well that they wait a few years to become a DD. I would assume that Hoffman is also aware that he's not a developer. Why is it supposed to alienate someone to remind them that certain lists are primarily for the use of developers, not users? Because they aren't. There are many world-open mailing lists, meaning anyone can read everything that is posted, and participate in the discussions. Everyone is encouraged to help development of Debian and to spread the word of free software. -legal is open subscription, thus world-open. You of course are free to file a bug to get -legal-private or -legal-moderated, but this one is for use of anyone that has a contribution. Given your contribution earlier today, I'd say that Hoffman had more right to use this list than you did. Ever been to a Cypherpunks meeting? That's _de rigeur_ behavior there... Yep. This is not Cypherpunks. This is Debian, and as you may have I can just see it now. T:who are you? C:None of your business T:no, I mean it, who are you C:your worst nightmare if you don't quit asking questions... noticed, we place a priority on real identities. Or haven't you No. Our priorities are our users and free software. I really don't remember real identities of those connected with Debian in there... noticed that this is one of the new maintainer requirements? Or Through no help of mine. Didn't you throw your usual _ad hominem_ attack at me in that thread? haven't you noticed that many find your insistence on hiding your name to be objectionable.? I often find those who insist on asking about information that's not theirs to ask about objectionable, so the feeling's mutual. BTW, let me clue you in to something: you're no more Thomas Bushnell than I am John Galt. Both of them are arbitrary assemblages of letters that once can only hope has a uniqueness that allows you to differentiate yourself from all the other pinkish bipeds around... And what we want is: what the name is that everyone else knows you by. John Galt. All of my friends also get emailed from this address. In fact, so does my connected family. Yours just got chosen for you by your parents (well, not really: they chose three names for you I'll bet...), mine got chosen for me when I logged into a BBS many moons ago and I had to pick an 8 character handle. Actually, no. My last name was not chosen by my parents, it was inhereted from them. My first name is Thomas, and it was chosen by ME. My name at birth was Michael Innis Bushnell. (See? No hiding of information here.) You see? Your key name isn't the same one on your BC. For shame! Horsefeathers. Exclusion is the WHOLE point. The unsaid part of any line that starts you aren't a part of... is almost always ...and won't be as long as I can help it. No. It's you aren't a Debian developer, meaning your opinions are simply secondary to those of the people actually doing the work, and who have expressed commitments to the goals of our Project. Then why didn't you say that? You accused Hoffman of not being a friend. Not being a friend is worlds apart from being a second class citizen. Let's go back about a century: now you talk to a Negro (probably in the south, but irrelevant) and tell them they're not your friend. You then go on to say that you really meant that they were a Negro, so thus a second class citizen. Which is the worse thing? I would answer that they're both bad, but the lack of friendship thing would be much worse. Either way, you got just about the reaction you deserved, or at least a small fraction thereof: telling people that they aren't your friends is not the way to a healthful long life. Thomas -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 28 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I would assume that Hoffman is also aware that he's not a developer. Why is it supposed to alienate someone to remind them that certain lists are primarily for the use of developers, not users? Because they aren't. Maybe you should go read lists.debian.org again. Hrm. I'm trying to figure out how you can quote something without reading it.you know, I just can't feature it. There are many world-open mailing lists, meaning anyone can read everything that is posted, and participate in the discussions. Everyone is encouraged to help development of Debian and to spread the word of free software. But not everyone is encouraged to snipe or do things which hurt our Project. Only DD's are encourged to do things to hurt the project, obviously. My bad. I can just see it now. T:who are you? C:None of your business T:no, I mean it, who are you C:your worst nightmare if you don't quit asking questions... Is that a threat? Who are you? Who are you? Take it as you will. But if you see this as anything other than a repeat of your party scene you're a bigger fool than I thought. And what we want is: what the name is that everyone else knows you by. John Galt. All of my friends also get emailed from this address. In fact, so does my connected family. And that's everyone? What's on your drivers' license? What's on your Why do you need to know my DL information? college records? When employers send you checks, who do they make Why do you need to know my college information? Why do you need to know ANYTHING about what my employer puts on my checks? them out to? That's what the world means by name, and that's all Yeah, but on the three documents you mentioned, if they gave you anything off them, I'd be righteously pissed. In every case above, it's illegal to provide information from them without my permission. You don't have the permission, nor will you get it. I'm asking. It's not some bizarre thing, it's a normal thing. It IS some bizarre thing. If someone gave you a copy of any of the three documents you referenced above without my permission, they'd be in a world of trouble, and they might even be in court. You see? Your key name isn't the same one on your BC. For shame! But Thomas *is* my legal name. No shame in changing one's name, which is an entirely different matter from hiding one's name. Is it? Often legal name changes are successful pseudonyms. How many Hollyweird names are actually legally changed? Then why didn't you say that? You accused Hoffman of not being a friend. I said that his actions were potentially harmful to the Project and asked for clarification about his motives. He seems to have lost interest. I can't understand why... It couldn't be because of your not a friend speech? Thomas -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 28 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: noticed, we place a priority on real identities. Or haven't you No. Our priorities are our users and free software. I really don't remember real identities of those connected with Debian in there... noticed that this is one of the new maintainer requirements? Or We secure the interests of our users by accountability and Do you? I can think of three packages that the maintainer is acting in an unaccoutable and irresponsible way. You may even think you know which ones: I'm sure the DD responsible knows what I think of them. I know for a fact that it's damn well irresponsible for you to have tried to exclude another today, and you're not being held accountable. In stead, I am being held responsible for my pseudonym. Funny kind of world, isn't it, when the pseudonymous one is more responsible than the properly named one? responsibility. By providing to our users the true name of our developers, we give them a considerable measure of accountability. This is a very good thing. This may be a very good thing (the jury's still out on that one), but what is more important to the user: the name of the developer or the assurance that the best person for the job wasn't told to leave? These concepts aren't mutually exclusive, yet it seems they are in your mind: because they are the crux of what we've been saying the last hour or so. I'll freely admit that perhaps pseudonymity isn't for everybody: in fact, I wouldn't wish it on many people, especially those with weak stomachs. The only problem here is that you won't get over the fact that my pseudonymity somehow makes up for you trying to slap Hoffman down for the crime of disagreeing with you. For someone who was all het up on making -legal a topic-centered forum less than 6 hours ago, you have certainly managed to do a quick about face. My congratulations on your mental agility (or was that shiftiness?) It's something you are afraid to give. Not afraid, unwilling. Quit putting words in my mouth. Thomas -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 28 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hrm. I'm trying to figure out how you can quote something without reading it.you know, I just can't feature it. The front page of lists.debian.org defines certain lists as for Users and others as for Developers. And the definition is so broad that I easily fall into it. Hoffman may or may not, but it really isn't your place to decide. They have the listmasters for a reason, you know. Take it as you will. But if you see this as anything other than a repeat of your party scene you're a bigger fool than I thought. So, who are you, then? Hopefully the one who's many miles away. Why do you need to know my DL information? Your name is a matter of public record. For some reason, you are Perhaps my name is, but the rest of the information on it is not. Up until the late eighties, it was actually against federal law to divulge my DL information, since it contained my SSN (long complicated story involving the fact that the issuance fee is actually a tax...). When most states went TO using the SSN on DL's, Idaho went the other way. Nice aside: at DefCon two-three years ago, they were selling CDs of the entire Oregon DMV database. They gave away the 3 year old copies. Yes it's public record, and yes bad guys can read public records as well. deeply ashamed either of your name or your activities here, and you You're putting words into my mouth again. Here's a quarter, why don't you try your amateur psychotherapy on someone who gives a shit. are greatly afraid of having them linked. The situation is comical, Frankly, my actions haven't been ones that would make me care if they became public knowlege. I'm this much of an asshole in real life, too. You really ought to do some more reading before you attribute anonymity with shame: http://www.bartleby.com/100/230.164.html You know, failing to have read a little known author like Pope wouldn't make a person illiterate or anything... because you insist that we should pretend you are behaving like a normal human being, all the while, manifestly not doing so. I'm sorry: what's normal about insisting that someone isn't who they say they are? ISTR that the issue of my pseudonymity was brought up by you in some wretched attempt to divert the subject a year or so ago. I have not denied that I am using a pseudonym, but the plain fact is that pseudonymity is a LOT more normal than insisting that a name is a pseudonym and one must know their REAL name. I didn't mention that JG isn't my real name until you asked. Yeah, but on the three documents you mentioned, if they gave you anything off them, I'd be righteously pissed. In every case above, it's illegal to provide information from them without my permission. You don't have the permission, nor will you get it. For *some* of the information. Not for all. Your name is a matter of public record. Is it? You signed your Census form, right? Would you believe that the name is immediately stripped off that information because of the Privacy Act? It's just never entered in the computers. If it's public information, the privacy act shouldn't apply, no? Thomas -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 28 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Do you? I can think of three packages that the maintainer is acting in an unaccoutable and irresponsible way. You may even think you know which ones: I'm sure the DD responsible knows what I think of them. I know for a fact that it's damn well irresponsible for you to have tried to exclude another today, and you're not being held accountable. In stead, I am being held responsible for my pseudonym. Funny kind of world, isn't it, when the pseudonymous one is more responsible than the properly named one? Actually, I have no way of keeping you accountable, because I don't Yeah, but that isn't stopping you from trying. know who you are. There is no way for me to link your bad actions on Debian to other situations. For example, if you were to try to get hired, nobody would be able to notice that the asshole John Galt has anything to do with the potential employee in front of them. You know, I'd say that no employer is going to give two shits about activity on a mailing list, but your past actions speak of a willingness to try to give the lie to that statement. The only relevant issue to employment that I can see from the collected email of a given person is whether or not they did it on company time. I can see why you want potential employers to be unable to link your horrid actions here with you. Again, exclusion is hardly going on. I've been the subject of enough bigoted discrimination to have a pretty good idea. I said that I didn't see the benefits discussing the GPL with someone who was an opponent of free software, and Hoffman's writing made it sound as if That's your major problem. You don't see the point in discussing much of anything except the other person's character when they disagree with you. If you wish to not deal with it, fine, but the fract that the first half of this message was about my obstinate pseudonymity is more than enough evidence. Speaking of which, I removed Hoffman from the CC list, as I have a feeling that you won't do anything but dig yourself deeper in this hole and I won't say anything of interest to them: you see, I didn't slight them. he were such an opponent. Now, if I changed lists.debian.org so that Hoffman couldn't post, or something like that, that would be exclusion. But he's just as able to post as before, as are you. No, you told them not to post. You did everything in your power to prevent their posting, as we both know that a power trip on the order of changing lists.debian.org to deny people's posting is probably the worst thing you could do: it certainly would have provoked me or any number of other people to petition the DPL to pull the plug on you. As it is, since you so succinctly put it in terms of you being officially part of Debian, you're pushing it. You, as a representative of Debian, told someone to stop posting and accused them of not being a friend of Debian. Words just fail me. Thomas -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 28 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And the definition is so broad that I easily fall into it. Hoffman may or may not, but it really isn't your place to decide. They have the listmasters for a reason, you know. The term Developers in Debian is a formal one, not an accidental one. The Debian Constitution carefully specifies it. One you're misusing, BTW. The http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe definition however includes experienced users Development lists There are several lists on which developers and experienced users discuss more technical issues. In addition, there are some announcement lists to help experienced users keep track of development. The Constitution, however, says nothing about the lists at all except some language requiring a given issue deal with a given list. Am I missing a trumping document? Is there some documentation for your claim that Debina mailinglists are for the exclusive use of DD's? I have some very good friends who are not US Citizens. Is it bad for me to mention that when a relevant case comes up? They don't get to It is when you lord it over them. Do you often say of your Cuban friends You're not a friend of the US? Do you often castigate your non-US friends when they talk about ancillary-to-US topics like how to circumvent US law? In -legal, the GPL is just like US law: just because we abide by the law doesn't mean that we have to stay silent when somebody asks how to avoid prosecution. vote; they don't get to sit on juries, etc. Is it bad for me to mention this? Is it bad for the US to have certain privileges and responsibilities of citizenship which it doesn't share with nonmembers? Only when official representatives push their status. If you told an illegal immigrant ha ha, I can vote and you can't and the immigrant beat all hell out of you, I really wouldn't think that many people would say that you didn't get exactly what you deserved. Perhaps my name is, but the rest of the information on it is not. Then, pray tell, what's the name? Occupant You really ought to do some more reading before you attribute anonymity with shame. Sometimes anonymity is quite reasonable. I can think of a jillion cases where it is a good thing. The ability to have anonymous communication on the net is something I'm a stalwart defender of. ...except when you can't refute the anonymous people's arguments and you go into _ad hominem_ mode. You AREN'T a stalwart defender, you're a fair weather friend of anonymity at best. But that doesn't mean that each and every case of anonymity is good. Often it is harmful. I assume of course that you have ready citations for this? I'm sorry: what's normal about insisting that someone isn't who they say they are? Um, let's try. Is your legal name John Galt? Is that who you say you are? I say and have said for quite a while on this list (and most other mailinglists I subscribe to) that I'm John Galt. If that is not a good enough answer then tough. It's an obvious pseudonym, but it's possible that it's a real name too. That's why I asked, and you replied that you were using a psedonym. So what's your name? John Galt, for all you will ever know. -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 28 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You know, I'd say that no employer is going to give two shits about activity on a mailing list, but your past actions speak of a willingness to try to give the lie to that statement. The only relevant issue to employment that I can see from the collected email of a given person is whether or not they did it on company time. Having been in the position of hiring people and making hiring recommendations, I can certainly report that looking through news posts and mailing list archives is common practice and a good idea. News is easy: deja. Now tell me how you're going to search mailinglists. Do you ask the applicant what mailinglists they post to, or do you just go around with a big old shotgun and search all the mailinglists you can find? Not all mailinglists are like Debian's, some actually refuse to archive. Of course there's all the m2n gateways, but they're flaky at best. I'm thinking that this one was made up out of whole cloth: it's unfeasable. -- EMACS == Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: (1) The idea that compiling and linking a program is not restricted by copyright; you don't need special permission to compile and link a program once you have obtained a copy of it. But this is a confusion. In one sense it's true, but in another sense it's false. One might also say that compiling and linking a program is not restricted by the murder statute. But it might well be that those are steps in causing some machine to kill a person, and in that case, compiling and linking would be a murderous act. One might, and one might be right. Remember, the US legal system is based in the Social Contract theory, where the Government is given powers by the people, not vice-versa. This means that if there isn't a law specifically granting the Government power, it has none. In the instant case, compiling and linking is not specifically prohibited by the copyright statute, but that doesn't mean that you can ignore the fact that they are going on. They might well be part of a larger more complicated activity, which *is* an act of illegal copying. Actually, you can. So long as the final result stays in the possession of the person who did the linking, this is not a COPYright issue, but a property right issue. This is the epitome of fair use. If fair use is out, then the whole constitutional basis for copyright is suspect, because of the promote the arts and sciences clause just before the grant of monopoly (ie copyright). Thomas -- There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)
Do you really wish to reopen this? The thread was ended. On 26 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: GNU in Debian GNU/Linux isn't a form of credit where credit is due, then what is it? It's the name of the operating system. The operating system is named GNU. -- There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Do you really wish to reopen this? The thread was ended. Ssh. This isn't your project, remember? If you want to join, join. If you want to snipe from sidelines, go somewhere else. No, but it IS my response that you were reopening. A response that JH said was an older topic, which I took his word for and EOT'd. If you wish to disregard my EOT, fine. Cry Havoc! -- There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: One might, and one might be right. Remember, the US legal system is based in the Social Contract theory, where the Government is given powers by the people, not vice-versa. This means that if there isn't a law specifically granting the Government power, it has none. That's totally irrelevant. The question here is about just what the law in question does in fact prescribe. Everyone I assume agrees that the court should enforce the law that actually exists and enjoin the state from going beyond that. But we have great disagreement about just what the legal facts are. It WAS irrelevant from the start, but that didn't stop you from bringing it in. You brought in a flawed analogy. I called you on it. Civil != Criminal It's also incorrect: in most places in this country, the common law tradition continues, in which there is a great deal of powers held by the state which are not the subject of any legislation. And everywhere there is, there's usually an appeals court that's busier than a one-legged man in a soccer game. Actually, you can. So long as the final result stays in the possession of the person who did the linking, this is not a COPYright issue, but a property right issue. This is the epitome of fair use. If fair use is out, then the whole constitutional basis for copyright is suspect, because of the promote the arts and sciences clause just before the grant of monopoly (ie copyright). But the point here is that the linking is a part of a complex act, by many people, which sums to a copyright violation. So now this is a RICO case?! Complex acts usually involve Enterprise corruption, which again has a different standard of proof. Unless you can prove bad acts by all in the chain, forget a civil action on this one... In different circumstances, each of those sub-acts might have been perfectly legal, but in combination, they are not. So? This is civil stuff again: IT'S ALL LEGAL! It's just is it damaging? And the answer here is no, because the only way that this chain may be broken into illegal acts is to revoke someone's fair use right, which isn't an option. For example: it's legal for me to hit the ENTER key on my computer. There is no law which prohibits it. But that doesn't mean that in every circumstance whatsoever I can hit the ENTER key with impunity: there are many contexts where hitting the ENTER key would be a most serious crime. My only regret is that I cannot respond to this paragraph as I would truly like. I just cannot figure out how to properly spell the sound of derisive laughter. Have you switched sides and are trying a _Reductio ad absurdam_? Linking is not necessarily copyright violation, but if combined with certain other acts, the whole thing, including all its parts, are an instance of illegal copying. The total combination would indeed have to be an act of copying, but it's quite irrelevant whether each and every piece is. Is it an example of illegal copying? Where precisely in the law is the intention of the issuer of a copyright? It is an example of requesting that the end-user legally obtain something that the upstream may not ethically provide. Sort of like...say...realplayer.deb. It was probably the intent of the GPL implementors to prevent such a happening, but the language allows it, probably because they are already pushing the acceptable limitations of fair use. Compared with limiting fair use, the advertising clause is trivial (you DID cry havoc on that part...). Thomas -- There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
So now this is a RICO case?! Complex acts usually involve Enterprise
corruption, which again has a different standard of proof. Unless you can
prove bad acts by all in the chain, forget a civil action on this one...
I didn't say anything about enterprise corruption. are you
constitutionally unable to focus on single cases?
No, but you used language that only occurs in such cases (actually no, it
also occurs in most conspiracy theories, but the GPL is used IN quite a
few conspiracy theories) ((note: it's a plausible parallel: for what is
enterprise corruption but a conspiracy theory that's proven right?))
So? This is civil stuff again: IT'S ALL LEGAL! It's just is it damaging?
And the answer here is no, because the only way that this chain may be
broken into illegal acts is to revoke someone's fair use right, which
isn't an option.
Violations of civil law are *illegal*, even if not criminal.
No. Just no. Violations of civil law aren't PROHIBITED.
dict illegal
1 definition found
From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]:
illegal
adj. : prohibited by law or accepted rules; an illegal chess
move [ant: {legal}]
Just because there's a penalty involved in doing something does not mean
that it's prohibited. Let's use guns: there's a huge-assed tax for
ownership of an automatic weapon, but the Congress doesn't have the right
to actually prohibit them via the 2nd amendment to the Constitution, so
they imposed a punitive tax on their ownership (it's actually a Class 3
license, which is taken care by the BATF sorta like a FFL) . This has
been tested in the supreme court all of once, and the defendant failed to
show, so the jury's still out as to the clear legality of this...
criminal is a subset of illegal.
REALLY no.
It is an example of requesting that the end-user legally obtain
something that the upstream may not ethically provide.
It depends entirely on what the case is.
Yeah, the Clinton Gambit: I think we're not too clear on the definition
of ''it''... Where did the general case creep in that there's ambiguity
as to what case we're talking about?!
Sort of like...say...realplayer.deb.
If the realplayer people objected to realplayer.deb, it might well be
illegal. But they don't object...
Where does an objection change the legality of an issue? I object to
paying my taxes, but failing to pay them is illegal all the same.
It was probably the intent of the GPL implementors to prevent such a
happening, but the language allows it, probably because they are
already pushing the acceptable limitations of fair use.
Blah, blah, blah.
Why don't you just decode this part to I can't refute it and save us
both the trouble?
You really don't understand the case, especially given phrases like
GPL implementors. What, precisely, is a GPL implementor?
Writers and users. I used implementors because user is ambiguous in this
case: because it isn't users of the GPL'd programs, it's everybody other
than the FSF that licenses things under the GPL. They really don't have
much say in the language of the GPL (other than the boolean use or not
use), because of that nice little preamble that doesn't allow changing of
it, so they really aren't to blame when it fails to say what they mean
other than the blame associated with using it blindly in the first place.
Of course, a dictionary might help, since most of them pretty much say
that implement is a synonym of use so it should be non-complex to figure
out that I was trying to use an unambiguous yet similar term to use.
--
There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million
keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare
would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true.
Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, but you used language that only occurs in such cases (actually no, it also occurs in most conspiracy theories, but the GPL is used IN quite a few conspiracy theories) ((note: it's a plausible parallel: for what is enterprise corruption but a conspiracy theory that's proven right?)) Questions about what sort of language I used are not on topic for this mailing list. Please take the discussion elsewhere. I note you CC'd -legal about this even so Nice to see that you've taken _Animal Farm_ to heart so... BTW, neither was your Murder allegory on topic, yet it exists. Hypocrite. No. Just no. Violations of civil law aren't PROHIBITED. Questions about the moral or prohibitionary character of civil law violations are not on topic for this mailing list. Please take the discussion elsewhere. Repetitive, aren't we? Yet still on the list... I regret my complicity in having FORCED you to post an off topic tangent in the first place and (heaven forbid!) actually having to support your position. We both know that you're much more at home using _ad hominem_ attcks, trying to get people muzzled, and straw men than actually supporting your position with anything resembling facts. Where does an objection change the legality of an issue? I object to paying my taxes, but failing to pay them is illegal all the same. This is actually sometimes on-topic, so I'll answer. If the copyright owner doesn't mind you doing X, then you can do it. The copyright owner's objection (or lack thereof) indeed has a great deal to do with the matter. This is actually wrong. Did anyone from OpenSSL claim that Debian was in violation of their copyright? Was there a discussion (that I participated in, actually inside this thread because of thread merger...) about whether or not the 4 clause copyright was being violated, despite the clearly shown, by subsequent amendment, intention of almost all parties (EAY and LBL being the exceptions) to disregard clause 3? How old is the ssleay code that's the bone of contention? Do you think it's possible that EAY may very well have knowlege of the uses of ssleay and had a chance to do something about it by now? Is Debian still in violation of the ssleay license? Does the fact that EAY has done nothing change it? Debian distributes lots of software (almost all of it) precisely because the author's have officially said we don't object. An Mind you, the informally must be in writing for Debian's purpose, and oftentimes decisions are made based solely on the document. In fact, you might even call the email a shudder license! informal statement to that effect is often as good, particularly near the gray areas of copyright, though if a formal objection were to appear, we might have to consider carefully. I've heard of emails being accepted as COPYRIGHT, but never an oral contract (even though in my jurisdiction, they're perfectly valid). Legally, the email is just as valid a license as the GPL. As for a real objection: I'm glad you used the subjunctive, because most of the objections on -legal have been of a possible nature, except the ones from GNU. In fact, for all of the objectionable clauses of non-GPL software, there have been few actual objections from the authors, and most of those are second or third hand through GNU--I, of course, can't speak for the paackages that've been silently withdrawn because of objections to the maintainers, but if I knew about them, they wouldn't be silently withdrawn, now wuld they? realplayer.deb is such a case: near the boundary. If the realplayer people were to object, we might well decide that the appropriate course is to remove the package. But in fact, they don't object. (And, if you think about their motives for requiring people to get the sw direct from their web site, you'll see why they don't.) I know WHY Real has no problem, I even know WHY Debian does what it does. But it IS a clear circumvention of Real's license no less. Especially if the GPL'd software cannot be linked to non-free software on the target computer. The realplayer installer is GPL'd. It dd's a file and supplies the required information to the GPL'd Debian system. Legal? perfectly. Parallel case to the one at hand? possibly (it IS at issue). In accordance with Real's wishes? who knows? IAW Real's license? no. The thing is that the community supported player is actually on a Real.com server off the CW trunk (the last resolvable from here is real-networks.Seattlesel.cw.net (208.172.81.138), then two hops into Seattle somewhere) so therefore can be construed to fit under the Real TOS http://www.realnetworks.com/company/legal.html?src=010613realhome_1,010613rpchoice_h1,RPDL Basically, Debian's already doing what you're decrying: subverting the intentions of a copyright holder by the trivia that it's not happening anywhere within Debian. I just used Real
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
On Wed, 27 Jun 2001, Raul Miller wrote: On Wed, Jun 27, 2001 at 04:39:02PM -0600, John Galt wrote: Actually, you can. So long as the final result stays in the possession of the person who did the linking, this is not a COPYright issue, but a property right issue. This is the epitome of fair use. No. Please read http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html Where does title 17 mention property rights? In fact, this is a very good example of why property rights trump copyrights. There is no real USC title for property rights, because they need not be given but enforced. They are enforced by criminal law in many cases, and by tort law in the rest. Regulation of Copyrights is delegated to congress in Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution, but regulation of propertty rights is never granted to the Congress at all. In fact, amendments 4, 5, and 10 of the Bill of Rights place limitations on what Congress may do to property rights, 10 basically stating that if the Congress hasn't already been delegated it, Congress can't regulate it (of course you should see some of the loopholes that they can now drive n entire superhighway [pun intended] through...) Thanks, -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use
JESUS H CHRIST ON A POGO STICK WHAT is your major malfuction? It's not good enough for you to start on your John Galt's not part of Debian kick, but you now have to start on others?! I have some suggestions for the horse you rode in on: I have serious doubts as to whether you're physically capable of the acts I'd require of you. Next time I see this shit, I'm going to have a long talk with the Tech Comittee and DPL: this is out of line and I've a feeling most people know it. Keep slinging your stones at me, twit, because everyone else here is too good for the likes of you. On 27 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: none [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have trouble seeing how the separate distribution of A and B and then the end-user combining them is infringement by either the distributor or the end-user. Assuming that neither A nor B includes code from each other, then A is not a derivative work of B nor is B a derivative work of A and so they are not derivative works distributed under the GPL which would trigger the incompatibility issue for the distributor. It sounds like your goal is to subvert the GPL, in which case you are not our friend. If your goal is to try and figure out ways that bad Au contraire. Subversion of licenses is fair: look at the OpenSSL debate (round 1, a few months ago). I didn't notice you playing hypo^H^H^H^Hnetiquette nazi then... As for friendship: Hoffman may take a couple of tries to get the gist of the argument, but is much more salvagable than you. At least Hoffman can bring westlaw's light into things: all you're good for is smoke and not knowing what the DFSG is (who in HELL signed your key without you knowing what the DFSG was anyway?). people might subvert the GPL, so that the FSF can fix them, then you should bring such issues up in private with the FSF. Bringing them up When did Debian get reattached to the FSF? Why should Debian care what the FSF thinks (other than as much as Debian should care about any Open Source source [pun intended])? in public, on a list where they will never reach the relevant people, serves only to help those people who want to subvert the GPL. However, regardless of your motives, this discussion isn't appropriate for debian-legal. Neither is netiquette-nazism, but this is the umpteenth message that you've sent today on the subject. Thomas -- I can be immature if I want to, because I'm mature enough to make my own decisions. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)
On Sun, 24 Jun 2001, Joey Hess wrote: John Galt wrote: Because you failed to answer my question about three exchanges ago: if the GNU in Debian GNU/Linux isn't a form of credit where credit is due, then what is it? Try reading the first paragraph of http://www.debian.org/ and/or the Debian FAQ sometime. They'll give you two different answers, both valid. The whole lets-add-every-project-on-earth-to-Debian's-name-just-to-be-consistent thing has been done before, so stop wasting our time by rehashing it. I don't remember it in the last two-three years, but I'll take your word for it. EOT -- Customer: I'm running Windows '98 Tech: Yes. Customer: My computer isn't working now. Tech: Yes, you said that. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)
On Sat, 23 Jun 2001, Raul Miller wrote: On Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 04:00:57PM -0600, John Galt wrote: ...thus it's giving credit where credit is due to the GNU foundation. Sure. Last exchange, you said it wasn't. Message ID [EMAIL PROTECTED] as if I had to point it out. For example, apache when running, includes GNU code (glibc). The converse is not true for any gnu packages. Whether or not the GNU foundation needs to mention the Apache project is irrelevant: what matters is whether Debian needs to, and a good portion of Debian systems DO run Apache code. Isn't it only fair that Debian shares the credit for the systems with the people who made parts of them? -- Here is wisdom. Let him that hath wisdom count the number of the BSD: for it is the number of a man; and his number is VI VI VI. (ir-reve-rent-lations 13:17-19) Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)
On 23 Jun 2001, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Whether or not the GNU foundation needs to mention the Apache project is irrelevant: what matters is whether Debian needs to, and a good portion of Debian systems DO run Apache code. Isn't it only fair that Debian shares the credit for the systems with the people who made parts of them? Please read the license more carefully. We certainly do comply with it. In that case, this whole thing is a no-op. The issue at hand is whether Debian is breaking the 4 clause BSDL. Apache was used presumably as an example of a 4 clause BSDL (I can't say, it wasn't me who brought it up...) As for whether we should give Apache some special pre-eminence, that makes no sense at all. Apache, like all the other packages we distribute, gets its name nicely blathered in all the places all those other names get listed. No, it doesn't need PRECEDENCE, it needs EQUALITY... It was said that Debian's mention wasn't enough to cover clause 3: my point is that perhaps this should not be a matter of legality, but one of conscience. If Debian is failing to meet the legal standard for credit where credit is due, it logically must be failing to meet the [much higher IMHO] moral standard. -- Here is wisdom. Let him that hath wisdom count the number of the BSD: for it is the number of a man; and his number is VI VI VI. (ir-reve-rent-lations 13:17-19) Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Raul Miller wrote: On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 11:12:58AM -0400, Chloe Hoffman wrote: If we're talking about enforcement of copyright in a court of law, then I would note, as summarized by Eugene Volokh (http://www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/volokh/copyinj.htm#IIA): In Harper Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises,91 the Supreme Court made clear that copyright law is substantively constitutional: the First Amendment does not shield speech that infringes another's copyright.92 Copyright, the Court said, is itself an engine of free expression because it supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas.93 Bleah. Ok, if the advertising clause in enforcable, then I think we've got a problem. We declare (in the social contract) that the BSD license is a DFSG license. To my knowledge, we don't have any mechanism in place to meet the advertising requirement of the original BSD license (nor that of similar licenses, such as Apache). If what you're saying is correct, I see several choices: [1] Modify Debian policy and procedures so that we have an advertising boilerplate for every distribution, with a line for every package which has an advertising clause. [Lots of work.] Debian's already doing this to some small extent by calling it Debian GNU/Linux. You see, the GPL doesn't have the ad clause, yet Debian's acknowledging the GNU project's contribution: where's the problem is doing this for others where the licenses require it? I find a requirement to do something as distasteful as you, but This is more like a requirement to tip your hat to everybody, not just the pretty girls (no offense meant to anyone :): they're requiring Debian to do something it's doing for others. Besides, it IS the Right Thing To Do: Let Debian be the moral leadership of the community again: this time by taking an active stance toward giving credit where credit is due rather than protracted licensing battles that stain both parties. [2] Modify the DFSG (so that it specifies the modified BSD license in the example of DFSG licenses, and indicates that requiring people to do extra work not normally associated with handling of software is just as bad as requiring payment of a fee) and remove the offending packages from the distribution. [Lots of work, lots of time.] Also drop the existing credit where credit is due: if you're going to say it's too much work, you'd best follow through with proof. Also see my response to point 4 as to the feasability... [3] Pretend that what we're doing is perfectly legal and wait for the eventual explosion. [Disgusting] Also just wrong: failing to give credit where credit is due is moraly reprehensible, especially when legally required to do so. [4] Convince every author of such software to change their license. [Lots of work, lots of time, may not be doable.] Probably won't be: OpenSSL would be a serious PITA, and I doubt that Debian could survive removal of all things dependent on OpenSSL (putting in non-free is for all intents and purposes removal). -- Pardon me, but you have obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a damn. email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: okay for non-free?
It looks like you're dealing with a source-only package in non-free like
qmail or pine, unless you have an explicit blessing from the author that
he meant distribute in binary form as a use. Contrib's out, though,
since contrib needs to be DFSG free and dependent on something not in
Debian (which includes something in non-free).
On Sat, 9 Jun 2001, Eduard Bloch wrote:
Hi,
could anyone comment the attached license? Is it suitable for non-free,
or even contrib?
-- UNACE-SOURCE v1.2b (extract-util) --
the source may be distributed and used,
but I,Marcel Lemke, retain ownership of
the copyrights to the source.
---
WWW:
http://members.aol.com/mlemke6413/ace
EMAIL:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
---
Gr{us,eeting}s,
Eduard.
--
There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with suitable
application of High Explosives.
Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Macromedia flash and shockwave
On Tue, 29 May 2001, Bart Martens wrote: Hi Debian-lawyers :-) Concerning [1] packaging Macromedia flash and shockwave for Mozilla... Has anyone of you studied the license at [2]? Now I have :) Does the license allow Macromedia flash and shockwave to be packaged in a Debian package, and included in the non-free section? clause III of the license pretty much gives Debian the right to make an installer iii. through the Internet to end users, solely as a part of, with, or in conjunction with, its Licensee Product (such as embedded in Licensee's installer which, in turn, is downloaded from the Internet). Later stuff gets ugly, but it looks as if Debian's clear. I have a minor thing with restriction number VII, but theoretically the big 7 aren't able to download from US based servers anyway, or the BXA'd already have cause to shut them down. Actually, the installer would go into contrib, unless you're planning to use a non-DFSG-free license for the installer itself. The program itself is DFSG free, it just depends on (gets) a non-free program. If not, we could ask Macromedia for an exceptional permission. Does anyone know how such a permission should be asked? (Maybe an e-mail template...) NO! The email template for asking debian specific permission is DON'T DO IT. I cannot emphasize it strongly enough: Debian neither will nor even can ask for debian-specific permission, see DFSG #8: 8. License Must Not Be Specific to Debian The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a Debian system. If the program is extracted from Debian and used or distributed without Debian but otherwise within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the Debian system. Bart Martens [1] http://bugs.debian.org/99134 [2] http://www.macromedia.com/support/shockwave/info/licensing/license.html -- There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Macromedia flash and shockwave
On Tue, 29 May 2001, Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote: On Tue, May 29, 2001 at 05:19:08PM -0600, John Galt wrote: Actually, the installer would go into contrib, unless you're planning to use a non-DFSG-free license for the installer itself. The program itself is DFSG free, it just depends on (gets) a non-free program. If not, we could ask Macromedia for an exceptional permission. Does anyone know how such a permission should be asked? (Maybe an e-mail template...) NO! The email template for asking debian specific permission is DON'T DO IT. I cannot emphasize it strongly enough: Debian neither will nor even can ask for debian-specific permission, see DFSG #8: First let me mention that I am not a lawyer. That said, I don't see why DFSG I don't think that there's anyone that posts on this list regularly that's a laiwyer... Hell, the only Bar I'm a member of is the one on the corner that knows my favorite brands of beer, gin, and vodka... #8 should affect programs in non-free. I am not taking a position on the main topic of this thread, but why would any rules of the DFSG apply to non-free? I thought that was the whole point of that (separate) distribution. Is there some reason other than the DFSG why a Debian-specific license could not be used to put something in non-free? This is true, the DFSG has no say on things that fail it in even one respect. However, DFSG 8 may apply to the ACTION of asking. That is, nobody representing Debian may ask another to circumvent the DFSG. Please CC me on your replies - getting an extra copy of replies to my messages works well with my procmail filters. - Jimmy Kaplowitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: three send back changes clauses
On Sun, 27 May 2001, Walter Landry wrote: From: John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: three send back changes clauses Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 21:13:21 -0600 (MDT) effort. Basically, the weasel words come to the rescue again. It seems like you're interpreting the weasel words to make the whole clause have no practical effect. I don't think that we can really do that. You're saying that if my boss tells me not to contribute back changes, that is enough to foil best effort. What if it is my wife? What about the voices I hear in my head? I still think that the package can't go in main. Best effort has traditionally been seen by the courts as exactly that. Triple-A Baseball Club Associates v. Northeastern Baseball, Inc., 832 F.2d 214, 225 (1st Cir. 1987). General Dynamics Corp. v. United States, 671 F.2d 474, 480 (Ct. Cl.1982). Do you have an online reference handy? I don't have easy access to a law library. No. You have as much capability in this regard as I do. Probably more, as USU has a bit better library than ISU... These citations were from the discussion of law in _Hughes v NASA_ http://www.contracts.ogc.doc.gov/fedcl/opinions/2000opin/91-1032C.html Hughes v NASA was rather unique, a best effort contract in breach. This came from the fact that NASA repudiated the contract in 1986 or thereabouts. This case supports my point. NASA was told by it's boss, Ronald Reagan, to give low priority to commercial launches. The judge YM no, HTH. decided that NASA couldn't use that as as excuse to not launch Hughes' satellites. This is analagous to a boss in a company telling their underlings not to reveal what they do to anyone, even though it may be quite noteworthy. Only a few months later, NASA sent Hughes a letter essentially repudiating its obligation to use best efforts through the remainder of the contract: It appears almost certain you will not be provided launch services either prior to or after your current contract expires. NASA had the room and the resources to launch some of Hughes' satellites, but it chose to favor itself and other government and commercial users over Hughes. By this letter NASA announced to Hughes that rather than using its best efforts, it would use no effort to meet its obligation to launch ten satellites. ^ Also, the court specifically said that best effort==act in good faith. I don't see how you say that someone who uses the software but has no intention of ever contributing back changes (because their boss told them not to) is acting in good faith. The software should still not go in main. Fine, whatever, file the damn bugs against scheme =7.4 then. Option C was clause 2 of the scheme license. http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/projects/scheme/7.4/license.html http://www.icann.org/registrars/register.com-verio/order-08dec00.htm Here's a nice one: Verio was supposed to use it's best efforts to purge all WHOIS information out of it's databases :) I'm guessing they got rid of three emails... I'm not sure what this case has to do with the current discussion. I couldn't find any mention there of what best effort means. It's part of the disposition. Basically, Verio was supposed to make its best effort to clean out their database of WHOIS information. They still spammed everybody and their brother, so their best effort was probably having some PFY look at the database for names they could safely purge. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with suitable application of High Explosives. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: three send back changes clauses
On Mon, 28 May 2001, Walter Landry wrote: Also, the court specifically said that best effort==act in good faith. I don't see how you say that someone who uses the software but has no intention of ever contributing back changes (because their boss told them not to) is acting in good faith. The software should still not go in main. Fine, whatever, file the damn bugs against scheme =7.4 then. Option C was clause 2 of the scheme license. http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/projects/scheme/7.4/license.html On debian, I could only find mit-scheme version 7.5. That release is under the GPL, so there is no need for a bug report. Well, now! Now we get into interesting things... Okay, so there's no mit-scheme licensed software in Debian (I just spent too much time looking: *%^ whoever made the change to the package webpages that they don't link to copyright...). I figured that mit-scheme dated back a little longer than it did... In any case, it would be useful to have a consensus on debian-legal about this issue. Do you agree that the license makes it non-free, or are you just tired of arguing? Mostly I was under the impression that mit-scheme was a LOT older in Debian than it actually was. Basically, I believe that Debian-Legal really needs a good dose of _Stare Decisis_ (sp?), and if a decision on a particular license is reversed, the winning side should be prepared to send out bug reports or RFPs. All this is academic, and I have no recollection of the MIT scheme license ever becoming an issue, and there's no packages with the license in Debian or non-free, so we're on virgin ground here. In which case, I still maintain that the best effort is barely good enough to make it within main, but not so convinced that I'm willing to take on the universe single handedly about it. I'm thinking that the request with no requirement (option b) is good enough for both of us, and given the three alternatives, it's the one that I would prefer to be bound by. Having pointed out the compromise route, let me now go into why I think that best effort is not that onerous. Basically, making a one-off best effort to get the changes into the hands of one person is less onerous than providing changes to all comers for three years (GPL clause 3b). To be more exact, the license may try to restrict your use, but I believe that that is impossible _prima facie_: that implies some click-wrap or shrink-wrap license, and under the present law, that is just not feasable. Therefore this license must only deal with copying. Since it only deals with copying, this means you may only make copies of the program available if you try to provide the changes upstream. If you can't provide the changes upstream because of political reasons, what the HELL are you doing making them available to the general public? You may note that this hinges on the fact that a use requirement is unenforcable by definition, so therefore should be reread to a copying requirement. Since I am not too happy with this (allowing reinterpretation is a slippery slope I don't like being on...), you can see why I am not too hot on pushing the issue, and I really don't want to send out any RFPs this week anyway :) Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with suitable application of High Explosives. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: three send back changes clauses
On Sun, 27 May 2001, Walter Landry wrote: I don't agree. This puts a restriction on _users_. This means that it can't be used in the NSA, FBI, Los Alamos, typical Silicon Valley startups, or any other place that doesn't let people talk about what they do. That violates DFSG#6: No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor. You're right, though in context, classification is enough to foil best effort. Basically, the weasel words come to the rescue again. It seems like you're interpreting the weasel words to make the whole clause have no practical effect. I don't think that we can really do that. You're saying that if my boss tells me not to contribute back changes, that is enough to foil best effort. What if it is my wife? What about the voices I hear in my head? I still think that the package can't go in main. Best effort has traditionally been seen by the courts as exactly that. Triple-A Baseball Club Associates v. Northeastern Baseball, Inc., 832 F.2d 214, 225 (1st Cir. 1987). General Dynamics Corp. v. United States, 671 F.2d 474, 480 (Ct. Cl.1982). These citations were from the discussion of law in _Hughes v NASA_ http://www.contracts.ogc.doc.gov/fedcl/opinions/2000opin/91-1032C.html Hughes v NASA was rather unique, a best effort contract in breach. This came from the fact that NASA repudiated the contract in 1986 or thereabouts. http://www.icann.org/registrars/register.com-verio/order-08dec00.htm Here's a nice one: Verio was supposed to use it's best efforts to purge all WHOIS information out of it's databases :) I'm guessing they got rid of three emails... Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with suitable application of High Explosives. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: three send back changes clauses
On 24 May 2001, James LewisMoss wrote: Please cc me on any replies. I'm not currently subscribed to this list. I've got three send back changes clauses. Comments on whether they are free? All three sound DFSG free, since you use the weasel words best efforts. The big issue that I've seen hereabouts is that the usual send back changes clause made it mandatory to send to a place that may cease to exist before the expiration of copyright. With your best efforts modifiers, if the places they need to send changes don't exist, they made their best effort and failed, NP. ; 2. Users of this software agree to make their best efforts (a) to ; return to me any improvements or extensions that they make, so that ; these may be included in future releases; and (b) to inform me of ; noteworthy uses of this software. The B section here really is outside the bounds of a copying license. It doesn't make it non-free, just adds a trivial requirement that would be better phrased as a request. ; I also request that you send me a copy of any improvements that you ; make to this software so that they may be incorporated within it to ; the benefit of the Scheme community. This one is the most free, but probably least does what I see your intentions as. ;;; 2. Users of this software agree to make their best efforts (a) to ;;; return to the MIT Scheme project any improvements or extensions ;;; that they make, so that these may be included in future releases; ;;; and (b) to inform MIT of noteworthy uses of this software. I have the same issue with B here. Thanks Jim -- You have paid nothing for the preceding, therefore it's worth every penny you've paid for it: if you did pay for it, might I remind you of the immortal words of Phineas Taylor Barnum regarding fools and money? Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: three send back changes clauses
On Fri, 25 May 2001, Walter Landry wrote: ; 2. Users of this software agree to make their best efforts (a) to ; return to me any improvements or extensions that they make, so that ; these may be included in future releases; and (b) to inform me of ; noteworthy uses of this software. The B section here really is outside the bounds of a copying license. It doesn't make it non-free, just adds a trivial requirement that would be better phrased as a request. I don't agree. This puts a restriction on _users_. This means that it can't be used in the NSA, FBI, Los Alamos, typical Silicon Valley startups, or any other place that doesn't let people talk about what they do. That violates DFSG#6: No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor. You're right, though in context, classification is enough to foil best effort. Basically, the weasel words come to the rescue again. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- You have paid nothing for the preceding, therefore it's worth every penny you've paid for it: if you did pay for it, might I remind you of the immortal words of Phineas Taylor Barnum regarding fools and money? Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: New idea for finessing patent issues (was: lame (again!))
On Sat, 19 May 2001, Steve Greenland wrote: Barak, I agree with your purpose, and completely disagree with your approach. Beyond some problems with practical matters (I think patent law varies way too widely to provide accurate information without undue burden on the maintainers), it has two fundamental flaws: 1. It puts a burden on our users that I believe violates our social contract (in spirit, if not in letter). I think that we've long implied that software in main is safe to use, and the users trust that we've interpeted the licenses such that they can use and modify the software without fear of reprisal. The click-through-license you've proposed violates that. However, I really see no reason why Barak's software patents are nasty dialog shouldn't be a strong advisory for patented stuff in non-free... Given that Debian really can't demand much about something that isn't officially a part of it. 2a. It basically confirms that we think these patents are valid[1], and thus does not stay true to our ideals. It can be worded that Debian disagrees strongly with the idea of patented software, but pragmatically is providing it because of a percieved utility. Sort of like RMS's non-free question in base, except a bit longer and more preachy :) -or- 2b. It's an obviously cynical dodge of liability, and (to me, at least) is an even worse violation of our ideals. It's simply not worth it. Steve [1] I'm not sure I'd argue that all software (actually algorithm) patents are inherently invalid[2], just that the US Patent Office isn't competent to judge unobvious or prior-art. [2] Unlike business-process patents, which are completely bogus. -- There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: New idea for finessing patent issues (was: lame (again!))
On Sun, 20 May 2001, Steve Greenland wrote: On 19-May-01, 23:03 (CDT), John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 19 May 2001, Steve Greenland wrote: 2a. It basically confirms that we think these patents are valid[1], and thus does not stay true to our ideals. It can be worded that Debian disagrees strongly with the idea of patented software, but pragmatically is providing it because of a percieved utility. Sort of like RMS's non-free question in base, except a bit longer and more preachy :) Yeah, but we don't ship non-free stuff in main. We could just as well add a similar click though mechanism for non-free stuff as well: The license for this software prohibits x, y, and z. If you swear you won't do any of those things, it's just as good a free software. I said just about this in the previous paragraph. I was mostly expanding on the idea here. In fact, I see it as well within the scope of Debian to preach about the evils of non-DFSG free software upon installation via debconf. Steve -- There is an old saying that if a million monkeys typed on a million keyboards for a million years, eventually all the works of Shakespeare would be produced. Now, thanks to Usenet, we know this is not true. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: Libapache-mod-backhand: load balancing Apache requests.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Richard Braakman wrote: On Wed, Apr 04, 2001 at 04:27:26PM +0800, James Bromberger wrote: I am taking this licence as DFSG OK, and will be trying to get this package into main after a tad more testing. Your help is very much appreciated. Hmm, it might not be DFSG OK until *after* you have renamed it. Surely a Debian package is a derived product? Is Apache renamed? libapache-mod-backhand uses the Apache license verbatim... Richard Braakman - -- Be Careful! I have a black belt in sna-fu! Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED] -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBOsvHFR9mehuYcOjMEQKUYgCfZp11aNWzDfjWFRTrR9P8TH3menkAnjFT Oz5d/UyjV4/Ny/FfxVikXPVN =6P7T -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Libapache-mod-backhand: load balancing Apache requests.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, James Bromberger wrote: Dear Legal List, I have been asked to bring the licence for a package I am preparing for unstable, which I am hoping will go into main, to this list hoping to get a concensus that the licence is DSFG OK. The package is an Apache module, libapache-mod-backhand, which performs application level load balancing of HTTP requests between Apache and backhand enabled servers. It is written by Yair Amir and Theo Schlossnagle at John Hopkins University. I sat in on Theo's presentation of mod-backhand at ApacheCon Europe last October in London, and he inidcated it was distributed under an Apache style licence; my impresion was that this would be DFSG compatible. I noticed a Request For Packaging around December, and after contacting Theo and him approving of me doing this, I set about inserting myself in the NM queue and packaging the module. Ralf Treinen has raised some concern with sections 4, 5 and 6, and the ultimate senntence in the licence, which I post here in full: /* * Copyright (c) 1998-1999 The Johns Hopkins University. * All rights reserved. * * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions * are met: * * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright *notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright *notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in *the documentation and/or other materials provided with the *distribution. * * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this *software must display the following acknowledgment: *This product includes software developed at The Center for *Networking and Distributed Systems at The Johns Hopkins University *for use in the Backhand project (http://www.cnds.jhu.edu/backhand). * Creator: Theo Schlossnagle [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Guidance: Yair Amir [EMAIL PROTECTED] GPL incompatible, DFSG free. * 4. The names Backhand and mod_backhand must not be used to *endorse or promote products derived from this software without *prior written permission. For written permission, please contact *[EMAIL PROTECTED] DFSG 4 stuff. Kind of bad, but not enough to consign it to non-free. * 5. Products derived from this software may not be called mod_backhand *nor may mod_backhand appear in their names without prior written *permission. For written permission, please contact *[EMAIL PROTECTED] UUGLY! Pine license issues NON-FREE! * 6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following *acknowledgment: *This product includes software developed at The Center for *Networking and Distributed Systems at The Johns Hopkins University *for use in the Backhand project (http://www.cnds.jhu.edu/backhand). * Creator: Theo Schlossnagle [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Guidance: Yair Amir [EMAIL PROTECTED] *All other contributors are listed in the NOTICE document provided *with this distribution. * * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED * WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES * OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR * PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE APACHE GROUP OR * ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, * SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT * NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; * LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, * STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) * ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED * OF THE P
Re: Libapache-mod-backhand: load balancing Apache requests.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 2 Apr 2001, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit John Galt [EMAIL PROTECTED] * 5. Products derived from this software may not be called mod_backhand *nor may mod_backhand appear in their names without prior written *permission. For written permission, please contact *[EMAIL PROTECTED] UUGLY! Pine license issues NON-FREE! Failing which clause of the DFSG? I read the DFSG as explicitly allowing this kind of clauses (the last sentence in DFSG #4). I missed the with or without modification in the header, so thought this clause was the only thing granting permission for derived works. Had that been the case, DFSG 3 would be the controlling consideration and fail. But the permission for derivate works doesn't derive only from this clause, so I was wrong. However, I AM going to point out that Bushnell's idea of added constraint for the Diablo license could concievably apply to this clause, and since there's no real division between acceptable added constraint and unacceptable added constraint, could be read to void DFSG 4 - -- The early worm gets the bird. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBOskCsB9mehuYcOjMEQK9FQCgxxVnZD7dih8pICQR+9K7WMTUTR4An3eg 0HyDMphRulo1DPk7CjofN7M8 =V3+D -END PGP SIGNATURE-
