Re: JOGL in Debian
On 29/12/2007, Sylvestre Ledru [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:20:14 -0600, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does French law define intellectual property? What does it define it to be? Of course, our law defines what is an intellectual property and it is going futher. I see. A lot of other local laws don't define intellectual property, but people use the term anyways as if it were legally defined. It's sad news to see that France does and that other laws are also doing it. :-( On 29/12/2007, Arnoud Engelfriet [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not sure if any law has a more precise definition. The term IP is well-enough understood as a term of art for copyrights, patents, trademarks, semiconductor rights, plant breeders' rights and so on. Or internet protocol or imaginary property. Heh. Anyways, TRIPS seems to define intellectual property to be copyright and related rights, trademarks, geographical indications (this one is new for me. If I label my product as originating from my country, then this is intellectual property? What does intellect have to do with being born in a specific geographical location?), industrial designs, patents, layout designs of integrated circuits (why include a section just for this, and why not subsume this under industrial designs?), and protection of undisclosed information. This last one is also broad enough to include almost anything, since any information that has commercial value because it is secret is protected under this law. I wonder if 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is breaking that law, and I wonder what intellect was required to come up with a seemingly random number. If they want to use that definition, maybe information property could be a better expansion of the IP acronym. Uh. I guess I'm getting offtopic for this list. Any suggestions on where to move the discussion to? - Jordi G. H.
Re: JOGL in Debian
Jordi Guti?rrez Hermoso wrote: A lot of other local laws don't define intellectual property, but people use the term anyways as if it were legally defined. It's sad news to see that France does and that other laws are also doing it. :-( Why do you think it's necessary for a law to define a term of art for lawyers? As long as people know what is meant by the term, what is the problem? I don't think there is a single place in legislation where the term European law is defined. Still, the term is widely used and (apart from some corner cases) lawyers know what it means. Anyways, TRIPS seems to define intellectual property to be copyright and related rights, trademarks, geographical indications (this one is new for me. If I label my product as originating from my country, then this is intellectual property? What does intellect have to do with being born in a specific geographical location?), industrial designs, patents, layout designs of integrated circuits (why include a section just for this, and why not subsume this under industrial designs?), and protection of undisclosed information. This last one is also broad enough to include almost anything, since any information that has commercial value because it is secret is protected under this law. TRIPs provides a definition to indicate its scope. TRIPs is not a law. And yes, there are things that today are considered IP which are not products of the mind. That's what you get when introducing an umbrella term. But it's not unique for intellectual property: my Web browser can also do FTP, Gopher and NNTP. Geographical indications: this refers to e.g. labeling sparkling wine from California as Champagne (which is not allowed because Champagne is a protected geographical indication). It's related to trademarks. The two design rights are related but hava a different purpose. IC layout designs are purely functional and technical, while industrial designs are ornamental. They need separate criteria because of their different purpose. Trade secrets: yes that's a pretty broad definition. If information is undisclosed and has commercial value because it is secret, the owner of the information has a cause of action against people who misappropriate this information from him. (Very funny, repeating that key here). Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ Arnoud blogt nu ook: http://blog.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: JOGL in Debian
On 30/12/2007, Arnoud Engelfriet [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jordi Guti?rrez Hermoso wrote: A lot of other local laws don't define intellectual property, but people use the term anyways as if it were legally defined. It's sad news to see that France does and that other laws are also doing it. :-( Why do you think it's necessary for a law to define a term of art for lawyers? As long as people know what is meant by the term, what is the problem? In this case, because I honestly *didn't* know what the term meant. I had no idea that geographical indication was also intellectual property, for instance. I do get the impression that there is widespread confusion about what it means. Geographical indications: this refers to e.g. labeling sparkling wine from California as Champagne (which is not allowed because Champagne is a protected geographical indication). It's related to trademarks. I understand what it means, it's just a funny thing to call that intellectual property, don't you think? Also, regarding trademarks, that's sometimes a very non-intuitive intellectual property. In Mexico, at least, I know that you cannot trademark a common word, although I'm guessing that only pertains to Spanish because Windows (r) is seemingly recognised as a trademark, for instance. The two design rights are related but hava a different purpose. IC layout designs are purely functional and technical, while industrial designs are ornamental. They need separate criteria because of their different purpose. I see, thanks. Trade secrets: yes that's a pretty broad definition. If information is undisclosed and has commercial value because it is secret, the owner of the information has a cause of action against people who misappropriate this information from him. Could I misappropriate your lighter's or matchbox's fire[1] for this candle I want to light in mourning of the spread of intellectual property concerns? (Very funny, repeating that key here). Isn't it a Debian package by now?[2] Oh, I guess it hasn't gotten uploaded yet. It's important to have a sense of humour about these things, because otherwise I'd be crying about it. :-) - Jordi G.H. [1] http://everything2.com/?node_id=697430 [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/05/msg00043.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: JOGL in Debian
On 07/12/2007, Sylvestre Ledru [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: it has been designed for the french (and european) law which is quite specific about intellectual property. Does French law define intellectual property? What does it define it to be? - Jordi G. H. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: JOGL in Debian
On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:20:14 -0600, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 07/12/2007, Sylvestre Ledru [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: it has been designed for the french (and european) law which is quite specific about intellectual property. Does French law define intellectual property? What does it define it to be? Of course, our law defines what is an intellectual property and it is going futher. However, since I am not a lawyer and I will not explain this very well, you will find more information on : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_copyright_law or in French : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_d%27auteur#En_France Sylvestre -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: JOGL in Debian
Jordi Guti?rrez Hermoso wrote: On 07/12/2007, Sylvestre Ledru [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: it has been designed for the french (and european) law which is quite specific about intellectual property. Does French law define intellectual property? What does it define it to be? International law, more specifically the TRIPs agreement, does: Art. 2 (2) TRIPs: For the purposes of this Agreement, the term 'intellectual property' refers to all categories of intellectual property that are the subject of Sections 1 through 7 of Part II. http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/t_agm2_e.htm I'm not sure if any law has a more precise definition. The term IP is well-enough understood as a term of art for copyrights, patents, trademarks, semiconductor rights, plant breeders' rights and so on. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ Arnoud blogt nu ook: http://blog.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: JOGL in Debian
John Halton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Fri, Dec 07, 2007 at 10:33:14PM +0100, Francesco Poli wrote: Are you implying you have any evidence that the GNU GPL v2 is *incompatible* with french law?!? I gather that one reason for some of the changes in GPL v2 (in particular the change from distribute to propogate/convey) was to address concerns over how GPL v2 would be interpreted under French law, where distribute has (I gather) a very specific meaning. Hmm.. I'd be surprised if distribute had any meaning in french law at all. I mean perhaps Distribuer has a specific legal meaning, but if I were a judge, i would interprete foreign language legal terms not by the meaning of the closest translated word, but the local legal term that is closest in meaning to the original legal term. It seems a reasonably safe assumption that french law has some term that means roughly the same thing as distribute does in Common Law. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: JOGL in Debian
However, why not just adopt the plain GNU GPL v2 ? CECILL is from INRIA too and it is also compatible with the french law ! Firstoff, from a technical point of view, shipping the *exact same code* in two different packages does not seem to be a good idea. Could this duplication of code be avoided? Is it possible to link or otherwise use the code included in the mesa package, rather than packaging another copy of it? Well, it is the exact same code (ie not rewrote) but in Java... and I think JOGL devs prefer to avoid JNI code. Then it's not the *exact same code*: it's a translation in Java. That kinda explains why the original code included in mesa packages cannot be directly used. I used the words of the guys from Sun on this, but yes, that explains ... Anyway, from a DFSG-freeness point of view, that license is indeed problematic: see http://bugs.debian.org/368560 for the details. Unfortunately, there seems to have been too little progress on this bug so far. Do you know if anyone contacted the owner of the code ? Or if anything is planned to fix this issue ? I have not been directly involved in the issue: I think that the people who participated in the bug discussion should be contacted for further information. OK, I sent an email to this bug to learn if there is anything new ! Sylvestre signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: JOGL in Debian
On Fri, Dec 07, 2007 at 10:33:14PM +0100, Francesco Poli wrote: Are you implying you have any evidence that the GNU GPL v2 is *incompatible* with french law?!? I gather that one reason for some of the changes in GPL v2 (in particular the change from distribute to propogate/convey) was to address concerns over how GPL v2 would be interpreted under French law, where distribute has (I gather) a very specific meaning. That said, I agree with you on avoiding licence proliferation. John (TINLA) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: JOGL in Debian
On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:30:35 +0100 Sylvestre Ledru wrote: However, why not just adopt the plain GNU GPL v2 ? CECILL is from INRIA too I am aware of that. The question could have as well been phrased: why not accept the fact that license proliferation is bad and stop using a new license, when it's convertible to GPL anyway and most, if not all, recipients will treat the work as if it were simply licensed under the terms of the GPL? Please note that CECILL's GPL-compatibility is really the only reason why, in this particular case, the damage of license proliferation is somewhat *mitigated* (note that I didn't write *avoided*). and it is also compatible with the french law ! Are you implying you have any evidence that the GNU GPL v2 is *incompatible* with french law?!? Once again: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. [...] Anyway, from a DFSG-freeness point of view, that license is indeed problematic: see http://bugs.debian.org/368560 for the details. Unfortunately, there seems to have been too little progress on this bug so far. Do you know if anyone contacted the owner of the code ? Or if anything is planned to fix this issue ? I have not been directly involved in the issue: I think that the people who participated in the bug discussion should be contacted for further information. OK, I sent an email to this bug to learn if there is anything new ! Thanks for helping. P.S.: Please note that, on Debian mailing lists, you should avoid sending public replies to (or Cc:ing) the original poster, unless he/she has explicitly asked to be Cc:ed. Since I haven't asked to be Cc:ed, please send public replies to the list only, and not to me as well. See the code of conduct for further details: http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct Thanks. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpEE0Nmq1Ra1.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: JOGL in Debian
and it is also compatible with the french law ! Are you implying you have any evidence that the GNU GPL v2 is *incompatible* with french law?!? I didn't say that. I am just saying (or trying to say) that it has been designed for the french (and european) law which is quite specific about intellectual property. Sylvestre PS : sorry for the C/C, I know, it was only a mistake. signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: JOGL in Debian
On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:58:50 +0100 Sylvestre Ledru wrote: I am one of the developer of Scilab. We are rewriting the GUI from scratch using Java (Swing) and JOGL. Since we prefer to have Scilab packages available (especially because Scilab is going to change his license to a free one), That's really good news! Which license are you considering to switch to? It is probably going to be CECILL. Do you mean this one? http://www.cecill.info/licences/Licence_CeCILL_V2-en.txt It has an explicit conversion-to-GPLv2orlater clause, IIUC. For this reason, it meets the DFSG. Last discussion on this topic on debian-legal that I could find is http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/08/msg00144.html However, why not just adopt the plain GNU GPL v2 ? Disclaimers: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. Firstoff, from a technical point of view, shipping the *exact same code* in two different packages does not seem to be a good idea. Could this duplication of code be avoided? Is it possible to link or otherwise use the code included in the mesa package, rather than packaging another copy of it? Well, it is the exact same code (ie not rewrote) but in Java... and I think JOGL devs prefer to avoid JNI code. Then it's not the *exact same code*: it's a translation in Java. That kinda explains why the original code included in mesa packages cannot be directly used. Anyway, from a DFSG-freeness point of view, that license is indeed problematic: see http://bugs.debian.org/368560 for the details. Unfortunately, there seems to have been too little progress on this bug so far. Do you know if anyone contacted the owner of the code ? Or if anything is planned to fix this issue ? I have not been directly involved in the issue: I think that the people who participated in the bug discussion should be contacted for further information. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgp1SRwc4NXbY.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: JOGL in Debian
I am one of the developer of Scilab. We are rewriting the GUI from scratch using Java (Swing) and JOGL. Since we prefer to have Scilab packages available (especially because Scilab is going to change his license to a free one), That's really good news! Which license are you considering to switch to? It is probably going to be CECILL. Firstoff, from a technical point of view, shipping the *exact same code* in two different packages does not seem to be a good idea. Could this duplication of code be avoided? Is it possible to link or otherwise use the code included in the mesa package, rather than packaging another copy of it? Well, it is the exact same code (ie not rewrote) but in Java... and I think JOGL devs prefer to avoid JNI code. Anyway, from a DFSG-freeness point of view, that license is indeed problematic: see http://bugs.debian.org/368560 for the details. Unfortunately, there seems to have been too little progress on this bug so far. Do you know if anyone contacted the owner of the code ? Or if anything is planned to fix this issue ? Sylvestre signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
Re: JOGL in Debian
On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:37:40 +0100 Sylvestre Ledru wrote: Hello, Hi! I am one of the developer of Scilab. We are rewriting the GUI from scratch using Java (Swing) and JOGL. Since we prefer to have Scilab packages available (especially because Scilab is going to change his license to a free one), That's really good news! Which license are you considering to switch to? we need to have JOGL in Debian. I did a debian package of the latest version of JOGL ready to be incorporated in Debian. However, it seems that there is an issue highlighted by Fedora and Robert Schuster. A part of the code of JOGL is under the SGI Free License B. The FSF says that it is not a free license [1]. It is why Anthony Green removed it from Fedora. The defense of the dev of JOGL, Ken Russell [2] and Tom Marble [3] (both from Sun) is that both Fedora and Debian are shipping Mesa with the *exact same code* with the same license. Firstoff, from a technical point of view, shipping the *exact same code* in two different packages does not seem to be a good idea. Could this duplication of code be avoided? Is it possible to link or otherwise use the code included in the mesa package, rather than packaging another copy of it? Anyway, from a DFSG-freeness point of view, that license is indeed problematic: see http://bugs.debian.org/368560 for the details. Unfortunately, there seems to have been too little progress on this bug so far. If we are shipping SGI Free B code in debian, I guess we can accept JOGL in Debian ? What is your opinion(s) on this ? I don't think that the existence of a bug should be seen as a justification for adding another bug... Disclaimers: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgphKovGHbVUZ.pgp Description: PGP signature
JOGL in Debian
Hello, I am one of the developer of Scilab. We are rewriting the GUI from scratch using Java (Swing) and JOGL. Since we prefer to have Scilab packages available (especially because Scilab is going to change his license to a free one), we need to have JOGL in Debian. I did a debian package of the latest version of JOGL ready to be incorporated in Debian. However, it seems that there is an issue highlighted by Fedora and Robert Schuster. A part of the code of JOGL is under the SGI Free License B. The FSF says that it is not a free license [1]. It is why Anthony Green removed it from Fedora. The defense of the dev of JOGL, Ken Russell [2] and Tom Marble [3] (both from Sun) is that both Fedora and Debian are shipping Mesa with the *exact same code* with the same license. If we are shipping SGI Free B code in debian, I guess we can accept JOGL in Debian ? What is your opinion(s) on this ? Cheers, Sylvestre [1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html [2] http://www.javagaming.org/forums/index.php?topic=10718.msg138381#msg138381 [3] Email of Tom Marble : - JOGL contains the exact same SGI FreeB code as Mesa - If another implementation of the OpenGL GLU image scaling and tesselator routines which is licensed under a different license than SGI FreeB (and compatible with JOGL's BSD license) shows up, we can consider re-porting that to Java. - The code is nearly 15 years old and it's a safe bet that SGI isn't making much money off this particular area of the code at this point. [...] I respect that we all need to get rid of the FreeB code. However I don't think it's fair that the *exact same code* is accepted for Mesa, but not for JOGL. signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée
