Re: Making legal issues as short as possible
Harald Geyer wrote: On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 09:20:42PM +0100, Harald Geyer wrote: "Copyright 2005 by XYZ. The copyright holder hereby grants permission to everyone, forever, to do anything with this work which would otherwise be restricted by his exclusive legal rights." This is sufficiently short, shorter than most things which are copyrightable at all. Thanks for the suggestion! And, as I pointed out, a poor suggestion. Please do not use it; you'll be doing the free software world a disfavor I don't see anything in our message that is not specific to my original wording. Probably you can give me a pointer, why this "enhanced version" is still poor. Especially I don't see why a liberal and short license is a disfavor to free software. (not to mention failing to disclaim warranty, putting yourself in danger). That's a different issue, I left out for simplicity. I don't know much about that field either and luckily I live in a country, where this issue is less important than otherwhere. However I like to discuss that separately from licensing because of the following reason: There are three parties involved. The author, the copyright holder and the distributor. Who is liable depends on who is making claims about the product. Obviously the only one involved in the license is the copyright holder. I guess the main reason for putting licenses and disclaimers together is, that in most cases author and copyright holder are the same. I'd like to see it as common practice that some softwares documentation isn't making any claims about the software but only describes how it is supposed to work. Although this is obvious to us, it might not be obvious to others - it is good to include some disclaimer in this cases. But there are also other cases without documentation or anything else that can be misread as claim. Think about dictionaries, small configuration files, a set of tiles or something similiar. Probably these things aren't copyrightable at all but we are still urged to claim copyright to deal with strange jurisdictions and the like. In this case it sucks to have to attach a license, ten times the size of the work itselve. Harald Harald, What appears simple right now tends to cause downstream difficulty. Someone taking your code will need to confirm that in their jurisdiction this statement enables them to release a modification under a licence that disclaims warranty, a future maintainer will ask lists like this if everything is ok, in some jurisdictions there will be extra work as people confirm that details in local law they don't understand overcomes your intent, there is a minor risk of users looking for warranty, and you will get emails asking you to confirm that case 'X' is ok. All adds up to extra work that can be avoided now by following an established simple path - use a standard wide-open Open Source licence like the MIT (See http://opensource.planetjava.org/licenses/mit-license.html). I replicated the MIT licence below. Copyright (c) year copyright holders Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sub license, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Re: Making legal issues as short as possible
On Fri, Feb 11, 2005 at 08:44:32PM +0100, Harald Geyer wrote: I don't see anything in our message that is not specific to my original wording. Probably you can give me a pointer, why this enhanced version is still poor. Especially I don't see why a liberal and short license is a disfavor to free software. It's a new license in circulation. We already have extremely well-used and well-understood permissive licenses: the X11 license and 2-clause BSD. Using a custom license means that people can't simply tell me that your software is under the X11 license; I have to read the license and analyze it, which is much more work (even if it's short). Nothing is gained by doing this; it's just license proliferation. Please see also the first section of http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2000/01/msg00088.html -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Making legal issues as short as possible
Harald Geyer wrote: On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 09:20:42PM +0100, Harald Geyer wrote: "Copyright 2005 by XYZ. The copyright holder hereby grants permission to everyone, forever, to do anything with this work which would otherwise be restricted by his exclusive legal rights." This is sufficiently short, shorter than most things which are copyrightable at all. Thanks for the suggestion! And, as I pointed out, a poor suggestion. Please do not use it; you'll be doing the free software world a disfavor I don't see anything in our message that is not specific to my original wording. Probably you can give me a pointer, why this "enhanced version" is still poor. Especially I don't see why a liberal and short license is a disfavor to free software. (not to mention failing to disclaim warranty, putting yourself in danger). That's a different issue, I left out for simplicity. I don't know much about that field either and luckily I live in a country, where this issue is less important than otherwhere. However I like to discuss that separately from licensing because of the following reason: There are three parties involved. The author, the copyright holder and the distributor. Who is liable depends on who is making claims about the product. Obviously the only one involved in the license is the copyright holder. I guess the main reason for putting licenses and disclaimers together is, that in most cases author and copyright holder are the same. I'd like to see it as common practice that some softwares documentation isn't making any claims about the software but only describes how it is supposed to work. Although this is obvious to us, it might not be obvious to others - it is good to include some disclaimer in this cases. But there are also other cases without documentation or anything else that can be misread as claim. Think about dictionaries, small configuration files, a set of tiles or something similiar. Probably these things aren't copyrightable at all but we are still urged to claim copyright to deal with strange jurisdictions and the like. In this case it sucks to have to attach a license, ten times the size of the work itselve. Harald Harald, What apears simple right now tends to cause downstream difficulty. Someone taking your code will need to confirm that in their jursidiction this statement enables them to release a modification under a liscence that disclaims warranty, a future maintainer will ask lists like this if everything is ok, in some jurisdictions there will be extra work as people confirm that details in local law they don't understand overcomes your intent, there is a minor risk of users looking for warranty, and you will get emails asking you to confirm that case 'X' is ok. All adds up to extra work that can be avoided now by following an established simple path - use a standard wide-open Open Source liscence like the MIT (See http://opensource.planetjava.org/licenses/mit-license.html). I replicated the MIT liscence below. Copyright (c) year copyright holders Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Re: Making legal issues as short as possible
On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 12:20:29AM +0100, Harald Geyer wrote: Would a software with the following statement and without any further copyright or licensing notice be free? Copyright 2005 by XYZ. No rights reserved. Any issues with that? This means all rights reserved because that's always what is meant when no license is given. That's definitely wrong, as I don't mean all rights reserved. ;) How it is interpreted by a judge is a different question of course. I wonder how something can be read the opposite of what is written down. (But probably the legal folks wouldn't have a job otherwise.) It's fairly simple: what it said had no legal significance. In the absence of anything saying otherwise (and since that meant nothing, there's nothing saying otherwise), the state is all rights reserved. The corporations bought that law in the 1970s. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Making legal issues as short as possible
On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 12:25:50AM +0100, Harald Geyer wrote: Hi! Would a software with the following statement and without any further copyright or licensing notice be free? Copyright 2005 by XYZ. No rights reserved. Any issues with that? This is definitely not a license at all. This means all rights reserved because that's always what is meant when no license is given. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Making legal issues as short as possible
Would a software with the following statement and without any further copyright or licensing notice be free? Copyright 2005 by XYZ. No rights reserved. Any issues with that? This is definitely not a license at all. Indeed it is not a license as there shouldn't exist anything that could be subject to a license in the first place. This means all rights reserved because that's always what is meant when no license is given. That's definitely wrong, as I don't mean all rights reserved. ;) How it is interpreted by a judge is a different question of course. I wonder how something can be read the opposite of what is written down. (But probably the legal folks wouldn't have a job otherwise.) Harald -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Making legal issues as short as possible
On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 12:25:50AM +0100, Harald Geyer wrote: Would a software with the following statement and without any further copyright or licensing notice be free? Copyright 2005 by XYZ. No rights reserved. Any issues with that? No, because it's very vague: no rights reserved isn't something that has any real meaning. I usually recommend the MIT license (attached) as the simplest commonly- used license for people who want to allow people to do whatever they want. -- Glenn Maynard Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, provided that the above copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear in all copies of the Software and that both the above copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR HOLDERS INCLUDED IN THIS NOTICE BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, OR ANY SPECIAL INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
