Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
Quoting David Woolley (for...@david-woolley.me.uk): Rick Moen wrote: It's called 'realism'. The reason well written licences have an irreducible complexity about them is that they are obliged to deal with real legal issues, e.g., the way warranty disclaimers are required to be The reality is that the people who have to comply with licences are not professional lawyers. If they are presented with lots of legalese, they are likely to ignore it, as most people do with shrink wrap licence agreements, or the legal stuff hidden in low contrast, small font links at the bottom of web pages, which the designers would rather not have there at all. 1. The likes of MIT/X should be highly comprehensible as to their general purport by, say, school leavers, even if they gloss over many of the details and don't follow the nuances. 2. A large and underappreciated part of the value of well-known, major open source licences lies in the fact that they are broadly understood, and so do not need to be minutely scrutinised by everyone to understand what they're about. I suspect that licences with lots of legalese discriminate against medium size enterprises. Oh, bushwah. Any layman who wants to understand in even paranoid levels of detail the major licences and has two hours to spare can pull down the PDF of Larry Rosen's book free of charge, among other methods of arriving at that understanding. And any of them who cannot comprehend MIT/X after two hours even without Larry's book probably should rethink running a business. -- Cheers, Remember: its means it is, and it's Rick Moenis the possessive form of it. r...@linuxmafia.com -- FakeAPStylebook McQ! (4x80) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 09:41:01PM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: On 02/26/2012 09:00 PM, Chad Perrin wrote: I suspect a better approach to understandable, legally well-formed license production might be to get someone who wants a very simple license to write it, and only *then* get the lawyers involved. While you're at it, be prepared to make the lawyers explain everything they want to change, and to tell them no a lot. The problem with your software, Chad, is that it's much too complicated for /no reason./ There's no reason for half of that crapton to be in there. We could cut it down to 10% of its present complexity if we had a /user /who wanted a really simple program write it first, and then we could have a programmer make it work correctly. While the programmer did that, we would make him explain /everything /that he was doing, and we would tell him no a lot to curb his natural tendency to add unnecessary complexity. This may surprise you, but I don't think that actually proves what you probably think it does. Y'know what? A user willing and able to dive into writing code for his or her own purposes should be encouraged to do so, and experienced software developers who are willing to offer some peer review or mentoring can provide an invaluable service in helping a novice programmer learn how to serve his or her own needs better than any outsider trying to second guess his or her desires ever could. So, yeah, that's pretty much *exactly* what I have in mind. Thanks for the excellent analogy supporting my point so beautifully. The pieces you don't like aren't there because anyone likes to put them there or because the people who wrote the license are idiots. Tell that to the guy who doesn't want the crashes every couple hours feature of an overcomplicated word processor or operating system, or the guy who doesn't want the What the hell is *that* doing in this license?! feature of a legal unwittingly misrepresented as having much simpler legal effects than were explicitly described in the license text itself (let alone those license terms that have *unintended* effects). You yourself have questioned some terms that are not fully disclosed in recent discussion, but now you act like this stuff doesn't matter. Sure, they're there for a specific reason, and the people who wrote the license are probably not idiots (in fact, I think they're probably quite smart about this stuff), but the fact remains that the legal density of the license text and necessary inadequacy of a plain English simplification leaves potential license users or accepters with a potentially disastrous misunderstanding of terms. There have been a lot of court cases in history. From those cases, we know a number of things that go wrong in courts. We want you not to get trapped by the same stuff. Instead, people should get trapped by the simple fact they do not understand the licenses in question, I suppose -- or perhaps open source software development and open culture art are only for people with lawyers on retainer. Once more, I'm not talking about things like This turn of phrase is necessary to cover specific case-law eventualities. I'm talking about This license explicitly disclaims any patent license, setting me up for a patent suit trap. That license limits what technologies I can use to redistribute this work, which means I'm violating its terms when I distribute it on iTunes. The other license specifies software in a definitions section in a way that makes my use of the covered work, which is a combination of example code and English explanation, only partially protected from copyright infringment suits if I redistribute it. The fact a lawyer wrote a license does not in any way whatsoever guarantee that people will not misunderstand the licenses, especially when all they're reading is a terribly under-explained summary (because full explanation would require a hefty chapter of a book, if for no other reason). It really does not matter, for the purposes of my point, how well the lawyer did achieving legal text that will for decades to come stand up to court test as satisfying the literal request (in every detail) of the guy who commissioned the lawyer's work. I had to help Bob Jacobsen, an Open Source developer who chose one of those over-simple licenses, the Artistic License 1.0, written by Larry Wall the Programmer. Bob had someone who both used his program in a product without even attributing it to him, and /also /asked Bob for lots of money for infringing his patent and tried to get Bob fired from his job by filing an FOIA with his employer. This was all over /model train software./ There is a difference between an overly-simple license that tries to do too much and a *properly* simple license that tries to do the minimum acceptable amount of stuff so that mere mortals are still capable of reading it when crafted by a qualified professional. Feature creep is as much a problem
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:08:17AM -0800, Rick Moen wrote: Quoting Chad Perrin: Explain to me how wanting to enforce a crapton of additional terms is realism instead of a more-restrictive license. Mu. This request has nothing to do with what I said, and I just don't have that time to waste. If that has nothing to do with what you said, what you said must have nothing to do with the points to which you replied. Anyway, I already pointed out extremely basic problems with 'Unlicense' on licence-review. . . . which you say as though I were somehow disagreeing here. That mystifies me. -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:00:00AM -0800, Rick Moen wrote: Quoting David Woolley: I suspect that licences with lots of legalese discriminate against medium size enterprises. Oh, bushwah. Any layman who wants to understand in even paranoid levels of detail the major licences and has two hours to spare can pull down the PDF of Larry Rosen's book free of charge, among other methods of arriving at that understanding. And any of them who cannot comprehend MIT/X after two hours even without Larry's book probably should rethink running a business. I don't think David Woolley was saying the MIT/X11 License was lots of legalese. I think the point was about licenses at least three times the size of that one. That, at least, is how I understood it; CC0 pushes that barrier to understanding for the layman pretty hard, and many (longer) licenses blow right through it like it wasn't even there, such as a few very popular OSI-approved licenses longer than any Microsoft EULA I have ever seen. -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:15:51AM -0800, Rick Moen wrote: Quoting Chad Perrin (per...@apotheon.com): If that has nothing to do with what you said, what you said must have nothing to do with the points to which you replied. This comment does not strike me as either logical or constructive. However, please do have a pleasant day. Please explain to me how pointing out a miscommunication (where what I said to you was relevant to what I had previously said, indicating that if it was not relevant to your reply to what I previously said your comment was also probably not relevant to what I had previously said) does not appear to be logical or constructive so I may avoid that error in the future. -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On 2/26/12 5:31 PM, David Woolley for...@david-woolley.me.uk wrote: The reality is that the people who have to comply with licences are not professional lawyers. This is why CC is liked in the creative community. That and a broad range of licenses to meet a variety of needs. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On 02/27/2012 12:57 AM, David Woolley wrote: The software analogy is flawed in that software has to be understood by a machine and is written in a language with very precisely defined semantics. Legal documents are written to be interpreted by a human and, unfortunately, legal language is not a simple formal language The structure of laws, courts, and contracts is indeed a machine that executes statements of rules. That it does so /fuzzily/ and through human rather than machine elements is not necessarily a /flaw /of the system, in that it is invariably asked to handle unforseen problems, and extends itself by doing so. A machine-executed language for legal rule sets is a frequently expressed, unachieved dream. But any program in such a language would necessarily be closed in its capabilities, and would need to fall back on humans for those unforseen problems. So, you wouldn't lose the courts or the arguing over what something really means. Thanks Bruce attachment: bruce.vcf smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
Quoting Chad Perrin (per...@apotheon.com): Please explain to me No thank you. Please do have a pleasant day. -- Cheers, 'LEGO' is the plural. The singular is 'Legum.' Rick Moen -- FakeAPStylebook r...@linuxmafia.com McQ! (4x80) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On 02/26/2012 09:41 PM, Bruce Perens wrote: I had to help Bob Jacobsen, an Open Source developer who chose one of those over-simple licenses, the Artistic License 1.0, written by Larry Wall the Programmer. Bob had someone who both used his program in a product without even attributing it to him, and /also /asked Bob for lots of money for infringing his patent and tried to get Bob fired from his job by filing an FOIA with his employer. This was all over /model train software./ When Bob turned to Larry's Artistic License to help him get the guy off of his back, the Artistic License failed in court. We put a good team together and turned that around on appeal, but it was a close thing. By the time we were done, Bob had spent 5 years on the case, was out a good deal of money, and his relationship with his employer was damaged. That's inappropriate FUD on the Artistic License. The ruling in question on the Jacobsen v. Katzer case was not specific to the Artistic License 1.0, it was a statement that violation of the conditions of *any* nonexclusive open source license would not be grounds for a copyright infringement claim. Fortunately, we did all join together and get that reversed. Please keep in mind that while copyright-based licenses are well established in general, there is very little actual precedent in case law. A large part of establishing that case law will be a matter of working together, and *not* flinging FUD at other people's licenses. Allison ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] [License-review] CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
Bruce Perens wrote: The structure of laws, courts, and contracts is indeed a machine that executes statements of rules. That it does so /fuzzily/ and through human rather than machine elements is not necessarily a /flaw /of the system, in that it is invariably asked to handle unforseen problems, and extends itself by doing so. Where I would see a particular advantage in a machine processable language, would in handling ANDs, ORs and the scope of particular conditions. There was a recent example of UK secondary legislation that made an AND/OR/negation type of mistake, in the wording of a statutory notice that was supposed to summarise primary legislation. As a result, it appeared to imply that certain sorts of debts to a landlord could never be recovered. A machine-executed language for legal rule sets is a frequently expressed, unachieved dream. But any program in such a language would necessarily be closed in its capabilities, and would need to fall back on humans for those unforseen problems. So, you wouldn't lose the courts or the arguing over what something really means. -- David Woolley Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want. RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam, that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
