Re: [License-discuss] MakeHuman, CC0 and AGPL

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 12:12 PM, Lindsay Patten <blindsaypat...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Can you clarify whether you can you put a copy of a work in the public
> domain while maintaining a license on another copy?  Or is it the work
> itself that is placed in the public domain, and any ability to enforce
> copyright on any copies has been surrendered?  My understanding was that
> works are placed in the public domain while copies are licensed, and that
> placing a work in the public domain renounces any copyright claim you might
> have on any copies regardless of what license they may have been previously
> released under.  You seem to be saying that a particular copy of a work can
> be placed in the public domain while other copies remain under copyright
> restrictions?
>
I oversimplified.  A work in the copyright sense is really an expression of
the abstract work.  Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is an abstraction existing
in people's minds (originally only Beethoven's mind) and not in itself
subject to copyright, whereas each draft of it that he wrote down, as well
as each recorded performance of any draft, constitute different expressions
("fixations" in copyright jargon) of the abstract work.  Likewise, multiple
editions of a book are separate expressions. Each expression exists in one
or more manifestations.  For example, a specific recording of the symphony,
which is an expression, can be manifested as a vinyl disk, a cassette, a
CD, a digital version.  The manifestations of a book might be as a
hardback, a paperback, an e-book, or in a single-volume vs. a multi-volume
version.  And each manifestation typically exists in multiple copies.

Copyright status attaches to the expression: if a specific expression is in
the public domain, then all manifestations and copies are too. .  The 11th
Britannica (an expression which manifests as a set of books and several
websites)  is in the public domain, whereas the 15th Britannica is not.
Licenses can attach to an expression, a manifestation (you may have one
license for a CD and a different one for digital audio), and exceptionally
to a copy.

CC0 is both a public domain dedication and a license.  If the dedication is
effective, then it affects all the manifestations (on a website or a
CD/DVD-ROM) and copies.  If it is not, then the permissive license affects
only the copies it is attached to.

> With regard to bundled exports, it would help me to look at a concrete
> case.  Say we have an export from MakeHuman that consists of three files
>
> 1) A 3D mesh that was created starting with a 3D mesh that comes with
> MakeHuman and transformed by the user using MakeHuman.
>
> 2) A meta-data file containing information about the character and its
> appearance created by the user using MakeHuman
>
> 3) A texture in the form of an image file from the MakeHuman collection of
> texture images.
>
> Let's say the user chooses to take the CC0 option.  What is the copyright
> status of the three files?  Are all three files now in the public domain?
> Can the user, or a third party use the individual files without being
> restricted by the AGPL license that would apply if the CC0 option hadn't
> been taken?  Or is it only the particular combination of the three that is
> in the public domain while the individual files are still under copyright?
> If it is only the combination that is in the public domain, does it revert
> to AGPL if you make any modifications?
>
I can't answer this specifically.  But in general, a work that combines
public-domain material and copyrighted material is itself subject to
copyright, provided the copyrighted material is used under license.
Obviously, if the creator of the combined work and of the copyrighted
material are the same, such a license isn't hard to obtain.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
My confusion is rapidly waxing
For XML Schema's too taxing:
I'd use DTDs / If they had local trees --
I think I best switch to RELAX NG.
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Re: [License-discuss] MakeHuman, CC0 and AGPL

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 9:30 AM, Lindsay Patten <blindsaypat...@gmail.com>
wrote:.
>
> My understanding of CC0 is that it is a declaration that you have placed
> the work in the public domain, with a fallback license in case the law in a
> particular jurisdiction doesn't permit that.  If the user takes the CC0
> option, what is the status of the individual assets that are bundled into
> the export?  Are they in the public domain or still copyrighted by the
> MakeHuman authors?
>
Those particular copies are effectively in the public domain, provided that
the MakeHuman folks actually hold copyright.  Third party copyrights are of
course unaffected.

> What I find confusing is whether CC0 is a license that can be applied to a
> particular copy of a work,
>
Every license is applicable only to particular copies.  The self-same bunch
of bits may have a commercial license for one copy that permits certain
acts and forbids others, and a GPL license on another copy which has
completely different conditions from the commercial license.  As long as
the licensor is the owner, that's just fine.  SImilarly, bits inside an
executable that have been compiled from a BSD source are (at least
arguably) under the GPL if other bits in the same executable come from
GPLed source.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
The whole of Gaul is quartered into three halves.
--Julius Caesar
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: (no subject)

[John Cowan]

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 9:12 AM, Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <
cem.f.karan@mail.mil> wrote:



> The issue is that
> 'voluntary' doesn't mean the same thing as 'gratuitous'; I work for the
> Government on a voluntary, but not gratuitous basis.


I certainly hope that nobody in the U.S. works for the Government or
anyone else on a non-voluntary basis, "except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted".


If I, as a Government
> employee, accept work from a volunteer without a well-defined contract in
> place regarding payment, there is a chance that someone could send
> Congress a
> bill for their contributions, and I could be sent to jail for having
> committed
> funds I don't have.
>

Though nobody has ever been prosecuted, much less sentenced, under the ADA.
In any case, anyone can send a bill to Congress for any reason: whether it
gets
paid is another story.  Francis Hopkinson sent a such a bill for designing
the
American flag, asking to be paid a "Quarter Cask of the Public Wine", but
Congress denied it on the grounds that Hopkinson was already a paid member
of Congress at the time.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Linguistics is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic
realm. It is soaked with the blood of poets, theologians, philosophers,
philologists, psychologists, biologists and neurologists, along with
whatever blood can be got out of grammarians. - Russ Rymer
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: NOSA 2.0, Copyfraud and the US Government

[John Cowan]

On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 10:44 AM, Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <
cem.f.karan@mail.mil> wrote:

Wait... what??? You mean the copyright goes on until the next two world
> wars occur? How do they define a world war?  What if we luck out and no
> world wars occur?
>

No, it's that the expiration of copyright was retroactively tolled by
specific French legislation (one for WWI, one for WWII) for the time that
publication in France was under military censorship, preventing French
authors from fully exploiting their commercial rights.  Presumably if
France was occupied again, a similar law would be passed when the
occupation was lifted.  The status of these increases under the current
life + 70 years regime is not very clear, since that added 20 years and the
maximum extension was only 15 years.

In addition, authors who are "mort pour la France" (either as soldiers or
as civilians killed in war) are granted an additional 30 years of copyright
(thus life + 100) in compensation for whatever works they did not get to
create.  There are only about 35 creators in this position officially, but
new ones could in principle be recognized at any time.


> Just to double check, droit d’auteur is the equivalent of moral rights,
> correct?
>

Yes, but it generally extends to all types of works.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettes of a creatific thinkerizer.
--Peter da Silva
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: NOSA 2.0, Copyfraud and the US Government

[John Cowan]

On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 4:32 PM, Thorsten Glaser <t...@mirbsd.de> scripsit:

Under the Berne Convention, a work from country A is, in country B,
> subject to the same protection as a work from country B. That means
> for a work originating in the USA, in Germany, only(!) German copy‐
> right law applies. In France, only French law, etc.
>

Up to a point, Minister.

Also under the Berne convention, country B may (but is not required to)
treat a work that is out of copyright in its originating country as out of
copyright
in country B as well.  The U.S. does not exercise this option, and the
EU countries are effectively forbidden to do so by EU case law.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
But the next day there came no dawn, and the Grey Company passed on
into the darkness of the Storm of Mordor and were lost to mortal sight;
but the Dead followed them.  --"The Passing of the Grey Company"
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Re: [License-discuss] New maintainer, changing license?

[John Cowan]

On Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 11:22 AM, Thorsten Glaser <t...@mirbsd.de> wrote:

>
> Note that this only applies in the USA, not, for example,
> in Germany, where such a thing is impossible.
>

Well, yes and no.  It is impossible to transfer the moral rights, but since
2008 the right of exploitation of all uses known and unknown can be
transferred exclusively, which amounts to the same thing.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Awk!" sed Grep. "A fscking python is perloining my Ruby; let me bash
him with a Cshell!  Vi didn't I mount it on a troff?" --Francis Turner
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 3:59 PM, Rick Moen <r...@linuxmafia.com> wrote:

The author in your hypothetical is not actually violating his/her own
> licence, because he/she already had statutory rights to the work's
> copyright-covered rights, and didn't need a licence to get them.
>

Indeed; I should have put "violate" in scare quotes.  This is no
hypothetical, though; it is the term rewriting language Pure <
https://agraef.github.io/pure-lang>, which I recommend to anyone interested
in dynamically typed languages that use pattern matching (and lack
constructor discipline a la Haskell).

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.  --Gerald Holton
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 2:44 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lro...@rosenlaw.com> wrote:

> So, I still don't understand what role "principle" plays in BSD and
> GPL dual licensing?

The principle in question should be a legal maxim but isn't.  "Damnunt quod
non intelligunt", people fear what they do not understand.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion
that optimum or inadequate performance in the trend of competitive
activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity,
but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be
taken into account. --Ecclesiastes 9:11, Orwell/Brown version
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 2:21 PM, Brent Turner <turnerbre...@gmail.com>
wrote:

I assume this is not relevant as I am only interested in public elections -
> which is where the corps I mentioned dwell--  and there would be no reason
> for government to be hostile to GPL .so under that reasoning again I can
> not figure out why they would be opting for license other than GPL
>

I can only speculate.  But looked at with a lawyerly eye that isn't used to
the wonderful world of free software licensing, the GPL looks *weird*.
Where's the consideration?  Where are the restrictive terms?  WHAT DO THEY
WANT?

Gummint lawyers can be just as fearful of what they don't understand as any
other lawyers.  Indeed, their clients probably have more to lose.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
In my last lifetime, I believed in reincarnation;
in this lifetime, I don't.  --Thiagi
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 9:12 AM, Brent Turner <turnerbre...@gmail.com>
wrote:

John.  Can you explain why a group such as Oset or FFE would not want to
> simply use GPL ?


I don't know those organizations.  But if you issue software under the GPL,
you reduce your market share by people who want to modify it and won't or
can't accept the GPL terms, or who just want to use it and are irrationally
afraid of or hostile to the GPL.  Likewise, if you issue software on BSD
terms, you reduce your market share by people who are irrationally hostile
to BSD software, or fear that if a proprietary fork is made it will somehow
affect their BSD rights or cut them off from their only available source of
improvements.  If you do both, you have some hope of retaining these people
who would otherwise be lost.

I know of a program which consists of a fairly large library which does
most of the work, issued under a permissive license, and a small
interactive main program which provides the command line.  This main
program is provided in two versions.  One works with GNU readline and is
GPLed; the other does not provide line editing and is under the same
permissive license as the library.  The author can do this because he is
free to violate his own license to create the readline-free version of the
code, but users would not be.

(Nowadays this wouldn't be necessary, as there are drop-in replacements for
readline, but the principle is still the same.)

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Business before pleasure, if not too bloomering long before.
--Nicholas van Rijn
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Re: [License-discuss] FreeAndFair license

[John Cowan]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2017 at 6:45 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lro...@rosenlaw.com> wrote:

I am surprised by offers at GitHub and elsewhere of open source software to
> the public under "either the BSD or the GPL". Take the BSD! It is fully
> compatible with the GPL anyway. Always take the more generous offer of
> software!


I'm not sure if you meant this to go to the public license-discuss list.

Some people are ideologues who refuse to have anything to do with software
under one or another license.  Offering multiple licenses is a strategy
(misguided, in my opinion) to satisfy (some) such ideologues without
alienating others.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Sound change operates regularly to produce irregularities;
analogy operates irregularly to produce regularities.
--E.H. Sturtevant, ca. 1945, probably at Yale
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Re: [License-discuss] GPLv1?

[John Cowan]

2017-06-18 10:59 GMT-04:00 Thorsten Glaser <t...@mirbsd.de>:

Is it deliberate or accident that the GPLv1 is not on
> https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical ? What’s
> the stance on it?
>

The GPLv2 was grandfathered, but licenses normally have to be submitted to
OSI by the steward, so you'd have to talk to the FSF.  Do substantial parts
of your material lack the phrase "or, at your option, any later version" in
their copyright notices?  If not, then this would be a simple solution.

I would support its recognition and placing in the "historic" category, for
what that's worth.  The differences as shown by wdiff are chiefly
editorial, with the exception of sections 7 and 8 of the GPLv2, which don't
exist in GPLv1.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Even a refrigerator can conform to the XML Infoset, as long as it has
a door sticker saying "No information items inside".  --Eve Maler
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Re: [License-discuss] notes on a systematic approach to "popular" licenses

[John Cowan]

On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 2:32 PM, Christopher Sean Morrison <brl...@mac.com>
wrote:

Isn’t that exactly what https://tldrlegal.com does?  They even have the
> OSI-approved ones marked and sorted by popularity (as determined by
> eyeballs on their site):  https://tldrlegal.com/licenses/tags/OSI-Approved
>

For people who like opinionated wizards, there's also mine, currently
hosted at
<http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan/floss/>.  It asks you questions about what
you want your license to do, and then steers you to the 3-clause BSD, the
Apache 2.0, the GPL 2.0, or the LGPL 2.0 licenses.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
"But I am the real Strider, fortunately," he said, looking down at them
with his face softened by a sudden smile.  "I am Aragorn son of Arathorn,
and if by life or death I can save you, I will."
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible alternative was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) Version 0.4.1

[John Cowan]

On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 8:39 AM, Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <
cem.f.karan@mail.mil> wrote:

> OK, thank you, I'll contact them and see what they think.


Note that the DFSG #1-#9 are verbatim the same as OSD #1-#9, but the
interpretations may differ.  (#10 is separate and unrelated in the two
definitions.)  Note also that debian-legal does not control what actually
gets into Debian; that decision is in the hands of the trusted committers.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
There is a Darwinian explanation for the refusal to accept Darwin.
Given the very pessimistic conclusions about moral purpose to which his
theory drives us, and given the importance of a sense of moral purpose
in helping us cope with life, a refusal to believe Darwin's theory may
have important survival value. --Ian Johnston
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: Possible alternative was: Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) Version 0.4.1

[John Cowan]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 8:45 PM, Tom Callaway <tcall...@redhat.com> wrote:

I'd think the only ones who get to apply the "Open Source" label to
> licenses would be the OSI. Fedora's opinion is that CC-0 meets the OSD.
>

"Open source", whether upper or lower case, is not a protected mark of the
OSI or anyone else.  When someone misuses it, we generally ask them nicely
not to (if we find out about it).  But only "OSI Certified" is or was
protected.

In particular, if for example a license were legally equivalent to the BSD
license, the OSI would probably not certify it, but it would still be an
open source license.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos--Lithuanian proverb
Deus dedit dentes; deus dabit panem   --Latin version thereof
Deity donated dentition;
  deity'll donate doughnuts   --English version by Muke
Tever
God gave gums; God'll give granary--Version by Mat McVeagh
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Re: [License-discuss] Protecting database integrity

[John Cowan]

On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 10:52 PM, Terrence Bull <terre...@woogloo.com> wrote:

I do wonder how Google makes Android open source yet requires everyone that
> makes ‘copies’ to be connected to the Play store. Do they have some sort of
> special open source license they use?
>

No, the license is straight Apache 2.0, except for the proprietary parts
that control the radio and the sensors.  Google's leverage over Android
manufacturers comes from the Android trademark, which they license only to
OEMs who follow their rules, and from the fact that they give advance
copies of new releases to those same OEMs.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Don't be so humble.  You're not that great.
--Golda Meir
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Re: [License-discuss] Protecting database integrity

[John Cowan]

On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 9:20 PM, Terrence Bull <terre...@woogloo.com> wrote:

I want to release the software for everyone to use - however, It is
> important that someone doesn’t simply ‘disconnect’ their copy of the
> database as this will screw with the integrity of the ‘universal’ nature of
> the system.
>

I don't see that any sort of _public_ license, open-source or not, will
work.  You will have to get every user to sign a contract to that effect,
along with preventing all redistribution, and there is of course no way to
do that consistently with the Open Source Definition.

What are your motives for preventing people from running disconnected
copies of the program, or for that matter separate networks of copies?  If
it is commercial advantage, that's one thing, and you should go with a
closed-souroce scheme.  If it is a "commons" argument (everyone is better
off if there's just One Big Network), then you should make the case in your
documentation.  Most people use a public blockchain, for good and
sufficient reasons, but there is nothing stopping anyone from setting up
their own blockchains, and people do if they have use for it.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
The native charset of SMS messages supports English, French, mainland
Scandinavian languages, German, Italian, Spanish with no accents, and
GREEK SHOUTING.  Everything else has to be Unicode, which means you get
only 70 16-bit characters in a text instead of 160 7-bit characters.
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: OSI equivalent

[John Cowan]

On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 12:08 PM, Simon Phipps <si...@webmink.com> wrote:

the only opinion that really matters is that of the copyright holder who
> has chosen to use a particular license.


Up to a point, Minister.  After that point, the only opinions that really
matters are the judges'.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Income tax, if I may be pardoned for saying so, is a tax on income.
--Lord Macnaghten (1901)
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Re: [License-discuss] step by step interpretation of common permissive licenses

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Christopher Sean Morrison <brl...@mac.com>
wrote:

I would caution that many seemingly ordinary words can take on a different
> or more specific legal meaning in court.


Indeed.  From Dorothy Sayers's novel _Unnatural Death_:

'You are too easily surprised,' said Mr. Towkington.  'Many words have no
legal meaning.  Others have a legal meaning very unlike their ordinary
meaning.  For example, the word "daffy-down-dilly".  It is a criminal libel
to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly.  ha!  Yes, I advise you never to do
such a thing.  No, I certainly advise you never to do it.

Then again, words which are quite meaningless in your ordinary conversation
may have a meaning in law.  For instance, I might say to a young man like
yourself, "You wish to leave such-and-such property to so-and-so."  And you
would very likely reply, "Oh, yes, absolutely" -- meaning nothing in
particular by that.  But if you were to write in your will, "I leave
such-and-such property to so-and-so absolutely," then that word would bear
a definite legal meaning, and would condition your bequest in a certain
manner, and might even prove an embarrassment and produce results very far
from your actual intentions.  Eh, ha!  You see?'

["Daffy-down-dilly" was 16C legal slang for a lawyer who took money from
both sides of a litigation, and as such a very serious charge indeed,
tending to produce a breach of the peace.]

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
"After all, would you consider a man without honor wealthy, even if his
Dinar laid end to end would reach from here to the Temple of Toplat?"
"No, I wouldn't", the beggar replied.  "Why is that?" the Master asked.
"A Dinar doesn't go very far these days, Master.--Kehlog Albran
Besides, the Temple of Toplat is across the street."  The Profit
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Re: [License-discuss] step by step interpretation of common permissive licenses

[John Cowan]

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 3:50 AM, Massimo Zaniboni <
massimo.zanib...@asterisell.com> wrote:

Sincerely I don't fully understand this sentence. Are you saying that if
> license A allows me to use, modify and distribuite the code of product A
> (like BSD, and ISC are saying), then is it implicit by common laws that I
> can distribuite the software using my license terms?


Yes, exactly.  If you have a license to create derivative works, then those
derivative works belong to you, and you may (if there are no terms in the
license to the contrary) license the derivative works however you choose.
Pace David Woolley, it is not only the *changes* but the *entire*
derivative work of which you are the copyright owner.  Of course you cannot
prevent the making of other derivative works under license from the
original author.

For example, if Alice publishes the dialogue of a movie made by Bob without
a license to do so, then Bob may sue for copyright infringement, and it is
no defense that she only quoted words appearing in the novel by Charlie
from which the movie was made — unless of course Alice has a separate
license from Charlie to do so, and even then Bob may have a copyright
interest, because he selected which of Charlie's words to use.  Since Bob
typically has more money than Charlie, this works out to the advantage of
both Bob and Charlie.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Your worships will perhaps be thinking that it is an easy thing
to blow up a dog? [Or] to write a book?
--Don Quixote, Introduction
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Re: [License-discuss] step by step interpretation of common permissive licenses

[John Cowan]

On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Massimo Zaniboni <
massimo.zanib...@asterisell.com> wrote:

Probably I'm wrong, but I'm curious to understand where. So if someone has
> the patience to read the post,  can report here a fault part of my
> reasoning, so I can understand better and maybe discuss?


I added a comment to your post saying this:

Your conclusions are incorrect because you are jumping to a single
conclusion that is not justified. When the BSD/ISC/MIT licenses say that
you must include the text of the license in derivative works, that's
exactly what is meant: the words of the license must be provided as part of
the documentation. It does not mean that they must be incorporated into the
license of the derived work, which can be whatever you want.
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Re: [License-discuss] notes on a systematic approach to "popular" licenses

[John Cowan]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Richard Fontana <font...@sharpeleven.org>
wrote:

I had thought it might be preferable to return to the original
> "popular list" and just make clear that it is the product of a
> now-distant point in time, but I now believe this solution would
> probably be seen by many as worse than the current approach.
>

Perhaps we should add a few <http://bestanimations.com/
Site/Construction/under-construction-gif-6.gif> images to the page.

In fact, I don't see how any list can be seen as anything but
prejudiced, and any data-driven list will merely reflect the
prejudices and fashions, not even of today, but of the past,
since open-source software once published rarely disappears.

-- 
 John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Using RELAX NG compact syntax to develop schemas is one of the simple
pleasures in life  --Jeni Tennison
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[John Cowan]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 4:16 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lro...@rosenlaw.com> wrote:

If Yoyodyne or Soylent sue MIT because they had previous exclusive patent
> licenses or contracts, that is court fun for them. It doesn't involve me.
>

Agreed.  I only mentioned this hypo to defend my claim that if MIT can't
keep track of what they have licensed to whom, the word "incompetent" is
fit for purpose, not in any specifically legal sense but in the sense of
not being ordinarily prudent in the management of their property.  MIT
would get a short sharp shock if they tried to sell the same piece of real
estate to two different purchasers on the grounds that proper records were
too expensive to maintain.


> [] I would tell Yoyodyne to take up their dispute with MIT. I'm not a
> party. The worldwide open source user community is not a party to some
> secret exclusive deal between Yoyodyne and MIT.
>

Now this I do not understand.  If Yoyodyne is the exclusive licensee, then
surely it has the right to sue/enjoin you as a user of their patented
technology, and your claim to have a subsequent license from the former
patent holder isn't going to help you, particularly if that former patent
holder disclaims it.  This follows from the fact that if Charlie writes a
program that unknowingly infringes Alice's patent and then allow Bob to use
it, Alice can take action against either Bob or Charlie.  In this case, MIT
is Charlie, and the fact that MIT originally handed over the patent to
Alice shouldn't matter: when Alice asks for one more nickel, Charlie won't
be able to get off the train.

I know that it's not typical for a patent holder to sue Bobs who merely use
a patented article that they obtain from a non-licensed manufacturer, but
that's a matter of it being economically inefficient to sue a huge list of
known and unknown customers, not a derogation of their right to do so.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Knowledge studies others / Wisdom is self-known;
Muscle masters brothers / Self-mastery is bone;
Content need never borrow / Ambition wanders blind;
Vitality cleaves to the marrow / Leaving death behind.--Tao 33 (Bynner)
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[John Cowan]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 2:55 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lro...@rosenlaw.com> wrote:

Competence wasn't the real issue. The legal and technical effort required
> by any large organization to avoid incompatible patent license grants can
> be huge. Instead they said simply: "Here is this copyrighted work. Use it.
> It is open source."


Then how does MIT know that it hasn't granted exclusive patent licenses to
the same patent to both Yoyodyne Inc. and Soylent Corp.?  If they have no
proper records, that would be a pretty pickle for all three.

And since a patent is specifically the right to prevent use by anyone else,
how can they say "Use it" when they mean "If you use it and Yoyodyne sues
you for infringement of our (original) patent, it's your problem"?

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Kill Gorgun!  Kill orc-folk!  No other words please Wild Men.  Drive away
bad air and darkness with bright iron!   --Ghan-buri-Ghan
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[John Cowan]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 12:19 PM, Simon Phipps <si...@webmink.com> wrote:

Do you have a citation to support that please? A quick web search did not
> identify one, but obviously it's a big web out there.
>

I don't, but it was on one of the OSI mailing lists during the discussion
of the Brode license (which ended up not being approved).  The Brode
license provided that any pre-existing patent grant by MIT pre-empted
rights granted under the license, which a lot of us really didn't like --
what, is MIT so incompetent they haven't kept track of what patent licenses
they have issued? Apprarently so.   At that point several of us pointed out
that the much older MIT license already contained a universal patent grant;
the MIT folks said "We never meant it to."

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
We call nothing profound that is not wittily expressed.
--Northrop Frye (improved)
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[John Cowan]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 5:44 AM, Henrik Ingo <henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi>
wrote:

Many people, including significant producers of BSD software, believe
> that the BSD license is also a patent license.
>

MIT is on record as saying that the MIT license, which is otherwise
equivalent to the 2-clause BSD license, does *not* grant a patent license.

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Higglédy-pigglèdy / XML programmers
Try to escape those / I-eighteen-N woes;
Incontrovertibly / What we need more of is
Unicode weenies and / François Yergeaus.
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Re: [License-discuss] Views on React licensing?

[John Cowan]

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 3:33 PM, Henrik Ingo <henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi>
wrote:

Especially in this case, where it is debatable whether the patent
> grant adds or removes rights compared to plain BSD.
>

Inevitably so, since the BSD license family either grants no patent rights
(if you read it literally) or grants all rights (if you interpret the magic
word "use" as referring to patents).

-- 
John Cowan  http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
One of the oil men in heaven started a rumor of a gusher down in hell.  All
the other oil men left in a hurry for hell.  As he gets to thinking about
the rumor he had started he says to himself there might be something in
it after all.  So he leaves for hell in a hurry.--Carl Sandburg
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Re: [License-discuss] Using opensource in a company not in the software business

[John Cowan]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 3:27 AM, FREJAVILLE Etienne <
etienne.frejavi...@coface.com> wrote:

Apparently, the fact that the customer uses the software from the outside
> of the company counts as a 'distribution'.
>

Yes and no.  The front-end software (whether JavaScript or a native app) is
distributed, and the open-source restrictions (if any) are in effect.  The
software you use in your back end is not distributed, even though it is
"used outside the company" by the front end, so there are no restrictions.
Software you use purely to develop your software (editors, compilers, etc.)
is not distributed either.

-- 
My .sigs are from my large and miscellaneous reading both on and off the
net.
Occasionally I hear one viva voce or make one up (without attribution,
of course).  I try to stay within the McQuary limit, but sometimes fail,
as in this case.  In general, the quotes are chosen at random by a script
from , but sometimes I choose one
on purpose.  I've been collecting and using them for 30+ years.
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) 0.4.0

[John Cowan]

Diane Peters scripsit:

> Given this, it remains unclear how a license to the worldwide public would
> be invalidated by a court? Please say more.

Because we don't know what law a foreign court would apply.  It might
apply the Berne Convention, and say "This work has a copyright term of
zero years in its home country, so it has a copyright term of zero years
here."  Or it might apply its local law as if the work were a local work.
Or it might do something else.  Conflicts law is still rather primitive
and unpredictable.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
If you understand, things are just as they are.
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) 0.4.0

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> We attorneys here will try to convince your attorneys of that if
> they consent to speak to us. You engineers should not volunteer to
> be translators in that discussion, but listen in. And we attorneys
> should speak candidly about copyright and contract law. Several of
> us are specialists, and several here have already volunteered to have
> that legal chat with your counsel.

If lawyers talked to other lawyers, they might end up changing their
minds, and that would never do.

"[M]uch enquiry having been made concerning a gentleman, who had quitted
a company where Johnson was, and no information being obtained; at
last Johnson observed, that 'he did not care to speak ill of any man
behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an _attorney_'."
--Boswell's Life of Johnson

:-)

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Being understandable rather than obscurantist poses certain
risks, in that one's opinions are clear and therefore falsifiable
in the light of new data, but it has the advantage of encouraging
feedback from others.  --James A. Matisoff
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: U.S. Army Research Laboratory Open Source License (ARL OSL) 0.4.0

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> Is this a resurrection of the old "license vs. contract" dispute that
> we buried long ago?

That is not dead which can eternal lie (see .sig).

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
La mayyitan ma qadirun yatabaqqa sarmadi
Fa idha yaji' al-shudhdhadh fa-l-maut qad yantahi.
--Abdullah al-Hazred, Al-`Azif
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: US Army Research Laboratory Open Source License proposal

[John Cowan]

Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) scripsit:

> A copyright-based license may work outside of the US because the USG
> would (probably) have copyright protections there?

Depending solely on local law, so there is no uniform answer.

> As far as I know, this hasn't been litigated anywhere, so it may not apply.

That wouldn't matter if there was an explicit or implicit statutory grant
in the foreign country.  If only the Berne Convention holds, then the
"We give you 0 years because you give yourself 0 years" argument kicks in.

> Interesting link!  I wish it weren't behind a paywall, I'd like to read more 
> of it.

Me too.  Ask a lawyer friend to send you a copy (and me, while you're at it).
My father's preprint copy moldered away a long time ago.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Business before pleasure, if not too bloomering long before.
--Nicholas van Rijn
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: US Army Research Laboratory Open Source License proposal

[John Cowan]

Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) scripsit:

> She told me that the Berne convention does not change laws in individual
> countries, it just removes certain formalities.  As such, if the foreign
> government permits the USG to hold copyright in the foreign country,
> then the USG is permitted to do so.

Exactly.  In general, whether a foreign person (in the legal sense) A
has rights in country B depends only on the laws in country B, which of
course include any international treaties that B has signed.  The laws
of B may make reference in particular cases to the laws of A's country,
or any other country, of course.  But they don't have to, which is what
makes conflicts cases so interesting to a sufficiently geeky mind.  And a
country can certainly grant more rights to A than a treaty requires it to.

See T. A. Cowan, "Marks of Primitivity in the Conflict of Laws",
26 Rutgers L. Rev. 191 (1972-1973), online at
<http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/rutlr26=16==>
IANAL, but I am interested in law by jus sanguinis.  :-)

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
There is a Darwinian explanation for the refusal to accept Darwin.
Given the very pessimistic conclusions about moral purpose to which his
theory drives us, and given the importance of a sense of moral purpose
in helping us cope with life, a refusal to believe Darwin's theory may
have important survival value. --Ian Johnston
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Re: [License-discuss] [Non-DoD Source] Re: US Army Research Laboratory Open Source License proposal

[John Cowan]

Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) scripsit:

> I honestly don't know.  The ARL lawyer I'm working with thinks that
> the USG may have foreign copyright, but he says that until it has been
> litigated and settled in court (and I don't know which country's courts
> that will be in), there's no way to know for certain.

Indeed, since foreign copyright is a matter of foreign law, the question
might be decided different ways in different countries.  At any rate,
Congress did not intend government copyright in foreign nations to
be affected.  See
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_Revision_(House_Report_No._94-1476)
which says in the discussion of Section 105:

The prohibition on copyright protection for United States
Government works is not intended to have any effect on protection
of these works abroad. Works of the governments of most other
countries are copyrighted. There are no valid policy reasons
for denying such protection to United States Government works in
foreign countries, or for precluding the Government from making
licenses for the use of its works abroad.

The corresponding Senate report at
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_Revision_(Senate_Report_No._94-473)
uses exactly the same words.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Ambassador Trentino: I've said enough. I'm a man of few words.
Rufus T. Firefly: I'm a man of one word: scram!--Duck Soup
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Re: [License-discuss] US Army Research Laboratory Open Source License proposal

[John Cowan]

Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) scripsit:

> Finally, there is opinion within the US Government that while there is no US
> copyright protection, copyright attaches outside of the US.  Thus, if a
> project is downloaded and used outside of the USA, then any work produced by a
> US Government employee will have foreign copyright protection, and the terms
> of the License should apply to that copyright as well.

Presumably it's the US government that holds the foreign copyright, since
its employees are making works made for hire.

You should probably add back "copyright holder" so that the license can be
applied to works made as a whole or in part by contractors.

The Appendix still says "Apache License".

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing
on my shoulders.  --Hal Abelson
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Re: [License-discuss] Does Non-Profit Open Software License fulfill the open source definition?

[John Cowan]

Vaclav Petras scripsit:

> the Non-Profit Open Software License [1] has non-profit amendment which
> discriminates against for-profit, i.e. commercial use.

Actually it simply forbids redistribution by commercial entities, not use.

> It seems to me that this clear violates the Open Source Definition
> [2] because it discriminates against a specific field of endeavor. Can
> somebody please explain to me why OSI lists the license as open source
> [3]? Is there something I'm missing?

It's because everything licensed under the NPOSL is automatically licensed
under the OSL as well, which unquestionably is an open-source license.
So if a commercial entity wishes to redistribute code (modified or
not) that it receives under the NPOSL, it may do so under the OSL.
This does not quite violate OSD #3, because the license is not pure
NPOSL but NPOSL+OSL.  But it's a marginal case, and perhaps it wouldn't
be approved today.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing
on my shoulders.  --Hal Abelson
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Re: [License-discuss] Source-attribution licenses and Javascript compatibility

[John Cowan]

Andi McClure scripsit:

> The zlib license refers to "source distributions". The BSD license refers
> to "redistributions of source code". Neither license defines "source code".

[...]

> The Apache and MPL licenses *do* define "source code" (both say something
> like "the form of the work preferred for making modifications"). 

So do the GPLv2 and GPLv3.  Given all that, I think we can say that "source
code" is a term of art, and that a court would interpret it in the same
way across all licenses.  Courts are used to deferring to the community
for the meaning of such expressions.

> Would it be sufficient to use the zlib license and then outside the license
> include a clarifying paragraph like:

Sufficient and perhaps helpful, but not I think necessary.

> "For purposes of the above license, 'source' is defined as the
> preferred form for making modifications to the code. In other words,
> minified Javascript which is not intended to be modified does not count as
> a 'source distribution'."
> 
> …and if I included such a clarifying paragraph outside the license, would I
> break the magical spell of OSI compliance which zlib normally has?

I don't see how.

I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice.  On the other hand, it is not
the unauthorized practice of law, either.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Is it not written, "That which is written, is written"?
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Re: [License-discuss] Questions about translations

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> [a] Is that Greek translation an authorized derivative work? 
> [b] Is that translation enforceable? [c] Is it all fair use?

[a] yes, [b] no, according to
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-translations.en.html>.
[c] presumably depends on national law.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
In my last lifetime, I believed in reincarnation;
in this lifetime, I don't.  --Thiagi
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Re: [License-discuss] Orphan Works: Summary of proposed 17 USC 514

[John Cowan]

Michael R. Bernstein scripsit:

>2. Large holders and producers of copyrighted works will now be
>able to 'mine' orphan works for adaptation with little danger,
>creating new works that they can aggressively defend, and possibly
>will aggressively discourage others from making competing adaptations
>that are 'too similar'.

Even if not, it shifts the rules of consent from "yes means yes" to
"absence of 'no' means yes".  How safe that will be for small authors
depends on how the courts interpret what is meant by due diligence.
If the de facto standard is pretty slack, you could find your own out of
print books from a few years back being treated as "orphaned" because
you didn't see the ad in the _East Grong Grong Sheep Ranchers' Weekly_
asking the author to write to P.O. Box 42 at once.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Today an interactive brochure website, tomorrow a global content
management system that leverages collective synergy to drive "outside of
the box" thinking and formulate key objectives into a win-win game plan
with a quality-driven approach that focuses on empowering key players
to drive-up their core competencies and increase expectations with an
all-around initiative to drive up the bottom-line. --Alex Papadimoulis
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Re: [License-discuss] Companies that encourage license violations

[John Cowan]

Pamela Chestek scripsit:

> Without entering into that quagmire [...]  my use of the word "contract"
> was simply inapt. The principle applies in the interpretation of all
> types legal documents.

Sure.  But if it is not meaningless, what does it mean?  Since the right
of an owner to revoke a bare license is inherent, it must be a promise
not to exercise that right, and on what meeting of the minds, what
consideration is that promise founded?  Looks like a nudum pactum to me.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Is it not written, "That which is written, is written"?
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Re: [License-discuss] Companies that encourage license violations

[John Cowan]

Pamela Chestek scripsit:

> This is one of my favorite subjects, whether to have a license you need
> to know that it existed at the time you copied or not. I don't think so,
> the copyright owner put the work out there with a promise not to sue, so
> I don't know why I would need to be aware of the promise to claim the
> benefit of it.

On my view, of course, you don't need to know, because meeting of the minds
is a contract idea, and licenses are not contracts.  The license is a bit
more than a covenant not to sue, though: it's affirmative permission to
do things, not merely a promise (which may or may not rise to a contract)
not to try to punish the doers of those things.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
A male Jang appeared at my side.  "Get a grip on yourself," he said.
"Get a grip on your graks," I suggested.  --Tanith Lee, Drinking Sapphire Wine
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Re: [License-discuss] Companies that encourage license violations

[John Cowan]

Pamela Chestek scripsit:

> Doesn't that mean that the word "irrevocable" is meaningless? We don't
> like words without meaning in contracts, especially one so central to
> the entire premise of free software.

It's my view (and I'm not alone in this) that the vast majority of free
software licenses are not contracts at all, and are like licenses to
enter upon land: that is, they are permissions by the owner to do things
that would otherwise be forbidden to all by the owner's proprietary rights
in the property.  As such, they are not supported by consideration and
can be revoked at the will of the licensor.  Most proprietary licenses
are not like this: the license is provided in exchange for obvious
consideration in the form of money paid by the licensee.

The licenses written by Larry truly are contracts, and are exempt from
this view of mine.

> Java BCL, anyone?

Who knows what secret source, or sauce, might underlie the current binary
releases of Java?  (The Shadow knows.)

IANA, TINLA, but this is not UPL either.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Yes, chili in the eye is bad, but so is your ear.  However, I would
suggest you wash your hands thoroughly before going to the toilet.
--gadicath
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Re: [License-discuss] Companies that encourage license violations

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> Bending the words to suit my fancy, a GPL program intentionally posted
> by its author somewhere on the web and freely copied by others is
> thereafter "in transit."  I don't see how any author can successfully
> revoke a valid GPL license for existing copies that she already placed
> in the wild.

There might be practical difficulties about notifying the relevant
licensees or potential licensees, leading to the estoppel scenario I
mentioned, but licenses are in general fully revocable by the owner.
Indeed, courts have held that even words like "I hereby grant you the
permanent right to [whatever] on my property" create only a license, not
an easement (a servitude to the distinguished civilians on this list).

> Again you've sent me into litigation fantasies When is this ever a
> problem?

Consider the author John M. Ford, who died leaving a substantial body of
work, much of it excellent science fiction.  Alas, he died intestate,
and control of his work has fallen into the hands of his family, who
deeply disapproved of him, his life, and his work, and are determined
to see it perish in oblivion.  You would cry too if it happened to
you.  (Well, *you* wouldn't, Larry, because you know better than to die
intestate, but in general, it's a problem.)

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
The Imperials are decadent, 300 pound free-range chickens (except they have
teeth, arms instead of wings, and dinosaurlike tails).  --Elyse Grasso
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Re: [License-discuss] Companies that encourage license violations

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> What non-GPL things are you talking about? 

Insofar as I can reconstruct my thinking of last night (post in
haste, repent at leisure), I was thinking of the ordinary proprietary
opt-out clause letting you incorporate Yoyodyne's library into your
binary-only program.  I suppose that Yoyodyne could require you to keep
the proprietary-licensed copy to yourself, even though it's bit-for-bit
identical with the GPLed version and has a common origin.

> But a more general GPL work available publicly (e.g., Linux) is and
> remains under the GPL forever. 

In my non-lawyer opinion, the irrevocability clause of GPL3 hasn't got a
leg to stand on.  If I put up a sign on my land saying PUBLIC ACCESS
PERMITTED and then take it down before prescription kicks in, the
fact that the sign also said THIS SIGN WILL NOT BE TAKEN DOWN doesn't
seem to help someone I sue for trespass, except through the exceedingly
dodgy mechanism of equitable estoppel (or quasi-contract in Roman lands).
Doubtless if they were actually in transit when I revoked the permission

> It becomes confusing when a company adds *incompatible* proprietary
> terms to the GPL for a publicly available work. Is this a contract that
> any company can negotiate with its customers? Is that ever effective
> at restricting GPL freedoms?

I admit that such a thing is economically improbable, but I don't see what
grounds a court would have for treating it as voidable, never mind void.
(I'm assuming that any contract under the GPL only kicks in when you
exploit a GPL right; otherwise the pre-announced GPL would be superseded
by the proprietary contract anyway.)

> But I'd also try to avoid *contractual* litigation by never agreeing
> to *restrictive* proprietary contracts for GPL software. Don't contract
> away your free software. I've never seen anyone actually try to do that,
> which is why I'm confused by John Cowan's comment.

I haven't heard of it either, but that may only be only because people
don't usually announce that they've been snookered.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
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Re: [License-discuss] Companies that encourage license violations

[John Cowan]

Pamela Chestek scripsit:

> I think this statement is a fallacy, but I'm happy to hear other
> opinions. A license attaches to the intangible copyright, not to the
> tangible copy of the work you received. So as long as I can show that
> the same copyrighted work was available under a license, and that I am
> in compliance with the license, then I am a licensed user no matter
> where I got my copy of the work. 

That can't be right.  Consider a work available under GPL+proprietary
terms, where you get to do non-GPL things if you have paid.  Then it would
not be enough to show that the work was available under a proprietary
license to allow you to download it and do those things.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
How they ever reached any conclusion at all is starkly unknowable
to the human mind.--"Backstage Lensman", Randall Garrett
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Re: [License-discuss] Option to fall back from GPL to ASL

[John Cowan]

Richard Eckart de Castilho scripsit:

 This software is provided under the terms of the GPL *as long
 as mandated by the reciprocal terms of libraries used by this
 software*. Any code removed from this software falls back to ASL unless
 it continues to depend on GPL code. Likewise, all code automatically
 becomes ASL if it no longer depends on GPL code, e.g. through
 alternative license agreements with the vendors of the respective code.

I see nothing wrong with it, but you really do need an appropriate lawyer
to give you advice on this one.  Drop some money on Larry Rosen, if 
you are in the U.S. (you didn't say).

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
MEET US AT POINT ORANGE AT MIDNIGHT BRING YOUR DUCK OR PREPARE TO FACE WUGGUMS
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Re: [License-discuss] SF - LAFCO open source voting draft

[John Cowan]

Grahame Grieve scripsit:

 other licenses cannot be known to be or other licenses may not be - but
 you can't outright claim that just because OSI has not approved a license,
 it's *not* open source

+1

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Not to perambulate the corridors during the hours of repose
in the boots of ascension.   --Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel
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Re: [License-discuss] Disclosure of patents by Apache projects

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 Willful blindness (sometimes called ignorance of law, willful ignorance or
 contrived ignorance or Nelsonian knowledge) is a term used in law to
 describe a situation in which a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal
 liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting him or herself in a
 position where he or she will be unaware of facts that would render him or
 her liable.

Does this mean that before taking action of any sort there is an
affirmative duty to seach the entire patent registry to make sure that
the idea you just had isn't in there?  Surely not.

I don't have a proper citation for this, but back in the 1920s _Time_
magazine was sued by a Florida lady for saying that her husband had
divorced her rather than that she had divorced her husband.  At the time,
Florida law specified adultery as the sole ground of divorce, so she
claimed that the error was a libel _per se_.  The Supremes decided that
while all men are presumed to know the law (for it is an excuse that every
man will pleaed, and no man know how to refute), there was no reason
for a New York corporation to know Florida law as well as all that.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, LOTR:FOTR
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Re: [License-discuss] Disclosure of patents by Apache projects

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 I read the CAFC decision you referenced in
 your email: SSL Services, LLC v.  Citrix Systems
 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9194570733323971805hl=enas_s
 dt=6as_vis=1oi=scholarr , 769 F.3d 1073 (Fed Cir. 2014). Even though
 willful damages were awarded there, I don't think it makes the argument
 for you.

I'm not sure what argument your interlocutor is making here.  I think,
however, that it does not exclude *my* argument that reading patents is
dangerous, though I agree it doesn't compel it either.

 As in all willful infringement cases, facts matter. Citrix was not
 allowed to use its own Chief Engineer's expert opinions about the
 patent to justify its opinion about non-infringement. (As for Murgia's
 personal beliefs regarding non-infringement, the fact that they were
 beliefs formed by a lay person without the benefit of the court's
 claim construction determinations rendered them of little probative
 value and potentially prejudicial.)

Doubtless.  But the key point is that Citrix knew about SSL's patent
and thought it didn't apply, and the Patentees' Circuit found that that
didn't exclude a finding of wilful infringement on the subjective prong.
(The terms objective and subjective are IMO misapplied, but let
that go.)  However, if Citrix *had no actual knowledge* of the
'011 patent, I think it would have been much more difficult for SSL
to establish the other subprong of the subjective prong, that the
infringement was so obvious that Citrix should have known about it.

 None of this even hints that an engineer reading a patent and commenting
 on it in a NOTICE file is a risky behavior.

I think it does hint at it, for the reason I give above.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Not to perambulate the corridors during the hours of repose
in the boots of ascension.   --Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel
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Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence

[John Cowan]

Tim Makarios scripsit:

 50 words.  It doesn't require making the source code available, but
 recipients of binaries will always be free to make derivative works by
 reverse engineering the binaries.  It does make itself incompatible with
 other copyleft licences, though, which seems difficult to avoid in a
 very short, non-weak copyleft licence.  I'd be keen to be proven wrong
 on that point, though.

Simply add or under the GNU General Purpose License (any version).  
In practice, the GPL is the only major copyleft software commons.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Your worships will perhaps be thinking that it is an easy thing
to blow up a dog? [Or] to write a book?
--Don Quixote, Introduction
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Re: [License-discuss] Reverse Engineering and Open Source Licenses

[John Cowan]

Pamela Chestek scripsit:

 Do you have an example where paying for a tangible article has been
 construed by a court as contractual acceptance of a restrictive term
 printed on it?

Isn't boxed software a tangible article?  If the box doesn't count, the
CD/DVD surely does.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
How comes city and country to be filled with drones and rogues, our highways
with hackers, and all places with sloth and wickedness?
--W. Blith, Eng. Improver Improved, 1652
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Re: [License-discuss] Reverse Engineering and Open Source Licenses

[John Cowan]

Smith, McCoy scripsit:

 The conditional sale cases under the patent law (of which there
 are but a few, the Mallinckrodt case being the most notable:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallinckrodt,_Inc._v._Medipart,_Inc. )
 might be an example, although I don't recall if there was
 any sort of true contract analysis in that case.  

I don't think there was.  It was just another example of massive
overreaching by the Patent Holder's^W^W Federal Circuit.

 There is
 some debate as to whether the conditional sale cases are
 good law anymore post the US Supreme Court's Quanta decision:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanta_Computer,_Inc._v._LG_Electronics,_Inc.

I hope not, but the Supremes seem to have left the question vague.
In particular, none of these cases have to do with contract restrictions.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
I marvel at the creature: so secret and so sly as he is, to come sporting
in the pool before our very window.  Does he think that Men sleep without
watch all night?--Faramir
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Re: [License-discuss] Reverse Engineering and Open Source Licenses

[John Cowan]

David Woolley scripsit:

 You can buy a book (i.e. hardware consisting of paper and ink), but
 you can't buy the novel that it contains (the author will not assign
 copyright to you).

No, of course not.  But when I buy the book, the first-sale right is
exhausted; when I buy proprietary software, it is not, and I have no
right to resell.  The difference is that the book is purchased
whereas the proprietary software is only licensed.

 Incidenally, UK publishers do, or at least did, put constraints on
 the resale of books (not to be sold or lent in any cover other than
 the original).

That happens in the U.S. too.  A retailer can get full credit for a
book by returning just the cover, but they are then not entitled to
resell the rest of the book.  Exhaustion hasn't kicked in at that
point because the retailer is not an ultimate purchaser.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
I marvel at the creature: so secret and so sly as he is, to come sporting
in the pool before our very window.  Does he think that Men sleep without
watch all night?--Faramir
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Re: [License-discuss] Reverse Engineering and Open Source Licenses

[John Cowan]

Johnny A. Solbu scripsit:

 Then you are mistaken. The copy was licenced, not sold. If you did
 buy it, then it would become your property, and no longer Redhat's
 property.

That copy was my property and not Red Hat's.  They were of course free
to make other copies, as was I.  Similarly, when I download a copy of
some open-source software, that copy belongs to me, and I can do what I
like with it.  That doesn't mean I own the copy*right*, just the copy.

 You would own it and could deny Redhat their use of it. I.e. If i
 bougth your car, I could deny you your use of the car, but if I
 licenced it, it would still be your car, but I got usage rights to it.

Just so.  My car is mine, and my copy of RHL is mine.  But my copy
of Windows is *not* mine, given the terms of the proprietary license.
In principle Microsoft could revoke the license at any time, and I'd have
to destroy the copy.  If I sell you the computer, the Windows license
does *not* go with it, nor do I retain it -- it evaporates.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
How they ever reached any conclusion at all is starkly unknowable
to the human mind.--Backstage Lensman, Randall Garrett
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Re: [License-discuss] Reverse Engineering and Open Source Licenses

[John Cowan]

David Woolley scripsit:

 You didn't buy the software.  You bought a piece of hardware with a
 single copy.

By that definition, I don't buy books either, but that turns out not to
be the case.

 Red Hat don't even have the right to sell most of Linux as people like
 the FSF own it.

The FSF actually encourages people to sell copies of their software:
see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html.  In the past they
themselves have sold copies on magtape and later on CD at a high price:
see http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull24.html#SEC26.

 A lot of what you were probably trying to say is US specific, as it
 relates to the first sale doctrine.

The first-sale doctrine also applies in the EU under the name of
exhaustion, as well as in Canada and Australia.  In the EU, the
product must have been first sold within the EU in order for exhaustion
to kick in.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
It's like if you meet an really old, really rich guy covered in liver
spots and breathing with an oxygen tank, and you say, I want to be
rich, too, so I'm going to start walking with a cane and I'm going to
act crotchety and I'm going to get liver disease. --Wil Shipley
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Re: [License-discuss] Reverse Engineering and Open Source Licenses

[John Cowan]

thufir scripsit:

 I don't think it's necessary to write a PDF about it, but, still,
 interesting.  IMHO this is bad policy, a bad law, but there you are.
 Did this change at one point?  I thought that reverse engineering
 was found to be legal, at least in the US?  And this Bowers v
 Baystate set a precedent where it could be prohibited!?

Frankly, I have zero sympathy for Baystate's behavior.  Bowers offered to
license his technology on commercial terms, and they told him they thought
they could do it themselves.  They then licensed a copy of his work,
accepting in the process the license's prohibition on reverse engineering,
which they then proceeded to reverse engineer.  When Bowers sued, they
tried to claim that this part of the contract didn't apply to them.
Legally, they could have been right; ethically, their position is
bargain-basement.  Hard cases, as the saying is, make bad law, and now
we're stuck with it.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
But that, he realized, was a foolish thought; as no one knew better than
he that the Wall had no other side.
--Arthur C. Clarke, The Wall of Darkness
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Re: [License-discuss] License-discuss Digest, Vol 40, Issue 7

[John Cowan]

Savva Kerdemelidis scripsit:

 I'm not sure there's grounds to distinguish the endorsement clause and
 disclaimer clause in this way. The wording of the BSD License says 1.
 Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
 list of conditions and the following disclaimer 

Well, precisely.  The parts of the license are three: notice, conditions,
disclaimer.  If the disclaimer were a condition, it would not be
mentioned (twice!) separately from the conditions.

If this argument doesn't convince you, I can only point to the
unanimous practice of many large corporations who include BSD-licensed
code into their proprietary software, and then offer warranties on
that software.  If it's good enough for them, it should probably
be good enough for you.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
A mosquito cried out in his pain,
A chemist has poisoned my brain!
The cause of his sorrow / Was para-dichloro-
Diphenyltrichloroethane.(aka DDT)
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Re: [License-discuss] License-discuss Digest, Vol 40, Issue 7

[John Cowan]

Savva Kerdemelidis scripsit:

 I'm not sure what you mean by user licence - you can't grant the right to
 use software under copyright law, only the right to make copies and make
 derivative works. Use could be considered a pseudo-right. If the BSD
 disclaimers won't affect anybody (or only affect 'developers' not 'users')
 why are they there?

A user license is one suitable for software users who are not interested in
making or distributing copies, verbatim or modified.  It's usually called
an end user license agreement, or EULA.  Most proprietary software is
distributed under such a license.

 If users receive a copy of the code and have notice of the license that
 applies to the software why wouldn't they be bound by the disclaimer?

Because the disclaimer is not a condition of the license, it's simply
physically annexed to it.  Note that it's not given a number or
bullet.

 Yes, it is possible to have multi-licensed code, but if subsequent license
 is in conflict with conditions in the BSD license (e.g endorsement clause,
 disclaimer clause), wouldn't this breach the BSD license?

If the endorsement clause is violated, that's a breach.  But there
is no way to violate the disclaimer, and as noted it is not a condition.
It just tells you that you don't have certain rights you might
otherwise expect to have.

 As above, surely the disclaimer over the software is binding on Charlie if
 it is a condition of receiving a copy of the BSD licensed code and Charlie
 is aware of the license terms?

But it isn't a condition.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.  --John Donne
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Re: [License-discuss] Fwd: Query whether BSD Licence liability disclaimer is viral.

[John Cowan]

David Woolley scripsit:

 My understanding is that only if those warranties are given in the
 name of organisation.  The proprietary developer can give
 warranties, in their own name, and I think Microsoft does.

I agree and would go further: there is no such thing as a third-party
disclaimer of warranty.  Alice may disclaim all warranties on
something she gives Bob, but Charlie's warranties aren't affected
by this disclaimer.

IANAL; TINLA; this is not UPOL.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Mark Twain on Cecil Rhodes: I admire him, I freely admit it,
and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.
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Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs

[John Cowan]

David Woolley scripsit:

 It might be needed because it has become important to integrate the
 work with work under and otherwise incompatible open source licence.
 In the past, I think it has been necessary to remove contributions
 from a minor contributor, to achieve this, because they were unable or
 unwilling to licence it under the new licence.

Or so people believe, anyway, and tend to act as if true.  At least some
people think that a co-author can relicense ad libitum at least under
U.S. copyright law.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of
resources is the purpose of markets.  Efficiency is a byproduct of market
systems, not their goal.  The reasons markets work are not because users
have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow
users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are
not for conservation of cheap resources.  --Clay Shirky
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Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs

[John Cowan]

Engel Nyst scripsit:

 There is probably no way to make a statement like this without taking a
 position, and the above does that. It's saying that inbound agreements
 are something else than open licenses, fulfill an unspecified need that
 open licenses don't. That open licenses are meant to be outbound (to
 whom?). That alone contributes to confusion about open source licensing.

While I agree with what you are saying (there is no reason why any open
source license can't be used as a contributor agreement, and some projects
actually work that way), there is a fundamental difference between the
FSF's CLA and the GPL, namely that the CLA is not a *public* license.
Open source licenses grant things to whomever has the source code;
a CLA normally grants things (anything up to full copyright ownership)
only to the party they are addressed to.

We could say that implicit requirement 0 of the OSD is that the object
of discussion is a public software license.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
You're a brave man! Go and break through the lines, and remember while
you're out there risking life and limb through shot and shell,
we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are!--Rufus T. Firefly
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Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry on CLAs

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

  Open source licenses grant things to whomever has the source code;
 
 Do you mean grant things to whomever accepts the terms and conditions of
 the license?

Well, for some licenses.  The BSD licenses don't appear to require
any sort of acceptance:  they just say We grant you the rights to do
X provided A and B are the case and C is not the case.  That doesn't
sound in contract as far as I can see: it's got the flavor of a bare
license to trespass on land.

[.sig below chosen at random!]

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was
laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds
upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply
persists from blind imitation of the past. --Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
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Re: [License-discuss] Wikipedia Content

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 Henri, this issue keeps coming up here! On your behalf and on behalf
 of other curious readers here on this list, I will ask our Creative
 Commons friends your question: Is the CC-SA license GPL-like?

[snip]

 Yes, it requires reciprocation by anyone who creates an Adaptation of
 the CC-BY work. No, it doesn't require anything more onerous than
 the Apache License for the mere incorporation of that work into
 a Collection.

Are you talking about CC-BY or CC-(BY-)-SA?

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
You cannot enter here.  Go back to the abyss prepared for you!  Go back!
Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master.  Go! --Gandalf
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Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?

[John Cowan]

Henrik Ingo scripsit:

 The analoguous explanation for why cc0 didn't qualify is that it
 explicitly said you get rights a and b but not c, with c a necessary
 right to copy and use the software. It should be obvious that - even
 if you'd disagree wrt patents - at least for some values of c that is
 clearly not open source.

Yes, but c (patent rights) is not granted to *anyone* by CC0.  Whether
those rights are necessary or not, they don't come within the ambit of
OSD #7, which is about indirect distributees getting the same rights as
direct distributees.  Here, neither kind get any patent rights, so #7
is not triggered.

You could argue that selling is a patent right, and OSD #1 is violated
if a patent restricts you from selling software distributed under CC0.
But #1 reads to me as a restriction on the license, which contains no
such provision.

If the open-source nature of CC0 is to be disproved, it must be shown that
it violates some clause of the OSD.  This is distinct from the prudence
or otherwise of certifying the license.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
It was dreary and wearisome.  Cold clammy winter still held sway in this
forsaken country.  The only green was the scum of livid weed on the dark
greasy surfaces of the sullen waters.  Dead grasses and rotting reeds loomed
up in the mists like ragged shadows of long-forgotten summers.
--LOTR, The Passage of the Marshes
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Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?

[John Cowan]

Henrik Ingo scripsit:

 Is the US governments exclusion of patents that explicit? 

The only thing that makes the U.S. Government different from any other
actor in IP law is that it cannot (and therefore its employees acting in
the scope of their employment cannot) acquire copyright on any works it
has created.  It can and does hold copyright that has been transferred
to it by other creators, and it can and does acquire patents.

That is what makes the NOSA 1.3 important as an OSI certified license.
It allows any U.S. government agency to open-source its works fully.

 John keeps asking for statements like above to always be based on
 specific OSD paragraphs. Maybe that's a good idea. I'll try to express
 my judgement of CC0:

Thanks.  I'll have to reflect further on your specifics about #5, #6,
#8, and #10.  As I said before, I think #1 is a reasonable argument
against CC0 but #7 is not.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
But that, he realized, was a foolish thought; as no one knew better than
he that the Wall had no other side.
--Arthur C. Clarke, The Wall of Darkness
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Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?

[John Cowan]

Simon Phipps scripsit:

 We did not decide against CC0. The discussion was certainly at a low point
 when Creative Commons withdrew it from the approval process, but that's
 what happened, not an OSI denial. Had they persisted, I believe OSI would
 have needed to face the issue of how licenses treat patents.

I stand corrected.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Any legal document draws most of its meaning from context.  A telegram
that says 'SELL HUNDRED THOUSAND SHARES IBM SHORT' (only 190 bits in
5-bit Baudot code plus appropriate headers) is as good a legal document
as any, even sans digital signature. --me
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Re: [License-discuss] How licenses treat patents

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 * The FOSS license does not contain a patent license.

The issue appears to be whether there is a difference for OSI purposes
between licenses that withhold patent rights and those which are silent
about them.  My view is that there is not, but others disagree.

 There are many examples of patent-encumbered software where the
 copyright owner doesn't own and can't license the patent. This is
 the problem of third party patents and patent trolls and university
 professors and US government employees.

Inevitably so.  In the nature of patents, no one can claim to indemnify
a recipient against all possible patents.  At most we can ask that
the licensor himself license those which he has.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
A rabbi whose congregation doesn't want to drive him out of town isn't
a rabbi, and a rabbi who lets them do it isn't a man.--Jewish saying
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Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?

[John Cowan]

Karl Fogel scripsit:

 The patent issue would apply just as much if it were MIT- or
 BSD-licensed, though, and we'd call it open source then, right?

Indeed.  We may not be in the business of approving licenses without
patent grants any more, but nobody can say that licenses that don't
grant patent rights explicitly are not open-source licenses.

 If the US government were to publish such notice on a given work -- say,
 if standardized language for doing so were approved by the OSI :-) 

That's essentially what the NASA Open Source Agreement does
http://opensource.org/licenses/NASA-1.3.  It's already fully templated
(except for the name, which is inessential), and U.S. government employees
should be urged to use it.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Most people are much more ignorant about language than they are about
[other subjects], but they reckon that because they can talk and read and
write, their opinions about talking and reading and writing are as well
informed as anybody's.  And since I have DNA, I'm entitled to carry on at
length about genetics without bothering to learn anything about it.  Not.
--Mark Liberman
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Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?

[John Cowan]

Henrik Ingo scripsit:

 Does the US government grant itself patents, and if so, what does it do
 with those patents?

In the case of 6630507, they apply criminal sanctions to people who
seek to make use of the patented technology.  Google for [patent 6630507].

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin
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Re: [License-discuss] Can OSI take stance that U.S. public domain is open source?

[John Cowan]

Richard Fontana scripsit:

 When the MXM license was considered, some people pointed to OSD #7
 as suggesting that a sufficiently narrowly-drawn patent license grant
 in a license would not be Open Source. This was the problem I raised
 when CC0 was submitted. It was the inconsistency. It depends on your
 view of how the OSD applies to patents.

Since it nowhere mentions them, I don't see how it can apply to them.
#7 merely says that licenses of the form You get rights a, b, and c,
whereas your transferees only get rights a and b, possibly qualified by
unless they sign this, aren't open-source licenses.

I continue to think that our CC0 decision was wrong insofar as it can
be read as saying that the CC0 license is not an open-source (as opposed
to OSI Certified) license.  There may be reasons not to certify it,
but not to deny that it is open source.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Female celebrity stalker, on a hot morning in Cairo:
Imagine, Colonel Lawrence, ninety-two already!
El Auruns's reply:  Many happy returns of the day!
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Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses?

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

  Mind you, OSI has described itself as a standards body for open
  source licenses for a long time, see http://opensource.org/about
  (I believe that text used to be on the home page).
 
 Perhaps, but that term has thus been misused. There is absolutely
 nothing about OSI – its governance policies, its procedures, its
 membership rules, its board selections, or its activities – that
 would in any sense qualify OSI as a standards organization.

I agree that OSI is not a standards organization *for* licenses.
It has only one standard, the OSD.  But by virtue of that, it is
a standards-defining organization.  There are thousands of SSOs (as
distinct from ISO and the various national standards bodies), and their
organizational structures are extremely diverse, from industry consortia
to closely held companies.

The main OSI activity, of course, is not standards setting or even
standards maintenance, but certification.  It may be compared in a
small way to UL, which both defines standards and certifies a great many
products for compliance to them.

 I'm not quarreling with OSI's attempt to get everyone to use approved
 licenses, but I have long challenged your attempts to steer people
 toward some subset of those licenses. Especially if you hint that they
 are in any way, shape or form standard licenses.  That's overreach
 for which you are not legally qualified.

Nonsense.  I and my friend George can constitute ourselves as an SSO with
no formal legal relationship whatsoever, jointly issue standards for
whatever we want, and even certify products for compliance with those
standards.  Nobody has to listen to us, of course.  Indeed, the Scheme
language is standardized by a process that is only one step up from this
(as distinct from Fortran or C, which are ISO standards).  Not that
programming languages necessarily need standards:  Perl 5 has none.

Furthermore, the term standard is a regular part of Standard English
and may be used freely by anyone.  (Indeed, Standard English itself is a
standard in every sense despite the complete lack of anything resembling
a standards-setting organization for it.)  By the same token, the GPL is
a standard open-source license and the Motosoto Open Source License is
not, though both are equally OSI certified.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
In politics, obedience and support are the same thing.  --Hannah Arendt
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Re: [License-discuss] FAQ entry (and potential website page?) on why standard licenses?

[John Cowan]

Richard Fontana scripsit:

 You'd exclude the most commonly-used FLOSS license from common?

Well, the most common license is probably GPLV2+, not GPLV2-only.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
All Norstrilians knew that humor was pleasurable corrigible malfunction.
--Cordwainer Smith, Norstrilia
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Re: [License-discuss] Including License specifics

[John Cowan]

Parth Shah scripsit:

 But I am not keen on including that same information in the following way:
 ABC Library (http://abclibrary.com)
 Copyright (c) ABC Library Author 2010 Under MIT License 
 (http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
 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.

Simply prefix this whole section with The following is included as a
requirement for using the ABC library.  This disclaimer refers only
to Author-of-ABC-library and not to Parth Shah, who warrants the
software under terms specified elsewhere.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Normally I can handle panic attacks on my own; but panic is, at the moment,
a way of life. --Joseph Zitt
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Re: [License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] Dual License for CC0

[John Cowan]

Wilson, Andrew scripsit:

 Interesting point, though.  I'd speculate that if the embedded
 public license fallback inside CC0 is ever sent to OSI as a
 stand-alone license, it would be approved.  It is mighty similar
 in effect to MIT/BSD/Apache, with the distinctive feature that it
 explicitly disclaims patent licensing, is clearly copyright-only,
 and therefore non-duplicative.

I thought that was precisely why we rejected it.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
[P]olice in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting
on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV
cop shows.  When it's explained to them that they are in a different country,
where those rights do not exist, they become outraged.  --Neal Stephenson
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Re: [License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] Dual License for CC0

[John Cowan]

odie5...@gmail.com writes:

 Hi. I see questions about CC0 and public domain dedication pop up
 all the time on message boards. In the FAQ, it goes through why these
 licenses are not currently OSI approved. I was wondering if you could
 amend the FAQ to put forth the option that developers can dual license
 their work as e.g. both CC0 and MIT. It seems a lot of people don't know
 about this option, and it makes for a good middle ground for those that
 want public domain, but also want to be sure they're covered by OSI's
 approval system.

It's not clear what the advantages would be.  CC0 is structured as a
public-domain dedication of the copyright rights, or failing that a
simple permissive license that does not grant patent rights.  But it is
not clear that MIT grants patent rights either.  Some people, including
me, claim that it does because it contains the Yang Worship Word use,
which is part of patent rather than copyright ontology, but MIT itself has
explicitly denied this.  The BSD licenses have a similar problem.  So you
would want a license with an explicit patent grant, and such licenses
are pretty comprehensive already, remote from the intention of CC0.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
If you understand, things are just as they are.
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
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Re: [License-discuss] Zimbra licenses ?

[John Cowan]

a...@free.fr scripsit:

 I do not found the Zimbra licenses on OSI web site :
 - Zimbra Public License :
 http://www.zimbra.com/license/zimbra-public-license-1-4.html
 - Zimbra Public EULA :
 https://www.zimbra.com/license/zimbra-public-eula-2-5.html
 - Zimbra Network LA :
 http://files.zimbra.com/website/docs/zimbra_network_la.pdf
 Do you plan to study?

In general, OSI doesn't certify licenses unless the creator of the license
submits them.  In my personal opinion (I don't speak for OSI), the ZPL
by itself is an Open Source license without patent permissions.  Its
copyright provisions are very similar to the Mozilla Public License.
The other two are not Open Source licenses, but specifically defer to the
ZPL and other Open Source licenses in respect of any software released
under those licenses.

-- 
John Cowan  http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org
Consider the matter of Analytic Philosophy.  Dennett and Bennett are well-known.
Dennett rarely or never cites Bennett, so Bennett rarely or never cites Dennett.
There is also one Dummett.  By their works shall ye know them.  However, just as
no trinities have fourth persons (Zeppo Marx notwithstanding), Bummett is hardly
known by his works.  Indeed, Bummett does not exist.  It is part of the function
of this and other e-mail messages, therefore, to do what they can to create him.
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Re: [License-discuss] dual licensing and the Open Source Definition

[John Cowan]

zgil...@culturestrings.org scripsit:

 One interesting side-effect of the above is that software can be
 released under a strong copyleft license, for instance the GPL,
 and yet be accompanied by the option to buy one's way out of the
 license, thereby releasing the buyer from any and all obligation to
 make the modified source available to the public.

Technically, that is not correct.  Licensing applies on a per-copy
basis, so in that situation there are some copies of the source that
are available under an open source license and other copies that are
available under a proprietary license.  This is only possible for the
licensor, who is not obliged to follow the restrictions of his own
license.

 In light of the above, and given the guarantee of the Open Source
 Definition with respect to source availability [...]

OSD #2 is narrower than people tend to think: it requires the licensor
to make source available, and to allow people who have that source to
redistribute it.

OSD #3 requires only that the license permit modifications and
derivative works: it does not require those derivative works to be Open
Source: see below.

 [T]o what extent does the GPL meet the OSI promise regarding the
 source of Open Source Software remaining open?

1) Entirely; and 2) There is no such promise.

The GPL applies only to copies of works to which it is applied by the
licensor.  If other copies exist under other licenses, that has nothing
to do with the validity of the GPL.

But more importantly, the fact that a work is under an OSI license does
not guarantee that all derivative works must be under OSI licenses.
Many widely used Open Source licenses such as the BSD/MIT family and the
MPL family allow for proprietary derivatives of open-source works.

 After all, if vendors can take GPL'ed software and buy their way out
 of the license so that binaries, with or without changes, can be
 distributed without restriction and without a corresponding source,
 then something is probably not working the way it was originally
 intended.

RMS probably doesn't like it, no.  But people can use the GPL however
they want to.

 2) Consider the case of an individual entrepreneur who created a
 software library, and who would like to require vendors of commercial
 products that _depend_ on that library to pay a _one-time fee_, but
 otherwise be permitted to use the library or distribute it in any
 way they see fit without additional charges, and provided that the
 original source code, along with all changes that were applied to it,
 remain available to the public.  Would that author be able to release
 his/her library under an OSI-approved license?

In a word, no.  Requiring some users to pay for source and not others
flatly contravenes OSD #5.  But that's an ideal scenario for a GPL +
proprietary dual license.  Vendors of proprietary software who want to
use the library in ways the GPL forbids have to make terms with the
author.  What those terms are, whether a single payment or otherwise,
are entirely between the author and the customers, and no concern of
this list.

 Then again, it seems to me that the possibility to regulate one-time
 charges for commercial use from _within_ a license should be much
 preferred over a de facto option to bypass the license altogether.

It comes to the same thing: bypassing the GPL is bypassing the GPL.  And
since the GPL's author has forbidden people to make modified versions
of it, alternative terms must be placed outside it.  This makes sense
anyway in terms of the model in which some copies are available under
GPL and others are available under the proprietary license.

-- 
My confusion is rapidly waxing  John Cowan
For XML Schema's too taxing:co...@ccil.org
I'd use DTDshttp://www.ccil.org/~cowan
If they had local trees --
I think I best switch to RELAX NG.
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Re: [License-discuss] History of approved and not approved licenses

[John Cowan]

Engel Nyst scripsit:

 *Not approved licenses list*:
 http://wiki.opensource.org/archived_not_approved_licenses

Thank you for doing this work.

 Please note that these are not rejected licenses.

This is a very important point that should be made explicitly on the
page.  My objections to listing rejected licenses do not apply to a list
such as this, which talks about licenses that have not been approved
for a variety of reasons, of which official rejection must surely be the
rarest.

 There are no summaries of the discussion threads, and no official
 positions.

Summaries would be fine.  I don't think official positions have much
utility.

-- 
Long-short-short, long-short-short / Dactyls in dimeter, John Cowan
Verse form with choriambs / (Masculine rhyme):   co...@ccil.org
One sentence (two stanzas) / Hexasyllabically
Challenges poets who / Don't have the time. --robison who's at texas dot net
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Re: [License-discuss] Proposal to revise (and move?) the CC0 FAQ

[John Cowan]

Luis Villa scripsit:

1. It's extremely odd that we have a FAQ entry about one particular
rejected license, and no others. 

From what I understand, Questions are in fact Frequently Asked about it.
There is no howling demand from the punters for explanations of the Sun
Community Source License, the various Microsoft shared-source licenses,
the University of Utah Public License, etc.

-- 
Why yes, I'm ten percent Jewish on my manager's side.  John Cowan
--Connie Francis http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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Re: [License-discuss] Newbie post: Localisable open source software license

[John Cowan]

David Woolley scripsit:

 No they don't.  All the licences seem to be in English.

CC licenses are localized in the sense that they are adapted to local law.
That typically, but not always, means translation as well.

Chinese-specific CC-BY license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/cn/legalcode

England  Wales specific CC-BY license (in English):
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/legalcode

Scotland-specific CC-BY license (in English):
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/scotland/legalcode

-- 
A few times, I did some exuberant stomping about,   John Cowan
like a hippo auditioning for Riverdance, though co...@ccil.org
I stopped when I thought I heard something at   http://ccil.org/~cowan
the far side of the room falling over in rhythm
with my feet.  --Joseph Zitt
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Re: [License-discuss] Rejected license list [was Re: TrueCrypt license (not OSI-approved; seeking history, context).]

[John Cowan]

Richard Fontana scripsit:

 But if a license *has* been rejected (in some official way -- does
 this actually apply to any submitted license, historically?) 

It doesn't, and it wouldn't make sense considering the OSI process.  As a
certifying organization, the OSI is reactive.  We wait for someone to
submit a license, and if we believe it meets the OSD and other criteria,
we certify it.  If not, we send it back to the submitter with the reasons
we can't certify it.

But the ball is always in the submitter's court: they are free to try
again with a new version of the license at any time.  It would not
make sense to put every non-accepted version on a hall of shame list,
particularly when it may have been quickly superseded by an acceptable
draft.

This is completely different from the FSF process.  The FSF takes
existing published licenses and rates them for conformity with the Four
Freedoms (and also for GPL compatibility).  They do this without waiting
for submissions.  Consequently, it makes sense for them to list both
conforming and non-conforming licenses.

-- 
John Cowan  co...@ccil.org  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory
that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia.
--blurb for Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi
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Re: [License-discuss] System 76's BeanBooks Public License v1.0

[John Cowan]

Ken Arromdee scripsit:

 4.3 - Commercial distribution of the Software requires a
 trademark license agreement and you may be required to
 pay. Using the Software within a corporation or entity is not
 considered commercial distribution. This license does not grant
 You rights to use any party's name, logo, or trademarks, except
 solely as necessary to comply with Section 4.2.
 
 Wouldn't the except solely as necessary to comply with section 4.2 clause
 make it okay?  Section 4.2 prevents you from removing the protected
 trademark, and section 4.3 allows you to use the trademark under those
 circumstances.

I don't think so, at least not if you interpret this license as meaning
the trademark license rather than the software license, which I do.
So the sole effect of the trademark license is to allow commercial
redistribution of the software, which makes it a proprietary software
license in disguise.

-- 
Time alone is real  John Cowan co...@ccil.org
  the rest imaginary
like a quaternion   --phma  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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Re: [License-discuss] some FLOSS license + commercial: Your thoughts?

[John Cowan]

Alec Taylor scripsit:

 I am building a set of generalised libraries and frameworks.
 
 Would like to open-source it all; however in the cases where a client wants
 their custom stuff under a non open-source license; I should have
 provisions for such a case.

As long as it's all written by you or your employees, you can issue it
under any license you want.  In particular, you can grant an open-source
license to the public and a proprietary license to customers who prefer
one.  If your customers want *you* to engage to keep your custom work
for them secret, you'll need a lawyer to draw up such a contract for you.

 So what are my best options? - Currently looking at BSD/MIT and Apache;
 though have seen LGPL+commercial in many places…

Any of those will work.

-- 
Why are well-meaning Westerners so concerned that   John Cowan
the opening of a Colonel Sanders in Beijing means   co...@ccil.org
the end of Chinese culture? [...]  We have had  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Chinese restaurants in America for over a century,
and it hasn't made us Chinese.  On the contrary,
we obliged the Chinese to invent chop suey.--Marshall Sahlins
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Re: [License-discuss] we need a new license for earning money

[John Cowan]

Pirmin Braun scripsit:

 So I'd like to share our thoughts: Maybe it is possible to add such
 an extension to the OSI Open Source Definition? Or create a new class
 of approved liceneses?

Not gonna happen.  We believe very strongly in non-discrimination among
licensees, and to disadvantage the millionaire is as unethical as to
disadvantage the poor.

 Or at least coin a name for this sort of license?

Feel free, but don't expect any of us to help much.

-- 
Let's face it: software is crap. Feature-laden and bloated, written under
tremendous time-pressure, often by incapable coders, using dangerous
languages and inadequate tools, trying to connect to heaps of broken or
obsolete protocols, implemented equally insufficiently, running on
unpredictable hardware -- we are all more than used to brokenness.
   --Felix Winkelmann
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Re: [License-discuss] Started discussion with Figaro re their license.

[John Cowan]

Karl Fogel scripsit:

 It's not clear what include a pointer means legally.  Is the reference
 in the LICENSE file enough, or do they mean a hyperlink?  A hyperlink
 that is shown somewhere in the UI where such information is customarily
 shown?

The reference is a hyperlink in abbreviated form: see RFC 3986 Section 4.5.
In any case, a license of adhesion (take it or leave it) is interpreted
against its author, so if they meant shown somewhere in the UI they would
have to say so.

-- 
John Cowan   co...@ccil.org  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Most languages are dramatically underdescribed, and at least one is
dramatically overdescribed.  Still other languages are simultaneously
overdescribed and underdescribed.  Welsh pertains to the third category.
--Alan King
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Re: [License-discuss] Started discussion with Figaro re their license.

[John Cowan]

Karl Fogel scripsit:

 Just in case anyone else noticed this:
 
   https://www.cra.com/commercial-solutions/probabilistic-modeling-services.asp
 
 They want to be open source, and almost are, but they're using a custom
 license based on 3-clause BSD with an extra clause -- clause (4) --
 that IMHO is problematic.  I've attached the license to this mail.

I don't think it is.  Clauses 1 and 2 (as usual for BSD) require that the
license itself be preserved by downstream distributors.  That license
already includes the pointer required by clause 4 -- in the text of
clause 4 itself.  So clause 4 is self-satisfying taken in conjunction
with clauses 1 and 2.

All good.

/me snickers.

 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.  Neither the name of Charles River Analytics nor the names of its
 contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
 this software without specific prior written permission.
 4.  Redistributions in any form must include a pointer to Charles River
 Analytics' website (www.cra.com) and probabilistic modeling services.

-- 
John Cowan  co...@ccil.orghttp://ccil.org/~cowan
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main.  If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.  --John Donne
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Re: [License-discuss] System 76's BeanBooks Public License v1.0

[John Cowan]

Luis Villa scripsit:

 Sec. 3.3 strikes me as odd; essentially a very strong CLA baked into
 the license. Not non-free/open, per se, at least at first glance -
 just... odd?

Section 3 as a whole is a CLA; it only applies to you if you make
a Contribution, which requires that you submit your work (whether a
Modification or otherwise) to System76.  Nothing in the rest of the
license requires you to submit anything to them, so Section 3 does not
affect the free/open nature of the license.

 Sec. 4.3 strikes me as actually conceptually somewhat interesting,
 inasmuch as many commercial lawyers have argued that this type of
 clause is often implicit in software that contains a protect trademark
 embedded in the software and not removed by a downstream licensee.

In this case, however, Section 4.2 prevents you from removing the
protected trademark.  Taking the two clauses together, you are effectively
prevented from making commercial use of the software without paying for
the trademark license, which obviously contravenes clauses 6 and 7 of
the OSD.  So this license is on its face not Open Source.

-- 
One Word to write them all, John Cowan co...@ccil.org
  One Access to find them,  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
One Excel to count them all,
  And thus to Windows bind them.--Mike Champion
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Re: [License-discuss] License incompatibility (was Re: Open source license chooser choosealicense.com

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

  In any case, I am speaking here of literal copying only.

 In that case, what's the problem you're hypothesizing? Every FOSS
 license permits literal copying, and no FOSS license imposes a
 copyleft obligation on any *other* work just because of making literal
 copies of the FOSS work.

Literal copying and adding material is still literal copying, as
distinct from the kind of indirect copying for which the AFC test is
relevant.

 Modified source code solely to accomplish interworking?

No, not at all.

 I contend that the differences of the methods of interworking are
 largely irrelevant to the analysis.

I agree, but again you are bringing up red herrings.  I am not speaking
of interworking at all, but of functional enhancement using expressive
means.

 Modified source code to change the program and its expression? That
 sounds like a derivative work.

The question is, when does mere addition of new and itself copyrightable
material (not de minimis, no form/content merger) without deletion or
replacement count as making a derivative work?  To take your stapled
vs. unstapled booklet hypo: if Charlie stapled the pages of two stories
(written separately by Alice and Bob) alternately (and supposing that
no sentences or paragraphs in either story ran over a page boundary),
would that make Charlie's booklet a derivative work of Alice's story
and Bob's story, or still merely a collective work?  Every sentence is
still traceable to either Bob or Alice.

-- 
One Word to write them all, John Cowan co...@ccil.org
  One Access to find them,  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
One Excel to count them all,
  And thus to Windows bind them.--Mike Champion
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Re: [License-discuss] License incompatibility (was Re: Open source license chooser choosealicense.com

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 They will refer you to the confusing
 abstraction-filtration-comparison tests that are used in the U.S.
 courts to distinguish functional from expressive content.

Some U.S. courts.  What is more, the AFC test sounds good in theory, but
is decidedly hard to apply in practice.  In any case, I am speaking here
of literal copying only.

 when talking about the principles of copyright law, your hypothesized
 examples ought to focus on the things that Bob and Alice do for
 *expressive* purposes

What on earth do _purposes_ have to do with anything?  If I write a
cookbook, I don't do it to express myself, but to explain how to cook
various dishes (and perhaps to make money).  Nonetheless, my cookbook
is copyrightable because there is more than one possible form for the
content.  Likewise, both Alice's code and Bob's code are expressive, for
there is more than one way to write each of them.

 rather than the things they do merely to allow their software to
 function together through some technical (or bizarre) form of linking.

Why bring up linking?  My hypos have to do with source-code
modification, not with linking.

 I'll apply copyright law only when Bob or Alice make their software
 prettier.

Bah.

-- 
Don't be so humble.  You're not that great. John Cowan
--Golda Meirco...@ccil.org
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Re: [License-discuss] License incompatibility (was Re: Open source license chooser choosealicense.com

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 Does the distribution of a GPL-licensed work along with those separate
 works convert them into something not separate in the copyright
 sense? Does a staple or a paper clip or a book binding convert separate
 works to something not separate in the copyright sense?

Plainly not.  But suppose Bob takes Alice's program under the GPL and
and adds a bunch of calls to syslog() so that it logs what it is doing
(and suppose further that this is not a de minimis or merely mechanical
change).  Do you then hold that this is not a derivative work either,
and therefore need not be licensed by Bob under the GPL?  After all,
it is not as if you can't trace every single bit in the source code or
resulting object code to Alice or Bob respectively, at least assuming
the compiler is not over-clever.

-- 
Well, I'm back.  --SamJohn Cowan co...@ccil.org
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Re: [License-discuss] Red Hat compilation copyright RHEL contract

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 I do so because my clients expect to profit (either financially or
 in reputation credits) for delivering comprehensive solutions that
 include FOSS components.

It's kind of hard to see how this could be the case for releasing a
compilation under the GPL.  There's no money in it, and people don't
get a good reputation when they do things others find incomprehensible:
quite the reverse.  That is not to say it is not a Good Thing in itself.

-- 
Normally I can handle panic attacks on my own;   John Cowan co...@ccil.org
but panic is, at the moment, a way of life.  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
--Joseph Zitt
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Re: [License-discuss] License incompatibility (was Re: Open source license chooser choosealicense.com

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 I would guess that Bob's adding a bunch of calls to syslog() into
 Alice's work might create a derivative work of Alice's work, but that
 wouldn't convert syslog() itself a derivative work owned by either
 Alice or Bob, even if Bob statically linked it with Alice's program.

The GPL provides an exception for things like syslog() anyway; you can
link to it without triggering even disputable obligations.

 Why are you putting the burden on an over-clever source code compiler
 to detect derivative works?

Not what I meant.  If Alice's code contains the string foobar and so
does Bob's, a compiler might coalesce the two strings into one, in such
a way that the 0x62 in the object file's initialized-data segment could
not be unilaterally attributed to either Alice or Bob.

But in any case my point is that there is no bright line between a
derivative and a collective work.  If Bob's work is a derivative of
Alice's, then we can construct a sequence of alternate hypos by Bob
that lead right up to two separate modules of code, such as this:  Bob
interweaves his code into Alice's code (as in this hypo), Bob adds code
to the end of Alice's procedure, Bob adds new procedures to the end of
Alice's module, Bob adds a new module to Alice's module.

In all cases, Bob's contributions can be separated from Alice's
mechanically, even at the object level (absent coalescence as described
above).  Yet that fact is not determinative of collective work
vs. derivative work.

-- 
I Hope, Sir, that we are notJohn Cowan
mutually Un-friended by thisco...@ccil.org
Difference which hath happened  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
betwixt us. --Thomas Fuller, Appeal of Injured Innocence (1659)
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Re: [License-discuss] Red Hat compilation copyright RHEL contract

[John Cowan]

Bradley M. Kuhn scripsit:

 Patches are typical derivative works themselves of the original work.

That's a very debatable point, though I doubt there is much point in
debating it here yet again.  My view is that a patch by itself makes
only fair use of the original, though it's true that a *patched work*
is a derivative work.  (That assumes the patch is substantial and not
de minimis, of course.)

IANAL, TINLA.

-- 
Using RELAX NG compact syntax toJohn Cowan co...@ccil.org
develop schemas is one of the simplehttp://www.ccil.org/~cowan
pleasures in life
--Jeni Tennison co...@ccil.org
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Re: [License-discuss] Red Hat compilation copyright RHEL contract

[John Cowan]

Bradley M. Kuhn scripsit:

 When I think of compilation and arrangement copyright on copylefted
 software, I'm usually focused on things like the maintainer chose which
 patches were appropriate and which ones weren't for the release 

So it's perfectly parallel, reading packages for patches.  I agree
that I don't know of anyone else who has done this.

-- 
Why yes, I'm ten percent Jewish on my manager's side.  John Cowan
--Connie Francis http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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Re: [License-discuss] Red Hat compilation copyright RHEL contract (was Re: License incompatibility)

[John Cowan]

Bradley M. Kuhn scripsit:

 It's certainly possible to license all sorts of copyrights under GPL,
 since it's a copyright license.  Red Hat has chosen, IMO rather oddly,
 to claim strongly a compilation copyright on putting together RHEL and
 Red Hat licenses that copyright under terms of GPL.

I don't see where the oddity comes in.  If we grant that the compilation
which is RHEL required a creative spark in the selection (for the
arrangement is mechanical), then it is a fit object of copyright.
By licensing that selection of works under the GPL, Red Hat permits
another party (call it Teal Hat) to create and publish a derivative work
(that is, a collection based on RHEL but containing additional works,
or fewer works, or both).  But Teal Hat must *not* prevent a third party
(call it Chartreuse Hat) from creating yet a third collective work
based on Teal Hat's.  That seems to me a worthy purpose, and one that
the FSF should encourage.  RHEL is not as such free software, but it is
a free collection-of-software, as opposed to a proprietary collection
of free software.

 The RHEL customer contract has long been discussed, and it amounts to a
 if you exercise your rights under GPL, your money is no good here
 arrangement.  That's not an arrangement that I think is reasonable
 (and it's why I wouldn't be a RHEL customer myself), but there's
 nothing in GPL (that I'm aware of) that requires that one keep someone
 as a customer.

Indeed, it seems very reasonable to me that Red Hat doesn't want a direct
competitor as a customer.  It probably has customers that are competitors
in a more indirect sense: IBM comes to mind as a possibility.

-- 
I Hope, Sir, that we are notJohn Cowan
mutually Un-friended by thisco...@ccil.org
Difference which hath happened  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
betwixt us. --Thomas Fuller, Appeal of Injured Innocence (1659)
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Re: [License-discuss] License incompatibility (was Re: Open source license chooser choosealicense.com) launched.

[John Cowan]

Al Foxone scripsit:

 I doubt that Red Hat’s own End User License Agreement is
 'compatible' (according to you) with the GPL'd components in that
 combined work as whole. Anyway, that combined work as a whole must be
 full of proclaimed 'incompatibly' licensed components (once again
 according to you). How come that this is possible?

See GPLv2 section 2, the penultimate paragraph:

# [M]ere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the
# Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage
# or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope
# of this License.

The corresponding paragraph of the GPLv3 is the final one of Section 5:

# A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent
# works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work,
# and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program,
# in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an
# “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not
# used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users
# beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work
# in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other
# parts of the aggregate.

-- 
John Cowanco...@ccil.org
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, LOTR:FOTR
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Re: [License-discuss] Open source license chooser choosealicense.com launched.

[John Cowan]

Bradley M. Kuhn scripsit:

 This can be tested now: try it and see if choosealicense.com accepts
 the patches.

I am very disinclined to go to the effort of integrating my ideas
(the actual code, which is plain HTML, is not relevant) into Github's
code, absent some indication that they would be willing to adopt a more
even-handed approach.  I suspect that they favor permissive licenses
for business reasons, as they encourage forking.

-- 
Is not a patron, my Lord [Chesterfield],John Cowan
one who looks with unconcern on a man   http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
struggling for life in the water, and when  co...@ccil.org
he has reached ground encumbers him with help?
--Samuel Johnson
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Re: [License-discuss] Unlicense CC0 and patents

[John Cowan]

Clark C. Evans scripsit:

 The FSF considers works released under CC0 to be Free Software
 [1], but, the rationale for this determination was never disclosed.
 Perhaps because anyone could sue for patent infringement regardless
 of copyright?

Indeed, there are many Free Software licenses without patent clauses,
notably the GPLv2 (which only says that if there's a patent you know
about that would be infringed and is not freely licensed to all, you
can't distribute the code).

-- 
Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettesJohn Cowan co...@ccil.org
of a creatific thinkerizer. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
   --Peter da Silva
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Re: [License-discuss] Open Source Eventually License Development

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

 Indeed I wish I were, like your father, paid by the word. Or paid
 by any other measure here

Eh?  He was paid by the semester by the New Jersey taxpayers.  His
articles weren't paid for at all.  Are you googling the wrong Tom Cowan?

 Thanks for playing Huxley, although the rest of the comparison is inapt. 

I thought you'd say that.  See Asimov v. Bova (Jewish guilt and Italian
guilt), settled out of court.

-- 
I could dance with you till the cowsJohn Cowan
come home.  On second thought, I'd  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
rather dance with the cows when you co...@ccil.org
come home.  --Rufus T. Firefly
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Re: [License-discuss] Unlicense CC0 and patents

[John Cowan]

Prashant Shah scripsit:

 CCO clearly specifies that patents are not licensed but I am not sure how
 patents are treated in unlicense since nothing is specified.

The presence of the patent verbs use and sell and the use of uncumbered
suggest that there is a patent license, but no more than suggest.  I suspect
nobody who actually has patents (which unlike copyrights, take time and
money to get) will use it anyway.

-- 
BALIN FUNDINUL  UZBAD KHAZADDUMUco...@ccil.org
BALIN SON OF FUNDIN LORD OF KHAZAD-DUM  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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