Re: GPL version 4
Would you grant me the freedom to give away your commercial product for free or to incorporate it in my commercial product? Probably not. You'd instead grant me less freedom. The GPL protects me from this. Except it doesn't. With or without the GPL, if he still makes his commercial product, you will still be unable to give it away or incorporate it in your commercial product. If he doesn't make it, that's just less choice for everyone. It may be a poorer product. It may cost him more to develop it. It may wind up not existing. But in no case will will you wind up with the freedom to give away his commercial product. So the GPL actually won't protect you from this at all. It will just result in him producing a poorer, more expensive, less compatible product -- or none at all. Either way, everyone else will have fewer (and/or poorer) choices. Everyone loses. Nobody wins. Note that had he been able to incorporate the GPL code in his commercial product, he may have passed bug fixes and improvements back to the GPL project. He would not have had to, of course, but if his product just uses a GPL component or library (that doesn't compete with the larger product), there's no reason for him not to. Everybody could have won. It's always possible he may instead elect to make a GPL'd project. This may allow him to produce a higher-quality product in less time. It may allow others to build on his work, and result in more freedom for everyone. He may make less money, but maybe not. The question of whether the everybody loses or the lots of people, maybe everybody, wins case is more common is an empiric one. I have seen an awful lot of everybody loses cases. I've seen very few everybody wins cases. DS
Re: Wasting our Freedom
Hannah Schroeter wrote: The original issue *was* about illegal relicensing (i.e. not just choosing which terms to follow, but removing the other terms altogether). You are confusing two completely different issues. One is about removing license notices, the other is about relicensing. One has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. No amount of changing license notices affects the license a recipient gets to any code that the license changer did not contribute. You cannot, in the sense of it being legally impossible, affect the license your recipients get to code you did not author. Relicensing is simply impossible under either the BSD license or the GPL license. Neither grants you any relicensing rights. Remove the BSD license from a dual-licensed work doesn't relicense anything. Everyone who gets the work still gets a dual license from the original author. It does state you can choose which terms to follow, indeed, of course. But that does *not* imply removing the other terms altogether. Of course not. But since the GPL does not require you to keep a BSD license notice intact and the BSD license does not require you to keep a GPL license notice intact, the result is that you do have the right to remove the other license's terms altogether. Note that this has no effect whatsoever on the rights anyone actually gets. Rights come from licenses, not license notices. If you were right, a dual-licensed work would not be GPL compatible. Since the GPL prohibits the use of any mechanism to prohibit modification to the work (other than the inability to remove the GPL itself). Removing the terms you choose not to follow in one instance *is* relicensing. Umm, no. That's so obviously mind-bogglingly crazy that I don't even know where to start. Let's try a hypothetical: I download the entire Linux kernel and remove every single GPL license notice and replace it with a public domain notice. I then distribute the result. Am I relicensing the Linux kernel? Isn't it obvious that I'm not. I *can't*. I have no right to change the license under which other people's code is offered. When you change a license notice, that has no effect on the actual license anyone gets to anyone else's work. You license notice changes can only affect licenses that *you* grant. Nothing requires a license that exists to be documented in the accompanying file. There is nothing in copyright law that is offended by the idea that someone might remove a license notification even though the license still applies so long as the license only *adds* rights. The only reason we can't remove the GPL license from the Linux kernel is because the GPL says so. As said above, the accusations, if you read them correctly, were not wrong, but spot on right. Unless someone proves that dual-licensing as in you may follow terms A or terms B at your choice implicitly implies being allowed to remove A altogether should you choose B. You are confusing licenses with license notices. The GPL says you must keep GPL license notices intact. Otherwise, it gives you complete freedom to modify. This means that if you choose the GPL, you gain (from the GPL) the right to remove the BSD license *NOTICE*. This has no effect on anyone's substantive rights though. Removing license notices has no effect on actual licenses. DS
Re: Wasting our Freedom
And if you choose the GPL the code you distribute will be under the GPL *only* forever [1], so what value would be in shipping terms that are void? Not true. You cannot chose the license that applies to other people's code. The code you distribute contains protectable elements from different authors. Each element is still offered under whatever license the original author offered it under. You cannot affect the license grant from the author to the lawful possessor of code you did not author. The code you *contribute* will be under the GPL *only* forever. But the code you distribute will contain elements from different authors offered under different licenses. And if the author intended to have the BSD licence text kept intact when his code gets incorporated into GPL'ed code, why didn't he simply make his code BSD-only? In fact the only difference between BSD-only code and BSD/GPL dual-licenced code is that you can't remove the BSD licence text for the former when incorporating it into GPL'ed code... That's true. DS
Re: Wasting our Freedom
Theodore Tso writes: Now, you don't need a licence from the original author to use the derived work. The author of the derived work only needs a licence from the original author to create a derived work. Do you think Microsoft users have licences from authors of the works MS Windows etc. are based on? :-) Of course you don't need a license to *use* the derived work. You never need a license to use a work. (In the United States. Some countries word this a bit differently but get the same effect.) If, however, you wanted to get the right to modify or distribute a derivative work, you would need to obtain the rights to every protectable element in that work. If the work were under a GPL or BSD type license, only the original author of each individual element could grant you such a license. Read GPL section 6, particularly this part: Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. To distribute a derivative work that contains protectable elements from multiple authors, you are distributing all of those elements and need the rights to all of them. You need a license to each element and in the absence of any relicensing arrangements (which the GPL and BSD license are not), only the original author can grant that to you. It is a common confusion that just because the final author has copyright in the derivative work, that means he can license the work. He cannot license anyone else's creative contributions absent a relicensing arrangement. The GPL is explicit that it is not such a license. That's what the from the original licensor language in section 6 means. The BSD license is not explicit, but it couldn't work any other way. When you receive a Linux kernel distribution, you receive a GPL license to every protectable element in that work from that element's individual author. Nobody can license the kernel as a whole to you. DS
Re: Wasting our Freedom
Kryzstof Halasa writes: David Schwartz [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Theodore Tso writes: hardly A apologize for the error in attribution. Of course you don't need a license to *use* the derived work. You never need a license to use a work. (In the United States. Some countries word this a bit differently but get the same effect.) Really? I thought you need a licence to use, say, MS Windows. Even to possess a copy. But I don't know about USA, I'm told there are strange things happening there :-) No, you do not need a license to use MS Windows. Microsoft may choose to compel you to agree to a license in exchange for allowing you to install a copy, but that is not quite the same thing. If you read United States copyright law, you will see that *use* is not one of the rights reserved to the copyright holder. Every lawful possessor of a work may use it in the ordinary way, assuming they did not *agree* to some kind of restriction. If, however, you wanted to get the right to modify or distribute a derivative work, you would need to obtain the rights to every protectable element in that work. Of course. Read GPL section 6, particularly this part: Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. Seems fine, your point? My point is that you *cannot* prevent a recipient of a derivative work from receiving any rights under either the GPL or the BSD to any protectable elements in that work. In addition to the rights from you (to the whole derived work), the recipient receives rights to the original work, from original author. It makes perfect sense, making sure the original author can't sue you like in the SCO case. If A sold a BSD licence to B only and this B sold a proprietary licence (for a derived work) to C, C (without that clause) wouldn't have a BSD licence to the original work. This is BTW common scenario. C most certainly would have a BSD license, should he choose to comply with terms, to every protectable element that is in both the original work and the work he received. C has no right to license any protectable element he did not author to anyone else. He cannot set the license terms for those elements to C. Again, read GPL section 6. (And this is true for the BSD license as well, at least in the United States, because it's the only way such a license could work.) Neither the BSD nor the GPL ever give you the right to change the actual license a work is offered under by the original author. In fact, they could not give you this right under US copyright law. Modify the license *text* is not the same thing as modifying the license. To distribute a derivative work that contains protectable elements from multiple authors, you are distributing all of those elements and need the rights to all of them. You need a license to each element and in the absence of any relicensing arrangements (which the GPL and BSD license are not), only the original author can grant that to you. Of course. BTW: a work by multiple authors is a different thing than a work derived from another. In practice it doesn't matter. All that matters is that you have a single fixed form or expression that contains creative elements contributed by different people potentially under different licenses. The issues of whether it's a derivative work or a combined work and whether the distributor has made sufficient protectable elements to assert their own copy really has no effect on any of the issues that matter here. It is a common confusion that just because the final author has copyright in the derivative work, that means he can license the work. Of course he (and only he) can. It doesn't mean the end users can't receive additional rights. No, he can't. He can only license those protectable elements that he authored. There is no way you can license protectable elements authored by another absent a relicenseing agreement. The GPL is explicitly not a relicensing agreement, see section 6. The BSD license is implicitly not a relicensing agreement. Come on, licence = promise not to sue. Why would the copyright holder be unable to promise not to sue? It just doesn't make sense. A license is not just a promise not to sue, it's an *enforceable* *committment* not to sue. It's an explicit grant of permission against legal rights. Would you argue that I can license Disney's The Lion King movie to you if I promise not to sue you over any (no) rights that I possess to it? He cannot license anyone else's creative contributions absent a relicensing arrangement. Sure, he can licence only his work, perhaps derived work. Right. Look at MS Windows - it's a work created by a single company, though derived from other works, it's (C) MS and you get a licence for the whole MS
Re: Wasting our Freedom
David Schwartz [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My point is that you *cannot* prevent a recipient of a derivative work from receiving any rights under either the GPL or the BSD to any protectable elements in that work. Of course you can. No you can't. What rights do you have to BSD-licenced works, made available (under BSD) to MS exclusively? You only get the binary object... You are equating what rights I have with my ability to exercise those rights. They are not the same thing. For example, I once bought the rights to publically display the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. To my surprise, the rights to public display did not include an actual copy of the film. In any event, I never claimed that anyone has rights to a protectable element that they do not possess a lawful copy of. That's a complete separate issue and one that has nothing to do with what's being discussed here because these are all cases where you have the work. You know, this is quite common practice - instead of assigning copyright, you can grant a BSD-style licence (for some fee, something like do what you want but I will do what I want with my code). Sure, *you* can grant a BSD-style license to any protectable elements *you* authored. But unless your recpients can obtain a BSD-style license to all protectable elements in the work from their respective authors, they cannot modify or distribute it. *You* cannot grant any rights to protectable elements authored by someone else, unless you have a relicensing agreement. Neither the GPL nor the BSD is one of those. If A sold a BSD licence to B only and this B sold a proprietary licence (for a derived work) to C, C (without that clause) wouldn't have a BSD licence to the original work. This is BTW common scenario. C most certainly would have a BSD license, should he choose to comply with terms, to every protectable element that is in both the original work and the work he received. But he may have received only binary program image - or the source under NDA. Sure, NDA doesn't cover public information, but BSD doesn't mean public. Now what? What the hell does that have to do with anything? Are you just trying to be deliberately dense or waste time? Is it not totally obvious how the principles I explain apply to a case like that? Only someone who signs an NDA must comply with it. If you signed an NDA, you must comply with it. An NDA can definitely subtract rights. It's a complex question whether an NDA can subtract GPL rights, but again, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. Sure, you can have the right from me to do X and still not be allowed to do X because you agreed with someone else not to do it. So what? C has no right to license any protectable element he did not author to anyone else. He cannot set the license terms for those elements to C. Sure, the licence covers the entire work, not some elements. This is a misleading statement. The phrase entire work has two senses. The license definitely does not cover the entire work in the sense of every protectable element in the work unless each individual author of those elements chose to offer that element under that license. If by entire work, you mean any compilation or derivative work copyright the final author has, then yes, that's available under whatever license the final author places it under. But that license does not actually permit you to distribute the work. This is really complicated and I wish I had a clear way to explain it. Suppose I write a work and then you modify it. Assume your modification includes adding new protectable elements to that work. When someone distributes that new derivative work, they are distributing protectable elements authored by both you and me. Absent a relicensing agreement, they must obtain some rights from you and some rights from me to do that. You cannot license the protectable elements that I authored that are still in the resulting derivative work. Neither the BSD nor the GPL ever give you the right to change the actual license a work is offered under by the original author. Of course, that's a very distant thing. Exactly. Every protectable element in the final work is licensed by the original author to every recipient who takes advantage of the license offer. BTW: a work by multiple authors is a different thing than a work derived from another. In practice it doesn't matter. Of course it does. Only author of a (derived) work can licence it, in this case he/she could change the licence back to BSD, or sell it to MS (if not based on GPL etc). Only the author of any protectable element can license it, whether it's in a derivated work or by itself. You are seriously confused if you think that just because you create a derivative work that includes my protectable elements you can then license the elements I created under a license you choose. Please read GPL section 6. The license *always
