Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL
Ken Arromdee [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, 28 Mar 2006, Walter Landry wrote: These examples give partial specifications, not full specifications. I see no reason to read the GFDL as requiring only partial specifications. What's the difference between full specification for A, which is a subset of B and partial specification of B, other than semantics? The big difference is lack of clarity. We know what B is (word documents, say), but if what A is is unclear (a word document using some subset of possible (combinations of) formatting commands?), we're in a lot worse situation because we can't necessarily straightforwardly say for a given document whether or not it's in A. Ultimately, answering this question in a given case is likely to require comparing the output of the full specification (B) with the partial (A). Which means that you're likely to need the full specification (B) for QA purposes even if, technically, the document in question only uses A. -- Jeremy Hankins [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
how to properly specify Public Domain?
Hi, Summary: If there's a file in one of my packages that only declares to be in the public domain, do I have to contact the author and let him clarify this, or can I leave things as they are? I recall to have been told that, in order to make a piece of software free, it is not sufficient to say This file is in the public domain, but that instead one has to write something like Everybody is free to use, distribute and/or modify it. On the other hand, I have learned meanwhile that in some legislations the term Public Domain does indeed have a defined meaning. From this I would conclude that declaring something Public Domain should be sufficient, and that effectively no court could sanely assert a copyright infringement if someone used a file on that basis, even when the term doesn't have a well-defined meaning there - at least if the copyright holder is from a country where it has. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
Re: how to properly specify Public Domain?
Maybe this thread helps: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/06/msg00018.html On 30/03/06, Frank Küster [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Summary: If there's a file in one of my packages that only declares to be in the public domain, do I have to contact the author and let him clarify this, or can I leave things as they are? I recall to have been told that, in order to make a piece of software free, it is not sufficient to say This file is in the public domain, but that instead one has to write something like Everybody is free to use, distribute and/or modify it. On the other hand, I have learned meanwhile that in some legislations the term Public Domain does indeed have a defined meaning. From this I would conclude that declaring something Public Domain should be sufficient, and that effectively no court could sanely assert a copyright infringement if someone used a file on that basis, even when the term doesn't have a well-defined meaning there - at least if the copyright holder is from a country where it has. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
Re: how to properly specify Public Domain?
Patrick Herzig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maybe this thread helps: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/06/msg00018.html Sorry, not really (or I've missed the relevant mails). I read a lot about whether public domain licenses work as they are intended, and something about how to properly phrase them, but nothing about whether This file is in the public domain is sufficient information to say that the file is DFSG free. If there's a file in one of my packages that only declares to be in the public domain, do I have to contact the author and let him clarify this, or can I leave things as they are? The fact is that there's at least one file like this in tetex-base. And I'm not sure whether the copyright holder can still be reached. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
Re: RFC: the new license for IBPP
El jueves, 30 de marzo de 2006 a las 16:33:59 +0300, Damyan Ivanov escribía: Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person or organization (???You???) obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files covered by this license (the ???Software???) to use the Software as part of another work; to modify it for that purpose; It allows to modify the library if it is needed to make it work with other piece of software (for that purpose == to use the Software as part of another work), but that wording does not allow modifying it to improve its performance, for example. This is why writing licenses is tricky :-) -- Jacobo Tarrío | http://jacobo.tarrio.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL
On 3/30/06, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 3/27/06, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Those ludicrous conclusions do not follow logically from the claim, for such reasons as simple plane carriage not being a technical measure under the relevant definitions presented here so far. Which definitions would those be? For example, the expression technological measures means any technology, device or component that, in the normal course of its operation, is designed to prevent or restrict acts, in respect of works or other subject-matter, which are not authorised by the rightholder of any copyright or any right related to copyright as provided for by law or the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC. [EUCD (2001/29/EC) Article 6 (3)] Excellent, I can agree with this definition. So how is it that chmod fits this definition while a wooden door, or a power switch, does not? None were designed to prevent copyright violation. All have some rudimentary ability to prevent copies from being made by someone. Can we agree that the FDL prohibits people who make copies from obstructing other people from reading copies? No. The FDL prohibits some types of copying, not people. If you meant to address the question I asked (rather than the first seven words of the question), could you rephrase that? http://www.answers.com/technical http://www.answers.com/measures I don't believe that's the sense in the FDL. If it were, far more things would be restricted. I think FDL uses an EUCD-like meaning. Either way, using that definition still leads one to conclude the FDL is not usable for free software. If you wish to argue for that definition, you are arguing even more strongly than I am that FDL is unsuitable for main! Hence, I cannot understand your support for FDL on this topic. This interpretation which argues even more strongly ... that the FDL is unsuitable for main is also contradicted by the obvious meaning of the GFDL. So that interpretation must be flawed. -- Raul
Re: how to properly specify Public Domain?
On 2006/03/30, at 21:04, Frank Küster wrote: On the other hand, I have learned meanwhile that in some legislations the term Public Domain does indeed have a defined meaning. From this I would conclude that declaring something Public Domain should be sufficient, and that effectively no court could sanely assert a copyright infringement if someone used a file on that basis, even when the term doesn't have a well-defined meaning there - at least if the copyright holder is from a country where it has. My understanding of public domain is that a public domain document is not covered by copyright law anymore. Which means, since there are no copyright owner, there are no use licenses. A license is given by a copyright owner, if there is no copyright, there is no license. Period. And everybody becomes free to use the file without any restriction, even restrictions related to closing the file's contents (or rather an instance of the file, since no one can claim copyright to the original contents). Public domain is clearly defined in copyright law, and that should be so in any country that has any kind of copyright law. Copyright only extends to a certain period of time after which it does not exist anymore. Maybe you should check copyright law to get proper reference. Copyright and public domain are two sides of the same coin. Jean-Christophe Helary
Re: how to properly specify Public Domain?
JC Helary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Public domain is clearly defined in copyright law, and that should be so in any country that has any kind of copyright law. I fear there are a couple of countries that didn't obey your should. Copyright only extends to a certain period of time after which it does not exist anymore. That idea probably exists everywhere, but you can't say treat this file as if I died 70 years ago in the EU, AFAIK. And all that doesn't answer my question: Whether it's debian-legal's consensus that This file is in the public domain grants us enough rights to distribute it in main, or non-free, or not at all. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL
On 3/26/06, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you are distributing both, then the XML file is Transparent and the word file is opaque. My point was that the word file is never Transparent. I am not saying that the word file can not be distributed, but that it is never Transparent. I found out yesterday that there is an xml format which is a word format. In Word 2003, use the Save As... dialog -- it's the second option on the drop down list for file formats. More specifically, word format means that Word has a document object which it serializes into a file. One of the mechanisms it has for doing so results in an xml file. And, of course, it's perfectly capable of reading these files, and as far as I know you don't lose any features of word with this file format. Plus, of course, you can edit these things with a generic text editor. But this brings up another issue -- I don't think we should accept any such .xml document into Debian main unless we also have a suitable editor (perhaps open office) to support editing that specific content. Otherwise, we'd be introducing a dependency on non-free software (regardless of whether or not that dependency was explicitly presented in the package headers). -- Raul
Re: how to properly specify Public Domain?
This file is in the public domain is sufficient in Belgian legislation, and in any droit d'auteur legislation I know of. sincerely, Batist On 30/03/06, Frank Küster [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Summary: If there's a file in one of my packages that only declares to be in the public domain, do I have to contact the author and let him clarify this, or can I leave things as they are? I recall to have been told that, in order to make a piece of software free, it is not sufficient to say This file is in the public domain, but that instead one has to write something like Everybody is free to use, distribute and/or modify it. On the other hand, I have learned meanwhile that in some legislations the term Public Domain does indeed have a defined meaning. From this I would conclude that declaring something Public Domain should be sufficient, and that effectively no court could sanely assert a copyright infringement if someone used a file on that basis, even when the term doesn't have a well-defined meaning there - at least if the copyright holder is from a country where it has. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
Re: how to properly specify Public Domain?
On Thu, 30 Mar 2006, Frank Küster wrote: JC Helary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Public domain is clearly defined in copyright law, and that should be so in any country that has any kind of copyright law. I fear there are a couple of countries that didn't obey your should. And all that doesn't answer my question: Whether it's debian-legal's consensus that This file is in the public domain grants us enough rights to distribute it in main, or non-free, or not at all. We've generally considered it to give enough rights to distribute in main, assuming the statement is clear that that's what it is doing. An ideal situtation would be a statement that the work is in the public domain, followed by a statement that it is licensed under MIT (or similar) if that is not possible in the licensee's jurisdiction. If you've got the time to communicate with the author to request that, it'd be good. Otherwise, I don't believe the ftpmasters are requiring this from public domain works yet. Don Armstrong -- I'm a rational being--of a sort--rational enough, at least, to see the symptoms of insanity around me. And I'm human, the same as the poeple I think of as victims when my guard drops. It's at least possible I'm even crazier than my fellows, whom I'm tempted to pity. There seems only one thing to do, and that's get drunk -- Chad C. Mulligan (John Brunner _Stand On Zanzibar p390) http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Re: RFC: the new license for IBPP
On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 20:03:53 +0300 Damyan Ivanov wrote: Hi, Jacobo, Jacobo Tarrio wrote: [...] It allows to modify the library if it is needed to make it work with other piece of software (for that purpose == to use the Software as part of another work), but that wording does not allow modifying it to improve its performance, for example. Isn't it permitted to modify the Software for whatever reason as long as it is distributed as a part of a another work? (for that purpose isn't very clear IMO). Or, if the other software requires a super-fast IBPP, then we comply with the license, sicne the modification is made to make it work with the other work. Still unclear. :/ What if I want to modify the library itself and distribute the result by itself? Why have I to be annoyed by this wrap it in some silly container work requirement? Better to adopt the actual Expat license (http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt), IMHO. -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgp1EDzlxHD7I.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Re: how to properly specify Public Domain?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And all that doesn't answer my question: Whether it's debian-legal's consensus that This file is in the public domain grants us enough rights to distribute it in main, or non-free, or not at all. It's good enough, if it's placed there by the author/former copyright holder. We prefer The author of this file places this file in the public domain, to make it clear that this wasn't just slapped on by some other random person who didn't understand copyright law (since that's an occasional problem). It's not clear that it's actually legally possible to place something in the public domain in the United States. :-P If it isn't, however, we suspect that courts would interpret the statement of the author's intent to place the file in the public domain, to mean that the author granted permission to everyone in the world to treat it as if it were in the public domain. (Which is sufficient.) If the author wants to be really careful, he should write: The author of this file places this file in the public domain. If that is legally impossible, the author grants an irrevocable license to anyone and everyone to treat this file exactly as if it were in the public domain. That's my preferred Public Domain specification. -- Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] Make sure your vote will count. http://www.verifiedvoting.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Antique RC bugs (many about licensing)
Hamish Moffatt wrote: On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 09:31:26PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Is it really DFSG-free to have a license which prohibits placing a copy you make of the document on an encrypted filesystem? Applying chmod o-r to it (on a multiuser system)? Putting a copy of it in a safe? No, but I think that's an extreme (or absurd) interpretation of the GFDL. Don't some people consider those to be just bugs? A license bug is nonetheless a bug -- a bug which can easily be abused by the licensor to win damages and issue injunctions; or in this country, where there's something called criminal copyright infringement, one which could be abused by a zealous prosecutor, even without the consent of the licensor. This is in a certain sense a security bug for the license: a bug which allows the licensee (that's Debian and its users) to be totally screwed. As opposed to a relatively harmless bug in the license, like GPL v.2's requirement of a ChangeLog in every file (which could be provided if demanded, but is annoying.) We believe that *if* we have clarification from the licensor as to the meaning, we can rely on their interpretation (this has a fairly sound legal basis). But if we *don't*, which is unfortunately the case most of the time, we have to read the license conservatively. The GFDL, as a general license intended for use by many people, could be interpreted differently by any of many different licensors. We don't even know exactly what the FSF thinks this clause covers; we can't pretend to know what Joe Licensor thinks it covers. It would be perfectly reasonable for Joe Licensor to take a strict reading; and to start enforcing it after years of delay, saying, Well, I assumed everyone knew that it meant what it said literally! I didn't imagine anyone would interpret it so creatively!. I expect he'd win in court. I don't know that you can reasonably combine a relaxed reading of the DFSG with a strict reading of the GFDL. Why be generous to one document and not the other? One is a set of guidelines which Debian voluntarily adheres to. The other is a legal document. I think it's pretty easy to read the guidelines in a relaxed manner, and read the legal document in a strict manner. After all, courts routinely read legal documents in a strict manner, and their opinion is what we have to think about when reading legal documents. Ever tried to get a court to read a written contract in a relaxed manner? Not very much chance of success, not in the US anyway. Cheers, Hamish -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: the new license for IBPP
=== The problematic? clause === Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person or organization (”You”) obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files covered by this license (the “Software”) to use the Software as part of another work; to modify it for that purpose; to publish or distribute it, modified or not, for that same purpose; to permit persons to whom the other work using the Software is furnished to do so; subject to the following conditions: the above copyright notice and this complete and unmodified permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software; You will not misrepresent modified versions of the Software as being the original. === Francesco Poli wrote: What if I want to modify the library itself and distribute the result by itself? This is not permitted, AFAIU. Why have I to be annoyed by this wrap it in some silly container work requirement? Better to adopt the actual Expat license (http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt), IMHO. I see your point and I agree. But the author deliberately modified Expat license to include the above terms. So the questions is: Is this DFSG-free or not? Please bear in mind that IBPP is really to be used in FlameRobin's packaging, not by itself. dam -- Damyan Ivanov Creditreform Bulgaria [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.creditreform.bg/ phone: +359(2)928-2611, 929-3993fax: +359(2)920-0994 mob. +359(88)856-6067 [EMAIL PROTECTED]/Gaim signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: how to properly specify Public Domain?
Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you've got the time to communicate with the author to request that, it'd be good. Otherwise, I don't believe the ftpmasters are requiring this from public domain works yet. Thank you, and to Nathanael. I'll interpret that as note that down, but care for the real licensing problems first - there are plenty of them. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
