Re: CC-BY : clarification letter ?
On Wed, Mar 09, 2005 at 05:26:51PM -0500, Daniel Carrera wrote: (2) the license does not interfere with fair-use rights (e.g. quoting you on a bibliography) Is this trying to reverse the author name purge condition? I'm not sure that appealing to fair use covers it. Not the whole thing. The problem lies with the mis-use of the purge clause. The purge clause is good, for example, if you modify my work to the point where it says the opposite of what I intended, I wouldn't want to be in the list of authors. No, this is a classic case of trying to prohibit in a copyright license something which is ALREADY prohibited by law and fouling stuff up in the process. Do not attempt to reimplement author's rights in licenses; it does not work, and when you get it wrong (as in this license) it causes trouble. It is not permitted, under copyright law (in every jurisdiction I'm aware of that implements Berne-style copyright), to misrepresent a work so as to claim it is not the work of its actual author, or to claim that it is the work of a person who is not the actual author. These prohibitions cannot be waived in a copyright license or otherwise traded. This is obviously necessary because otherwise I could just write a *new* work that says the opposite of what you intended and put you in the list of authors, and since it's not based on your actual work your license is irrelevant. So doing that sort of thing in the license won't help, and it's not legal in the first place so the whole affair is pointless. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CC-BY : clarification letter ?
Andrew Suffield wrote: The PDL is very inconvenient to use. And it doesn't appear to be a free license. I certainly think it is less free that CC-BY. So I think that moving towards CC-BY is a movement towards more free. Notice that many of my reasons for wanting to switch come down to wanting to do something that I'm not currently permitted. For this reason, also, the usual suggestions won't help us. That doesn't make any sense. Why are you limited to this ridiculous pair of licenses? Because OpenOffice.org is very slow at approving anything. Getting anything changed is difficult and takes time. Before, the only license allowed for documentation was the PDL. Recently, we approved the CC-BY. I think that the CC-BY is better than the PDL, so I want to take it. This doesn't preclude the probability of there ever being another license. I expect there will be. But that will not be for a long time. I am hoping that the Debian concerns with the CC-BY can be addressed with a clarification letter. If it can't, then I'll just accept that the the work can only go in the non-free archive until the CC changes the license. This would be sad, but not catastrophic. After all, this isn't Debian documentation we're talking about. But I will still go for the CC-BY because I think it is a step in the right direction. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CC-BY : clarification letter ?
On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 03:07:47AM -0500, Daniel Carrera wrote: For this reason, also, the usual suggestions won't help us. That doesn't make any sense. Why are you limited to this ridiculous pair of licenses? Because OpenOffice.org is very slow at approving anything. Getting anything changed is difficult and takes time. Before, the only license allowed for documentation was the PDL. Recently, we approved the CC-BY. I think that the CC-BY is better than the PDL, so I want to take it. But you can approve a mangled variation on CC-BY, if you pretend that it's really the same thing? So just 'clarify' it into the MIT license... -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CC-BY : clarification letter ?
Andrew Suffield wrote: But you can approve a mangled variation on CC-BY, if you pretend that it's really the same thing? So just 'clarify' it into the MIT license... Well... I'm asking about whether one can use a letter to clarify ambiguities. For example, if it's not clear exactly what is meant by references, maybe I can say that references refers to authorship references. Can I do that? Or is that the same as making a new license? I was hoping it'd be the same license, with an explanation of what those terms were meant as. I gather from your post that this isn't how a clarification letter works. :-( Best, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Opinion on the PDL ?
Hello, I was hoping I could get an opinion on the free/non-free status of Sun's Public Documentation License (I include it below). Here are two concerns: * Section 3.3 says: All Documentation to which You contribute must identify the changes You made to create that Documentation and the date of any change. You must include a prominent statement that the Modification is derived, directly or indirectly, from Original Documentation provided by the Initial Writer and include the name of the Initial Writer in the Documentation or via an electronic link that describes the origin or ownership of the Documentation. * Section 3.5 says: You must duplicate the notice in the Appendix in each file of the Documentation... You must also duplicate this License in any Documentation file * Section 3.5 also has an indemnification clause. I don't fully understand it. I would appreciate hearing your take on this license. Here is the complete license: PUBLIC DOCUMENTATION LICENSE Version 1.0 1.0 DEFINITIONS. 1.1. Commercial Use means distribution or otherwise making the Documentation available to a third party. 1.2. Contributor means a person or entity who creates or contributes to the creation of Modifications. 1.3. Documentation means the Original Documentation or Modifications or the combination of the Original Documentation and Modifications, in each case including portions thereof. 1.4. Electronic Distribution Mechanism means a mechanism generally accepted for the electronic transfer of data. 1.5. Initial Writer means the individual or entity identified as the Initial Writer in the notice required by the Appendix. 1.6. Larger Work means a work which combines Documentation or portions thereof with documentation or other writings not governed by the terms of this License. 1.7. License means this document. 1.8. Modifications means any addition to or deletion from the substance or structure of either the Original Documentation or any previous Modifications, such as a translation, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which the Original Documentation or previous Modifications may be recast, transformed or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, and other modifications which, as a whole represent an original work of authorship, is a Modification. For example, when Documentation is released as a series of documents, a Modification is: A. Any addition to or deletion from the contents of the Original Documentation or previous Modifications. B. Any new documentation that contains any part of the Original Documentation or previous Modifications. 1.9. Original Documentation means documentation described as Original Documentation in the notice required by the Appendix, and which, at the time of its release under this License is not already Documentation governed by this License. 1.10. Editable Form means the preferred form of the Documentation for making Modifications to it. The Documentation can be in an electronic, compressed or archival form, provided the appropriate decompression or de-archiving software is widely available for no charge. 1.11. You (or Your) means an individual or a legal entity exercising rights under, and complying with all of the terms of this License or a future version of this License issued under Section 5.0 (Versions of the License). For legal entities, You includes any entity which controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with You. For purposes of this definition, control means (a) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (b) ownership of more than fifty percent (50%) of the outstanding shares or beneficial ownership of such entity. 2.0 LICENSE GRANTS. 2.1 Initial Writer Grant. The Initial Writer hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, prepare Modifications of, compile, publicly perform, publicly display, demonstrate, market, disclose and distribute the Documentation in any form, on any media or via any Electronic Distribution Mechanism or other method now known or later discovered, and to sublicense the foregoing rights to third parties through multiple tiers of sublicensees in accordance with the terms of this License. The license rights granted in this Section 2.1 (Initial Writer Grant) are effective on the date Initial Writer first distributes Original Documentation under the terms of this License. 2.2. Contributor Grant. Each Contributor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, prepare Modifications of, compile, publicly perform, publicly display, demonstrate, market, disclose and distribute the Documentation in any form, on any media or via any Electronic Distribution Mechanism or other method now known or later discovered, and to sublicense the
Modifications under Different Terms than Original (was: Re: why is graphviz package non-free?)
[Yeah, I haven't read -legal for a while...] Glenn Maynard wrote: On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 01:33:08PM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote: If you can't release your modifications under the same terms as the original, then it isn't DFSG-Free. Indeed, I agree that it's extremely distasteful for a license to do this; I'd never contribute to such a work. I can't come up with any strong argument of why it's non-free, though (distasteful really isn't enough), and nobody else is doing so, either--the only argument I've seen is that it's a payment to the upstream author, but that's not true in the above case. I agree this seems quite distasteful. However, as you note, it doesn't seem like a payment to upstream. Let's compare two clauses: If you make modifications to this software, you must release those modifications under the MIT X11 License. (Clause A) vs. If you make modifications to this software, you must assign copyright of those modifications to AUTHOR. AUTHOR grants everyone a license to use these modifications under the license this program is distributed. (Clause B) Clause B, I think, we'd all consider a payment: In exchange for the privelege of making modifications, you must give the author something of value. However, clause A and clause B have the exact same effect, as far as what rights people have with the program, AFAICT. I don't believe two clauses which have the exact same practicle effect should have different freenesses. I think that while (A) does not violate the letter requiring no payment, it does violate the spirit. In addition, I have one other objection: In setting a particular person (or company, or whatever) with special rights over the program, it discriminates, also in violation of the DFSG. Copyright law certainly gives the copyright holder more rights than anyone else; however, these clauses ensure that only a certain copyright holder --- the original's copyright holder --- can ever have that status, no matter how significant my patch. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: When should -legal contact maintainers [Was: Re: Question for candidate Robinson]
On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 12:23:26AM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: [This is wildly OT for -vote, MFT set to -legal and CC:'ed, please follow up there or privately.] On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Wouter Verhelst wrote: On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 12:52:20AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: Still, debian-legal should inform the maintainers and invite them to take part of the discussion when examining packages which have been in main for years. I think he's right about this. For one thing, as he just explained, he got upset precisely because he wasn't informed; it's reasonable to assume that the way in which his discussion would have been performed would have been 'slightly' different had he been informed in time. I *do* think it is good practice for d-legal contributors to inform a packages' maintainer if they are discussing its license; we do the same with other types of bugs. If -legal is specifically discussing a license of a package, the maintainer is generally informed[1] when the discussion is actually Can be, and if so it is nice, but it was not in this case, since the first mention i had was that consensus was reached and my package should move to non-free. And it was a nominal discussion about my package. And again, the mail saying the above was CCed to debian-legal, and nobody there bothered to correct the misconception. happening. However, (almost) no one bothers to inform the maintainers when general discussion of a license is occuring, in the first part because most of the discussion isn't particularly useful to most maintainers, and secondly, because people have better things to do[1] than track down which packages are covered by a license when the critical issues (if any) haven't been discussed or discerned yet. In the latter stages of the discussion, if there really are issues with a license that packages in Debian are using, bugs are typically opened against the packages, ideally with a short summary of the specific issues that the license has, and suggestions for what the maintainer can do to fix the license. (And quite often offers of help in explaining the problems to upstream as well.) And in this case, suggestion was ask upstream to GPL his software or dual licence, as trolltech did for Qt. not even bothering to examine the package in questionand noticing that none of the QPLed part of the package was indeed a library, and thus had no GPL-interaction problems. This shot first ask later attitude based on half informed guesses and backed by the fanatism of the debian-legal posters was what mostly irritated me back then, and also what makes me believe that debian-legal is not to be thrusthed on licencing issues, which makes ti totally useless. As far as the analogy to normal bugs goes, the preliminary discussion is generally on the order of is this really a bug? as is typically seen on -devel. [Or, in the extreme case, figuring out whether mass bug filing is sane.] Surely no maintainer expects to be notified every time someone asks on -user, -devel (or $DEITY forbid, IRC[3]) whether specific behavior from a package constitutes a bug. no, but maintainers get over-angry when people modify the seveirty of one of their bugs they have been ignoring for age, no ? And this reaction seems to be backed up by the powers that are, and a real analogy to the please ask upstream to GPL his software or we will recomend ftp-masters to remove it from main kind of request. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The BitTorrent Open Source License
Scripsit Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:21:57 +0100 Josselin Mouette wrote: The Source Code for any version of Licensed Product or Modifications that you distribute must remain available for at least twelve (12) months after the date it initially became available, or at least six (6) months after a subsequent version of said Licensed Product or Modifications has been made available. You are responsible for ensuring that the Source Code version remains available even if the Electronic Distribution Mechanism is maintained by a third party. Mmmmh... This worries me. It smells like a distribution restriction: does it pass DFSG#1? I don't think so. But even if it did, Debian's mirror network itself does not comply with it, so the issue of theoretical freedom is mostly moot. (We don't want to make our mirror operators or ftpmasters legally dependent on the continued operation of snapshot.debian.net for example). whom to contact. If you obtain such knowledge after you make any Modifications available as described in Section 4(b), you shall promptly modify the LEGAL file in all copies you make available thereafter and shall take other steps (such as notifying appropriate mailing lists or newsgroups) reasonably calculated to inform those who received the Licensed Product from you that new knowledge has been obtained. Is this acceptable? A dissident that learns about a legal issue, must inform those to whom he/she distributed the Licensed Product, do I understand it correctly? Well, he must take steps reasonably calculated to inform recipients. It is conceivable that the dissident's own situation can be taken into account when deciding what is reasonable, and in any case the language in the license does not seem to demand that he discloses his identity. You expressly agree that any litigation relating to this license shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts of the Northern District of California or the Superior Court of the County of Santa Clara, California (as appropriate), with venue lying in Santa Clara County, California, with the losing party responsible for costs including, without limitation, court costs and reasonable attorneys fees and expenses. Choice of venue, which is non-free. I agree. Though the usual badness of venue choice is somewhat mitigated by the promise to pay the user's legal costs if they sue him and lose. However, who says that the author has money to pay with? Any law or regulation that provides that the language of a contract shall be construed against the drafter shall not apply to this License. It's a kind of magic, I suppose! ;-) Wow, I want one of those! -- Henning Makholm It was intended to compile from some approximation to the M-notation, but the M-notation was never fully defined, because representing LISP functions by LISP lists became the dominant programming language when the interpreter later became available. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CC-BY : clarification letter ?
Daniel Carrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Alright, then please help me understand. What exactly are the references that you feel the license should permit, but the current wording doesn't? I think it'd be reasonable for an author to require that his name be purged from the list of authors/contributors -- i.e., the place authors' names are normally required to be preserved. But not that the name be purged from anywhere else. So you might simply say that section 4b about removing any references to the author on request only applies to the list of contributors. How would you compose a clarification letter to address those? I'll leave that to those more skilled in legalese than myself. -- 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]
Re: CC-BY : clarification letter ?
Daniel Carrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Andrew Suffield wrote: That doesn't make any sense. Why are you limited to this ridiculous pair of licenses? Because OpenOffice.org is very slow at approving anything. Getting anything changed is difficult and takes time. Before, the only license allowed for documentation was the PDL. Recently, we approved the CC-BY. I think that the CC-BY is better than the PDL, so I want to take it. How about dual licensing? License it under both the GPL (or whatever license the software you're documenting uses -- see below) and the CC-by. Surely they wouldn't have an issue with that -- they still have it under the CC-by. But others (like Debian) would also have it under a license they can accept. This doesn't preclude the probability of there ever being another license. I expect there will be. But that will not be for a long time. The problem is that by that time the list of contributors could be huge, and it would be quite tough to contact them all and get them to agree to a license change. But if you dual license now, when the time comes that you can switch entirely to your preferred license, you quietly drop the CC-by with no extra fuss. Switching licenses is *hard* when you have a lot of contributors to contact and get approval from. As for which other license to use, think about the possibility that you will want your license to be compatible with that of the software you document. Someone down the road may want to use excerpts from your documentation as context help, or something like that. If the licenses are incompatible that may not be possible -- at least not without jumping some legal hoops. -- 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]
GPL for documentation ?
Hello, Jeremy just had an interesting idea. About using a dual license. In my case, I would pick GPL/CC-BY. I just emailed a couple of people with the idea, to test the waters. I was hoping you could help me understand the implications of using the GPL for documentation: 1) The GPL language talks about software. How does that apply to something that is not software? 2) How do I assign the GPL/CC-BY to a document? I guess the first page of the file would say something like this document is released under the GPL and the CC-BY license Could someone help me produce a boilerplate for the license? I want to make it as short and simple as possible. 3) How do I attribute authors? In our project, each document is reviewed and edited several times by several different people. It's very difficult to say who changed what. This is one of our motivations for wanting to move away from the PDL in the first place. The GPL doesn't seem to have any such requirement. So, how would I name the authors? Can I get away with an appendix with a list of contributors? 4) Is there anything I should be aware of that I forgot to ask? :-) Thank you for your help. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CC-BY : clarification letter ?
Daniel Carrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My only concern is that I don't fully understand the implications of using the GPL for documentation. They're roughly the same as using the GPL for programs. The GPL's definition of Programs (with capital) is quite flexible. Unfortunately, the FSF don't encourage this and recently replaced the FAQ about it with Why don't you use the GPL for manuals? that makes their arbitrary and inconsistent position about advertorials (that they call invariant sections) while FUDding the GPL. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhyNotGPLForManuals (I usually link to my local mirror, in answer to a previous Q I didn't answer) I see having a machine-readable copy too as a feature not a bug (encourages less tree death), especially for manuals, and I'd like to see the other cumbersome examples. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Subscribed to this list. No need to Cc, thanks. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CC-BY : clarification letter ?
MJ Ray wrote: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhyNotGPLForManuals It looks like the only problem is having to provide sources. If my team goes for a dual GPL/CC-BY system, we can wiggle out of that easily. The printed manual can be plain CC-BY, but you are always free to download the sources from the website under the GPL/CC-BY. Yes? Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Humberto Massa wrote: Yes, you could start with this document is (C) its contributors as defined in the file AUTHORS ... Okay, how about this : This document is (C) 2004 its contributors as defined in the section titled AUTHORS. This document is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (http://...), or under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://...), at the option of any part receiving it. So, the document would have a section (e.g. an appendix) with a list of contributors. This should meet the requirements of both the GPL and CC-BY, while making it easy for other people to meet the requirements also. They'd only have one file to distribute to maintain attribution. What do you guys think? Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Daniel Carrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 1) The GPL language talks about software. Not really. Software is mentioned in the Preamble, in some clarifying remarks in Section 7, and in Section 10 (referring to software copyrighted by the FSF). Section 3 talks about media customarily used for software interchange. I see no other mention of software. The GPL uses the term Program quite extensively, and Section 0 defines it as a program or work. It is therefore not restricted not any specific kind of work. Martin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The BitTorrent Open Source License
MJ Ray wrote: Josselin Mouette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: * The requirement to maintain a LEGAL file. I don't think this one is really a problem; it's similar to the GPL saying you must mark your modifications as such. This LEGAL file doesn't seem to say that we have to leave the contents we got untouched, does it? Then it seems OK. That's not the issue: the main issue is that If you obtain such knowledge after you make any Modifications available as described in Section 4(b), you shall promptly modify the LEGAL file in all copies you make available thereafter and shall take other steps (such as notifying appropriate mailing lists or newsgroups) reasonably calculated to inform those who received the Licensed Product from you that new knowledge has been obtained. (It's also obnoxious that it specifies the exact mechanism by which you must include these notices, right down to the filename, rather than just speaking in general about clear and conspicuous notices or similar; I'm not sure if that's non-free or not though.) - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: License conflict for VM screensaver (kdeartwork)
Christopher Martin wrote: I'd like to get a debian-legal opinion on a potential issue with the kdeartwork package. debian-legal was CCed (http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/10/msg00235.html) on an earlier discussion of the problem problem by Ben Burton, but didn't receive much feedback from this list. Thus I'm raising the issue again. Ben Burton summarized the problem as follows: --- The problem here is a potential conflict between GPL and BSD-with-advertising-clause; see http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-develm=109779477208076w=2 for my original post. The question now is whether the advertising clause can be assumed to be rescinded. The UC Regents rescinded the advertising clause in 1999, but the vm_random.c used in kdeartwork appears to have been taken and modified from BSD before then. Certainly the change in 1999 applies to BSD software distributed since then, as evidenced by the fact that they removed the advertising clause from the corresponding source files. But it's not obvious to me that the change applies to software distributed beforehand (such as random.c from which vm_random.c was modified, in kdeartwork). There's also the trouble that the license they are modifying in your link is similar to but not the same as the license on vm_random.c (presumably because vm_random.c was from a much older BSD). And aside from this, there's the problem that vm_random.c was modified since it was taken from BSD, and the modifications are presumably also under the BSD-with-advertising-clause (since that's what vm_random's copyright notice says). In this case, my understanding is that UC Berkeley cannot change the licensing for someone else's modifications. --- README.Impt.License.Change has come up here before, and the conclusion was that it does retroactively rescind the clause for all software copyrighted by UC Berkeley, including older versions. However, it certainly can't affect software copyrighted by others; for such software, you need to get permission from the copyright holders. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Modifications under Different Terms than Original
Anthony DeRobertis wrote: [Yeah, I haven't read -legal for a while...] :) Glenn Maynard wrote: On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 01:33:08PM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote: If you can't release your modifications under the same terms as the original, then it isn't DFSG-Free. Indeed, I agree that it's extremely distasteful for a license to do this; I'd never contribute to such a work. I can't come up with any strong argument of why it's non-free, though (distasteful really isn't enough), and nobody else is doing so, either--the only argument I've seen is that it's a payment to the upstream author, but that's not true in the above case. I agree this seems quite distasteful. However, as you note, it doesn't seem like a payment to upstream. Let's compare two clauses: If you make modifications to this software, you must release those modifications under the MIT X11 License. (Clause A) vs. If you make modifications to this software, you must assign copyright of those modifications to AUTHOR. AUTHOR grants everyone a license to use these modifications under the license this program is distributed. (Clause B) Clause B, I think, we'd all consider a payment: In exchange for the privelege of making modifications, you must give the author something of value. However, clause A and clause B have the exact same effect, as far as what rights people have with the program, AFAICT. I don't believe two clauses which have the exact same practicle effect should have different freenesses. I think that while (A) does not violate the letter requiring no payment, it does violate the spirit. Actually, A violates the precise letter of the DFSG: The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. The MIT X11 License is not the same terms as the license of the original software, so clause A does clearly violate both the letter and spirit of DFSG3. In addition, I have one other objection: In setting a particular person (or company, or whatever) with special rights over the program, it discriminates, also in violation of the DFSG. Copyright law certainly gives the copyright holder more rights than anyone else; however, these clauses ensure that only a certain copyright holder --- the original's copyright holder --- can ever have that status, no matter how significant my patch. True; it also fails the no-discrimination requirement. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: The BitTorrent Open Source License
Francesco Poli wrote: On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:21:57 +0100 Josselin Mouette wrote: [...] You and Licensor expressly waive any rights to a jury trial in any litigation concerning Licensed Product or this License. Is this a bad thing? I mean: does it do any harm? This term came up during previous discussions of the IBM Public License, and the clear consensus was that forcing the licensor to waive their right to a jury trial is definitely non-free. Thanks for catching that one. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Daniel Carrera wrote: Humberto Massa wrote: Yes, you could start with this document is (C) its contributors as defined in the file AUTHORS ... Okay, how about this : This document is (C) 2004 its contributors as defined in the section titled AUTHORS. This document is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (http://...), or under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://...), at the option of any part receiving it. So, the document would have a section (e.g. an appendix) with a list of contributors. This should meet the requirements of both the GPL and CC-BY, while making it easy for other people to meet the requirements also. They'd only have one file to distribute to maintain attribution. Two suggestions: * The GNU GPL and the CC-BY both have several versions. For the GPL, you should explicitly say GNU General Public License, version 2, or GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. For the CC-BY, do something similar, depending on the versions you want. * (C) has no legal significance; only Copyright and a C in a circle do. Use the full word Copyright. Also, for the URLs, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html works for the GPL, though in the ideal case you should include a copy of the GPL with the work. Other than that, it looks fine. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Josh Triplett wrote: Two suggestions: * The GNU GPL and the CC-BY both have several versions. For the GPL, you should explicitly say GNU General Public License, version 2, or GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. For the CC-BY, do something similar, depending on the versions you want. Alright. I think that version 2 or later is the standard, right? Is that what you would recommend? For CC-BY I could do the same (version 2.0 or later). I guess that this way, if the CC ever gets around to correcting the CC-BY license, I can move to the new one without hassle. Your thoughts ? Thanks for the help. As a sidenote, I got a response back from our chief editor and she likes the idea of a dual GPL/CC-BY license. I think that the others will too. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Daniel Carrera wrote: I was hoping you could help me understand the implications of using the GPL for documentation: 1) The GPL language talks about software. How does that apply to something that is not software? With difficulty, IMO. Although, as someone points out, the GPL only uses the word software a few times, it is assumed throughout. For example, what do you do with a dictionary under the GPL and a word processor? Is it just data used by the program, or is it a part of it? It's really hard to figure it out, and creates uncertainty. (Mozilla/Open Office have this problem at the moment with GPLed dictionaries.) Please don't use the GPL for documentation; it wasn't designed for it. Ideally, you'd use a DFSG-free documentation-specific licence, but I seem to remember there isn't one of those. ICBW, of course. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Gervase Markham wrote: Daniel Carrera wrote: I was hoping you could help me understand the implications of using the GPL for documentation: 1) The GPL language talks about software. How does that apply to something that is not software? With difficulty, IMO. Although, as someone points out, the GPL only uses the word software a few times, it is assumed throughout. For example, what do you do with a dictionary under the GPL and a word processor? Is it just data used by the program, or is it a part of it? It's really hard to figure it out, and creates uncertainty. What about it? If the combination in question of the GPLed work and your work is a derived work, then the GPL covers the work as a whole. If you're talking about source code, the prefered form for modification applies equally well to documentation as it does to programmatic works. If there really is a source for confusion, then make an addendum to the license file explaining how the author views the GPL applying to the work. Please don't use the GPL for documentation; it wasn't designed for it. Ideally, you'd use a DFSG-free documentation-specific licence, but I seem to remember there isn't one of those. ICBW, of course. It may not have been designed specifically for it, but there are few specific problems that have been pointed out with using the GPL for documentation that cannot be trivially overcome. Also, if you must discourage people from using a license, please point out specific problems with the license that preclude its application to a specific class of work. Otherwise we devolve into discussing generalities and the ever present FUD. Don Armstrong -- THERE IS NO GRAVITY THE WORLD SUCKS -- Vietnam War Penquin Lighter http://gallery.donarmstrong.com/clippings/vietnam_there_is_no_gravity.jpg http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Don Armstrong wrote: Also, if you must discourage people from using a license, please point out specific problems with the license that preclude its application to a specific class of work. Also provide an alternative :-) No license will be perfect. There will always be drawbacks. The goal is not to pick something infallible, but to pick something suitable. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Don Armstrong wrote: What about it? If the combination in question of the GPLed work and your work is a derived work, then the GPL covers the work as a whole. So is a WP a derived work of a dictionary? IMO, it's much harder to make this sort of judgement when you're mixing code and non-code. How does the distinction between the GPL and the LGPL apply to a dictionary? Or are the two licences the same when you are talking about something that can't in any meaningful sense be linked? If you're talking about source code, the prefered form for modification applies equally well to documentation as it does to programmatic works. Sure. I didn't say the entire thing was inapplicable. If there really is a source for confusion, then make an addendum to the license file explaining how the author views the GPL applying to the work. I seem to remember a very recent thread on d-l saying that this sort of thing was a pain because it meant everyone's licence was different. Also, if you must discourage people from using a license, please point out specific problems with the license that preclude its application to a specific class of work. Well, exhibit A in the GPL's not good for documentation discussion is the very existence of the GFDL, its freeness or otherwise notwithstanding. This means that at least one and possibly more smart free software legal minds took a long hard look at the GPL/documentation issue and decided to put a bunch of work into a more appropriate licence. I'm not convinced that was solely so they could force copies of the GNU Manifesto to be prepended to everything. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Documenting License Interpretations (was: Re: GPL for documentation ?)
On Thursday 10 March 2005 23:37, Gervase Markham wrote: Don Armstrong wrote: If there really is a source for confusion, then make an addendum to the license file explaining how the author views the GPL applying to the work. I seem to remember a very recent thread on d-l saying that this sort of thing was a pain because it meant everyone's licence was different. Documenting things which can otherwise only be guessed (What has the author thought that 'linking' means for a wordlist?) can only be positive. IIRC licenses per-se cannot be judged (DFSG-)free anyways because intent of author often is relevant too - especially in gray areas. Regards, David -- - hallo... wie gehts heute? - *hust* gut *rotz* *keuch* - gott sei dank kommunizieren wir über ein septisches medium ;) -- Matthias Leeb, Uni f. angewandte Kunst, 2005-02-15
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Alright guys, Here's the lates (and hopefully final) draft of the copyright section: This document is Copyright 2004 its contributors as defined in the section titled AUTHORS. This document is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), or under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, version 2.0 or later (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), at the option of any part receiving it. How does that look? Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Modifications under Different Terms than Original
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:53:18 -0800 Josh Triplett wrote: Actually, A violates the precise letter of the DFSG: The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. The MIT X11 License is not the same terms as the license of the original software, so clause A does clearly violate both the letter and spirit of DFSG3. Agreed entirely. -- Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpUg212ma3AH.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL for documentation ?
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:48:19 + Gervase Markham wrote: Please don't use the GPL for documentation; it wasn't designed for it. Ideally, you'd use a DFSG-free documentation-specific licence, but I seem to remember there isn't one of those. ICBW, of course. I strongly disagree with this recommendation. Please *use* the GPL for documentation. Or any other DFSG-free license (as long as it's well established and GPL-compatible[1]). Please do *not* use documentation-specific (and thus possibly GPL-incompatible) licenses: documentation can be mixed with programs and other kind of works. [1] This more or less means Expat, X11, 2-clause BSD or 3-clause BSD... -- Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpdDNyqd312F.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: When should -legal contact maintainers [Was: Re: Question for candidate Robinson]
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Sven Luther wrote: On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 12:23:26AM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: If -legal is specifically discussing a license of a package, the maintainer is generally informed[1] it was not in this case, since the first mention i had was that consensus was reached and my package should move to non-free. In this particular case, the package and license combination that brought up the QPL was libcwd (#251983).[1] To be honest, no one seems to have equated the libcwd discussion about QPL being non-free with the ocaml discussion about the QPL being GPL incompatible until Brian Sniffen brought it up,[2] and since you're in the Maintainer: field on ocaml, you were notified. [This isn't particularly surprising as it's almost impossible to figure out what licenses packages are under in Debian in an automated fashion.] In the latter stages of the discussion, if there really are issues with a license that packages in Debian are using, bugs are typically opened against the packages, ideally with a short summary of the specific issues that the license has, and suggestions for what the maintainer can do to fix the license. (And quite often offers of help in explaining the problems to upstream as well.) And in this case, suggestion was ask upstream to GPL his software or dual licence, as trolltech did for Qt. not even bothering to examine the package in questionand noticing that none of the QPLed part of the package was indeed a library, and thus had no GPL-interaction problems. Dual licensing under the QPL and GPL (or as actually suggested, QPL + LGPL[3]) would have solved both the DFSG freedom issues with the QPL, and the ocaml emacs binding issues of #227159. It may not be the optimal solution for ocaml, but it would have solved the immediate problems. Surely no maintainer expects to be notified every time someone asks on -user, -devel (or $DEITY forbid, IRC[3]) whether specific behavior from a package constitutes a bug. no, but maintainers get over-angry when people modify the seveirty of one of their bugs they have been ignoring for age, no ? I'd hope that maintainers wouldn't get angry,[4] and instead be willing to help discuss the issues (or lack thereof) that make the changed serverity of the bug reasonable or unreasonable. After all, it's not like we're making up these issues purely to spite maintainers. In most cases, reasonable people have examined the issues, discussed them, and felt there was enough of a problem to warrant bothering a package maintainer about it. After all, things change, and a bug that was normal severity today may end up being RC tomorrow. And this reaction seems to be backed up by the powers that are, and a real analogy to the please ask upstream to GPL his software or we will recomend ftp-masters to remove it from main kind of request. I'm afraid I cannot parse what you're trying to say here. Don Armstrong 1: http://people.debian.org/~terpstra/message/20040709.215918.1224a82f.en.html 2: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=227159msg=65 3: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=227159msg=41 4: But then, bts ping-pong doesn't happen because maintainers are always calm... -- What I can't stand is the feeling that my brain is leaving me for someone more interesting. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Daniel Carrera wrote: This document is Copyright 2004 its contributors as defined in the section titled AUTHORS. This document is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), or under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, version 2.0 or later (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), at the option of any part receiving it. s/part/party/ [possibly consider just using 'at your option' or whatever the precise language is from the GNU GPL recommended copyright statement.] Don Armstrong -- [Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it Operation Just Cause.] I think they misspelled this. Shouldn't it be Operation Just 'Cause? -- TekPolitik http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=59669cid=5664907 http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Don Armstrong wrote: s/part/party/ [possibly consider just using 'at your option' or whatever the precise language is from the GNU GPL recommended copyright statement.] Okay. I made it at your option. I like simple language. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Gervase Markham [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I'm not convinced that was solely so they could force copies of the GNU Manifesto to be prepended to everything. I'm pretty sure the need to offer bigger incentives to existing publishers, authors used to working in the old-fashioned publishing models and other sponsors to help create GNU manuals played a part in it. See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-gfdl.html and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL for documentation ?
Humberto Massa wrote: Yes, you could start with this document is (C) its contributors as defined in the file AUTHORS ... That is not a copyright notice, at least in the US. Title 17, Sec. 401(b) gives the form of a notice fairly clearly: The symbol , the word copyright, or the abbreviation copr.; the year of the first publication of the work; and the name of the owner of the copyright owner. So you should probably do do something like: Copyright 2005 Principle author(s). ... license terms ... For full copyright information, please see the file COPYRIGHT. And in the file COPYRIGHT, you can list all the copyright holders, the full text of the licenses, etc.
