Re: Copyright question (BSD with advertisement clause)
On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 10:27:55PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: Ben Finney [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hm, I could have sworn that the DFSG predated the Constitution and hence predated the existence of the three-clause BSD license. UCB dropped the advertising clause in July of 1999 and the DFSG were adopted in July of 1997 according to Wikipedia. I believe your reasoning is faulty, because it is based on incomplete information. There was more than one BSD license in use well before USB's Office of Technology Licensing withdrew the 4-clause version. Back in December 1997, Jordan Hubbard (one of those fringe figures in the BSD scene ;-) ) said in comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc[1]: : Redistribution is not permitted, but if you do you must meet the : following : conditions: : 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. : : Correct and, oddly enough, also the exact text of the new FreeBSD : license, one we've agreed upon for new code not done by UCB. It : contains only the first 2 of the original 4 clauses since we think that : the stipulations for documentation are simply silly - I've been using a : 2-clause version in all my own code for quite some time now. I haven't taken the trouble to browse ancient FreeBSD CVS repositories to see when the FreeBSD committers started actually applying their 2-clause variant, but I hope you'll concede that it's much more likely than you thought it was, given that Hubbard's language (quite some time now) and this evidence that BSD licenses without the advertising clause were in use a year and a half before you thought they were. Hence, I assumed the BSD license as referred to in the DFSG must, regardless of what the web site currently links to, actually refer to the 4-clause license since that's the only thing that existed at the time. Am I missing something? Yes; I think you are insufficiently cognizant of the proliferation history of BSD license variants. The BSD advertising clause was considered obnoxious by some hackers well before the UCB OTL retroactively cancelled it; your analysis presumes that people only did anything about it only after the University of California showed the way. I think this inverts cause and effect, and I doubt that the OTL would have bothered taking such an action without pressure from the community. (I have heard rumors that the OTL was in large part persuaded to drop the advertising clause because of threatened counter-litigation by a party that was violating it, who made an apparently strong argument that the clause was unenforceable under U.S. law. Unfortunately, despite poking around for this over the years and talking to some luminaries who might have been aware of it--though not William Hoskins himself--I have been unable to substantiate it. If this turns out to be true, Debian should not be recommending as a best practice licensing provisions which are legally void significant jurisdictions like the United States.) (Why isn't this in -legal? Followups set.) [1] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED]#1/1 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc/msg/0946381c11c31f74 -- G. Branden Robinson| The Bible is probably the most Debian GNU/Linux | genocidal book ever written. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Noam Chomsky http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Copyright question (BSD with advertisement clause)
[You didn't honor my M-F-T so I guess this will continue to go to both lists.] On Thu, Feb 07, 2008 at 12:29:29PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I believe your reasoning is faulty, because it is based on incomplete information. There was more than one BSD license in use well before USB's Office of Technology Licensing withdrew the 4-clause version. [snip] While this is very interesting (I was aware of some of this, but not all of it), and I appreciate the time that you took to write it up, I think that: http://web.archive.org/web/19990210065944/http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license shows that indeed the original BSD license to which the DFSG was linked was the four-clause version. (Thanks to Charles Plessey for uncovering that.) The version in /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD is very specifically the UCB version, A major point of this whole discussion is that there is no the UCB version. There have been multiple BSD licenses, even promulgated by the single source we call the University of California at Berkeley. not any of the other versions, and my assumption was that that had historically also been the case (since it wouldn't make sense to me to move from a less specific copyright holder to a more specific one). [...] Certainly agreed; however, I was specifically talking about the UCB version as seen in /usr/share/common-licenses, so I was really being inaccurate with my original statement. The copyright line in /usr/share/common-licenses should be made generic, or better yet, not even be present. Much of the benefit of the common-licenses directory is lost if it can serve as a stand-in for particular licenses *as applied by particular copyright holders*. (I have heard rumors that the OTL was in large part persuaded to drop the advertising clause because of threatened counter-litigation by a party that was violating it, who made an apparently strong argument that the clause was unenforceable under U.S. law. Unfortunately, despite poking around for this over the years and talking to some luminaries who might have been aware of it--though not William Hoskins himself--I have been unable to substantiate it. If this turns out to be true, Debian should not be recommending as a best practice licensing provisions which are legally void significant jurisdictions like the United States.) Note that I have never argued that Debian should be recommending the four-clause BSD license as best licensing practice. It manifestly isn't. Only that it is and has been DFSG-free since the beginning of the concept. First, I think you are reading far more deliberation into where the Debian Project has pointed web links in the past, and what it's put into /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD, than is warranted. If I were to write some code and license it under the BSD license (in the terms spelled out in /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD), package it, and have my debian/copyright file refer to /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD, that would not mean that the Regents hold the copyright on my code, nor would such an action on my part transfer the copyright to them. Secondly, phraseology like is and has been (and will be for all time! usually follows in arguments like this), denies the very real phenomenon that humans learn over time. It would not surprise me if a majority of Debian Developers in 1997, if surveyed on the subject, would hold the 4-clause BSD license to be DFSG-free (with degrees of passion ranging from yeah, I guess so to hell, yeah! It's way better than that GPL crap![1]). I would suggest that our experiences with the GNU FDL, and with the XFree86's projects relicensing of its code base, have taught us just how onerous mandatory invariant testimonials can be. While some folks may feel that Debian was an outlier with respect to our dissent on the GNU FDL front, it's pretty difficult to make that argument about the revised XFree86 license, whose resemblance to the 4-clause BSD license is much more clear. (In fact, that was one of David Dawes's ultimately futile arguments for trying to get the community to accept his license as free.) If I'm not mistaken, I have argued on -legal in the past that having section 10 of the DFSG has turned out to be a bad idea, because people misread examples as paragons. I think it is instructive that every single license we identified in 1997 as a good example of a free software license has seen significant revision. The 4-clause BSD license has evolved into 3-clause and 2-clause variants, dropping various restrictions; the Perl folks came up with a Clarified Artistic license several years ago, and of course there is the case of the GNU GPL v3. Moreover, these license exemplars have been revised *by their original promulgators*. Consequently, I do not think you can argue that the supersession of the licenses we originally identified as examples in 1997 is the work of upstarts who
Daniel Wallace case vs. FSF thrown out, ordered to pay costs
Courtesy of Groklaw: Daniel Wallace's suit against the FSF was dismissed and he has been ordered to pay the FSF's court costs. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060320201540127 Just thought I'd bring a ray of sunshine into Alexander Terekhov's day. -- G. Branden Robinson|Religion is regarded by the common Debian GNU/Linux |people as true, by the wise as [EMAIL PROTECTED] |false, and by the rulers as useful. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca signature.asc Description: Digital signature
the FSF's GPLv3 launch conference
Howdy legal mavens, Don Armstrong and I are going to be at the FSF's GPLv3 launch conference[1] in Boston, Massachusetts on 16 and 17 January. Because the text of the first public draft is being held back until the actual conference, there is as yet nothing to review. (If there are pre-release drafts in circulation outside the FSF, I'm not aware of it.) The FSF, however, is not hosting this conference so that they can present a new revision of the GPL as a fait accompli to a captive audience. Rather, they want the community's feedback. (See §1.4 of the GPLv3 Process Definition document[2].) To that end, I want to be as good a representative as I can be of the Debian Project's views on the GPL -- what's good about it, what's not so good, and what we'd like to see in a future revision. I have therefore created a page on our Wiki where our developers and users can share there thoughts[3]. I realize not everyone is going to have the same opinions and goals. It is not time yet to attempt to forge a position statement on GPLv3 -- we haven't even yet seen the first draft of it. Instead, what I seek is to take the temperature of the project on the GPL generally. Don and I will represent the viewpoints as faithfully as we can. I'll be making a posting to -project separately, but I explicitly wanted to invite the involvement of the subscribers to this list. This is, after all, the place where the majority of our license analyses take place. Please take the time to visit http://wiki.debian.org/GPL_v3_Launch_Comments in the next week or so and share your ideas. Thank you. I look forward to representing the Project on this exciting occasion. [1] http://gplv3.fsf.org/launch [2] http://gplv3.fsf.org/process-definition [3] http://wiki.debian.org/GPL_v3_Launch_Comments -- G. Branden Robinson Debian Project Leader [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://people.debian.org/~branden/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Linuxsampler license
On Sat, Sep 17, 2005 at 10:31:30AM +0300, Harri Järvi wrote: It has come to my attention that released Linuxsampler versions up to the latest release 0.3.3 are licensed purely under the GPL. The NON COMMERCIAL-exception has been added to the cvs version and is reflected on the homepage also. [SNIP] I agree with your assessment. I would direct the upstream authors to David Wheeler's essay on this very subject: http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html I will also note that by using the GPL, they will very likely get the community's support in identifying any infringements that occur by commercial distributors. I suspect this is less likely with a home-grown license, which many sympathetic users may not take the time to understand. Moreover, both the FSF and Harald Welte have successfully pursued infringment claims against people who violate the GPL. According to Eben Moglen, General Counsel of the FSF, they prefer to settle things simply by asking for, and getting compliance with the license's terms[1][2]; Mr. Welte has successfully gotten a court injunction on at least one occasion I can think of[3]. [1] http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.html [2] http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-13.html [3] http://gpl-violations.org/news/20050414-fortinet-injunction.html -- G. Branden Robinson|Build a fire for a man, and he'll Debian GNU/Linux |be warm for a day. Set a man on [EMAIL PROTECTED] |fire, and he'll be warm for the http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Draft summary of Creative Commons 2.0 licenses (version 3)
On Fri, Mar 18, 2005 at 02:28:24PM -0500, Evan Prodromou wrote: Hi, everyone. At long last, I've made some final revisions to the draft summary of the Creative Commons 2.0 licenses. The main changes have been: Thanks for doing this. I read it carefully and it's a very nice document. I think it reflects very well on you and the other contributors, in stark contrast to some of the incredibly snarky and spiteful things that have been said about its authors on -vote and a few other places lately. This kind of document, which spells out our concerns while being -- in my view -- perfectly respectful of the upstream promulgators of the licenses, is a good reflection on debian-legal and by extension the entire project. Good work. Don't let the -legal haters get you down. -- G. Branden Robinson| Psychology is really biology. Debian GNU/Linux | Biology is really chemistry. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Chemistry is really physics. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | Physics is really math. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
anonymity and copyright in the U.S. (was: Need to Identify Contributions and the Dissident Test)
On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 06:36:40PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: Copyright notices can use aliases, right? I don't know anything about how enforcable that renders that person's copyright claim, but I don't think it renders the license invalid. At least in the US, the copyright would still be enforceable if they actually wrote the software, since a copyright notice is no longer required. (Well, ignoring the effect upon statutory damages.) However, an improper copyright + licensing notice could make the license itself invalid (or at least questionable) since it wouldn't be a clear statement from the copyright holder that they licensed a work appropriately. Any Stephen King fans here? Anyone have access to any copies of his Richard Bachman novels from before it was disclosed that Richard Bachman was a nom de plume of Stephen King? As should be well-known, Stephen King is a money machine. I find it hard to believe he'd have published under a pen name if to do so would have meant exposing himself to claims of fraudulent copyright. For a more recent example, see the novel _Primary Colors_[1]. [1] http://www.bearcave.com/bookrev/primary_colors.htm -- G. Branden Robinson| Psychology is really biology. Debian GNU/Linux | Biology is really chemistry. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Chemistry is really physics. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | Physics is really math. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
a right to privacy is not in the DFSG, therfore you don't have one
Your papers are not in order, citizen... On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 10:04:25PM -0700, Joel Aelwyn wrote: All in all, I think that Branden's fifth freedom[1] is important, and should come into play here. Privacy in one's person includes fundamental [...] [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/06/msg00096.html Ah, but my fifth freedom is not in the DFSG, so under the nouveau scheme of license analysis that some would have us apply, we are morally obliged to completely disregard it. Thanks for the props, however. I continue to believe that a DFSG analysis is the *beginning* of a process of understanding whether something is free software or not, not a substitute for the whole thing. Certain well-known people in the project have stridently insisted to me, however, that this opinion puts me into an extremely small minority. I think signify[1] has shown artificial intelligence again -- there is indeed a tension between the literal-minded DFSG fundamentalists (if the DFSG doesn't mention it, it must be free) and those who actually cogitate openly about what the DFSG was written to defend, and how it's going to take more than a list propositions recited by rote to uphold our freedoms. What is the virtue that DFSG strict constructionists are upholding? Low mailing list traffic? Developer laziness? Ignorance of legal issues that affect the work we do? The spread of Debian main across as many UDFs as possible in the next release? Are these things really more important to us than freedom? [1] http://packages.debian.org/unstable/mail/signify -- G. Branden Robinson| A fundamentalist is someone who Debian GNU/Linux | hates sin more than he loves [EMAIL PROTECTED] | virtue. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John H. Schaar signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Request for IPR review
On Sat, Dec 25, 2004 at 12:28:05PM -0500, Mark Johnson wrote: Quoting Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Tue, Nov 23, 2004 at 03:38:01PM -0500, Mark Johnson wrote: I've been asked to get some sort of review from the free software world of the new OASIS[1] IPR draft. I tried to review it myself, but the legalese is a bit on the opaque side for me. [...] Can anyone who is interested in reviewing the document please contact me? I'll send you the document for a quick review. Did anyone get in touch with you about this? Hi Branden, Yes, I did get a an initial response from MJRay and sent him the document. But am still waiting for some follow-up feedback on the document itself. You might want to put out a renewed call, then. Perhaps MJ got swamped. (I know I sometimes do.) -- G. Branden Robinson| I am only good at complaining. Debian GNU/Linux | You don't want me near your code. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Dan Jacobson http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Bug#248853: 3270: 5250 emulation code, all rights reserved
clone 248853 -1 retitle -1 ftp.debian.org: please remove un-redistributable 3270 package from the archive reassign -1 ftp.debian.org thanks Given that the package maintainer has taken no visible action on this in over 4 months, I recommend removing this package from Debian's FTP archives so as to reduce our potential liability for copyright infringements. Archive admins: in a nutshell, there is code copyrighted by the Minolta corporation in the 3270 package for which there is no statement of license. For reference, the affected code appears to be: [apt-get source package, cd into its directory, and run ./debian/rules unpack.] c3270-3.3/kybd.c:FieldExit_action() [1] c3270-3.3/X3270.xad: apparently lines 733 to 763, inclusive [2] s3270-3.3/kybd.c:FieldExit_action() [1] tcl3270-3.3/kybd.c:FieldExit_action() [1] x3270-3.3/kybd.c:FieldExit_action() [1] All in all, it's a pretty small amount of material that falls under this problematic copyright, but if the package maintainer doesn't feel it's important to rectify the issue -- for instance, by asking for assistance in clean-room reimplementing the affected portion -- then that's his prerogative, and the package should be removed. Thanks for your time. On Tue, Aug 10, 2004 at 12:33:22AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: In case anyone was wondering, this is far from cleared up. :-( [...] Beat Rubischon has sent a nice message apparently granting permission to use his code under any license as long as his name is preserved (earlier in the bug trail) -- so for anything copyrighted by him, we're OK. *UN*fortunately he apparently isn't the sole copyright holder of the 5250 code. Permission would be needed from Minolta, and I seriously doubt he has the right to speak for them, even though he's an employee. I doubt he wants to go to the trouble of clearing this with Minolta's legal department. :-( [1] A C function of 39 lines. [2] This is simply an Xt event translation table. It contains basic mappings from Xt event names to Xt actions, some of which appear to be stock and some of which are registered by the code. I'm not sure this is copyrightable. -- G. Branden Robinson| Good judgement comes from Debian GNU/Linux | experience; experience comes from [EMAIL PROTECTED] | bad judgement. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Fred Brooks signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: handling Mozilla with kid gloves [was: GUADEC report]
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 10:19:33PM +0200, Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader wrote: * Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-07-12 02:46]: IMO it would have helped if a Debian license arbitration body had been formally delegated by the DPL, but as we all know, that didn't happen. It's interesting that you say that, Mr Robinson. Last time I suggested that -legal should engage in more active arbitration with upstream (for which I'd happily have a delegate) you told me that this is not the task of -legal. Also, I encouraged summarizing and documenting the findings of -legal about licenses and agreed that we can appoint a delegate if that's useful and once it's clear who would be a good candidate for that. Would you kindly let me know whether you intend to retract the above snarky personal attack, issued in your formal capacity as Debian Project Leader and grounded upon a questionable recollection of the facts, given that even after nearly 6 months you have not bothered to reply to either of my follow-ups (quoted below)? I could assume that your answer is no, but that would be ungenerous. On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 03:10:57PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 10:19:33PM +0200, Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader wrote: * Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-07-12 02:46]: IMO it would have helped if a Debian license arbitration body had been formally delegated by the DPL, but as we all know, that didn't happen. It's interesting that you say that, Mr Robinson. Last time I suggested that -legal should engage in more active arbitration with upstream (for which I'd happily have a delegate) Where precisely did you make this suggestion? Here's what I can find: On 24 January, Daniel Quinlan proposed to -legal a protocol for a formal license review process, of which the salient points were 1) a submission queue [not debian-legal itself] for all license review requests; 2) forwarding of requests to -legal for discussion; 3) an official entity [delegate(s)?] which drafts a response reflecting the consensus of the list; 4) final response to be sent with in 30 days of submission to the queue.[1] You replied a couple of weeks later[2], asserting that his suggestion [had] merit, but [had] to be done in a way which is compatible with how -legal works. You exhorted debian-legal to prepare summaries (which we have), and explicitly talk to people creating licenses to make sure they get it right, we which we either haven't had a chance to do[3], or have already done[4]. You did not use the words delegate or official, nor anything synonymous as far as I can tell, in your reply to Mr. Quinlan. Instead, at the end of the message, you emphasized that you would not be taking immediate action: I'd like to hear what other people from -legal think. I'm certainly not going to appoint anyone without the consent of -legal since this is just not the way it can work. But perhaps we can find a solution together. you told me that this is not the task of -legal. I did? Where did I do that? Not only did I not reply to your messages to debian-legal in that thread[5], I didn't post to the thread at all. (It seemed to be doing just fine without me.) In fact, as far as I can determine, if you and I have communicated on this subject, we haven't done it on the debian-legal mailing list[6]. Of the nine messages you've sent me privately this year, none of have been on this subject. So that you'll surmise less and understand more about what I think, here's my opinion: debian-legal is a discussion list, and that's what it does best. It discusses. I think that, as DPL, you'd be best advised to draw any delegates on licensing issues from the pool of respected participants on the debian-legal list; they are more likely to be informed, be interested, and have the respect of their peers. Furthermore, back in 2001, I called for such a body in my platform for Debian Project Leader[7]. I said: Just as Debian has a Technical Committee, I'd like to see a body of legally-minded people formed who are prepared to give this[sic] issues the kind of scrutiny they deserve. As with the Technical Committee, of course, their decisions could be overridden by a General Resolution of the developers. The point is to get a formal structure in place for handing issues like this that don't require General Resolutions in and of themselves. GR's are a very weighty process, and where decisions of this nature can be made, it is good to have a mechanism for making them. At the time, though, I did not anticipate needing to use such a body much for resolving questions of license interpretation -- I thought the body would be needed more for interpreting the Constitution, thinking through amendments to our GR process carefully, and so forth. The past three years have changed my estimation of the relative
Re: Draft summary of Creative Commons 2.0 licenses (version 2)
On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 07:19:30PM -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote: Below is a second version of the summary of the Creative Commons 2.0 licenses. [...] On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 12:17:12PM -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote: [...] The summary is also available here: http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.txt http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html I have seen no indication that this summary has become final, despite the fact that it only prompted one objection (from Sean Kellogg[1], a virtual paroxysm of dismay in which he apparently didn't even read the entire of text of the summary). What is required to move forward on this? Do we *need* to move forward on this? [1] Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- G. Branden Robinson| I'm a firm believer in not drawing Debian GNU/Linux | trend lines before you have data [EMAIL PROTECTED] | points. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Tim Ottinger signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#287089: shermans-aquarium: contains non-free or undistributable images
Package: shermans-aquarium Version: 2.2.0-1 Severity: serious Justification: violates section 2.2.1 of Debian Policy As noted on debian-legal on 20 August by Nathanael Nerode, shermans-aquarium appears to contain non-DFSG-free images files. It is unclear to me whether these files are even distributable by Debian at all; that they come free-of-charge with a gratis screen saver for Windows operating systems implies no grant of permission to the Debian Project whatsoever. I have attached the debian/copyright file and upstream README. The copyright holder in the images, Jim Toomey, should be contacted as soon as possible for license negotiations. If those are unsuccessful and distributable replacement images are not used, this package should be withdrawn from the Debian archives. (Without a grant of license under copyright law, we cannot distribute these images even in non-free). -- System Information: Debian Release: 3.1 APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing') Architecture: powerpc (ppc) Kernel: Linux 2.4.25-powerpc-smp Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Versions of packages shermans-aquarium depends on: ii libart-2.0-22.3.16-6 Library of functions for 2D graphi ii libatk1.0-0 1.8.0-4 The ATK accessibility toolkit ii libbonobo2-02.8.0-4 Bonobo CORBA interfaces library ii libbonoboui2-0 2.8.0-2 The Bonobo UI library ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-19 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an ii libgconf2-4 2.8.1-4 GNOME configuration database syste ii libglib2.0-02.4.8-1 The GLib library of C routines ii libgnome2-0 2.8.0-6 The GNOME 2 library - runtime file ii libgnomecanvas2 2.8.0-1 A powerful object-oriented display ii libgnomeui-02.8.0-3 The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf ii libgnomevfs2-0 2.8.3-6 The GNOME virtual file-system libr ii libgtk2.0-0 2.4.14-2 The GTK+ graphical user interface ii libice6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-10 Inter-Client Exchange library ii liborbit2 1:2.10.2-1.1 libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB ii libpanel-applet 2.8.2-1 Library for GNOME 2 Panel applets ii libpango1.0-0 1.6.0-3 Layout and rendering of internatio ii libpopt01.7-5lib for parsing cmdline parameters ii libsdl1.2debian 1.2.7+1.2.8cvs20041007-3 Simple DirectMedia Layer ii libsm6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-10 X Window System Session Management ii libx11-64.3.0.dfsg.1-10 X Window System protocol client li ii libxml2 2.6.11-5 GNOME XML library ii xlibs 4.3.0.dfsg.1-10 X Keyboard Extension (XKB) configu ii zlib1g 1:1.2.2-4compression library - runtime This package was debianized by Jose M. Moya [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Tue, 27 Jul 2004 18:51:52 +0200. It was downloaded from http://aquariumapplet.sourceforge.net/ Upstream Author: Jonas Aaberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright: Sherman's aquarium is available under GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. NOTICE: The fish images are copyrighted by Jim Toomey! They are extracted from a Windows screensaver that is released as freeware. The fish images are NOT GNU GPL! (see README file for more information) On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL'. Sherman's aquarium v2.2.0 === (Formly known as Aquarium applet) This is a wm(Window maker) applet, Gnome applet(both verison 1 and 2) and a XscreenSaver hack that gives you an aquarium with some randomly selected fishes that lives there. Well, to tell you the truth, you can get some other strange sea animails in your aquarium too. Some other features this program gives you, except for the part that it gives you an aquarium with fishes that takes care of itself, no feed, no cleaning and so on, is that the temperature scale on the right side shows the CPU load. It can also be configurated to display the time and show the status of numlock, capslock and scrollock. The fishes are done by Jim Toomey, the author of the Sherman's Lagoon comics. Fish Images: The fish images are taken from a freeware windows screen saver by Jim Toomey.(www.slagoon.com) He draws a really great cartoon strip named Sherman's lagoon. (You can ready a daily strip at his site, and in many news papers.) I have to point out that NO reverse engineering nor disassembling was made in order to extract the fish images. I did just look at the hex code and wrote a program that read the interesting parts, and converted them to readable images. So the fish images are copyrighted by Jim Toomey, and released in his screensaver as
Bug#287090: kaquarium: copyright file does not mention apparently unlicensed image files
Package: kaquarium
Version: 1.0-beta-3
Severity: serious
Justification: violation of Debian Policy 2.2.1
As noted on debian-legal on 20 August by Nathanael Nerode, kaquarium
appears to contain non-DFSG-free images files (some of the same ones as
shermans-aquarium).
It is unclear to me whether these files are even distributable by Debian
at all; that they come free-of-charge with a gratis screen saver for
Windows operating systems implies no grant of permission to the Debian
Project whatsoever.
Moreover, no indication is given in the debian/copyright file that the work
of anyone other than Ramiro Tasquer was involved in the upstream package.
I have attached the debian/copyright file and the only file that credits
Jim Toomey with the images, src/main.cpp.
The copyright holder in the images, Jim Toomey, should be contacted as soon
as possible for license negotiations. If those are unsuccessful and
distributable replacement images are not used, this package should be
withdrawn from the Debian archives. (Without a grant of license under
copyright law, we cannot distribute these images even in non-free).
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: powerpc (ppc)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.25-powerpc-smp
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Versions of packages kaquarium depends on:
ii kdelibs4 4:3.3.1-4 KDE core libraries
ii libart-2.0-2 2.3.16-6Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii libc62.3.2.ds1-19GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libgcc1 1:3.4.3-6 GCC support library
ii libice6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-10 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii libidn11 0.5.2-3 GNU libidn library, implementation
ii libpng12-0 1.2.8rel-1 PNG library - runtime
ii libqt3c102-mt3:3.3.3-7 Qt GUI Library (Threaded runtime v
ii libsm6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-10 X Window System Session Management
ii libstdc++5 1:3.3.5-5 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii libx11-6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-10 X Window System protocol client li
ii libxext6 4.3.0.dfsg.1-10 X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii libxrender1 0.8.3-7 X Rendering Extension client libra
ii xlibs4.3.0.dfsg.1-10 X Keyboard Extension (XKB) configu
ii zlib1g 1:1.2.2-4 compression library - runtime
#include stdlib.h
#include time.h
#include unistd.h
#include qlayout.h
#include qvbox.h
#include qtooltip.h
#include qpixmap.h
#include qcolor.h
#include qrect.h
#include klocale.h
#include kglobal.h
#include kaboutdata.h
#include kaboutapplication.h
#include kconfig.h
#include kdebug.h
#include kstandarddirs.h
#include kapplication.h
#include misc.h
#include fishes.h
#include canvasview.h
#include bubbles.h
#include pref.h
#include configdlg.h
#include main.h
extern C
{
KPanelApplet* init( QWidget *parent, const QString configFile )
{
KGlobal::locale()-insertCatalogue( kaquarium );
returnnew kfish( configFile, KPanelApplet::Normal,
KPanelApplet::About | KPanelApplet::Preferences,
parent, kaquarium );
}
}
kfish *kfishApp = 0L;
kfish::kfish( const QString configFile, Type type, int actions,
QWidget *parent, const char *name )
: KPanelApplet(configFile, type, actions, parent, name)
, confDlg( 0 )
{
kfishApp = this;
// random
srand( time(NULL) );
// Add layout
QVBoxLayout *vbox;
vbox = new QVBoxLayout(this);
resize(200,200);
connect( kfishPref::prefs() , SIGNAL( changePref() ), this, SIGNAL( signalSettingsChanged() ) );
connect( this, SIGNAL( signalSettingsChanged() ), this, SLOT( slotSettingsChanged() ));
// start canvas, where i'll show the fish
m_canvas = new QCanvas( 0, Canvas );
m_canvasview = new kfishCanvasView( m_canvas, this, CanvasView );
vbox-add(m_canvasview);
m_canvasview - setCanvas( m_canvas );
// set some canvas options
m_canvas-setBackgroundColor( QColor(0,0,100) );
m_canvas-setAdvancePeriod( 30 );
m_canvas-resize( 1 ,1 );
m_canvas-setDoubleBuffering(true);
// set the background
setWall( locate(data, kaquarium/pics/water.png), m_canvas );
// start bubbles
m_bubble = new kfishBubbleManager( m_canvas, this );
// put CanvasView inside the layout
m_fish = new kfishManager( this );
// Mouse tracking, so i know if the mouse is over the widget (fishCanvasView)
setMouseTracking ( true );
// set the default width space for future usage
m_oldwidth = kfishPref::prefs() - getWidth();
// set the orientation
kfishPref::prefs() - setOrientation( orientation() );
}
kfish::~kfish(void)
{
delete
Re: License for VCP
On Wed, Oct 27, 2004 at 01:37:37AM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: Any work released under such a license can go in main, provided that * there is no indication that the copyright holder interprets the license in some unusual (and non-free) ways * the work is unencumbered by actively enforced software patents We don't generally seek affirmative evidence that these are the case before accepting something into main. We simply may decide to remove a package from main if either of them prove to be false. -- G. Branden Robinson|Any man who does not realize that Debian GNU/Linux |he is half an animal is only half a [EMAIL PROTECTED] |man. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Thornton Wilder signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Request for IPR review
On Tue, Nov 23, 2004 at 03:38:01PM -0500, Mark Johnson wrote: I've been asked to get some sort of review from the free software world of the new OASIS[1] IPR draft. I tried to review it myself, but the legalese is a bit on the opaque side for me. [...] Can anyone who is interested in reviewing the document please contact me? I'll send you the document for a quick review. Did anyone get in touch with you about this? -- G. Branden Robinson|It may be difficult to to determine Debian GNU/Linux |where religious beliefs end and [EMAIL PROTECTED] |mental illness begins. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Elaine Cassel signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: AbiWord, trademarks, and DFSG-freeness
On Thu, Oct 21, 2004 at 08:56:26AM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: I probably would, if I knew for certain what you meant by work titles. By work title, I mean the title of the work in a legal sense; for example, as it is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office in the case, of copyrights, or with the USPTO in the case of trademarks. -- G. Branden Robinson| Men are born ignorant, not stupid. Debian GNU/Linux | They are made stupid by education. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Bertrand Russell http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Fwd: figlet license change from Artistic to Clarified Artistic or Artistic 2.0?
On Fri, Oct 15, 2004 at 10:57:44AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: I suspect Larry Rosen's work was part of the motive for Branden proposing the contract/ autocrat test for licences. You're not wrong, but as you imply, he's far from the only offender. -- G. Branden Robinson| The power of accurate observation Debian GNU/Linux | is frequently called cynicism by [EMAIL PROTECTED] | those who don't have it. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- George Bernard Shaw signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: AbiWord, trademarks, and DFSG-freeness
On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 09:09:17AM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: However, let's take AbiWord as an example. We've been told that we do not have a license to use AbiWord on derivative works. Er, well, we kind of do -- did you follow footnote 2 in my message? We have a sort of license, but it's Debian-specific and there is some vaguely defined boundary beyond which our license would terminate. That territory beyond the trademark license would appear to be within the boundaries of permissible changes under the GNU GPL, hence my discomfort. The question is: if we remove the trademarks that label the work, is the work then DFSG free? I think it is uncontroversial to assert that, barring unforeseen things like AbiWord copyright holders revealing a patent, that AbiWord would be DFSG-free if no trademarks apply to it. It is, after all, GPLed. It seems unlikely that work (A) which GPLed but is not trademarked abiword would be more or less DFSG-free than work (B) which is GPLed but is not trademarked AbiWord. Huh? It seems unlikely that: work (A) which [is] GPLed but is not trademarked abiword would be more or less free than work (B) which is GPLed but is not trademarked AbiWord ??? Are you trying to make a point about case, or did you mean something else entirely? I have long asserted that there is a distinction between work titles and things like package names and filenames. Do you disagree? -- G. Branden Robinson|For every credibility gap, there is Debian GNU/Linux |a gullibility fill. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Richard Clopton http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
AbiWord, trademarks, and DFSG-freeness
worry about it. P2) If a package does assert a trademark, contact the mark holder and ask for a trademark license that permits usage of the marks under the same terms as the copyright license that has been attached to the corresponding work, wherever applicable. P3) If the trademark holder is not willing to do what we ask in P2), we need to find out what trademark license they are willing to extend, if any. If they extend one, we will have to ensure that it satisfies the DFSG. If they do not extend one, then if trademark law prohibits any DFSG-free actions, the package will have be moved out of main. We may not be able to distribute it at all, depending on what we're restricted from doing, and if the package maintainer is unwilling or unable to stop doing whatever is restricted. P4) As an alternative to P3), we can remove the marks from the package, and replace them with alternatives. I therefore request that we research the answer to 1). We do not seem to be in situations P1) or P2) with AbiWord. I'd like to ask the package maintainer to offer his opinion on whether we should go with route P3) or P4) in the instant case. If we go with P4), I suggest we retain conspicuous notice of the package's origins. Possible ways of doing this include: * the package description; * the manpage; * the splash screen; * the About dialog. I suggest the following language: [NEW NAME] is derived from AbiWord(tm), a product of SourceGear Corporation. I don't think we are required to change the package name or command name, but we might want to make abiword a virtual package, and manage the command name via alternatives, in the event someone wants to package the trademark-encumbered version. I'd appreciate comments and feedback. [1] See Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] in the archives of bug #258918[2]. [2] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=258918 [3] http://www.debian.org/social_contract.en-gb.html#guidelines [4] http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.html [5] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [6] I'm given to understand it's not an acronym anymore. Or was that ATT? [7] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sup_01_15_10_22.html -- G. Branden Robinson| I'm not going to waste my precious Debian GNU/Linux | flash memory with Perl when I can [EMAIL PROTECTED] | do so much more with it. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Joey Hess signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: the meaning of 'the same terms in DFSG 3, and why the QPL fails it (was: An old question of EGE's)
On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 07:36:47PM +0100, Andrew Saunders wrote: On Mon, 2 Aug 2004 13:08:39 -0500, Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 10:41:24AM +0100, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: However, if you really want to know how DFSG 3 was intended then you must talk to the people who wrote it. To be honest, I'm less interested in that than in what it is we think it means today. You don't seem to be very consistent on this point. You yourself used Bruce's clarification that he intended the DFSG to be applied to everything on the Debian CDs to back up your own interpretation[1] and suggested seeking his counsel regarding the meaning of the (now defunct) We won't object to commercial software that is intended to run on Debian systems clause[2]. What brought about this change of heart? You're positing a false dilemma, similar to the one conservative strict constructionists in the U.S. have been using against the Earl Warren court for a generation or two. The intentions and reasoning that went into the deliberations that forged the original DFSG and Social Contract provide extremely important context for understanding the motivations of those documents, as well as the nature of the problems and threats to freedom that were -- and were not -- anticipated by the Debian Project at the time. That is very valuable information to have, which is why I continue to be disappointed that we haven't collectively thrown open this aspect of our history to the wider community (it's all archived in debian-private). However, providing context is not the same thing as mandating a certain conclusion. It is *our* responsibility, not our ancestors', to uphold the rights of users and developers. History should provide context for our decisions, but *we* must make the relevant judgements in the present. Historical context can be persuasive, but it is not dispositive. [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/08/msg00017.html [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2000/06/msg00299.html -- G. Branden Robinson|Half of being smart is knowing what Debian GNU/Linux |you're dumb at. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- David Gerrold http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: W3 software license
On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 10:33:26AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 05:36:29PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: Branden Robinson: Josh Triplett: The license looks OK to me, with the possible exception that it says obtaining, using and/or copying this work implies acceptance of the license. [...] I think it sets a bad precedent to wave such language into a list of licenses we accept as DFSG-free without at least asking the upstream authors to remove this wording. Why don't we do this: I'll write up a summary of the license, and note that we think that works released under the license would, barring complications, be free. I'll also add a suggestion to drop the use language. How does that sound? Sounds great. Any progress on this? -- G. Branden Robinson| Arguments, like men, are often Debian GNU/Linux | pretenders. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Plato http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: the meaning of 'the same terms in DFSG 3, and why the QPL fails it (was: An old question of EGE's)
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 02:59:17AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 07:36:47PM +0100, Andrew Saunders wrote: What brought about this change of heart? [...] Historical context can be persuasive, but it is not dispositive. Oh yeah, and lest you think you've caught me out in a contradiction, and recasting my position retrospectively to avoid embarrassment, let me assure you that you haven't. :) Permit me to quote myself on -private, from a few months ago, well before your clever discovery of my change of heart: From: Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: GNU Free Documentation License revisited Date: Tue, 4 May 2004 02:13:15 -0500 Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [...] I cite Bruce because, based upon my review of the archives of debian-private, his interpretation of the SC exemplifies that of the Debian developers who approved the document. As the primary author of the document, his perspective doesn't have to be dispositive to be useful. Please note the final sentence. I'm afraid can't find you in the current Debian Developers' keyring provided in the debian-keyring package, so perhaps you are not one. Hopefully you can find one to independently verify the accuracy of my assertion, as -private is not publicly archived. In the future, you might want to make fewer presumptions. -- G. Branden Robinson| It's not a matter of alienating Debian GNU/Linux | authors. They have every right to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | license their software however we http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | like. -- Craig Sanders signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Please pass judgement on X-Oz licence: free or nay?
On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 11:35:10PM -0500, Joe Wreschnig wrote: Now, I can infer one of three things: 1. You had off-list contact with the X-Oz people before the license was analyzed here on -legal, and did not communicate their non-standard interpretation of that clause back to us for the summary. 2. You can travel through time, and went back to prepare the summary with the knowledge that X-Oz had weird license interpretations. 3. You are confusing the order in which events happened (I suppose this is not really in conflict with the above). I suppose 1) is possible, but I find 3) most likely. David Dawes, who is the founder of X-Oz Technologies, was asked many questions about the meaning of the XFree86 1.1 license (which appears to be semantically identical to the X-Oz License) on the XFree86 Forum list[1] and other lists in January and February. I'm not subscribed to -forum, but I read a lot of its traffic back then because, as a member of the X Strike Force package maintenance team for Debian, I needed to know what the heck was going on with the upstream licensing of XFree86. I don't see why you consider this determination to be an egregious mistake. I don't know what business we have declaring licenses whose terms we don't understand as DFSG-free. Clause 4 -- which you declared non-free in that thread *before* public conversations with X-Oz, and Brian declared non-free at the start of this thread -- is identical to that used in the existing X license. There is a world beyond Debian, you know. :) I agree that non-standard interpretations of common clauses can result in a license being non-free (c.f. pine), but I don't find any evidence that that was the case when the X-Oz license summary was published. Well, the problem was more a refusal on the part of the license author to *state* an interpretation, rather than adopt a non-standard one. I suspect that summary is where Brian drew his conclusion that the license that started this thread was non-free. I stand by my statement that the X-Oz license summary as currently published is an egregious mistake. The XFree86 Forum list archives stand available to anyone who cares to slog through the gigantic threads the announced the license change generated. In my view, there are many more questions than answers to be found on that list -- particularly when it comes to on-topic threads, sadly. [1] http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/ -- G. Branden Robinson|Beware of and eschew pompous Debian GNU/Linux |prolixity. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Charles A. Beardsley http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Please pass judgement on X-Oz licence: free or nay?
On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 02:33:16PM -0500, Joe Wreschnig wrote: Now, that just means it *was* consensus. If it is no longer consensus (and it better not be), we need to look at how such an egregious mistake happened, and how we can prevent it from happening again. On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 03:15:26PM -0500, Joe Wreschnig wrote: The summary I linked to was about reworked X-Oz license, which is clearly GPL-incompatible and probably non-free. However, clause 4 criticized in the summary is identical to a clause in the license that started this thread, and all the other X licenses, and very similar to the 3-clause BSD license. You seem to be overlooking the fact that the main reason I objected to the compelled-advertising clause in the X-Oz license was that we could not determine what it *meant* according to the licensor. We asked them, and in response, their representative promised replies and failed to deliver, and indulged in digressions on Heideggerian existentialism. (I trust people curious to confirm the above statements can review the list archives for themselves.) I don't see why you consider this determination to be an egregious mistake. I don't know what business we have declaring licenses whose terms we don't understand as DFSG-free. -- G. Branden Robinson| The Rehnquist Court has never Debian GNU/Linux | encountered a criminal statute it [EMAIL PROTECTED] | did not like. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John Dean signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Please pass judgement on X-Oz licence: free or nay?
On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 12:20:47PM -0500, Joe Wreschnig wrote: On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 11:15, Matthew Garrett wrote: The summary claims that clause 4 makes the license non-free. ...because we don't undestand what X-Oz means when they say it. Since clause 4 is identical to what's contained in the X11 license, it makes it difficult to take the summary terribly seriously. Oh, wow. Shame on you, Branden, for placing Debian's X packaging scripts under a non-free license! Or have you recanted from your position in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/02/msg00162.html? Is this sort of remark intended to be productive, or are you just venting your spleen because you don't appear to have actually comprehended the message you cite? -- G. Branden Robinson|Those who fail to remember the laws Debian GNU/Linux |of science are condemned to [EMAIL PROTECTED] |rediscover some of the worst ones. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Harold Gordon signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Please pass judgement on X-Oz licence: free or nay?
On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 01:37:48PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote: On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 02:01:03AM +1000, Daniel Stone wrote: /* * Copyright 2003 by David H. Dawes. * Copyright 2003 by X-Oz Technologies. * All rights reserved. * * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the Software), * to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation * the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, * and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the * Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: (I recall hearing something like this from Branden on IRC, but anyway) Doesn't explicitly grant permission to distribute modified software, so it fails to comply with DFSG #3. I don't recall saying anything like this on IRC. IMO, the traditional MIT/X11 license[1] is DFSG-free. It is, however, worth noting that many subtle variations of the MIT/X11 license exist. That the traditional MIT/X11 license is (by general consensus, I daresay) DFSG-free, that any license derived from it is also DFSG-free. The DFSG-freeness determinations we make depend on: 1) the license terms used on a particular work; 2) the nature and content of that work; 3) the interpretation of the license's terms by the copyright holders in the work so licensed In my opinion, the unnamed license which I called the X-Oz license (for want of a better term), and which is not the same as the MIT/X11 license which Daniel Stone quoted, failed the DFSG primarly due to problems in 3), not 1). That reasonable people can interpret the license in a DFSG-free way does not mean the licensor or copyright holder does so, and in fact we were unable to determine what the licensor/copyright holder's interpretation was. [1] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php -- G. Branden Robinson| It just seems to me that you are Debian GNU/Linux | willfully entering an arse-kicking [EMAIL PROTECTED] | contest with a monstrous entity http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | that has sixteen legs and no arse. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Re: Please pass judgement on X-Oz licence: free or nay?
On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 08:09:27PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: So, what happened is that we have autoconfig code available to us under the XFree86 1.0 (3-clause BSD) licence, which is DFSG-free; this is the same code that's currently in the X.Org tree, which appeared to form the core of Nathaniel's concerns. That's Nathan*a*el. :-) Looks good. I was, like Branden, confused by the silent relicensing by David Dawes in the XFree86 repo in September 2003. :-( Yup. The *other* thing I was concerned about are the code by David Dawes friends which he committed in the period when he claims that new code was licensed under the 1.1 license despite not changing the license notice in the specific files. That stuff is nearly all trivial, however. I made a list of some sort of some of that at some point, I seem to remember. Do you think you could update that list in light of what we know now about the original licensing of the X autoconfig code? -- G. Branden Robinson|If you make people think they're Debian GNU/Linux |thinking, they'll love you; but if [EMAIL PROTECTED] |you really make them think, they'll http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |hate you.-- Don Marquis signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: acceptable copyright?
On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 02:00:10PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Looks fine to me. On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 02:49:49PM -0400, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: Looks OK On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 09:34:10PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: It looks like a 2-clause BSD license. It's perfectly fine and suitable for main. This is completely unacceptable. How is debian-legal to maintain the credibility of baseless and irrational assertions about how we constantly reject even obviously DFSG-free licenses if we, in fact, don't? You guys should have more sympathy for hysterical doomsayers with poor reading comprehension skills. They need to feel important, too. :-P -- G. Branden Robinson|It's like I have a shotgun in my Debian GNU/Linux |mouth, I've got my finger on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] |trigger, and I like the taste of http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |the gunmetal. -- Robert Downey, Jr. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: W3 software license
On Thu, Jul 29, 2004 at 08:57:23PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: Evan Prodromou wrote: The license looks OK to me, with the possible exception that it says obtaining, using and/or copying this work implies acceptance of the license. That isn't a problem in and of itself; it often indicates the presence of non-free usage restriction terms, but no such terms appear to be present in this license. I disagree. I think it sets a bad precedent to wave such language into a list of licenses we accept as DFSG-free without at least asking the upstream authors to remove this wording. The exclusive rights granted to authors and their transferees under copyright law attach regardless of the acceptance of those terms by third parties. Witness the fact that one can be sued for copyright infringement even if one has never dealt with, or even heard of, the person or corporation who holds a given copyright. A license is a license, not a contract. IMO it would be best to at least contact the upstream authors and make this request. -- G. Branden Robinson| Our ignorance is God; what we Debian GNU/Linux | know is science. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Robert Green Ingersoll http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Quick(?) Questions on Choice of Law Venue
On Sat, Jul 31, 2004 at 09:57:35PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: US law does not require choice of law clauses, so long as the prosecuting party can in some sense claim to be in the US. Even if they're a foreign multinational who just has an office there. They can blithely apply their laws to everybody. Yes, this is idiotic. The state of California takes it to extremes - they apply their own *state* law to everybody. That's not (quite) true, according to the California Supreme Court. See: http://www.virtualrecordings.com/pavrelease.htm While not ideal, the situation is not *quite* as dire as you paint. Sickeningly there's plenty of precedent for this second scenario. Stay away from the US; they have delusions of imperialism. s/delusions/ambitions/ See: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/pnac_030310.html -- G. Branden Robinson|Half of being smart is knowing what Debian GNU/Linux |you're dumb at. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- David Gerrold http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Please pass judgement on X-Oz licence: free or nay?
On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 11:10:44AM -0500, Joe Wreschnig wrote: On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 09:31, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 09:03:33PM +, Jim Marhaus wrote: Debian Legal summary of the X-Oz License http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/02/msg00229.html Clause 4 of the license posted at the start of this thread is, with the execption of whos names it protects, word-for-word identical. Am I missing something? Yes. Clause 3 is the GPL-incompatible non-free one. Clause 4 is standard boilerplate, found in many licenses (it's also superfluous, being written into copyright by default in US law). Can you please cite what part of US copyright law does that? To my knowledge, what you're referring to is actually part of the common-law doctrine of right of publicity[1], which I've mentioned on this list before[2]. In short, you doesn't have to become a copyright holder in the U.S. to enjoy legal protections against people using your name or likeness in their advertising without your consent. [1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/publicity.html [2] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00540.html -- G. Branden Robinson| The more ridiculous a belief Debian GNU/Linux | system, the higher the probability [EMAIL PROTECTED] | of its success. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Wayne R. Bartz signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
[I am not subscribed to -newmaint.] On Fri, Jul 30, 2004 at 08:37:40PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: For that matter, I'm not quite sure we should necessarily be subjecting applicants to the joys of rigorous licence analysis. We have d-legal for this purpose just so maintainers don't have to be licence experts. The question about Pine licencing is a pretty good test of basic DFSG analytical ability. The trouble is, some of the same people who are excused from doing rigorous license analysis during PP proceed to style themselves as licensing experts and spitefully ridicule the people who *do* do the hard work on debian-legal. We've seen great many examples of this over the past few months. Count me in favor of increasing the amount of licensing-oriented material in PP. In my opinion, we want new developers to more easily grasp the facts that: 1) sometimes subtle issues are involved when trying to understand a license; 2) even licenses like the BSD and GPL represent compromises with pure freedom 3) phenomena like moral rights (droit d'auteur), software patents, and regulations on cryptography can cause a given work under a given license to be de facto licensed differently in different jurisdictions that Debian cares about We can't teach people to be respectful of the careful thought and analysis that (often) goes on in -legal, but we might be able to throw enough information at them that they are discouraged from just blindly assuming that all problems are trivially easy, and that they enjoy a perfect understanding of everything that all right-thinking people share. For some reason, some folks assert apodictic certainty about legal issues with a fervor they wouldn't dare attempt with respect to technical software issues for fear of being ridiculed and thought of as immature brats by their peers. -- G. Branden Robinson|It's extremely difficult to govern Debian GNU/Linux |when you control all three branches [EMAIL PROTECTED] |of government. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- John Feehery signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Fri, Jul 30, 2004 at 06:05:56AM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: On Fri, Jul 30, 2004 at 03:39:01AM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Fri, 30 Jul 2004, David Nusinow wrote: I echo his point that this probably needs to be justified. In all of the cases to date, where we've gone against the interpretation of the FSF, we've done so with very careful justification of the reasoning behind our difference in opinion, and how that springs from the DFSG. The few thousand messages on the GFDL are a reasonable example of the process of justification that we have gone through. If there's one thing I would never accuse the participants of this list of, it's lack of care and thoroughness. My real concern is simply to allow these carefully formed conclusions to reflect the will of the project as a whole. Apart from Raul Miller's[1], I have yet to read a rebutal to Manoj's draft position statement on the GNU FDL[2]. If you would direct me to one which represents the will of the project as a whole, I'd appreciate it. Given that Raul himself, after a thread that went several directions, said I'm not trying to convince people that the GFDL as it currently stands should be considered DFSG free. I'm ambivalent about that.[3], we seem to be rather short on comprehensive and well-reasoned defenses of the DFSG-freeness of the GNU FDL. Maybe you can help. [1] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00030.html [2] http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.xhtml [3] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00235.html -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | // // // / / [EMAIL PROTECTED] | EI 'AANIIGOO 'AHOOT'E http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Please pass judgement on X-Oz licence: free or nay?
[self-followup] On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 06:09:08PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: It is, however, worth noting that many subtle variations of the MIT/X11 license exist. That the traditional MIT/X11 license is (by general consensus, I daresay) DFSG-free, that any license derived from it is also DFSG-free. There are some missing words in the above. Here's what I meant to say: That the traditional MIT/X11 license is (by general consensus, I daresay) DFSG-free, does not mean that any license derived from it is also DFSG-free. -- G. Branden Robinson| There's something wrong if you're Debian GNU/Linux | always right. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Glasow's Law http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: question: Mozilla relicensing progress
The following message bounced back to me because Mr. Markham, or someone he trusts to deliver his mail, believes I am a spammer: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: host smtp.osuosl.org[140.211.166.131] refused to talk to me: 550 Service unavailable; Client host [65.26.182.85] blocked using dynablock.njabl.org; Dynamic/Residential IP range listed by NJABL dynablock - http://njabl.org/dynablock.html Could someone who is not (as far as they know) in an anti-spam blacklist please forward this message to Mr. Markham for me? (Also, Mr. Markham's MTA waited 5 days to send me this bounce; I'm not sure why.) I am not now, nor have I ever been, a spammer. Nor has any machine I own or control been used as a platform for spamming with or without my knowledge or consent. I resent the implication that I have engaged in spam activities or permitted them to take place with the aid of my property. I do understand that most people don't care whom they tar with the accusation of spammer as long as they believe the level of spam they personally receive is lessened through the indiscriminate rejection of legitimate mail traffic. I may be beginning to understand -- just barely -- what it feels like to be pulled over by the police for having the wrong skin color. On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 03:56:25PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: Mr. Markham, First of all, my apologies for sending this unsolicited mail. I'm a developer for the Debian Project[1], and in the course of a recent discussion, some of us became curious as to what the progress of the triple-licensing effort was. I did attempt to research the answer for myself. I checked the minutes of the weekly Mozilla staff meetings, and found that on 24 November 2003[2], it was believed that all necessary permissions had been obtained. Later, in January, I understand that you said in an email discussion that the relicensing was well underway, and that the only files you couldn't get permission to relicense were not important[3]. I've looked for more information, and I did check the Mozilla Relicensing FAQ[4], but it claims to have not been updated since 7 December, and I cannot determine the current status of the relicensing. I also checked the copyright file of Debian's mozilla-browser package, but it is either outdated, or perhaps that something has held up the relicensing effort: Some files in this source package are under the Netscape Public License Others, under the Mozilla Public license, and just to confuse you even· more, some are dual licensed MPL/GPL. Given the content of the Relicensing FAQ, I suspect this information is out of date, so I am CCing the Debian Mozilla package maintainers. If you could advise me where to look for the answers I seek, I sure would appreciate it. I'm sorry to take up your time with this. [1] http://www.debian.org/ [2] http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=3FCB8B00.5070604%40mozilla.org [3] http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8selm=3FFC952B.2020302%40mozilla.org [4] http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/relicensing-faq.html -- G. Branden Robinson| The more you do, the more people Debian GNU/Linux | will dislike what you do. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Gerfried Fuchs http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- G. Branden Robinson| No math genius, eh? Then perhaps Debian GNU/Linux | you could explain to me where you [EMAIL PROTECTED] | got these... PENROSE TILES! http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Stephen R. Notley signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: the meaning of 'the same terms in DFSG 3, and why the QPL fails it (was: An old question of EGE's)
On Sun, Jul 25, 2004 at 10:41:47PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: DFSG 3 was intended to forbid licensors from placing themselves in a specially advantaged position. If not, why doesn't DSFG 3 simply say: The license must allow modifications and derived works. =2E..hmm? It did in the first draft. The language that ended up appearing in the final form only turns up after Bruce went off to discuss things with ESR (there was some sort of ncurses licensing fun going on at the time - ncurses didn't allow distribution of modified works. The phrasing of what was at that point DFSG 1 but ended up being split into several different clauses was apparantly designed to make sure that ESR was happy). There's no discussion of /why/ there was the change of language - it's not clear that it was supposed to make any substantive change to the meaning. I think we'd have to ask Bruce to have any real idea. Okay. Given the above, is your belief that the words added to DFSG 3 (and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.) don't actually mean anything? I would concede that I have a weaker case if they are just meaningless noise words. Are they? -- G. Branden Robinson|Nixon was so crooked that he needed Debian GNU/Linux |servants to help him screw his [EMAIL PROTECTED] |pants on every morning. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Hunter S. Thompson signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: the meaning of 'the same terms in DFSG 3, and why the QPL fails it (was: An old question of EGE's)
On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 10:41:24AM +0100, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: DFSG 3 was intended to forbid licensors from placing themselves in a specially advantaged position. If not, why doesn't DSFG 3 simply say: The license must allow modifications and derived works. ...hmm? Perhaps DFSG 3 is looking at it from the point of view of the receiver of the modified work rather than the modifer: A creates a QPL work, B modifies it and gives the modified version to C. Then C gets the modified work under the same licence as the original work was distributed. However, if you really want to know how DFSG 3 was intended then you must talk to the people who wrote it. To be honest, I'm less interested in that than in what it is we think it means today. I believe we need to permit our interpretations of the DFSG to evolve over time (because the world of licensing evolves as well), but if we evolve so much that an entire requirement (and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.) is interpreted to be meaningless, we'd better be prepared to defend that position. I do not think the first inclination of a newcomer to the DFSG is to regard those words as being wholly ineffectual. If they are, we should amend the DFSG to remove them. Alternatively, if they do mean something, we need to figure out what they mean. What *does* it mean to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software? -- G. Branden Robinson|Optimists believe we live in the Debian GNU/Linux |best of all possible worlds. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Pessimists fear that this really is http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |the best of all possible worlds. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance
On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 11:44:32AM -0700, Rob Lanphier wrote: I would really like someone to map one of the cited problems with the RPSL to a stated requirement in the DFSG. Debian's committment to Free Software does not stop at the DFSG. The G in Debian Free Software Guidelines means Guidelines. As the DFSG FAQ[1] puts it: 9. Q: How can I tell if a license is a free software license, by Debian's standards? A: The process involves human judgement. The DFSG is an attempt to articulate our criteria. But the DFSG is not a contract. This means that if you think you've found a loophole in the DFSG then you don't quite understand how this works. The DFSG is a potentially imperfect attempt to express what freeness in software means to Debian. It is not something whose letter we argue about. It is not a law. Rather, it is a set of guidelines. We might be willing to engage in a conversation about changing the RPSL, but not in an environment where it is clearly subject to the whims of whoever happens to be discussing the issues on the list. This is a straw-man argument. It is also inflammatory and insulting to the subscribers of the debian-legal mailing list, some of whom have been participating in license discussions and negotiations for years to the mutual satisfaction of the parties involved. Is this the sort of example you really want to set for Debian's future communications with Real Networks? I would love to work with the Debian project on making sure RPSL is Debian-free. However, it makes it really difficult to engage the RealNetworks Legal department when there's a lot of discussion about personal tastes, but no mapping back to DFSG clauses. That just makes everyone here believe that there will be an endless stream of manufactured excuses as to why future versions of the RPSL will also not be considered Debian-free. It sounds to me like you're constructing a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why do you suppose that the Debian community is predisposed to reject the RPSL? What do you know that we don't? Is the RPSL *designed* to undermine user's freedoms, yet sneak into Debian main because it passes the DFSG via some sort of simplistic checklist analysis? If not, what have you to fear? As a licensor I think you have some important questions to ask yourself; you need not share the answers with the Debian Project, but doing so may help us to understand your position, and if your desires are compatible with the aims of free software, why they are. * What do you want to allow? * What do you want to prohibit? * Upon which laws do you ground each of your prohibitions (copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, etc.)? * Why are existing licenses insufficient? + Does the MIT/X11 license[2] permit things you want to prohibit? + Does the GNU GPL[3] prohibit things you want to allow? * Is it important that works under your license be shipped as part of Debian's OS? * If a work under your license is accepted as Free by the Debian Project, but something causes it not to be shipped in the Debian OS[4], would you regard that as a failure? [1] http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html [2] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php [3] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html [4] Reasons for this include but are not limited to: A) no one is available to maintain the package B) the package is of insufficient quality to be included; e.g. violates Debian Policy (for instance, ships executables in /usr/share/man) C) the package is too buggy to be included; e.g., has a horrendous bug such as the package preinst script running rm -rf / D) the package is accused of infringing a third party's patent, and we know of a litigitous patent holder who claims to own the patents and sends nastygrams ordering people to desist and/or pay royalties E) the software's functionity is outlawed by some jurisdiction that is important to the Debian Project, such as the United States or European Union; F) the software itself is enjoined from distribution in some jurisdiction important to the Debian Project, such as the states in the U.S. Federal 2nd Circuit Lest one accuse me of producing makeweight arguments, none of the above are hypothetical reasons for a package's exclusion from Debian OS release (or from distribution by Debian altogether). Apart from my specific examples of a policy violation and horrendous bug, all have been seen in practice. -- G. Branden Robinson| To stay young requires unceasing Debian GNU/Linux | cultivation of the ability to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | unlearn old falsehoods. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [htdig-dev] Licensing issues...
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 05:16:36PM -0600, Joel Baker wrote: [on the 4-clause BSD license's compelled-advertising clause being GPL-incompatible] As a point of note, RMS has said that this interpretation is considered to be a bug in the GPL, and that the FSF has no current intention of pursuing violations of this, because it wasn't intended (they still, of course, recommend going to a 3 or even 2 clause variant of the license). I believe I still have the email somewhere in my archives if necessary, but to date it hasn't been terribly relevant. That's useful to know, but not dispositive for Debian's purposes. That the FSF regards this as a violation they can overlook doesn't mean other people using the GNU GPL won't, and there are many. (Harald Welte of the netfilter Project is just one example of recent prominence.) The DFSG-freeness of a particular license as interpreted by a particular licensor on a particular work is almost always the most important evaluation that Debian has to make. For further reading: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17409 http://lwn.net/Articles/95006/ -- G. Branden Robinson|It's like I have a shotgun in my Debian GNU/Linux |mouth, I've got my finger on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] |trigger, and I like the taste of http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |the gunmetal. -- Robert Downey, Jr. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [htdig-dev] Licensing issues...
[self-reply] On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 01:59:59PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: That the FSF regards this as a violation they can overlook doesn't mean other people using the GNU GPL won't, and there are many. Er... s/won't/will/ Hopefully my meaning was clear from context. -- G. Branden Robinson| Life is what happens to you while Debian GNU/Linux | you're busy making other plans. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- John Lennon http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: handling Mozilla with kid gloves [was: GUADEC report]
On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 01:30:36PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: I'll do this in the next day or so. It took me a week to get to this, but I've done it (message attached). I'll pass along whatever I learn. -- G. Branden Robinson| When dogma enters the brain, all Debian GNU/Linux | intellectual activity ceases. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Robert Anton Wilson http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | ---BeginMessage--- Mr. Markham, First of all, my apologies for sending this unsolicited mail. I'm a developer for the Debian Project[1], and in the course of a recent discussion, some of us became curious as to what the progress of the triple-licensing effort was. I did attempt to research the answer for myself. I checked the minutes of the weekly Mozilla staff meetings, and found that on 24 November 2003[2], it was believed that all necessary permissions had been obtained. Later, in January, I understand that you said in an email discussion that the relicensing was well underway, and that the only files you couldn't get permission to relicense were not important[3]. I've looked for more information, and I did check the Mozilla Relicensing FAQ[4], but it claims to have not been updated since 7 December, and I cannot determine the current status of the relicensing. I also checked the copyright file of Debian's mozilla-browser package, but it is either outdated, or perhaps that something has held up the relicensing effort: Some files in this source package are under the Netscape Public License Others, under the Mozilla Public license, and just to confuse you even· more, some are dual licensed MPL/GPL. Given the content of the Relicensing FAQ, I suspect this information is out of date, so I am CCing the Debian Mozilla package maintainers. If you could advise me where to look for the answers I seek, I sure would appreciate it. I'm sorry to take up your time with this. [1] http://www.debian.org/ [2] http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=3FCB8B00.5070604%40mozilla.org [3] http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8selm=3FFC952B.2020302%40mozilla.org [4] http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/relicensing-faq.html -- G. Branden Robinson| The more you do, the more people Debian GNU/Linux | will dislike what you do. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Gerfried Fuchs http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature ---End Message--- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: review of jabberd2 packages
On Thu, Jul 15, 2004 at 09:21:40AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: GPLv2: * dpatch * debhelper Good to be cautious, but the purpose of these programs is to do things to help create debian packages. As such, the resultant packages have no dependence on these programs, to them, the packages are mere data. No linking problem whatsoever. Yeah. Furthermore, these packages are authored by Debian developers, and if they're trying to assert copyright over packages produced with them we need to land on them with both feet. It's an internal matter to clear up. - libmysqlclient12 This one is a bit of a problem. As I understand it, the licencing was changed to pure-GPL in version 12 of the library, but to get around all the usual hoo-hah with linking exceptions, MySQL have been working on a blanket linking exception for anything licenced under a free licence. There have been a few goes around with that. Basically, you'll probably be OK (especially since MySQL have specifically mentioned the OpenSSL linking exception in discussions), but you might want to hunt up the various discussions here in the past for details. If every author who had to add an OpenSSL linking exception would mail the OpenSSL developers and ask them to relicense OpenSSL under, say, the 2- or 3-clause BSD license (which is very, very close to its current license -- minus the vituperation against the GNU GPL), much time and trouble might be saved in the future. It's possible that in the years since since some developer placed a rant against the GNU GPL in his license, he's realized that the GNU GPL doesn't actually have the power to change the copyright license on third-party works. -- G. Branden Robinson| That's the saving grace of humor: Debian GNU/Linux | if you fail, no one is laughing at [EMAIL PROTECTED] | you. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- A. Whitney Brown signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Advice for middleman Debian package
On Thu, Jul 15, 2004 at 03:00:06PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Cédric Delfosse wrote: Somebody pointed me that maybe I should remove all OpenSSL related code from the orig tarball. So, do you think this must be done ? I'm not sure if that's ever been done for other packages missing an OpenSSL exception that we don't link with OpenSSL. If you've actually got the time and inclination, I would suggest instead modifying the OpenSSL related part to work with gnutls instead. [I've heard there are some wrappers which make this rather easy, but I haven't done it myself.] Jeff Licquia (a Debian Developer) has had some experience with this. It might be worth asking his advice. -- G. Branden Robinson|Fair use is irrelevant and Debian GNU/Linux |improper. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Asst. U.S. Attorney Scott http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |Frewing, explaining the DMCA signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Re: Help about texture inclueded in stellarium
On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 05:03:57PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 04:31:44PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Damn. Did some more research, and you appear to be correct with respect to the most recent interpretations of the law. :-P The current interpretation of 17 USC Sect. 105 is that such works are copyright-controlled in countries which have copyright control over the works of their own governments. Also, public domain in the U.S. means that any U.S. citizen can assert copyright over such works (or derivatives). So we can GPL such works, for all the difference that makes. Er, this only applies if you commingle the public domain work with an original contribution of your own, AIUI. If I can discern the public domain version of the work from your copyrighted version, then your version is not copyrighted at all. Things cannot leave the public domain except through an act of Congress. As Lawrence Lessig has pointed out, this has happened[1], but it's relatively rare, and typically reserved for major campaign contributors like large movie studios, record companies, and music publishers. [1] Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), Pub. L. No. 103-465 (1994) (codified at 17 U.S.C. §§ 104A, 109(a), goes a step further: it removes thousands of works from the public domain and retroactively grants them copyrights, thereby depriving the public of its ability – and right – to freely use materials that were, for many years, open to all. These laws have greatly harmed plaintiffs’ artistic endeavors, and their ability to perform, teach, and disseminate works to the public. -- http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/golanvashcroft/golan-reply.html -- G. Branden Robinson| Intellectual property is neither Debian GNU/Linux | intellectual nor property. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Discuss. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Linda Richman signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Re: Help about texture inclueded in stellarium
On Sun, Jul 25, 2004 at 12:06:48PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: If I can discern the public domain version of the work from your copyrighted version, then your version is not copyrighted at all. Gar. Nasty typo. s/can/cannot/ -- G. Branden Robinson| Mob rule isn't any prettier just Debian GNU/Linux | because you call your mob a [EMAIL PROTECTED] | government. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Fwd: Abiword being removed from Debian/unstable?
and/or their lawyer(s) to figure out what they can get away with if they'd like to skirt your intentions. In most such cases the easiest and most affordable thing to do is just to rename the work and not use the trademarked names or images as representations of the work they're distributing. (As I understand it, they can still use the term AbiWord to make factual statements about the heredity of their forked work, which is probably good for the AbiSource community anyway. They merely cannot attempt to pass off their work as AbiWord without violating the Lanham Act[3].) I hope that the above accurately captures your desires, albeit in a broader context. Please let me know if I'm reasoning from any bad assuptions. Thanks for your work and understanding. If it matters, I've been a happy AbiWord user since version 0.9mumble. :) [1] http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines [2] http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php [3] http://www.bitlaw.com/source/15usc/ -- G. Branden Robinson|Quantum materiae materietur marmota Debian GNU/Linux |monax si marmota monax materiam [EMAIL PROTECTED] |possit materiari? http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
the meaning of 'the same terms in DFSG 3, and why the QPL fails it (was: An old question of EGE's)
, though. Feel free to start a new thread if you'd like to hear why -- but until such a license really exists, I daresay the question is premature. [4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/1999/03/msg00072.html -- G. Branden Robinson| Mob rule isn't any prettier just Debian GNU/Linux | because you call your mob a [EMAIL PROTECTED] | government. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GPL-compatible, copyleft documentation license
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 12:33:22PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: * Branden Robinson: In the copyright holder's understanding, re-imposition of the requirements of sections 2a and and 2c by those creating a derivative work is not allowed, since those restrictions never attached to this work; see section 6. This work can be combined with another work licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2, but any section 2a and 2c restrictions on the resulting work would only attach only due to the copyright license on the work(s) with which this work is combined and for which those restrictions are in force. Isn't this at least a bit self-contradicting? I don't think so. (Hint: If you want to raise an objection, raise one. Doesn't this suck? doesn't really cut it.) Why produce such a mess in the first place? Well, first things first. What problem(s) do you think there would be in licensing the work in question[1] under the straight GNU GPL? What applicability do you suggest clause 2c) has to things that can't read commands interactively when run, because it's not a program? Your license doesn't give me permission to publicly perform the work, or to broadcast it. True enough. Neither does the GNU GPL. Why is this not a problem for the GNU GPL? It doesn't deal with moral rights at all (which are quite important in some jurisdictions when it comes to non-programs). True enough. Neither does the GNU GPL. Why is this not a problem for the GNU GPL? It doesn't special-case distribution of printed copies, which means that the GPL provisions apply. These provisions pretty much rule out small-scaleprinting and redistribution because of the valid for at least three years rule. True enough. Neither does the GNU GPL. Why is this not a problem for the GNU GPL? However, the license does clarify what constitutes source code, but this might also be a further restriction in the GPL sense, making the license incompatible with the GPL. What's your reasoning? If someone transforms the document into an executable program, they have likely changed the preferred form of modification for the work. Nothing in the GNU GPL forbids them from doing so, and my clarification doesn't either. All in all, I don't think this is a particularly good license for documentation, it's just yet another GPL variant. It's supposed to be a GPL variant. It's also supposed to be compatible with the GPL. [1] http://necrotic.deadbeast.net/xsf/XFree86/trunk/debian/local/FAQ.xhtml -- G. Branden Robinson| What cause deserves following if Debian GNU/Linux | its adherents must bury their [EMAIL PROTECTED] | opposition with lies? http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Noel O'Connor signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GPL-compatible, copyleft documentation license
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 02:27:53PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: * Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS: To me it seems potentially useful to release licensees from those requirements. I agree, but at the same time, Branden explicitly forbids to re-introduce these requirements, creating the GPL compatibility issue. Anything independently copyrighted and licensed under the GNU GPL can be combined with this work. Furthermore, any independently copyrightable modifications can be placed under the GNU GPL and this combined. As I understand it moral rights are not portable in the way that copyright is, so it might not even be possible to deal with moral rights without hiring a huge international team of lawyers and producing a multilingual licence the size of a small book. Creative Commons is doing this already, so why not use their efforts? Because their efforts are not DFSG-free, and they left a bad taste in my mouth the last time I read them. I don't think that's a huge problem in practice. If you tell the people to whom you give the hard copy that they must download the source within the next 48 hours, then that probably counts as giving them the source. This is not GPL-compatible, and not comptible with Branden's license. Offering them a copy at the time you distribute the binary is compatible with both. If they decline, your obligation to them is released. If you're selling the hard copies then you can probably afford to include a CD. I don't think there are affordable self-publishing deals that also include CD production, but I could be wrong. Keep in mind that it's not exactly challenging to represent (X)HTML and CSS on paper, given that they're plain text. (Granted, this would drive the page count and corresponding cost up. But it's not *challenging*.) This argument holds less water for binary document source formats. -- G. Branden Robinson| I came, I saw, she conquered. Debian GNU/Linux | The original Latin seems to have [EMAIL PROTECTED] | been garbled. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: request-tracker3: license shadiness
, of course, by GPL, you mean, all licenses that incorporate the GNU GPL into their text in whole or part -- but I personally would find that usage confusing. We've long known that tacking riders onto the GNU GPL that aren't in the form of grants of additional permissions are problematic. Let me know if you need me to trawl the archives of this list to support this statement, but for the moment I'm going to assume it's common knowledge. This was not a grant of additional permission. I agree. It was either an additional restriction, or did not intersect with the copyright license at all. (We've since learned that the latter was intended.) I don't see how you can simultaneously assert that there is: * not a meaningful distinction between asserting GPL-compatibility and using the GPL as the basis for your license, upon which you add conditions that are not in the GPL itself; * assert that there is a distinction between granting additional permissions and imposing additional restrictions as terms of the license I'd agree that riders wouldn't matter if they couldn't make a work incompatible with the GPL. But they can. Agreed. And the Best Practical license declares itself GPL compatible. No, it doesn't. Since you're harping on this, let's review. ... # This work is made available to you under the terms of Version 2 of # the GNU General Public License. ... I can't find any assertion of GPL compatibility in the above. Ok. In the future, You might try reading the whole section indicated as LICENSE BLOCK. The term does not even appear. Isn't it a bit careless to put words in the licensor's mouth? You seem to be confusing spelling with meaning. I disagree that I am confused. I don't think it is intellectually challenging to understand that there is a difference between the GNU GPL and the GNU GPL plus additional terms. If I haven't expressed myself clearly, then it's quite likely you don't understand me, no? Exactly. Would you respond to the remainder of my message, please? What value would this have for debian-legal? That depends on how much of the list's time you intend to waste in the future claiming that there is an implicit assertion of GPL-compatibility in any license that tacks extra terms onto the GPL. While it may *often* be the case that a licensor intends to be GPL-compatible when imposing additional restrictions, it is not *necessarily* the case. When contacting upstream copyright holders for clarification, it is wise to prejudge the issues as little as possible, and instead ask them sincere questions about their intent. We are less likely to ask sincere questions about GPL-compatibility if we've already made up our minds that that's what people want. There are other presumptions it's good not to make, such as the copyright holder gives a whit about Debian or the copyright holder will feel insulted if Debian ships a package of his or her software in the non-free section instead of main. The latter is a point of particular importance, since it is very frequently a conclusion leapt to by that portion of our membership who simultaneously feel that the non-free section is both essential to the viability of our OS distribution, and also some sort of stigma. More specifically, which points do you consider important? I'll be happy to focus on specific issues, but I don't want to robotically respond to every single sentence you've written. I don't want you to robotically repond either, and I reckon if you can't work up the enthusiasm for anything more useful than that, I withdraw my request. -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | If ignorance is bliss, [EMAIL PROTECTED] | is omniscience hell? http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: request-tracker3: licence problem
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 02:02:49PM -0500, J.B. Nicholson-Owens wrote: While I don't see anything with this addendum that prevents it from being DFSG-free, I personally would avoid distributing the covered software under this license addendum. I don't see anything here that is necessary for Best Practical Solutions, LLC (hereafter BPS). Nor do I see anything here that is a good idea for the community. If BPS wants to hold the copyright for changes submitted for inclusion in future releases of the program, they can negotiate that separately with each copyright holder. I think BPS should license the program under the unmodified GPL and separately arrange to get the copyright for patches BPS wants to include in their fork of the program. [snip] I think you've raised several good points that need to be borne in mind when thinking about copyright assignment, or its near-cousin[1] in general. I don't get the impression that BPS is a malicious actor here. I think they are just trying to hedge their bets against the future. They want one version of their work that they distribute, and they want be able to conveniently change the license -- even to take it proprietary -- in the future. If people aren't comfortable with that, they shouldn't submit their work to BPS. If I worked at BPS, I would regard this policy as an interesting metric of how much my company is trusted by the community, to see how such submissions ebb and flow over time (of course, the first order factor is probably how widely the work in question is used, but there are presumably other ways of measuring that). Let's keep in mind that the FSF has a copyright assigment policy as well. It's very, very similar to BSP's, as I understand it, except that whereas the FSF is the assignee of the copyright and grants back to the original copyright holder a no-holds-barred license, BSP's submission policy has you granting them a no-holds-barred license, and retaining the copyright yourself. Both policies (BSP's and the FSF's) include an attestation on the purported copyright holder's part that he or she is the sole author of the work in question. Consquently, I think any analysis along these lines needs to take an informed look at the FSF's submission/assignment practices as well. [1] A worldwide, paid-up, nonexclusive, royalty-free, blah blah blah, license that gives someone almost as many rights as they'd have if the copyright were assigned to them. -- G. Branden Robinson|I had thought very carefully about Debian GNU/Linux |committing hara-kiri over this, but [EMAIL PROTECTED] |I overslept this morning. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Toshio Yamaguchi signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: handling Mozilla with kid gloves [was: GUADEC report]
On Thu, Jul 15, 2004 at 11:25:12AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 03:53:45PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: You're seriously suggesting that Debian wouldn't be laughed out of the park for releasing without Mozilla at the moment? If you aren't suggesting this, then that comment is irrelevant. Branden reminded me on IRC that the discussion is about the MPL, not about the Mozilla browser, which is triple-licensed under MPL/GPL/LGPL. My apologies for my confusion. Most of Mozilla is triple-licensed I believe that some remains dual-licensed under the MPL/NPL, and so deciding that the MPL is non-free certainly means that we can't ship Mozilla. http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/relicensing-faq.html certainly implies that some work remains to be done there. According to the mozilla.org staff meeting minutes for 24 November 2003[1]: *Relicensing update* - All permissions obtained, thanks to chofmann - [EMAIL PROTECTED] putting finishing touches to script - Big push in the 1.7a timeframe (i.e. next time checkins are unrestricted) Also, in January, Gervase Markham (who is leading the relicensing effort as far as I can tell) asserted that the only stuff they couldn't yet get permission to relicense under the MPL/GPL/LGPL was nothing important[2]. In the ensuing six months, progress may have been made. Consequently, I feel it would be scare-mongering to assert that any criticism of the MPL from a DFSG perspective will take Mozilla out of main. We're bound to see some people say this anyway, of course, but you personally may not wish to appear closely associated with them, given the other factual deficincies that tend to accompany such terror campaigns. :) Given that the scheduled time for the big push is long past and appears to have actually been done, it might be fruitful to contact Gervase Markham and ask him how this is coming along. I'll do this in the next day or so. [1] http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=3FCB8B00.5070604%40mozilla.org [2] http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=enlr=ie=UTF-8selm=3FFC952B.2020302%40mozilla.org -- G. Branden Robinson| It doesn't matter what you are Debian GNU/Linux | doing, emacs is always overkill. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Stephen J. Carpenter http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: handling Mozilla with kid gloves [was: GUADEC report]
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 10:19:33PM +0200, Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader wrote: * Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-07-12 02:46]: IMO it would have helped if a Debian license arbitration body had been formally delegated by the DPL, but as we all know, that didn't happen. It's interesting that you say that, Mr Robinson. Last time I suggested that -legal should engage in more active arbitration with upstream (for which I'd happily have a delegate) Where precisely did you make this suggestion? Here's what I can find: On 24 January, Daniel Quinlan proposed to -legal a protocol for a formal license review process, of which the salient points were 1) a submission queue [not debian-legal itself] for all license review requests; 2) forwarding of requests to -legal for discussion; 3) an official entity [delegate(s)?] which drafts a response reflecting the consensus of the list; 4) final response to be sent with in 30 days of submission to the queue.[1] You replied a couple of weeks later[2], asserting that his suggestion [had] merit, but [had] to be done in a way which is compatible with how -legal works. You exhorted debian-legal to prepare summaries (which we have), and explicitly talk to people creating licenses to make sure they get it right, we which we either haven't had a chance to do[3], or have already done[4]. You did not use the words delegate or official, nor anything synonymous as far as I can tell, in your reply to Mr. Quinlan. Instead, at the end of the message, you emphasized that you would not be taking immediate action: I'd like to hear what other people from -legal think. I'm certainly not going to appoint anyone without the consent of -legal since this is just not the way it can work. But perhaps we can find a solution together. you told me that this is not the task of -legal. I did? Where did I do that? Not only did I not reply to your messages to debian-legal in that thread[5], I didn't post to the thread at all. (It seemed to be doing just fine without me.) In fact, as far as I can determine, if you and I have communicated on this subject, we haven't done it on the debian-legal mailing list[6]. Of the nine messages you've sent me privately this year, none of have been on this subject. So that you'll surmise less and understand more about what I think, here's my opinion: debian-legal is a discussion list, and that's what it does best. It discusses. I think that, as DPL, you'd be best advised to draw any delegates on licensing issues from the pool of respected participants on the debian-legal list; they are more likely to be informed, be interested, and have the respect of their peers. Furthermore, back in 2001, I called for such a body in my platform for Debian Project Leader[7]. I said: Just as Debian has a Technical Committee, I'd like to see a body of legally-minded people formed who are prepared to give this[sic] issues the kind of scrutiny they deserve. As with the Technical Committee, of course, their decisions could be overridden by a General Resolution of the developers. The point is to get a formal structure in place for handing issues like this that don't require General Resolutions in and of themselves. GR's are a very weighty process, and where decisions of this nature can be made, it is good to have a mechanism for making them. At the time, though, I did not anticipate needing to use such a body much for resolving questions of license interpretation -- I thought the body would be needed more for interpreting the Constitution, thinking through amendments to our GR process carefully, and so forth. The past three years have changed my estimation of the relative significance of licensing issues to the Project as a whole. Also, I encouraged summarizing and documenting the findings of -legal about licenses Yes, you did, and the list has done so[A][B][C][D][E]; we take a much more structured approach now. Credit where credit is due: Daniel Quinlan proposed this process; Matthew Palmer, Henning Makholm, Anthony DeRobertis, MJ Ray, Don Armstrong, Nathanael Nerode, Simon Law, Joe Moore, Giacomo A. Catenazzi, Mahesh T. Pai, Jeremy Hankins, and you participated in the discussion. and agreed that we can appoint a delegate if that's useful and once it's clear who would be a good candidate for that. I'm sorry, but I don't think that's a plausible interpreation of the record. In none of your messages did you state or imply an intention to delegate anyone to any task. Quoting your messages to debian-legal: * Matthew Palmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-02-12 09:17]: Hands up anyone who wants to take on the job of official d-legal summariser. I can think of a few people who *could* take the job, unfortunately, those qualified also tend to be those most qualified in other areas. I certainly *don't* think it should be a committee summary; we've already got one discussion group (d-legal
Re: handling Mozilla with kid gloves [was: GUADEC report]
[self-followup to add some information and make a correction] On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 03:10:57PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: You did not use the words delegate or official, nor anything synonymous as far as I can tell, in your reply to Mr. Quinlan. Sorry, I meant to rewrite this paragraph but forgot to. You did use the word delegate elsewhere in the discussion, to communicate the fact that you didn't see an immediate need for one. Yes, which is also why I'm relucant to appoint one delegate for this right now. It would be good if a group of people would do it and after a few months we see automatically who the people are who are doing it regularly.[9] ...for example. More context is available in my previous message. Instead, at the end of the message, you emphasized that you would not be taking immediate action: I'd like to hear what other people from -legal think. I'm certainly not going to appoint anyone without the consent of -legal since this is just not the way it can work. But perhaps we can find a solution together. I continue to not be sure what the above means, exactly. You're on the record as saying that you feel formal delegation is against the way Debian works.[1] The context of the discussion was formal delegation status, however, as the existing ad-hoc approach of debian-legal discussion had come under critique. So I'm not sure if you were saying you'd appoint someone in an informal capacity, or make a departure from your pragmatic approach (as you put it) by naming an official delegate. Could you clarify this for us? you told me that this is not the task of -legal. I did? Where did I do that? Not only did I not reply to your messages to debian-legal in that thread[5], I didn't post to the thread at all. (It seemed to be doing just fine without me.) In fact, as far as I can determine, if you and I have communicated on this subject, we haven't done it on the debian-legal mailing list[6]. Of the nine messages you've sent me privately this year, none of have been on this subject. (s/none of/none/) I forgot to mention that I checked the archives of debian-project and debian-vote as well. We've discussed delegation in general terms, but not this specific issue. There was no DPL candidates' debate this year, so that's ruled out as well. Maybe your regex skills are better than mine. So that you'll surmise less and understand more about what I think, here's my opinion: debian-legal is a discussion list, and that's what it does best. It discusses. I think that, as DPL, you'd be best advised to draw any delegates on licensing issues from the pool of respected participants on the debian-legal list; they are more likely to be informed, be interested, and have the respect of their peers. -- G. Branden Robinson| Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? Debian GNU/Linux | A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount; [EMAIL PROTECTED] |fsck;more;yes;fsck;fsck;fsck; http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |umount;sleep signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Thu, Jul 15, 2004 at 11:04:40AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: What field of endeavour does a clause along the lines of The copyright holder may terminate this license at any time discriminate against? How does this field of endeavour fall under DFSG 6 without it being read in an extremely broad fashion? Lots of them. Nuclear power plants, for example, or commercial distribution. How, you say, when it doesn't mention them? Because it's got a arbitrary rewriting clause written in. At some point, the licensor can say, By the way, I terminate the license for all nuclear power plant operators, and from that instant on the operators are in violation. No, by that argument means it discriminates against all fields of endeavour. Were the copyright holder to terminate the license of a specific subgroup, it would then discriminate against a particular field of endeavour. At that point, it would be unambiguously non-free. If a license withholds essential freedoms from *all* licensees, as opposed to just those laboring in a given field of endeavor, then I agree that such a license does not fail DFSG 7. A license that prevents *everyone* from distributing copies would fail DFSG 1 (The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license may not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.) A license that prevents *everyone* from modifying the work so licensed would fail DFSG 3 (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 DFSG does not have a clause which mandates a license must not restrict the usage of a work by all recipients. Does it need one[1]? [1] People are awfully fond of skipping out of answering my questions with the excuse that they're rhetorical, so I hereby put you all on notice that this isn't one. -- G. Branden Robinson|Of two competing theories or Debian GNU/Linux |explanations, all other things [EMAIL PROTECTED] |being equal, the simpler one is to http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |be preferred. -- Occam's Razor signature.asc Description: Digital signature
arbitrary termination clauses (was: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report)
On Thu, Jul 15, 2004 at 11:04:40AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Brian Thomas Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At which point it becomes non-free. Or is it your belief that it should never be possible to turn a free license into a non-free one? The GPL contains a clause that explicitly allows for that to happen. No, it doesn't. It terminates only a license I'm already violating. At that point, what do I care? Read GPL 7. By its own language, the section 7 of the GNU GPL cannot be interpreted as termination clause in and of itself. This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License.[1] Let's review: If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. I do not regard, I'm the copyright holder and I'm telling you not to! as a pertinent obligation. Not without some sort of legal theory behind it, such as finding of copyright infringement against the person being so directed. There *are* circumstances under which a copyright licensor using the GNU GPL could spring a trap and make it work like an arbitrary termination clause. One obvious example is if Wicked Corp. writes some code, licenses it under the GNU GPL, and then applies for a patent on the same work. If the patent is granted, Wicked Corp. can theoretically argue that everyone using their work is infringing their patent license, even those who are scrupulously abiding by the terms of the GNU GPL. In such a situation, the right thing to is also the legally safe thing to do: decree the work non-free, and since it is not even distributable without infringing its patent, get it the hell out of Debian while we're at it. The above reasoning does depend on whether one interprets the GNU GPL as granting an implicit patent license over every aspect of the work licensed under its terms. It is my understanding that the Apache Software Foundation and the Free Software Foundation disagree about whether it does or not. I do not feel competent at present to judge this issue. If the GNU GPL does bear an implicit patent license (which would necessarily include use as well as modification and distribution), then that shuts off one avenue of potential abitrary termination. I do not posit that this would shut them all off. Any at rate, such circumstancial terminations are necessarily going to have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. I do not find the GNU GPL to be a precedent for an *arbitrary* termination clause, because it doesn't contain one. On a more fundamental basis, abitrary termination clauses are odious and offensive to freedom because we are not free if we are just waiting for the hammer to fall. One of things you give up when you decide to share your work with the FLOSS community is your right to act as a tyrant, yanking people's licenses away from them in a fit of pique. In my view, to uphold the Debian Social Contract means to do what we can to protect ourselves and our users from the capricious actions of licensors. By welcoming arbitrary termination clauses, we welcome capriciousness. As Pamela Jones put it: If the license you accept is oppressive in its terms, that means you can be oppressed. [1] http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.txt -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | Ignorantia judicis est calamitas [EMAIL PROTECTED] | innocentis. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
the practical difference that patents make (was: Termination clauses, was: Choice of venue)
On Thu, Jul 15, 2004 at 11:34:02AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: In contrast, if the copyright holder declares his right to terminate the license based on a termination clause, there really is no arguing with it. At all. It's not just a lawsuit, it's give up and go home. Which is the effective situation we're in with patents. We are dealing with legal fictions here. Physicists have not discovered patentotrons or the copyright-quark. I am content to regard patents as special because they appear to actually *be* special. That the situation with software patents may be horribly demoralizing at times does not, to me, justify the defeatist attitude that we might as well just invite licensors to write in clauses that let them pull the plug on anyone they want at any time. The legal situation with software is perverse because copyright and patent law have traditionally evolved such that they are held to cover *different* aspects of human creativity. Except with software, the form *is* the method. The content *is* the idea, to a degree much more fully realized than with any other form of endeavor (that I can think of :) ). That things get particularly weird with the copyright regime when patents are held to affect the same works as copyrights is an indictment of the practice of both patenting and copyrighting software, not an indictment of our license analysis practices. These are my assertions. Yours appear to differ. -- G. Branden Robinson| Mob rule isn't any prettier just Debian GNU/Linux | because you call your mob a [EMAIL PROTECTED] | government. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
defending freedom and evolving licenses (Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report)
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 11:51:37AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 04:58:50PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: We shouldn't be worried about freedom from a philosophical masturbation perspective. I think there should be a corollary to Godwin's Law that says: Whosoever compares one's opposition in a discussion to indulging in masturbation shall forfeit the argument. You must admit that some amount of the argument here occasionally resembles vigerous handwaving for personal gratification. No, I mustn't. If I want to masturbate, I'll take my hands off the keyboard and put all the people on this mailing list well out of mind. Sorry, but you guys just don't do it for me. :) More seriously... I think the vigorous handwaving is mostly done by people who are serving an agenda. For some, that agenda is defending freedom as they understand it. For others, that agenda is getting as much stuff as possible into Debian main, the license be damned. In the former case, I think some people may be getting goaded into fighting a kind of rear-guard action, for they fear that you might be supporting the ambitions of the latter group by making it obvious that the Debian Free Software Guidelines suck as an algorithm. (This is really no surprise, as they clearly more closely resemble a set of heuristics.) However, if I understand your endeavor correctly, what you're trying to accomplish is simply better reasoning behind our occasional assessments of licenses or specific works as non-DFSG-free. That's a good thing. I'm a big fan of careful thinking. However, I would caution us against acting contrary to our consciences simply because we may stumble across an occasional license or work that seems to skirt past the DFSG threshold without actually seeming to do the community any favors. Our approach to these matters tends to encourage license proliferation. We can thus fully expect the professional lawyers who work for various interests to, effectively, conduct a massive parallelized attack on the DFSG and its derivative the OSD, and the last several years have shown that this is the case. I'm not even saying it's a deliberate attack -- it's just the nature of the beast. You are company X. You've heard about this Open Source thing and you'd like to give it a shot. Like most companies, you'll want to maximize your reward (hundreds, perhaps thousands of unpaid, technically savvy employees!) while minimizing your risk (urp! These unpaid employees might band together and do something other than what we want them to do!). Few lawyers are going to have as a first inclination just use the GNU GPL, it's established and it works to justify their paychecks. (What do I pay you for? Any one of those Open Source lunatics could have told me that!) When a license gets bounced for failing the DFSG or OSD, sometimes the licensor goes back to the drawing board, sometimes they give up and use a known-accepted license, and sometimes they decide the FLOSS community isn't worth dealing with because they put up too much of a fuss when one tries to bend them over the barrel (fortunately for them, the FLOSS community is actually pretty acquiescent -- after all, we'd hate to be *rude* by telling someone their license stinks!). The end result is that there's a kind of selection process going on with licenses. What doesn't work (what fails the DFSG) tends to die; what does work (what passes the DFSG) tends to survive. In the presence of the strong mutagenic agent described above (lawyers needing to justify their paychecks indulging in NIH syndrome), we can expect to be kept pretty busy applying our selection process. I know I risk exasperating Matthew Garrett in particular with this analogy, because as a Real Life Geneticist, he's amply qualified to demolish it. :) The main thing I don't understand in the recent discussion is that, if we don't take personal offense at a licensor's bad license, why should we expect the licensor to take offense if we bounce it for failing the DFSG? Why do we act as if their time is more valuable than ours? Why do we act as if they're doing anyone any favors by adding yet another new license to the very complex mosaic that already exists? New licenses *should* be met with strict scrutiny. It's better for us, better for our users, and better for the community. Ultimately, we can even expect it to lead to better licenses. Of course, maybe some people think it's a *bad* thing when Debian discusses a license with an upstream, the wording gets clarified or a well-known license adopted instead, and mutual gratitude is expressed. (Anyone who thinks this doesn't happen, hasn't been reading this mailing list -- or DWN, which occasionally covers high-profile instances.) But I don't. I find it works pretty well to treat licensors as peers and compatriots, until and unless they prove otherwise. I don't take BS from my peers
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 12:01:22PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Where does the Social Contract bind us to using no tool other than the DFSG to determine whether a work we distribute as part of our system is free? Interestingly, the new version of the Social Contract[1] seems to give us less latitude than the original version[2] in using anything adjunct to the DFSG for freeness determinations. Given that the changes to the SC were merely editorial (as stated in the proposal that was seconded by you), any restriction present in the new SC that isn't there in the old one is down to you misreading the old one. Not necessrily. It could be the case that the guidelines are guidelines in both cases, that I was right about the meaning of the old SC, and that I am simply misreading the *new* one. I'm certainly not clear that the new SC gives any leeway to use tests that don't spring directly from the DFSG. Put that way, it doesn't give us any leeway to use tests at all. In any event, I laid out my approach to upholding the Social Contract in this respect a while back[1]. Feel free to take it apart now, since you didn't at the time. [1] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/03/msg00211.html -- G. Branden Robinson| A fundamentalist is someone who Debian GNU/Linux | hates sin more than he loves [EMAIL PROTECTED] | virtue. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John H. Schaar signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 01:31:44PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: * Branden Robinson: Where does the Social Contract bind us to using no tool other than the DFSG to determine whether a work we distribute as part of our system is free? We are obligated to our users not to remove (maybe even reject) software without reason. A good thing, then, that no one has actually *proposed* removing or rejecting software without reason. I doubt that the test du jour can serve as an adequate foundation for removal, especially if the failure of the test can not be tracked back to a DFSG violation. Well, this is nicely hyperbolic and vague. How long must we wait to introduce a new test before it is derided as the test du jour? We've only really come up with three in six years. (A couple of others have been proposed, but have not made it into anything resembling an official document, and in any event haven't been used in license analyses AFAIK.) Is it your contention that the DFSG is comprehensive, and covers every possible freedom-violating scenario that a license might plausibly attempt? -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | Ignorantia judicis est calamitas [EMAIL PROTECTED] | innocentis. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 01:22:03PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote: We are obligated to serve the interests of our users and free software. This is *no* obligation to accept all free software into the archive. That premise appears to be firmly rejected by a segment of Debian developers. We are, it appears, duty-bound to read the DFSG as narrowly as possible, because it helps our users more to have publicly available software distributed specifically by the Debian Project than bad licenses that take away their freedoms harm them. -- G. Branden Robinson|People are equally horrified at Debian GNU/Linux |hearing the Christian religion [EMAIL PROTECTED] |doubted, and at seeing it http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |practiced. -- Samuel Butler signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 01:01:05PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: Mailing lists are like a debate. Not like a newspaper. Well, *this* list is like a debate, as are discussion lists generally. Announcement lists are more like newspapers. -- G. Branden Robinson| What influenced me to atheism was Debian GNU/Linux | reading the Bible cover to cover. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twice. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- J. Michael Straczynski signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 04:37:47PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: WE ARE NOT LAWYERS [...] I suggest that in the vast majority of cases it is clear when a license is free in a practical sense. MPL has obscure clauses that bother some debian-legal extremists, but in practice, MPL meets the goals of DFSG excellently. Proof by assertion; wow. Good thing we're not lawyers, or we'd have detected that fallacy. -- G. Branden Robinson| The Rehnquist Court has never Debian GNU/Linux | encountered a criminal statute it [EMAIL PROTECTED] | did not like. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- John Dean signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 04:39:13PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have argued that it may well be *good* for a license to specify choice of venue. It is a nice thing to know which laws apply to the agreement, Indeed, much that it may well be good for a woman to be able to nurse her child at the breast, it's a nice thing to know that men often have hairy chests[1]. But don't take my advise, however much logic it may be based on. ...or, moreover, how much command of basic facts you exhibit. Just watch what real lawyers are doing. And if we don't, I'm sure we can trust you to tell us, showing the same mastery of legal fundamentals as you have above, right? Real lawyers seem quite happy with these clauses, both when offering and accepting them. You may want to inform the Board of Trustees of Columbia University that they don't have a Real Lawyer teaching their students[2]. [1] Hint: knowing which laws apply to the agreement is a function of a choice-of-law[3] clause, not a choice-of-venue[4] clause. [2] http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/ http://python.fyxm.net/2.1/fsf.html [3] http://www.uslegalforms.com/lawdigest/legal-definitions.php/US/US-CHOICE_OF_LAW.htm [4] http://www.fraserlawfirm.com/Publications/Business/BS-Venue.html -- G. Branden Robinson| If God had intended for man to go Debian GNU/Linux | about naked, we would have been [EMAIL PROTECTED] | born that way. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Fri, Jul 16, 2004 at 08:37:13PM +, Jim Marhaus wrote: Lex Spoon wrote: Why do you think *real* lawyers seem to be okay with such clauses? Sometimes parties in a uniformly constructed contract agree to a particular venue, perhaps because both are qualified to practice law there. In a free software license or commercial EULA however, the licensee is not at liberty to negotiate, so the venue clause is wholly to the advantage of the licensor. In a review of section 2B-108 in UCITA, the American Law Institute describes the exercise of such unilateral forum clauses as a perversion of the notions of freedom of contract: [snip] Mr. Marhaus: I'm afraid your response was far too scholarly and informed to be taken seriously by anyone who feels that choice-of-law or -venue clauses are just fine by the DFSG. Must you insist on embarrassing people? (Pbatenghyngvbaf, lbh unir pbeerpgyl vasreerq gur fnepnfgvp angher bs guvf cbfg. ;-) ) -- G. Branden Robinson| It's not a matter of alienating Debian GNU/Linux | authors. They have every right to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | license their software however we http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | like. -- Craig Sanders signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 10:18:35AM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: * Nathanael Nerode: You have hit the nail on the head. The warranty disclaimers don't say You agree not to sue... or You agree that there is no warranty... Wrong, there are certainly some cases: | THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS | LICENSE. NO USE OF ANY SUBJECT SOFTWARE IS AUTHORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT | UNDER THIS DISCLAIMER. (SGI's GLX license.) Does such a wording really make difference from a legal point of view? I'm sure that if it did, we'd see more examples. That license has already been found defective under the DFSG for unrelated reasons[1]. It is, consequently, a poor example of what's okay with a DFSG-free license. You might fare better by citing a different license that is used in main and contains the same language. Do we really want to randomly punish licenses which use the wrong catch phrases, No. We want to deterministically reject licenses as predictably and reliably as we can. even if they are legally equivalent to perfectably acceptable licenses. Intent matters. Witness the University of Washington and and the MIT/X11 license. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please see the DFSG FAQ[2]. In addition, there seems to be a general consensus in Debian *against* the Dictator Test. What foundation do you have for this statement? At present it is indistinguishable from baseless assertion. The consensus on this list appears to be that the Dictator Test is at best useful and at worst harmless. For support, I direct you to to thread you're -- nominally -- reading. Nobody except me to mind that CA certificates come with a lot of obnoxious licensing conditions (if we have a license to distribute them at all). I think the grammar in this setence is defective; such that I cannot determine whether you're making one statement or its opposite. Can you clarify, please? [1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=211765 [2] http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html -- G. Branden Robinson| If you're handsome, it's flirting. Debian GNU/Linux | If you're a troll, it's sexual [EMAIL PROTECTED] | harassment. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- George Carlin signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 11:16:24AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-07-12 09:00:02 +0100 Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Data point: I can't scare up the reference at the moment, but The XFree Project, Inc., asserted that the warranty disclaimer was a condition of the MIT/X11 license. [...] I'm not sure whether this is claimed to be a condition, part of a condition, or is another notice sentence after the condition. I'd like to see the reference, sorry. I still cannot find it. I could be hallucinating, Google might not have usefully crawled the list upon which the assertion was made (probably the XFree86 forum list), or I am simply unable to poke in the right keywords. I apologize for being unable to provie a cite. You can disregard my assertion, if you like; I'm not sure it's really dispositive to the discussion either way. -- G. Branden Robinson|Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, Debian GNU/Linux |and I have disposable income that [EMAIL PROTECTED] |I'll spend to find out how to get http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |people more of it. -- Penn Jillette signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 10:02:25AM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: I think the Dictator Test itself is highly questionable, and even more its rationale. It's a disguised attack on copyleft in general. As the proposer of the Dictator Test, I call bullshit. I'm perfectly happy with the concept of copyleft, and endorse it. I may have the occasional bone to pick with what I regard as disiderata in their licenses, but that's not the same thing as having a disagreement with them on the fundamental principle of copyleft. I'll thank you to not profess to being able to read my mind when you clearly cannot. The wording of the test is simply not clear enough. After all, it was motivated by a mere notice which was arguably not even part of the license text. I'm not sure if it's against such licenses, certain licensing conditions in general, or only if they use some buzzwords (by using this software, you agree to ...). It was motivated by reading a number of outrageous statements in licenses over the years. The one I attributed to XFree86 was only the most recent. -- G. Branden Robinson| Mob rule isn't any prettier just Debian GNU/Linux | because you call your mob a [EMAIL PROTECTED] | government. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 08:23:22AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Branden Robinson writes: If an innocent bystander is harmed through the operation of defective Free Software, how can he or she be held to the warranty disclaimer, given that he or she never received the corresponding copyright license? Can you elaborate on the situation you have in mind? I would think that in general, the liable person would be either the one who put Free Software in the medical device (construction machinery, etc) or the one who operated the device (the immediate actor might be an agent for a company that would be liable). Software by itself is pretty limited in how it interacts with the world, so it needs some enabler before its bugs could harm anyone. Er, I think you're reinforcing my point rather than challenging it. The point is that making a warranty disclaimer a condition of the license wouldn't really do much to save the licensor from litigation anyway. As with many license clauses that are attached without much understanding of copyright law, it's either astoundingly overbroad, or almost completely ineffectual for its intended purpose. Whether or not licensor says ah, quite right -- we'll get rid of that clause, then when we contact them with this information will do much to tell us whether their intentions are DFSG-free. If you somehow *do* get a product liability lawsuit started against me in the courts despite my disclaimer of warranty, I'll...countersue for copyright infringement! Now recall that copyright infringement is a criminal act in the U.S. and increasingly more jurisdictions. Making it a criminal act to sue someone sounds like a pretty ghastly power grab -- but maybe that's just me. At the very least, the Dictator Test may be useful to tell us when we need to contact the licensor to get clarification on the license's meaning. -- G. Branden Robinson|Judging developers by the number of Debian GNU/Linux |changes they make is like judging a [EMAIL PROTECTED] |legislature by the number of laws http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |it passes.-- Karl Fogel signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 09:59:22AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 03:57:49PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Dictator Test goes well beyond DFSG. DFSG clause 1 merely says that there is no fee or payment for the software. Nothing in DFSG says that the license must make no requirements at all. The Dictator Test is a stronger test. The dictator test, as I read it, does not say that a licence must make no requirements at all. Every permission grant other than placing a work in the Public Domain would fail if that were the case. Would you care to base your assertion on fact and logic? (5 days later...) Perhaps not. :-/ -- G. Branden Robinson| I am only good at complaining. Debian GNU/Linux | You don't want me near your code. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Dan Jacobson http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Desert Island Test [Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL]
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 11:39:45PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Mon, 12 Jul 2004, Sean Kellogg wrote: On Monday 12 July 2004 11:45 am, Don Armstrong wrote: While the imagery of a computer programmer sitting on a lonely desert isle hacking away with their solar powered computer, drinking coconuts, and recieving messages in bottles might be silly, the rights that such a gedanken is protecting are anything but. Not to argue against the intent of the Desert Island Test, but at least in the United States, such a freedom is provided by the law/courts, not the license. I'm not familiar with the logic behind this.[1] Could you perhaps elucidate and provide references to case law? You weren't and I wasn't, either. Is it reasonable to expect most licensors to be? This sounds to me like a good reason for keeping the Desert Island test, and buttressing it with real legal principle. Passing the Desert Island test: It's not just a good idea, it's the Law. -- G. Branden Robinson|When we call others dogmatic, what Debian GNU/Linux |we really object to is their [EMAIL PROTECTED] |holding dogmas that are different http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |from our own. -- Charles Issawi signature.asc Description: Digital signature
license clarity vs. jurisdiction (was: Desert Island Test [Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL])
On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 02:34:00AM -0700, tom wrote: On Tuesday 13 July 2004 01:06 am, Jacobo Tarrio wrote: O Martes, 13 de Xullo de 2004 ás 00:56:39 -0700, Sean Kellogg escribía: back to B due to lack of communication facilities. The duty in question will be discharged by the court under section 261 provided section 263 is 95% of the world population does not live in the US. With great respect to the 95% of the world population that does not live within the US... the great majority of the world does operate under laws derived from the common law system, which is embodied within the restatement of law (there is one for each area of law). Even in the civil law societies (most of continental Europe and Japan) the law has been adopted from the Usa is expanding his hegemonic power even in legal system transplant through institution as wipo-tripp's, wb,... especially in IP aspects; that's true. But -i'm european law student- a legal system is more complicated than this. I find such diversity overall in procedure, and this diversity sometimes would be able to bring to different solutions in differnts countries. Chinees are about 1/2 of world beeings, and apart of the lasts overture to free market, i don't really know how USAed is their legal system. I think we have to consider this, otherwise i see the danger of just-usa-DFSG-free. That sounds to me like an argument *for* not ignoring would be bad, but harmless because legally invaid license clauses, and for getting them squared away properly with upstream instead. The downside is that each time we do this, we'll be hounded by clueless bystanders who insist that Debian is needlessly splitting hairs, because the license is obviously good enough. The terms that violate the DFSG outside the U.S. are harmless. Since a lot of these people also tend to be knee-jerk bashers of everyone and everything from the U.S., thanks to the actions of the criminals who has usurped power there[1], they are significantly more frothy than they were a few years ago. Hmmm, that gives me an idea for a good counter-argument, if I'm right. No, we need to get the license fixed because it's only DFSG-free in the U.S., where bills are signed into law by George W. Bush. Sadly, I think this would fail because people aren't actually that rational or consistent. :) [1] Disclaimer: I am a U.S. citizen and resident, and consequently everything I say must be suspected as an argument for occupying Iraq and/or using the Kyoto Protocol as toilet paper. :-P -- G. Branden Robinson| I am only good at complaining. Debian GNU/Linux | You don't want me near your code. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Dan Jacobson http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: remove this package from another developer
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 10:41:00AM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: * Branden Robinson: On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 01:09:13PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: On Sun, Jul 11, 2004 at 10:35:25PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Sat, Jul 10, 2004 at 02:03:37PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: debian-legal is an undelegated advisory body. Ultimately, the final decision lies with the archive maintainers. I see. Where are the archive maintainers' official delegations? http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/05/msg5.html IIRC, Martin mentioned this the last time you asked about delegations, too. I don't see any delegations of archive administrators in that message. It references a web page and thus makes it the authoritative list of delegates. That's not clear to me. Looks more like a pointer to a helpful contact list. In any event, the Technical Committee and Project Secretary are not and cannot be delegates under the Constitution[1]. So it is not clear to anyone viewing that page who is a delegate and who is not. [1] http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution -- G. Branden Robinson| You live and learn. Debian GNU/Linux | Or you don't live long. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Robert Heinlein http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: remove this package from another developer (was: Bug#251983: Please remove libcwd from main; it is licensed under the QPL, which is non-free.)
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 10:23:00PM +0200, Martin Michlmayr - Debian Project Leader wrote: * Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2004-07-14 02:55]: I fail to see why debian-legal's undelegated status is at all relevant given our current leadership philsophy. The difference is that ftpmaster actually has authority over the archive (including licensing issues) whereas -legal doesn't and therefore can only play an advisory role. Authority granted by whom? -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | Extra territorium jus dicenti [EMAIL PROTECTED] | impune non paretur. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: request-tracker3: license shadiness
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 07:18:36AM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 01:49:55AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: I see; what sort of DFSG violations do you consider minor? Minor is relative, and depends on context. In the context of GPL compatability [which I think the current context is], minor means things which would automatically be dealt with if the GPL incompatability issues were resolved. More generally, I think the most important issues for us are: [*] porting (to other platforms) [*] maintenance (especially security fixes, but not only) [*] translation (to other human languages) [*] legal distribution (especially for our mirror operators, b...) [*] interoperability (especially compliance with important standards) Secondary issues [these fall under maintenance] include: [*] modularity (providing good machine interfaces) [*] performance (not doing unnecessary things) [*] consistent documentation (lots of bugs fall in this category) These are incomplete lists. I find the FSF's four freedoms[1] essay pithier and more persuasive. Minor issues in the general case are issues which don't advance important issues [such as the above] as causes. I personally would like to keep the presumptiveness about which types of freedoms are important to our users to a minimum. (You want to change *what* to add a new feature?, we say. Hmm, let's see: it doesn't have to do with porting, maintenance, translation, legal distribution, or interoperability. It also doesn't have to do with modularity, performance, or consistent documentation. Sorry, your case isn't really important to us, so we don't fine the copyright holder's requirement that you publish your changes in the form of a Jumbotron advertisement in Times Square to be excessively burdensome. Have a nice day!) It's ok to say: here's the big problem, and here's some other areas of concern that you might want to think about. It's misleading to say this is a problem when we accept licenses as DFSG even though they have this problem. Which licenses do we accept as DFSG-free even though they have this problem? That's for you to say. No; it is you who has asserting that 'we accept licenses as DFSG[-free] even though they have this problem'. The burden of proof is on the affirmative. The GNU GPL is often a good choice for a license, but we are not an organ of the Free Software Foundation, and DFSG-freeness is not predicated on GPL-compatibility. At least, not as the DFSG is currently written. You could propose that GPL-compatibility be a DFSG criterion. It might pass. I'm satisfied with DFSG#10, thanks. That says the GNU GPL itself is an example of a DFSG-free license. It doesn't say anything about licenses that aren't the GNU GPL being compatible with the terms of the GNU GPL. I reiterate: DFSG-freeness is not predicated on GPL-compatibility. Note also that in this case we're talking about a license which represents itself as GPL compatible. No, it does not represent itself as GPL compatible. It represents itself as being the GNU GPL version 2, with a rider tacked onto it. We've long known that tacking riders onto the GNU GPL that aren't in the form of grants of additional permissions are problematic. Let me know if you need me to trawl the archives of this list to support this statement, but for the moment I'm going to assume it's common knowledge. you are pushing a line of logic that seems to make the GPL non-free. Eh? What's with this scare-mongering, slippery-slope argument? It's the literal truth. You've advanced a claim that if the license requires something of value, the license cannot satisfy the DFSG. And, the GPL requires something of value. You have elided in exchange for rights under the license. That's implicitly true of any license clause. Sometimes this is stated explicitly, for clarity, but if you violate a license clause you open yourself for legal action on the basis that you're not following the license. I do not see how your statement supports your assertion that I am pushing a line of logic that seems to make the GPL non-free. One you undertake actions regulated by copyright law, something that would otherwise be yours becomes the property of Best Practical LLC. This is not a characteristic of the GNU GPL. Agreed. And the Best Practical license declares itself GPL compatible. No, it doesn't. Since you're harping on this, let's review. #!/usr/bin/perl # BEGIN LICENSE BLOCK # # Copyright (c) 1996-2003 Jesse Vincent [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # (Except where explictly superceded by other copyright notices) # # This work is made available to you under the terms of Version 2 of # the GNU General Public License. A copy of that license should have # been provided with this software, but in any event can be snarfed # from www.gnu.org. # # This work
Re: xinetd license possibly violates DFSG #4
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 05:17:25PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: Branden Robinson wrote: At the same time, I'm struggling to determine an essential distinction between a single de-facto closed-universe project, and a vast collection of such projects (which all works licensed under the GNU GPL could be said to be). Parts of works under the GNU GPL (or other compatible licenses) can be incorporated into other projects under the GNU GPL (or other compatible licenses). I don't think this makes it a closed-universe project, although perhaps the entire collection of such projects could be considered a closed universe. Parts of works under a patch clause license cannot be easily incorporated into other projects (regardless of those other projects' licenses), unless the entirety of the other project is considered to be a patch on the part of the patch-clause-licensed work. This becomes even more difficult when incorporating material from more than one such work. Hmm, that does appear to be a telling distinction. You may have identified why our patch clause exception makes me so uncomfortable. -- G. Branden Robinson|It's like I have a shotgun in my Debian GNU/Linux |mouth, I've got my finger on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] |trigger, and I like the taste of http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |the gunmetal. -- Robert Downey, Jr. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: xinetd license possibly violates DFSG #4
On Sat, Jul 03, 2004 at 07:12:51AM -0500, Andreas Metzler wrote: I do not consider this to go much further than that. The intention is imho the one DFSG4 tries to carter for. The author wants: a) derivatives being detectable as such. b) derivatives have to keep out of xinetd's namespace. He wants to forbid a derivative being numbered as xinetd 2.3.15, taking away the official version number. On what do you ground your statement of the author's intention? -- G. Branden Robinson|No executive devotes much effort to Debian GNU/Linux |proving himself wrong. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Laurence J. Peter http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Visualboy Advance question.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 07:10:46PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 02:05:16AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: OTOH, as you're sure to note, an easy way around this is that a package can be completely useless in main as long as what it depends on isn't a package. Maybe that *was* your point. Not exactly. I'm not a fan of useless software on the whole, so I don't believe that your work-around is a winner. Good, because I don't actually advocate that view. :) I prefer to fall back on the last sentence of the first clause of the social contract: We will never make the system require the use of a non-free component.. Providing a piece of software which can only use non-free content is requiring the use of a non-free component, IMO. That sounds like a reasonable litmus test to me. That would be a waste of archive resources. Er, before heading down this road, I think you should attempt an objective demonstration that we seem to give a damn about wasting archive resources in the first place. We don't give a damn? That's a pity. I am not asserting that we don't give a damn; I invited you to demonstrate that we do. Translation: IMO there's a lot of crap in main, contrib, and non-free alike. I only really object to this phenomenon when the crap is used as rheortical ammunition to bolster arguments that presumably wouldn't be strong enough if grounded solely on packages that are well-maintained and in wide usage. Lest people like I'm just flaming, I posit that xtrs (in contrib) might be crap by this definition, and I maintain it. I think it is well-maintained[1], but I strongly suspect it has staggeringly few users. Consequently, I don't try to characterize it as some sort of precious jewel that illustrates why we, say, MUST, *MUST*, keep distributing the contrib section. The only occasions I've had to even mention xtrs in the past year, in fact, have been in the context of discussions about the packging of emulators. [1] It hasn't had a Debian bug report in quite some time and the upstream author/maintainer has a big brain and writes solid code. But let's be honest -- the fate of empires does not hang on whether Debian distributes a package of it. -- G. Branden Robinson| What influenced me to atheism was Debian GNU/Linux | reading the Bible cover to cover. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twice. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- J. Michael Straczynski signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Visualboy Advance question.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 05:24:12PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: Nathanael Nerode wrote: J.B. Nicholson-Owens wrote: Matthew Palmer wrote: The litmus test here is a significant amount of functionality, not will refuse to work at all without it, although that's a fairly good description of a console without a ROM. Would one ROM cut it, then? Yes, in a word! Or, indeed, a compiler designed to create such ROMs. Given that many ROMs are written/modified in machine code with a hex editor, I would go as far as to say that if we have a reasonable belief that even one person will ever use the emulator for the purposes of running a hand-written ROM, then the emulator should go to main. I lean the other way. If it's so easy, we should be able to package a trivial one for demonstration purposes. We could even ship it as part of the emulator package itself. Again, this is not really a DFSG or debian-legal issue, it's a Debian Policy issue. -- G. Branden Robinson| Never attribute to malice that Debian GNU/Linux | which can be adequately explained [EMAIL PROTECTED] | by stupidity. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Hanlon's Razor signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Visualboy Advance question.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 02:08:06AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: I think every program in Debian is held to the standard of being useful. Please, s/is held/should be held/. If you're like me, you should fear the counterexamples that could be brought to the fore. -- G. Branden Robinson| Good judgement comes from Debian GNU/Linux | experience; experience comes from [EMAIL PROTECTED] | bad judgement. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Fred Brooks signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Visualboy Advance question.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 10:34:56PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 01:56:45 -0400 Nathanael Nerode wrote: It seems like this belongs in main. But why hasn't anyone packaged any of the free IWADs? I really don't know. Perhaps no DD has enough time to package two files that don't even need any actual installation: you just have to download them and you are ready to feed prboom. Very similar to downloading a DFSG-free mp3 audio file and feeding mpg321: does a free-mp3-collection package exist? This can't be the case; witness the abuse of the people on this list when we *dared* to find the IETF's RFC license non-free[1]. Somehow, not shipping (some of) the RFCs in main made them inaccessible, and infeasible to access. [1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=92810msg=5 ...is just one of many examples -- G. Branden Robinson|I've made up my mind. Don't try to Debian GNU/Linux |confuse me with the facts. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-- Indiana Senator Earl Landgrebe http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: request-tracker3: licence problem
On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 10:49:03AM +0100, Andrew Stribblehill wrote: Okay, I'm forwarding what Jesse and BestPractical's lawyer have put together as a replacement appendage to the GPL in their licence. [...] The new version: | By intentionally submitting any modifications, corrections or | derivatives to this work, or any other work intended for use with Request | Tracker, to Best Practical Solutions, LLC, you confirm that you are the | copyright holder for those contributions and you grant Best Practical | Solutions, LLC a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, | perpetual, license to use, copy, create derivative works based on those | contributions, and sublicense and distribute those contributions and | any derivatives thereof. [...] Can anyone who had a problem with the old licence appendage confirm that the new one looks okay? I think: 1) Including a submission policy alongside the license terms sets a precedent -- whether it's good or bad, I'm not sure; 2) It should be me made scorchingly clear that this new paragraph is not in any way a condition of the copyright license. I know this is supposed to be clear once BEGIN/END LICENSE BLOCK is explained away, but that's not enough for me, personally. I would like debian/copyright to make this crystal clear, quoting a representative of Best Practical, LLC on the subject. I would prefer, however, that this clarification be in the license/warranty disclaimer/submission policy block as well. I only harp on this because I think a precedent *is* being set, and when other copyright holders start mindlessly copying the text, I think it would be very helpful, and spare us much gnashing of teeth later, if they thoughtlessly copied the unambiguous statement that this is not part of the copyright license as well. The DFSG problem is resolved as far as I can tell. Thanks a lot for working with Best Practical, LLC to bring this issue to a positive conclusion! -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | Cogitationis poenam nemo meretur. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: handling Mozilla with kid gloves [was: GUADEC report]
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 03:53:45PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 02:46:13AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: We do collectively understand that there are Free, full-featured graphical browsers *other* than Netscape, right? You're seriously suggesting that Debian wouldn't be laughed out of the park for releasing without Mozilla at the moment? If you aren't suggesting this, then that comment is irrelevant. We don't seem to fear the laughter of others when it comes to AMD64 support. -- G. Branden Robinson|It is the responsibility of Debian GNU/Linux |intellectuals to tell the truth and [EMAIL PROTECTED] |expose lies. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Noam Chomsky signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GUADEC report
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 10:34:28AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: 1. someone can explain why choice of venue can be DFSG-free; This simply isn't how some people in the Project think. The alternative approach is to assume that anything is DFSG-free until proven otherwise. Historical evidence shows that many of them don't even seem to read or endeavor to comprehend the license in the first place. One can then accuse anyone who later questions the DFSG-freeness of the work as reinterpreting the DFSG, when no interpretation was actually applied to the package in the first place. In short, the goal is get as much stuff into main as quickly as possible. The priority is to score points in some sort of game[1], not to serve our users or Free Software[2]. [1] Whether the game is how many packages am I listed as maintaining or how many packages Debian has relative to other Linux distributions varies by the individual. [2] http://www.debian.org/social_contract (Surprisingly, it would seem, one can find the language Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software even in the original version of the Social Contract.) -- G. Branden Robinson| Psychology is really biology. Debian GNU/Linux | Biology is really chemistry. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Chemistry is really physics. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | Physics is really math. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 06:28:32PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: What is the practical outcome of this distinction? In both cases, a user may discover that they no longer have the right to distribute the software. Why do we consider one of these cases problematic and the other acceptable? The user is equally screwed either way. I tend to distinguish between being screwed by the person who distributed the software to you in the first place (including the original author, if one includes indirect distribution), and being screwed by some third party. In other words, there is a difference between being screwed by people within the Free Software community, and people outside it. It is occasionally useful to be able to distinguish good neighbors from bad ones. -- G. Branden Robinson| Intellectual property is neither Debian GNU/Linux | intellectual nor property. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Discuss. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Linda Richman signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 04:58:50PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: We shouldn't be worried about freedom from a philosophical masturbation perspective. I think there should be a corollary to Godwin's Law that says: Whosoever compares one's opposition in a discussion to indulging in masturbation shall forfeit the argument. -- G. Branden Robinson| If we believe absurdities, we Debian GNU/Linux | shall commit atrocities. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Voltaire http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 12:23:35PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-07-13 11:14:45 +0100 Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Enforcement (or lack thereof) of a patent is arbitrary, yes. Needing a DFSG-free patent licence is not news to me. If we have a patented software, then it's non-free without such a licence. Are there other circumstances where GPL 7 offers arbitrary termination? Any situation which inhibits your ability to carry out any of the GPL's requirements results in you no longer being able to distribute the code. I still don't see how this is any less of a practical problem for users than the copyright holder being able to terminate the license. Under GNU GPL 7, you can reasonably predict what actions of yours will cause your license to terminate. The copyright holder reserves the right to terminate your license at any time, without prior notice, and without your consent. is substantively different. Termination due to non-compliance is one thing. Termination due to the copyright holder's, e.g., bad case of gas, is quite another. -- G. Branden Robinson|Kissing girls is a goodness. It is Debian GNU/Linux |a growing closer. It beats the [EMAIL PROTECTED] |hell out of card games. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Robert Heinlein signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 07:52:11PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: Sorry for the complications. There is an attempt to change the DFSG through various Tests. Some of them make sense, some of them are just arbitrarily designed to exclude specific licenses (or even specific software!). The proper way to update the DFSG is a vote on an amendment to the Social Contract/the DFSG, and I think it's time to again follow the Debian Consitution in this area. Where does the Social Contract bind us to using no tool other than the DFSG to determine whether a work we distribute as part of our system is free? Interestingly, the new version of the Social Contract[1] seems to give us less latitude than the original version[2] in using anything adjunct to the DFSG for freeness determinations. However, thanks to the latest General Resolution vote, the new version of the Social Contract is not the one that is currently in force. Those who were furious with the changes saw to that. Oh, the irony. :) [1] http://www.debian.org/social_contract [2] http://www.debian.org/social_contract.1.0 -- G. Branden Robinson| The last time the Republican Party Debian GNU/Linux | was on the right side of a social [EMAIL PROTECTED] | issue, Abe Lincoln was president. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Kirk Tofte signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 04:51:00PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 04:15:47PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-07-12 15:46:16 +0100 Steve McIntyre [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There's far too much navel-gazing going on here... I don't think that observation helps. There does seem to be a lot of effort being put into inventing extremely contrived arguments in -legal these days to make various licenses look non-free. What penetrating insight you have into the motivations of other people! Still, perhaps you're right. Why do you suppose people are doing as you claim? What's the grand strategy behind this conspiracy? If you can identify that, perhaps you'd be in a better position to combat it, no? -- G. Branden Robinson| Communism is just one step on the Debian GNU/Linux | long road from capitalism to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | capitalism. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Russian saying signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Blast from the Past: the LaTeX Project Public License, version 1.3
[I am not subscribed to debian-tetex-maint.] On Sun, Jul 11, 2004 at 02:38:20PM +0200, Hilmar Preusse wrote: On 11.07.04 Branden Robinson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Hmmm. I don't suppose it's a *huge* deal, but do you think we could ask upstream to apply the new LPPL to the existing codebase? This doesn't require anything more than an email on their part, which we could then stick in debian/copyright. Well, our upstream is TE. Most of the code is not written by him, so he doesn't really have control over these things. Take e.g. KOMA-Script: the package is explicitely linked with LPPL 1.0. If you ask Markus Kohm, he'll refuse to upgrade to the next version (at least I read some postings about this by him in dctt). Well we could put 1.3 into teTeX 2.0.2 and hope, that most of the problems will be resolved then... Er, well...it doesn't really help the package's DFSG problems if the DFSG-free version of the license isn't actually used. Also, is it the new version of the LPPL Markus Kohm doesn't want to upgrade to, or the new version of some software? I think it was established during the long, long discussions on -legal that previous versions of the LPPL were not DFSG-free. I'm open to suggestions for how we should cope with this. -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | Music is the brandy of the damned. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- George Bernard Shaw http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: request-tracker3: license shadiness
On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 07:40:39PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: The license prohibits any redistribution at all, and instead of focussing on that, On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 05:37:21PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: Why shouldn't we present license analyses that are as comprehensive as we can make them? Because potential complexity of the boundaries is infinite. That's true of most real-world decision problems. Also, hammering minor point after minor point while missing the main point is argumentative and of little value. I see; what sort of DFSG violations do you consider minor? It's ok to say: here's the big problem, and here's some other areas of concern that you might want to think about. It's misleading to say this is a problem when we accept licenses as DFSG even though they have this problem. Which licenses do we accept as DFSG-free even though they have this problem? Please be careful about putting words in my mouth. In this case, we're talking about a license which is intended to be GPL compatible. Given that the GPL already satisfies the DFSG, all we need to do for these folks is point out the areas where they're not GPL compatible. We might want to add a note -- that if they give up on the GPL compatability issue that might raise other issues. But I wouldn't go any farther than that. I don't think we should be anymore GPL-partisan than we have to be. The GNU GPL is often a good choice for a license, but we are not an organ of the Free Software Foundation, and DFSG-freeness is not predicated on GPL-compatibility. At least, not as the DFSG is currently written. You could propose that GPL-compatibility be a DFSG criterion. It might pass. you are pushing a line of logic that seems to make the GPL non-free. Eh? What's with this scare-mongering, slippery-slope argument? It's the literal truth. You've advanced a claim that if the license requires something of value, the license cannot satisfy the DFSG. And, the GPL requires something of value. You have elided in exchange for rights under the license. One you undertake actions regulated by copyright law, something that would otherwise be yours becomes the property of Best Practical LLC. This is not a characteristic of the GNU GPL. The GNU GPL *does* require that you transmit something of value -- or an offer to do so -- alongside *other* things of value when you distribute them to another party. Best Practical's license has an invisible hand that reaches into your life from afar and asserts property claims over something that would otherwise be yours. This, to me is an essential and important distinction. Perhaps you don't agree. You either do not understand my objection (this calling into your question your dismissal of it as insignificant), or you are deliberately misrepresenting it. I prefer to think that you've expressed your concept unclearly. If I haven't expressed myself clearly, then it's quite likely you don't understand me, no? By the way, my objection was to what you said, not to what you thought. I am not sure how this statement adds information to this discussion. Distribution of source, as required by the GPL, has value, so your logic would this mean that the GPL is non-free. No, because modification is not distribution, and I cannot copyright my act of distribution[1]. You can't copyright gold, either. I would agree that it is important that licensors not reach for more than they can grasp when drafting their licenses. (If that's not what you're trying to say, perhaps you could eludicate.) You seemed to be claiming that distribution has no value because distribution can't be copyrighted. You're quite incorrect as regards my claims. I take it as a given that distribution has value, because engaging in it is a practice that copyright law regulates. Does it make sense to obtain a license for something that is valueless? Free copyright licenses grant license to distribute. That they do so doesn't not mean that can *compel* distribution arbitrarily, however. Would we accept as DFSG-free a sort of chain-letter license which compelled the licensee, immediately upon obtaining a copy of the work, to distribute further copies to twenty different acquantainces of his? [But gold can't be copyrighted either, and gold has value. [I'm bringing up this value issue in the first place, because you claimed that requiring something of value conflicts with the DFSG -- I choose an example involving the GPL because that seemed the simplest way to point out that you had not expressed a clear violation of the DFSG.]] I stated it this way because restricting it to property and things like copyrights, patents, and trademarks is not sufficient. Would we accept as DFSG-free a license which claimed the right of jus primae noctis[1] for the copyright holder with respect to the relatives of the licensee? Regardless
Re: request-tracker3: license shadiness
On Sat, Jul 10, 2004 at 05:57:40PM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote: I think Steve's guess at likely interpretations isincorrect but have very low confidence in my opinion. We're all entitled to our opinions. :) It seems like the best course of action at this point is to try and seek clarification of the license. I think we all agree that if what Best Practical is trying to do is to gain ownership of patches submitted by their rightful owners for inclusion in the product that doing so is DFSG free if possible. This process is, and has been, underway. I don't see why that should stop us from exploring the ramfications of clauses like the one in question, what we think of them, and where we (Debian developers) disagree with each other as to what is and is not DFSG-free. -- G. Branden Robinson|Any man who does not realize that Debian GNU/Linux |he is half an animal is only half a [EMAIL PROTECTED] |man. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Thornton Wilder signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: xinetd license possibly violates DFSG #4
On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 07:12:25PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Fri, Jul 09, 2004 at 05:59:45PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: It doesn't seem to consider that possibility. Is it DFSG-free to prohibit code reuse in other projects? [...] Patch clauses are at least one case in which prohibiting code reuse entirely is allowed--even in projects using permissive licenses, or projects using the same license. Hmmm. I'm not sure blanket acceptance of closed-universe projects is really a good idea. I'm not sure it serves our users very well, and I'm pretty confident it doesn't serve the Free Software community very well. At the same time, I'm struggling to determine an essential distinction between a single de-facto closed-universe project, and a vast collection of such projects (which all works licensed under the GNU GPL could be said to be). I don't think if you reuse this code, you must use this versioning scheme is acceptable. I agree. -- G. Branden Robinson| What cause deserves following if Debian GNU/Linux | its adherents must bury their [EMAIL PROTECTED] | opposition with lies? http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Noel O'Connor signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Visualboy Advance question.
On Sat, Jul 10, 2004 at 10:07:35PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: I don't think that the basis for a package's inclusion in main should be the packaging in main of appropriate content. The Debian Policy says something pretty close to that, in my view. 2.2.1 The main section Every package in main and non-US/main must comply with the DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines). In addition, the packages in main * must not require a package outside of main for compilation or execution (thus, the package must not declare a Depends, Recommends, or Build-Depends relationship on a non-main package), * must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them, and * must meet all policy requirements presented in this manual. Similarly, the packages in non-US/main * must not require a package outside of main or non-US/main for compilation or execution, * must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them, * must meet all policy requirements presented in this manual. OTOH, as you're sure to note, an easy way around this is that a package can be completely useless in main as long as what it depends on isn't a package. Maybe that *was* your point. That would be a waste of archive resources. Er, before heading down this road, I think you should attempt an objective demonstration that we seem to give a damn about wasting archive resources in the first place. -- G. Branden Robinson|Optimists believe we live in the Debian GNU/Linux |best of all possible worlds. [EMAIL PROTECTED] |Pessimists fear that this really is http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |the best of all possible worlds. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Visualboy Advance question.
On Sun, Jul 11, 2004 at 01:22:10PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote: Glenn Maynard wrote: On Sun, Jul 11, 2004 at 09:15:41AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: The quake2 and lxdoom packages are in contrib, due to lack of free data sets. This is long and strongly established, I believe. Lack of free data sets period, or lack of free data sets in the archive? I think if there was a presentable free data set for either, it would have been packaged, if only to get these out of contrib. There is a free[1] doom WAD, see bug #206139. Why noone has packaged it, I don't know. According to the bug logs, as of about a month ago Moritz Muehlenhoff announced his intent to package it. -- G. Branden Robinson| Why should I allow that same God Debian GNU/Linux | to tell me how to raise my kids, [EMAIL PROTECTED] | who had to drown His own? http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Green Ingersoll signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Visualboy Advance question.
On Sun, Jul 11, 2004 at 12:22:36AM +0900, Fedor Zuev wrote: On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Branden Robinson wrote: Do we expect the typical user of the emulator to already have game ROMs on hand? If so, by what means? Do you really want to know and control the means, by which debian users will get the ROMs? More specifically, do you really think that [futile] attempts to control and police sources of _input_ _data_, on which debian users will run the program, is compatible with terms and principles of Free Software? I think you're jumping to conclusions. -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | Bother, said Pooh, as he was [EMAIL PROTECTED] | assimilated by the Borg. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
questions for the Apache Software Foundation [was: Apple's APSL 2.0 Debian Free Software Guidelines-compliant?]
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 12:34:16AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Josh Triplett wrote: Now, quoting from the Apache license, version 1.1: 4. The names Apache and Apache Software Foundation must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior written permission. For written permission, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] We've allowed this grudgingly, I guess; perhaps because us[ing the names] to endorse or promote is a rather minimal category of things, normally restricted under trademark law anyway, and only relating to advertising. I do not consider it necessarily DFSG-free, however, as it may prohibit statements in advertising like Apache-compatible, which are permitted by trademark law. We really should contact the ASF and *ask* them if they intend this prohibition to go beyond trademark law and right of publicity. CCing [EMAIL PROTECTED] for this purpose. 5. Products derived from this software may not be called Apache, nor may Apache appear in their name, without prior written permission of the Apache Software Foundation. This is certainly not DFSG-free and never has been. It's a major reason why we got this changed in the Apache license 2.0. *sigh* Furthermore, Debian is currently in violation of this clause, as is nearly every distributor. This is more honored in the breach than in the observance. Heh. Since ASL 2.0 has changed this, maybe we can ask the ASF to grant a blanket waiver of this clause (much as UCB did with clause 4 of the BSD license[1])? This has the same restrictions as the above clause of the APSL. So if the Apache license, version 1.1, is considered DFSG-free, Which it isn't. then so should this clause of the APSL. I concur with this analysis. [1] ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.License.Change -- G. Branden Robinson| Religion is excellent stuff for Debian GNU/Linux | keeping common people quiet. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Napoleon Bonaparte http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CC-based proposal (was FDL: no news?)
On Tue, Jul 06, 2004 at 09:11:08AM -0800, D. Starner wrote: Now, the whole idea of applying the same freeness criteria to what I call non-software content, looks like a complete nonsense to me, Can we give it up? We've had at least a year of discussion on this subject, then a vote, then long flame-wars all over the place, then another vote, since people were upset about the results of the first vote. The two votes clearly indicate the will of the developers. The decision has been made; can we bury what's left of the horse now? Why, particularly, should he deviate from the fine example set by Craig Sanders and other supporters of Proposal D? -- G. Branden Robinson| One man's magic is another man's Debian GNU/Linux | engineering. Supernatural is a [EMAIL PROTECTED] | null word. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein signature.asc Description: Digital signature
abiword: Debian appears to be violating AbiWord's license
Package: abiword Version: 2.0.7+cvs.2004.05.05-1 Severity: serious Please see the following mailing list discussion. On Tue, Jul 06, 2004 at 04:14:03PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker wrote: Josh Triplett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: For example, Abiword is a trademarked name; Abisource requires that modified versions of Abiword are either called Abiword Personal, or that they don't have Abiword in the name. This is a perfectly reasonable application of a trademark to Free Software, and Debian distributes of Abiword using the branding Abiword Personal. Not as far as I can se: Description: WYSIWYG word processor based on GTK2/GNOME2 AbiWord is the first application of a complete, open source office suite. The upstream source includes cross-platform support for Win32, BeOS, and QNX as well as GTK+ on Unix. . This package contains the AbiWord binary built with GTK2/GNOME2. Neither the GNOME menu entry, the splash screen, the window title nor the about box mention Personal in any way. From what I see at http://www.abisource.com/information/license/personal.phtml the source they distribute should automatically brand itself AbiWord Personal, but the source only mentions Personal build (or anything resembling) in the Windows .nsi installer files. Interesting. I was almost certain that at one point Abiword was branded Abiword Personal in Debian, and used the blue ant graphics rather than the official graphics. However, checking again, I see that this is not the case in either the stable or unstable versions. This is definitely a violation of the Abiword license, and should be submitted as a serious bugreport on the abiword package. Filed. -- G. Branden Robinson| Debian GNU/Linux | Extra territorium jus dicenti [EMAIL PROTECTED] | impune non paretur. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
