Re: IBM Public License (again)

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-05-14 00:33:53 +0100 Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 12:11:14AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
Free software licences should not contaminate other software, 
remember?

I agree -- and maybe I'm stupid, but I don't see a contamination
mechanism here. [...]


It imposes restrictions on what actions you can take over other 
software.



Can you point me at a contaminating mechanism which isn't also present
in a BSD license?


The patent paragraph of section 7?

With a BSD-style license, we would not have previously taken a license 
for patents held by the holder. Isn't number of licensees in similar 
situations taken as evidence in court?


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Re: IBM Public License (again)

[MJ Ray]

Summary: we are being offered a non-free patent licence which may or 
may not be required, which is a different case to being offered no 
patent licence for no known relevant patents.


On 2004-05-14 02:12:12 +0100 Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


Consider what we would say if we were explaining why debian-legal 
ruled
this license non-free: "Well, it doesn't allow you to sue the people 
who
wrote the software and still keep the right to distribute the 
software."


Consider what we would say if we were explaining why debian-legal 
ruled this license free: "Cross-contaminating patent licence 
termination clauses are fine, but similar copyright licence 
termination clauses are not."


I'm not sure whether paraphrasing like this is useful, but if it helps 
you:


It seems perfectly right to explain: "It doesn't allow you to sue the 
people who hold the patents for this software over some unrelated 
software without keeping the right to distribute this software."  I 
thought we already held that position on copyright licence termination 
clauses?


"We insist that licenses be perpetual unless terminated for 
non-compliance" Branden Robinson during the LaTeX discussions 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/08/msg00108.html -- Now, the 
IBM patent licence terminates if you don't comply with conditions on 
other software. Why is that not contaminating?



As for the possibility that the licensor sues you and you want to
counter-sue using a software patent, consider that without the patent
license termination clause, you could sue the licensor over a software
patent and they couldn't use their patents to defend themselves.  The
only useful purpose for patents in Free Software is to keep from being
sued by other patent holders.


Assume that you are right about this useful purpose, that I hold swpat 
and that I license them in a DFSG-free manner, that is one that does 
not terminate because of actions not involving the licensed software. 
Why should my position in a swpat battle with IBM be weakened because 
I licensed in a way that does not try to contaminate other software?


I don't think that accepting non-free patent licenses is a useful way 
to defend free software.



Finally, I think the GPL would have the same effect with respect to
software patents. [...]


The GPL is a copyright licence: "Activities other than copying, 
distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they 
are outside its scope". The only effects involving patents are to 
remind the licensee that it does not excuse them from the copyright 
licence, which may involve them being unable to distribute. The 
wording seems to encourage free, royalty-free licensing of any patents 
involved.



[...] In general, we don't
actively search out patents that affect software, because it would
consume all the time of every developer in Debian, and because patent
liability increases if you knowingly infringe a patent.  I believe we
should apply the same procedure here.


In general, we are not offered a non-free licence for undisclosed 
patents affecting the software. I believe this case is significantly 
different from the usual "no patent licence, no known patents" and 
merits consideration on its own.


Legalistic licensors covering all their bases, or companies that hold 
so
many patents that it would be difficult to search them all to 
determine

what to license.


It seems unfair to put the burden of discovering what has been 
licensed on the distributors and users. Does anyone know how a court 
would handle this?


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Re: IBM Public License (again)

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-05-14 03:28:02 +0100 Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


So you prefer that the license, like most earlier Free Software
licenses, say nothing at all about patents in order to remain free,
while IBM retains the freedom to sue you for infringing their patents
*whether or not* you sued them first?


I prefer a royalty-free non-contaminating patent licence for all 
patents covering this software, of course.


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Re: IBM Public License (again)

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-05-14 10:50:26 +0100 Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 09:33:31AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
It imposes restrictions on what actions you can take over other 
software.

That might make it incompatible with the GPL, but this is a typical
characteristic of many licenses -- including DFSG licenses.


Can you show me another DSFG-free licence that terminates depending on 
action taken not involving the covered work?


But the question is: how do these restrictions contaminate other 
software?


They limit the licensing of other works, maybe produced by the user, 
which may or may not be on the same media.



[Contaminate other software means that just being on the same media is
a problem.]


Problems with being on the same media is an *example* of contaminating 
other software, not the complete meaning of the term! That one even 
says "For example" in the DFSG explanations! It is not required that 
software on the same media is contaminated.



If there were any valid patent licenses covering this software, under
BSD you'd be in trouble for patent violation.


Yes, you would.


If there are any invalid patent licenses covering this software, these
clauses give you protection from litigation based on those licenses.


No, they do not, because they can be terminated by actions unrelated 
to the covered work.



If there are no patent licenses, this is indistinguishable from BSD's
treatment of those licenses.


I think I agree with that. The question is, are we accepting a 
non-free patent licence, or is the incorporated patent licence 
irrelevant?


If someone offered us a non-free patent licence for unspecified 
patents infringed by a BSD-3-clause-style-licensed piece of software, 
what would we do? I would like to obtain a list of patents involved 
and refuse the non-free patent licence.


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Re: IBM Public License (again)

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-05-14 10:58:00 +0100 Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


However, you can't base that claim on the assertion that the license
is non-free.  "Contaminating other software" would make the license
non-free, but the converse is not necessarily true.


Does this post stating truisms mean anything besides a lower 
Signal:Noise ratio? I am not sure whether it contains any new 
information, nor whether you expect a reply.


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Re: IBM Public License (again)

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-05-14 11:03:41 +0100 Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

I don't think that accepting non-free patent licenses is a useful 
way to 
defend free software.

Then why would suing IBM over patent license violations matter for
free software?


The wording is a little vague: a "patent applicable to software" could 
possibly cover some of a licensor's hardware activities which the 
licensee would then be unable to pursue?


Why should free software producers allow IBM these extra unfair 
weapons in addition to the millions that they already hold?


It seems unfair to put the burden of discovering what has been 
licensed on 
the distributors and users. Does anyone know how a court would 
handle this?
In the U.S., it's roughly the case that the defendant in patent 
litigation

is presumed guilty until proven innocent.


What effect does existance of other licensees for a disputed patent 
have?


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-05-31 21:15:35 +0100 Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

The second paragraph is very questionable, even if the terms being 
"agreed

to" are free.


If the only way you can obtain it is by making a copy yourself, it is 
a little hostile but applicable, I guess. Surely it's not part of the 
actual licence?


"OpenVision also retains copyright to derivative works of the Source 
Code,
whether created by OpenVision or by a third party" seems like it 
tries to

claim copyright in parts of derived works that they didn't create.


This smells bogus, but I believe it's accurate. The original author 
and the author of the derivative probably *both* have copyrights 
covering the new work. They do not try to deny a derivative's author 
copyright. This seems a description of law, hence null.


IANAL, but I try to listen to them carefully when at conferences they 
attend.


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-01 11:35:09 +0100 Matthew Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

You're saying that because it doesn't say "retains _exclusive_ 
copyright",

it doesn't preclude others from claiming copyright over other (non
OpenVision) portions of the work? [...]


Not exactly (else I would have written that), but close enough. As I 
understand it, more than one author can have copyright interest in the 
same work. This does not seem unusual, from a quick look at my 
bookshelf.


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-03 00:20:48 +0100 Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


Perhaps it simply means that they retain copyright in their portions, 
not

that they're stealing your derivative works.  That would require a
statement from the copyright holder before I'd belive it, though.


As you note, the "stealing your work" view requires some word-bending 
and would probably be invalid, so do we really *need* clarification?


Then again, someone may want to contact them about the aggressive tone 
in general anyway.


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-03 02:19:55 +0100 Walter Landry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


If they really meant to "steal" the work, then the whole license may
be invalid.  In which case, Debian has no permission to distribute at
all.  So I think a clarification is definitely in order.


Why? What form should such a clarification request take? "Are you a 
gibbering fool who interprets the licence in an obscure, 
counter-intuitive, absurd manner that is impossible in any 
jurisdiction we've heard about yet?" seems the appropriate form to me, 
but is hardly diplomatic.


We should seek this clarification from all holders of copyrights 
affecting debian. Any of them might interpret their licence in an 
invalid way by redefining the words.


Seriously, was there ever been a successful claim of copyright 
assignment on the basis of one of these clauses?


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Re: Which license for a documentation?

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-04 11:43:45 +0100 Matthieu Delahaye <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



[...] I just want to know if there is a list of
common license for documentation that are definitively known to be 
DFSG

free.


I'm not sure about definitive, but generally most DFSG-free licences 
would work for any software and there are benefits from having your 
manuals under the same licence as your program.


Related, is the following licence DFSG-free:

"I grant permission to you to do any act with my work. Please ask me 
to link to mirrors. Please link to this site and credit the 
contributors. No warranty offered and no liability accepted."


?  Also, does it seem legally useful?

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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-04 22:36:57 +0100 Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

In this case, we're probably best off asking for a clarification from 
the

author.  (I don't even use Kerberos, so I'm not up to doing that.)


This needless work must be done to make you happy; you are not willing 
to do this work?


I still think it is fine for them to assert their copyright interest 
in derived works. Nothing they have written denies other authors' 
interests, does it?


Of course, if they have third-party-copyright material in their 
"donated Source Code" (possibly lawyerbomb?) then I think they have a 
problem anyway. I didn't notice claims of that sort yet.


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Re: Which license for a documentation?

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-05 09:49:38 +0100 Måns Rullgård <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Isn't that what the fuss about the "obnoxious advertising clause" of
> the old BSD (and new XF86) licence is all about?

No, they require specific advertising as a condition of permission. A simple 
disjunct polite request for any credit which nothing depends on is quite 
different IMO.

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Re: Which license for a documentation?

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-05 06:49:19 +0100 Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


I think this license is actually legally nearly equivalent to giving 
the

work to the public domain.


I believe that is the intention. For some reason, I can find very 
little information on public domain grants in England and lawyers 
advise against trying to do it. Further, 2-clause BSD is just plain 
wordy for such a simple idea. It has the air of being written for 
"furren lores" which may even hide weaknesses for English use.


The Union for the Public Domain web site (www.public-domain.org) has 
no FAQ about this. Oddly, their site is not public domain (or even 
free software).


I thank this list's members for their indulgence. I will amend the 
version I use in light of the comments and tell others who use similar 
ones.


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-05 00:23:18 +0100 Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


it's up to the list to determine if there's a problem.  Sorry, but I'm
not willing to ignore the DFSG so long as I don't use a particular 
piece of


No-one is ignoring the DFSG, so I don't know why you mentioned that.

software, and I think it's the burden of people who actually care 
about

the software to do the legwork to ensure that it's free.


Sure, but I can't see why they shouldn't assert their (non-exclusive) 
copyright interest in derived works.


There's also not yet a consensus on the "agree to the following terms 
or

do not retrieve" clause [...]


No, that's interesting too.

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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-06 23:37:16 +0100 Matthew Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

No reason.  But that isn't necessarily what the clause in question 
says.  It
is ambiguous; it could be interpreted in one of several ways.  One of 
which

is OK, and another which is very not-OK.


I do not agree that "OpenVision also retains copyright to derivative 
works of the Source Code, whether created by OpenVision or by a third 
party" is ambiguous. Perceptions of ambiguity posted so far seem to be 
based on misunderstandings of basic copyright principles, such as 
thinking that only one entity may have copyright interest in a work, 
or simple paranoia.


If people are objecting to another phrase, I apologise. However, 
nothing in the above phrase seems to be an assignment. I suspect 
"retain" was used cautiously to avoid any question about that, as you 
cannot "retain" something which was not yours before. The copyright of 
new work in the derived work would be held by its author and need 
specific assignment before it could be "retained" by them.


Even so, if there is third-party material in "the donated Source Code" 
for which OpenVision doesn't hold the copyrights, then there is a 
problem with using this licence. I don't think anyone has claimed that 
is the case yet that I have read.


We've had cases previously where a licensor has interpreted a licence 
in
common use as a DFSG-free licence in a non-free manner; can you give 
any
solid reason why that could not be an issue in this case? 


No, any licensor may be insane. I doubt we check all of them, unless 
they cause trouble. Until then, we take what they write at face value. 
Can you give any solid reason why this should be different? This level 
of paranoia would probably paralyse debian and I can't see many people 
wanting it.



We have a licence
which (AFAIK) we've never seen before, with an ambiguous clause, and 
some of
us would like to take the diligent path and disambiguate it.  Why do 
you

have such a problem with that?


I think this is not getting clarification on an ambiguous clause, but 
asking the copyright holder for a free basic copyright lesson. Do not 
be surprised if they react badly.


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-06 19:19:07 +0100 Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


You snapped at me for not being willing to do the footwork, despite
being willing to bring up a possible issue--which seemed to be saying 
[crap]


As far as I know, I have not spoken to you to "snap". If you infer 
that from my written words, I suggest reading them again calmly and 
slowly. It was not my intention for them to be a "snap".


Also, it is easy to invent words to disagree with, but not really 
helpful. I think my question was simply a question about your role in 
this discussion. You say it is up to the list to decide if there is a 
problem, yet you seem to insist that there is a problem worth asking 
about. Why?


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-07 01:43:08 +0100 Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

I see a license with a clause that both I and Henning [1] found 
potentially
questionable, so I brought it to the attention of the rest of the 
list.


Searching the list archive by that message-id brings no results, you 
know?


You seem to have made a decision that this licence is ambiguous 
*before* asking the list. I think you have been wasting the list's 
time. I am not surprised that you now try to declare discussion over 
with:


I'm not going to waste any more time reading this subthread; you're 
bordering

on trolling by snipping my text with "[crap]".


[crap] is a fair description of the invention that you attempted to 
attribute to me. I think you were far closer to trolldom with that 
stunt and your I-will-not-ignore-DFSG-like-you-all-want trick.



If you don't want to spend
your time evaluating this license, please don't do so.


As you know, I have done so. In my opinion, the actual permission is 
not troublesome, nor are the notices of copyright, although the 
warning about download acceptance might be. It is necessary to 
remember that more than one author may have copyright in a work.


You must mean something else by snapping than what I know as it, for 
that was not it. No matter.


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-07 00:44:25 +0100 Matthew Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


[...] Although an interpretation of the clause with respect to US
copyright law says that the clause should only mean "we keep our 
copyrights"

(which is a NOP),


An interpretation of the clause with respect to most forms of English 
language says that it does not attempt to deny others their 
copyrights. You have been told this by myself and BTS, at least.



has there never been a case where a licensor has attempted
to put things into a licence which, by a strict reading of the law, 
they

cannot do?  *cough*EULA*cough*.


Of course there have been, but there doesn't seem to be such a thing 
in that clause. In fact, assertion of copyright interest is fairly 
common in debian, although not to that extent. Their lawyers must be 
really paranoid...



I'd rather a clarification be sought from the licensor, rather than us
finding out which way the licensor interprets their clause when 
someone gets

served with legal papers.


It is rare for the first one hears about copyright matters to be legal 
papers. "Cease" letters usually come first.


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Re: libkrb53 - odd license term

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-07 12:53:37 +0100 Walter Landry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


He is not the only person who thinks the license is ambiguous.


Sure, but the stated reasons about assuming copyright seem to be 
either misreading the licence or misunderstanding copyright.



Nor is
he the only person who thinks that you're being a bit touchy.  Take a
chill pill.


Some seem to have the idea I'm touchy/snapping/angry. Those people 
don't know me and must be adding some non-existant intonantion to my 
emails. Rest assured, I am quite tranquil and it usually takes more 
than emails to annoy me.


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Re: Which license for a documentation?

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-08 08:14:13 +0100 Måns Rullgård <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> [...] However, someone did suggest that
> such a request would make the program non-free. [...]

Do you mean Josh Triplett? He accepted Lewis Jardine's correction. Why won't 
you?

> I understand that it could be
> an inconvenience, but that inconvenience is for the author of the
> program, not the users.

It also inconveniences all distributors, does it not?

> If the author is willing to deal with it, he
> should have the choice, calling anything else freedom is hypocritical
> at best.

Was anyone arguing against author's choice, or are you attacking a position 
no-one holds?

> If you would like to distribute a modified version, but are
> unable to comply with the requirements you will simply have to refrain
> from doing it.

That's exactly what debian does, isn't it?

> I can understand that a distribution like Debian can desire to only
> include software meeting some criteria for freedom, but this is
> entirely separate from the question of allowing or disallowing
> software failing some of these criteria.

Cobblers. Debian makes a promise to its users about what it will include. It 
must either disallow software which doesn't meet the criteria, or change the 
promise. The path to change the promise is well-known.

> There are many, especially on this list, who disagree with me. [...]

I'm not surprised. You appear to ignore the social contract.

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Re: Creative Commons Attribution license element

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-08 17:06:25 +0100 Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Second, let me note how poorly timed the analysis is. Creative Commons
revised their suite of licenses this year (from 1.0 to 2.0), and this
list was asked to provide comment:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/01/msg00241.html


You seem to get the basics of these problems in reply to that. Were 
they taken into consideration by CC?


It may be "poorly timed" but at least a debian user helped to make it 
happen. Please praise Ben Francis and give him due credit for getting 
your attention with 
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2004-June/000909.html


Equally, let us note that a debian *developer* subscribed to 
cc-discuss solicited the views of debian-legal, but did not make sure 
our views were clearly known to them. Then again, we're all volunteers 
in debian AFAIK, so let's not throw accusations of unprofessional 
conduct around.



[...] As far as I know, the above-mentioned analysis
wasn't forwarded to Creative Commons before today. [...]


I'm sorry it didn't happen sooner, but I can only do so much at once 
and I just assumed that you reported it back to them.



So, that's my feedback. I'd like to know what can be done to amend the
analysis and re-open this license (as well as Attribution 2.0,
ShareAlike 1.0, and Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 and 2.0) for
consideration.


Convince enough people that the summary is updated. I still think it 
won't be DFSG-free until the "author name purging" part is fixed, so 
is there much point? I need to think about your trademark comments 
when it's not so hot here.



On the Creative Commons side, I'd wonder what opportunity there is to
get Debian's very tardy comments and critiques applied to new versions
of the CC licenses.


The comments are not tardy, it's just that they don't seem to have got 
to cc-discuss before. I assumed that you would be doing that 
reporting, in the same way that maintainers asking debian-legal 
usually report results to the upstream authors if required. Maybe I 
misjudged it, but no-one's dead yet AFAIK, so no need to grieve.


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Re: Creative Commons Attribution license element

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-08 17:06:25 +0100 Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


a number of mix-and-match license elements (Attribution, ShareAlike,
NonCommercial, NoDerivatives). So any CC license that would require
Attribution would also fall under this analysis.


Do any SA/NC/ND licences not include attribution?


http://www.opensource.org/licenses/attribution.php
This is not, of course, canonical for Debian, but it does provide some
suggestion that a group following guidelines similar to ours don't see
a serious problem with requiring attribution.


I don't think OSI follows similar guidelines. Notably, Debian does not 
require contributors to its process to use non-free software, defaults 
to "no consensus" (sometimes annoyingly so) and only produces licence 
summaries if driven.


Even so, I'd be amazed that OSI approved a licence that includes 
advertising in the licence and requires a program to do a particular 
act, were I not already convinced that OSI has gone bad. The 
Initiative Failed a long time ago, it seems. In the words of USPTO: 
Opensource is Dead.



[...] Apache 2.0 also requires attribution (in the NOTICE file).


I still think that licence looks like it has be considered 
case-by-case, as there is scope to abuse it.



3) As for the trademark clause [...] If A grants B the
rights outlined in Attribution 1.0, no increase in trademark
restrictions by the third-party Creative Commons could revoke those
rights.


Can you explain this more? How is it compliance with the licence not 
to obtain "prior written consent of Creative Commons" before using 
their trademark in a normally-permitted manner that is not "in 
compliance with Creative Commons' then-current trademark usage 
guidelines" ?


--
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http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Help hack the EuroParl! http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/eurovote/

Re: license change for POSIX manpages

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-09 00:32:11 +0100 Andre Lehovich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



(Please cc: me on replies) [...]



I've attached the full text of the new license.


Don't do that. I've inlined it.


The other
sentence that caught my eye is "This notice shall appear on
any product containing this material".  Is putting it in
/usr/share/doc sufficient?


You'll have to ask the copyright holder, I suspect. I hope it is.


Does this now meet Debian's criteria for distribution in
main?


Possibly.

[...]
Redistribution of this material is permitted so long as this notice 
and
the corresponding notices within each POSIX manual page are retained 
on

any distribution, and the nroff source is included.  Modifications to
the text are permitted so long as any conflicts with the standard
are clearly marked as such in the text.


It would be nice to remove "in the text" from the end of this, I 
think. It maybe also depends what the corresponding notices look like: 
are they just copyright assertions?


--
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http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Help hack the EuroParl! http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/eurovote/

Re: Creative Commons Attribution license element

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-09 00:12:02 +0100 Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


"MR" == MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:


Please don't SuperCite outgoing email. It is difficult to follow.


[...] I'm now
subscribed to debian-legal and I'll try to keep the lines of
communication open better.


I don't think you mentioned that you weren't subscribed when asking 
for comments in January. That may have limited feedback that you saw, 
especially as your initial posting address bounced.

Summary: Oh well, let's fix it now.

--
MJR/slef
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http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Help hack the EuroParl! http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/eurovote/

Re: Creative Commons Attribution license element

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-09 01:56:18 +0100 Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


3) As for the trademark clause, I agree that the trademark 
requirement

is burdensome.
This isn't supposed to be an actual part of the license, according to 
the

source code for the web page; [...]


I missed that. I'm not in the habit of reading licence page source 
codes in the normal run of things. Yes, it's not clear, as a cursory 
glance at copies of the CC licence suggests. I see some Nathanael 
Nerode pointed that out on cc-discuss in March... are we talking into 
a black hole, or do CC react to that list?


--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Help hack the EuroParl! http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/eurovote/

Re: Creative Commons Attribution license element

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-09 09:17:45 +0100 Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


I just don't think the second paragraph in the trademark box is
binding in any way. After all, Creative Commons (quite wisely) states
that it is not a party to the license. For what reason, then, should
either of the parties be bound by the excessive trademark restriction
paragraph?


It seems it should not be in the licence. I admit, I didn't understand 
why it should be part of the licence, from the situation you describe. 
Sadly, that doesn't mean that people don't have to comply with the 
licence as written. People have added the trademark block to Creative 
Commons licences as part of their licence. For example, the subversion 
book includes it in their copyright licence at 
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/svnbook/ape.html


This bug has spread!


But I think Bob isn't bound by Evil Commons's decree in any way --
neither under trademark law, nor under copyright law, nor under the
license agreement. _Alice_ didn't Bob couldn't use the trademark; Evil
Commons did.


Why isn't he? Complying with CC's trademark terms is a condition of 
the licence Alice used. Being someone else's trademark doesn't excuse 
Bob from complying with the copyright licence, including agreeing to 
use the CC trademark however it is permitted, does it? It's just that 
Alice and CC both need to go evil to attack Bob.


--
MJR/slef
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Help hack the EuroParl! http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/eurovote/

Re: Mozilla Public License is non-free: stipulates court venue ?

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-09 19:08:06 +0100 Lex Spoon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


I'm afraid that is a revisionist interpretation.  First, Mozilla is
certainly intended to be "Open Source", which is essentially the same 
as

what Debian means by "free":


The jury seems out on that. They could mean *anything* by "Open 
Source". http://mjr.towers.org.uk/writing/ambigopen.html


Even assuming they mean OSI's OSD and not whatever fuzzy idea, OSI 
seem to have a very different process to Debian and don't seem 
concerned with the four freedoms at all. "OSI Certified" seems to mean 
roughly "no-one found a flaw in the licence advocate's lawyer's 
analysis that we couldn't help them patch up" while "DFSG-free" should 
mean "there is rough consensus of debian-legal contributors that this 
could be part of the debian OS distribution without violating the 
debian social contract".


To the choice of venue problem, which I'm still not sure about:

Does the possibility of ruling by a distant court impact my freedom to 
distribute the work? Definitely, if they can get and enforce a ruling 
on me without having to prove their case or give me a reasonable 
opportunity to defend myself.


Is the default to appear in my local court? I don't know, but it looks 
like it from Articles 2 and 5.3 of the Brussels Convention on 
Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial 
Matters.


Why don't venue clauses fail common tests like "tentacles of evil"?

--
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Help hack the EuroParl! http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/eurovote/

Re: Draft Summary: MPL is not DFSG free

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-11 22:48:23 +0100 Lex Spoon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

I am wondering this as well.  It might actually be legally 
*preferable*
to have a license where choice of venue is specified, because 
otherwise

one needs to be prepared to face suits in all kinds of places.


Are any others than "place of origin" and "place of hurt" common? Of 
course, it may be that a jurisdiction declares itself universally 
competent, but not even a venue clause saves you then.


--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Help hack the EuroParl! http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/eurovote/

Re: DBD::InterBase licence

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-15 14:23:06 +0100 Damyan Ivanov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



You may distribute under the terms of either the GNU General Public
License or the Artistic License, as specified in the Perl README file,
with the exception that it cannot be placed on a CD-ROM or similar 
media

for commercial distribution without the prior approval of the author.


This seems confused. GPL+non-comm-dist is not satisfiable by anyone 
but the author IIRC (so why bother stating it?), so that leaves 
Artistic+non-comm-dist, which is still non-free.


It might even be unable to go in non-free, as "or similar media" looks 
like a huge lawyerbomb. Is any disk "similar" to a CD-ROM? Is it if 
that disk is in a server connected to the internet and sent over 
paid-for-transfer connections?


Since I am not a lawer, and since the policy suggests to ask here if 
in 
doubt, I am asking for your opinion. Is the above license 
DFSG-compliant or 
not?


I am not a lawyer either, but it seems fairly clearly not, as you 
wrote.



--[Cc: me, I am not subscibed]--


Done.

--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Help hack the EuroParl! http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/eurovote/

Re: dpANSI

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-21 23:25:29 +0100 Camm Maguire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Greetings, and thanks!  All I've found is what is in the
Review-Notes.text files in the various subdirectories.

[...]

It is highly likely that this material was intended to be public
domain, but possibly that no such statement was ever made to this
effect.


The current version of this is a PDF costing USD18. IIRC, Kent Pitman 
is quite approachable, so I think you should wait a few days for other 
comments from debian-legal readers and then email and ask. His current 
homepage appears to be http://www.nhplace.com/kent/


--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Free to answer emails? http://mjr.towers.org.uk/proj/survey/

Re: dpANSI

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-22 16:56:33 +0100 Camm Maguire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



I am personally prepared to rely upon the Common Lisp community
understanding that they are public domain documents.

[...]

It would be nice for those in the know/responsible for Debian's legal
understanding to put forth a consensus on this.


I would like to rely upon it, but I am scared by the possibility that 
some of the authors may object. Roughly how many others are 
distributing this and since when?


If it is a large number, then it seems fairly likely that they are 
usually regarded as public domain and any copyright assertion will be 
widely opposed.


You should include an excerpt from the lead author's message above in 
the debian copyright file. I can't quite bring myself to say "yes, 
this is fine", because it still feels potentially thorny. Maybe that 
is why I was mistaken for a lawyer at a conference ;-)


--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

Summary Update: MPL inconclusive, clarifications needed

[MJ Ray]

Dear debian-legal subscribers,

Certain developers and others are promoting the idea that debian-legal 
has declared the Mozilla Public Licence, which I don't think we have, 
but sadly the thread has died out. I think that the large number of 
responses to the "draft summary" shows that there is no debian-legal 
consensual view of the MPL yet.

With two questions remaining, I am pretty convinced that the copyright 
aspect of the MPL is a DFSG-free licence, but the patent aspect is 
not. If
  1. there are no patents covering the software;
  2. the licensor agrees that publishing a changelog passes for steps 
reasonably calculated to inform past recipients; AND
  3. we figure out that this choice of venue wording is not a problem;
then MPL-covered works seem DFSG-free. From 2 above, you should notice 
that each work will need investigation.

I am continuing to investigate this licence, but here is my view so 
far of the problems, which I invite you to discuss and help explore.


> 1. It does not allow derived works to be distributed under the same 
> terms as
> the original software (DFSG #3).

If there are no active patents covering the software, I think clauses 
2.1(b) and 2.1(d) are no-ops. If there were active patents, the work 
would not be free software unless there is a free patent licence 
issued. The patent aspects of the MPL wouldn't be enough, but it 
doesn't seem worse than many other free licences and doesn't impact 
copyright aspects. (Dankon, edmundo.)

Following a Jim Marhaus message, I looked up Apache's claims about the 
FSF view of the GPL. I've not understood much about "implied patent 
licences" before, so that was another thing I've tried to read around. 
I think their only interaction here is to confirm that the MPL is not 
a DFSG-free license of patents.

No consensus was reached on the Nokia Open Source L as far as I can 
see, following Jim Marhaus's reference to support the claim "Debian 
previously classified [...] as non-free". Much work under it seems 
likely to be non-free because of Nokia's patents. The reference 
offered as showing that SGI B is considered non-free only showed one 
post to me, not a discussion.

After these dud references, I was intruiged by Jim Marhaus. He is not 
a debian developer, offers no homepage, yet has been fairly swiftly 
trying to lead debian-legal towards saying that the MPL is non-free. 
Searching on his name found main three types of appearances, one type 
across multiple lists promoting the idea that debian-legal had 
concluded MPL is non-free, a second type on the procmail lists and a 
third about Excel VBA on Mac. Would Jim Marhaus or someone who knows 
him please introduce him to us?

I heartily encourage past behaviour of only reacting to patents when 
we must.


> 2. It requires distributors to retroactively notify recipients about 
> third-party legal problems with the software (Dissident test).

No, it requires "take other steps [...] reasonably calculated to 
inform". I've asked what steps are regarded as "reasonably calculated 
to inform" by Mozilla, to help clarify this laywerbomb.

I see little to suggest that the distributor should identify 
themselves further, so I don't understand the "dissident test" 
citation here. The clause only seems to require that the party making 
the claim against the software be identified.

This could make a licence non-free in the hands of a hostile licensor 
for the reasons given above, so it is worth getting that clarification 
IMO.


> 3. It restricts court venue, permitting licensors to harass licensees 
> and
> effectively revoke the license. (Tentacles of Evil test)

However, the choice of venue does only apply when one party is in the 
US and anyway says that the losing party is liable for the costs. I am 
not sure this is clear-cut and it smacks of wording copied without 
consideration from the NPL. In any case, it seems not much worse than 
the usual "place of origin or place of hurt" customs for copyright 
dispute locations, from how current US practice was described my 
Nathanael Nerode and apparently confirmed by others. (Apologies for 
ignoring the interesting discussions of German law, but the choice of 
venue looks US-only.)

I didn't find the reference given in the draft summary particularly 
helpful in understanding why this makes something non-free, and 
similar terms are in some licences the FSF regards as free copyright 
licences. Does anyone have some more, please?

Amusingly, non-US users of this licence (BrickOS, OpenH323, maybe 
more) are committing themselves to using Santa Clara county to 
prosecute US violators, which is the opposite of the usual use of 
these venue clauses.


> Additionally, to distribute the software, the license requires:
> 1. Maintaining and updating a LEGAL text file inside the 
> distribution. [clause
> 3.4(a)].

I'm not sure I see the problem here?

> 2. Keeping source available online for at least 12 months, or 6 
> months after
> another version [cla

Summaries in general, was: Summary Update: MPL ...

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-23 19:12:41 +0100 Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



We've got a lot of licenses like this. This is why we review packages,
not licenses.


I see. Were you absent from the discussion earlier this year about 
whether these summaries would be useful? Now that we've seen them in 
action a few times, I feel that they are doing more harm than good 
because they always seem to include "this is a free licence" or "this 
is a non-free licence". Too much is being focused on these binary 
distinctions and the interesting part is whether the ITP'd or P'd 
software is free or non-free, really.


Summary authors, is it possible to refine them so that we don't have 
this sort of outright statement? It would seem more helpful to 
summarise to the licence author "here are debian-legal's concerns 
about this licence" than "we have decided you are wrong".


Further, should we stop summarising when the licence author has not 
asked for our opinion and go back to the old rough consensus method 
for handling packages? Maybe we could keep a link-heavy "collected 
advice for maintainers" licence list based on our discussions (on 
wiki.debian.net), but that was not the original suggested scope for 
these summaries and I don't think they can do both well.


Finally, it seems important for the discussion to be allowed time to 
settle. The previous MPL draft summary was posted only 2 days after 
the last thread began. That's not long enough. Copyright problems are 
important, but the servers don't catch fire if we think about them 
awhile.


Awaiting replies with interest,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

Re: Summary Update: MPL inconclusive, clarifications needed

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-23 19:12:41 +0100 Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



On Wed, Jun 23, 2004 at 05:18:22PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
I didn't find the reference given in the draft summary particularly 
helpful 
in understanding why this makes something non-free, and similar 
terms are 
in some licences the FSF regards as free copyright licences. Does 
anyone 
have some more, please?

Stock objection to choice of venue clauses is that they force people
to travel at their own expense. In essence they attempt to bypass the
legal system by making it prohibitively expensive for somebody to
defend themselves.


This doesn't seem to be a stock choice of venue clause, though. It 
only applies when there is a US party and some have claimed that the 
choice of venue clause would not necessarily prevent a US defendant 
being heard in their local court, such as Nathanael Nerode in 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/06/msg00237.html


For international cases, the usual venues accepted by the US seem to 
be "place of origin" and "place of hurt". If the US legal system 
regards the MPL as a licence, it seems they would wait for the verdict 
from the defendant's location, as usual. Is that true?


Additionally, the expense is ultimately borne by the licensor if they 
bring abusive cases. That's not ideal, because you're out-of-pocket 
until then, but it is another twist.


Finally, I realise I should know this, but how does choice of venue go 
beyond DFSG? Discrimination against groups of people?


--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

Re: Summary Update: MPL inconclusive, clarifications needed

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-23 19:16:34 +0100 Jim Marhaus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


I think I also referenced Bug #211765, where the license is described 
as

non-free, and a longer discussion is referenced:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-x/2003/09/msg00410.html


OK, I missed that. The SGI F S L B clause seems more clearly non-free, 
as it requires notifying SGI. The MPL wording is quite different.



Regarding the Nokia license, the maintainer asking the question
seemed to conclude the license was non-free:


IMO, the maintainer got it slightly wrong, in that the discussion 
suggested it required the existance of patents covering the code for 
the software to be non-free. That seems likely for swpat-promoter 
Nokia.


Would Jim Marhaus or someone who knows him please introduce him to 
us?
I'm just a Debian user, been reading debian-legal off and on for a 
few years.


OK, I've just not read much from you here. Did someone ask you to 
summarise the MPL for them?



Thanks for continuing this discussion,


No trouble. Thanks for pointing out the reference I missed,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

patent aspects, was: Summary Update: MPL ...

[MJ Ray]

I am glad that Mahesh has replied. I have noticed use of the 
debian-legal MPL discussion to justify condemnation of the term "free 
software" in messages to fsug-kochi-discuss. As some should already 
know, the Open Source Initiative group famously claim "no position" on 
patents. As such, did they really look at patent-related clauses in 
the MPL before approving it?


Given that, I really welcome an "opensource" interest in patent 
clauses. I don't think that the MPL granting a non-free patent licence 
for non-existant patents is a severe problem, though.


On 2004-06-23 20:11:51 +0100 Mahesh T. Pai <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


MJ Ray said on Wed, Jun 23, 2004 at 05:18:22PM +0100,:

If there are no active patents covering the software,

Patent  owners' policies  may  change. Patents  are patents,  actively
enforced or  not.


I did not write "actively enforced".


If the  license does not  grant a patent  license in
respect  of the  software released,  people can  very easily  sneak in
patent time bombs into the codebase.


I am aware of the dangers of patents for some debian users.


No consensus was reached on the Nokia Open Source L as far as I can

The patent clauses for MPL and Nokia license are identical. [...]


The probabilities of Nokia and Mozilla holding patents are different, 
aren't they?



Approving licenses  simply because the  non DFSG freeness  arises from
patents which are not enforced is a bad precedent.


Rest assured, I do not recommend approving this licence. I don't see 
why we cannot say "some works under this are free and some are 
non-free". I think that each MPL-covered work needs inspection.



What if Nokia releases something under the MPL?


It depends if they have patented any of it.

I hope this reply is interesting,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

US venue clause, was: Summary Update: MPL ...

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-24 01:23:41 +0100 Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



On Wed, Jun 23, 2004 at 10:57:06PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
[...] it seems they would wait for the verdict from the 
defendant's location, as usual. Is that true?

Yuck. Kinda want to ask a lawyer about that sort of stuff. It's always
possible that the clause is (mal)formed such that it becomes a no-op;
wouldn't be the first time we've seen that.


US copyright law seems to refer to a civil court that has 
jurisdiction. Searching for explanation of US jurisdiction rules threw 
up http://www.west.net/~smith/jurisdiction.htm and some pages with 
roughly the same.


Hopefully a USian familiar with this whole venue question will step 
forwards (or maybe I will get an explanation from elsewhere), but it's 
a bit hit-and-miss for us non-USians to decide conclusively on 
something only affecting the US which seems to be written to depend on 
some US legal practices.


Finally, I realise I should know this, but how does choice of venue 
go 
beyond DFSG? Discrimination against groups of people?

It's one of those things which don't really fit into the DFSG, but
which are still unambiguously bad. That's what the 'G' means, after
all.


Aye, but if we can't link it in at all, we have a hard time justifying 
it.


--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

Re: Summaries in general, was: Summary Update: MPL ...

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-24 10:40:01 +0100 Francesco Poli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



Anyway, IMHO, summaries of /license/ analyses are still useful.


Oh, I agree, but I think we need to make a few changes to how they're 
being done, now we've seen them in action for a while.


There seem to be two types of licence summary needed:

1. for licence authors, which was the original suggestion.

This covers your purpose c, I think. These should summarise the 
concerns which we would like clarification on and those parts which we 
think likely to make any software under that licence non-free. I don't 
see the benefit of including any headline "this licence is non-free" 
declaration in this type of summary.


Why no benefit? This type of summary is to help represent our views to 
licence authors more efficiently. There is a range of opinions on 
debian-legal and a simple judgement in abstract doesn't seem to 
represent that well. These are presumably licences being drafted and 
any conclusion about future possible software under them seems 
premature. Finally, telling a licence author effectively "we have 
decided you got it wrong" in a headline seems unlikely to persuade all 
but thick-skinned inhabitants of lists like this.


2. for developers, which seems to be the aim of the /legal/licences/ 
page.


This covers your purposes a, b and d. There is a similarity, in that 
they can summarise the concerns about or (if the licence is settled) 
problems with the licence, but I don't see the benefit of including 
headlines in them. What seems more useful is to give an example piece 
of software under that licence, apply the analysis and then conclude 
whether the software can go in main/contrib, non-free or not at all.


Why is a "this licence is free/non-free" headline unhelpful? Well, 
we're trying to help analyse the covered software and it is possible 
(but rare) that someone can use a licence commonly used for non-free 
software to produce free software (by granting extra permissions, 
probably), or use a licence commonly used for free software to produce 
non-free (by enforcing patents or unusual interpretation).



Moreover the summaries are good references that avoid us to explain
again and again why license L is clearly non-free.


 warning - semi-rant follows. Skip down to conclusion if you are 
new here.


Yes, I think you've found the exact reason. These "developer 
summaries" should aim to be a sort of FAQ, not a checklist of 
free/non-free judgements. debian-legal is ill-suited to be FSF++ or 
OSI mark 2 and should not be turned into that. I have realised that 
this list's members have a role to play, helping to make debian a 
distributable free software operating system, so let's stick to that 
role. Looking back, I find it interesting to notice how many of the 
older hands participate in different types of thread.


Trying to decide on licences in abstract is a gift to debian's enemies 
who post on sites like promote-opensource and debianHELP, who 
misrepresent discussions here as if they are decisions to move whole 
swathes of software to non-free. (I know we have many friends on sites 
like those, too. Those are just two with posts that have really pissed 
me off.) This is not helped by the reported dislike of some debian 
developers for licensing questions, or some -legal contributors 
flaming maintainers who have licence bugs to address. We need to work 
with the rest of debian, not act as some sort of licence police, 
people! (That's not to say don't report licence bugs if you find 
them...)


 skip to here

In conclusion: if some debian-legal contributors want to try to make 
another org to approve and reject licences, please go do it somewhere 
else. Let's improve the summaries so that they better serve our job. 
I'm interested to know whether anyone agrees with the "two types" 
idea.


--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

Re: RFC: moving from BSD to GPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-24 11:27:15 +0100 Francesco P. Lovergine 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Is it possible for an upstream to change license from a BSD-old to 
GPL?
Consider the hypothesis that the product is a derivative work with a 
few old 
contributors. I see no reasons to do not relicense after adding

a credits note as required in the BSD license.


New work could be licensed under the GPL, but if you mean the type 
with the advertising clauses by "BSD-old", you need to read 
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OriginalBSD and 
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html


--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

Re: Draft Summary: MPL is not DFSG free

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-24 23:42:30 +0100 Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



"Lex Spoon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

First, the GPL states explicitly [...]

It does not say that.  Your first premise begs the question of whether
this is a contract.  This argument is fallacious. [...]


Does anything in this debate change whether MPL can be used for works 
in debian? If not, please change the subject. Even then, does anything 
in this change whether GPL can be used for works in debian? Would 
gnu.misc.discuss/[EMAIL PROTECTED] be a better forum for this?


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: Apple's APSL 2.0

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-25 10:32:01 +0100 Ryan Rasmussen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



Is the following compliant with Debian's Free Software Guidelines?


This question doesn't really make sense as phrased, IMO.

"We provide the guidelines that we use to determine if a work is 
"free" in the document entitled The Debian Free Software Guidelines."


What software in debian is covered by this licence, what software are 
you intending to package for debian that has this licence, or are you 
asking for comments on behalf of the licence author with their 
consent?



Anyway, termination clause 12.1(c) looks like it might contaminate 
other software:



(c) automatically without notice from Apple if You, at any time during
the term of this License, commence an action for patent infringement
against Apple; provided that Apple did not first commence
an action for patent infringement against You in that instance.


Should be limited to actions involving the licensed software in some 
way?



Beyond DFSG, I also have the same queries as MPL about the venue 
forcing clause:



13.6 Dispute Resolution. Any litigation or other dispute resolution
between You and Apple relating to this License shall take place in the
Northern District of California, and You and Apple hereby consent to
the personal jurisdiction of, and venue in, the state and federal
courts within that District with respect to this License. [...]


Does this force licensees worldwide to be represented in the Northern 
District of California if Apple wishes to sue them?


There's already a choice of law clause in 13.7, so does this allow 
Apple to force licensors to spend money arbitrarily?



--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: cc65 licensing

[MJ Ray]

Dear subset of debian-legal contributors,

Please try to be a bit more constructive when working with upstream 
developers. The debian developer reference and manuals generally 
encourage *co-ordination* with upstream. Nothing that gets this 
response:


On 2004-06-25 16:07:40 +0100 Ullrich von Bassewitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


[...] You did even accuse me of
"muddling with licenses" without actually looking at the sources 
we're talking
about (your FTP download was done *after* the mail with the 
accusations). In

my eyes you are a real sucker. Go away.


...looks like this is helping to make debian a better free software 
operating system.


I am now taking my anti-hypocrisy pills, donning asbestos underwear 
and running for the hills... eek, what a long way to run!

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know

Re: Draft Summary: MPL is not DFSG free

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-25 17:00:42 +0100 Lex Spoon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


[...] what we are usually talking about on debian-legal
are the agreements, not the licenses granted in those agreements.


Maybe this is indicative of a general topic drift in this list?

Re: Summaries in general, was: Summary Update: MPL ...

[MJ Ray]

Interesting reply, but it seems to have missed my main point.

On 2004-06-26 18:30:40 +0100 Francesco Poli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



So, IIUC, you propose that summaries should be split into two
`variants'


This part is correct.


in your opinion, every license should be summarized by one
document intended for the license authors (who may be willing to
improve their license) /and/ by another document intended for 
developers

(people who choose licenses for their software) and users (people who
choose software taking into account licensing issues).


No, I feel that if a licence author/user asks the list, the summariser 
writes a reply explaining any notable features of the licence in 
question; while if a packager asks the list, the summariser writes a 
reply explaining why a particular consensus was reached about the 
package and that can be added to the web page, listing the licence 
used and the consensus.


Don't you feel that this would be too much effort to be done 
effectively

for a significant number of debian-legal discussions?


No.


I mean: very few `monotype' summaries have been done so far and you
suggest to double the number of summaries per discussion...  :o


No, I say write the right type of summary for the purpose. It is 
unlikely that we will have both sorts of summary in many cases.


Wouldn't it be better if one single summary variant could be tuned to 
be

well-suited for both uses (improving licenses /and/ choosing a license
or checking if a piece of software is _probably_ free)?


I believe that you cannot write one type of summaries of comments 
about licences and decisions about packages for licence authors or 
users and packagers and that is why we have not seen many summaries 
and the ones we have seen don't appear to have helped as much as was 
expected. I think the target audience seems too broad. You always need 
to be able to put someone in mind when writing and the broad target 
hinders that.


[...]

It's not about becoming FSF++ or OSI mark 2.
But, hey!, what can you do when you realize you don't quite agree with
FSF's or OSI's criteria and you feel that Debian's criteria are the 
ones

you agree best with?


Go set up your own licence court system using those criteria.

[...]

But it should publish some sort of vademecum, even though it must be


Vademecum is not a word dict or I know. It looks like a Roman place 
name.


stated clearly that there is *no warranty* that a package under a 
`good'

license will go in main for sure.
I mean: a package under a `good' license could be very well judged as
non-free and viceversa, but anyway it's still useful to provide a
guide... otherwise people could begin to think that having a package
included in Debian (main) is a sort of lottery.


Surely one could generate some lists of licences for the web site from 
existing packages, then reference debian-legal discussions? Or look at 
/usr/share/common-licenses on any Debian system for some obvious 
candidates.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: Summary Update: MPL inconclusive, clarifications needed

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-27 11:50:21 +0100 Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


If there is a choice of venue clause (and it's considered valid, 
which it
likely would be), it's likely that it would require a US defendant to 
go to

Santa Clara to avoid summary judgement.


Yes, it seems I got it totally wrong. Sorry about that. US law is 
foreign to me.


I just got a cc of questions sent by a Mozilla rep to the relevant 
person. More news later, hopefully.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: Licening ibwebadmin and JSRS

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-28 23:39:57 +0100 Remco Seesink <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


however they see fit.  You may not copyright it yourself or change 
the 
rules I have

 ^

set on how it can be used.

[...] It appears to deny me the right to
assert copyright in any derived works I may create. I think this is a
regular bug in the wording of the license, caused by letting a
non-lawyer write a license, and should be easily corrected.


[...]
The GPL incompatible part is solved by the linking exception. I read 
the DFSG
three times and I can't find the part which states that derived work 
must go 
to the creator of that work.


The affected guideline is 3. Derived Works.

Should this be the reason the software can't go into debian? Is there 
a way
around it? Is this the only way to interpret it? What about the rest 
of the 
text?


As I understand English law, my copyright exists whenever I create 
something which crosses whatever threshold the law has. Copyright is a 
result of my creative effort, not some action I do by registering or 
asserting ownership, at least in countries in the Berne Union( see 
Arnoud Galactus Engelfriet's handy site at 
http://www.iusmentis.com/copyright/crashcourse/intro/ for more).


Effectively, if this licence is saying that I cannot copyright a 
derived work myself, then it is denying me the right to do any 
copyrightable modification, which means I can't create a derived work 
under these terms.


That's one possible interpretation, depending what "it" is referring 
to. If you interpret "it" as only referring to the original software, 
not the ensemble of your modifications and the original, then this 
problem goes away. BUT, if you read it like that (excuse pun), you 
seem to have no permission to *distribute* a derived work.


Each way you interpret it, it seems to miss something. Really, I agree 
with Andrew Suffield again (warning: End of World ahead). This is 
clumsy wording and I would be unhappy if it got into debian. I wish 
you luck persuading the author, but I think gutting/replacing the JSRS 
may be the cleanest.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: Summaries in general, was: Summary Update: MPL ...

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-29 22:21:16 +0100 Francesco Poli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



The summariser must implement a comand-line switch (--license or
--package) and generate a different type of output depending on how
he/she was invoked.  [...]
Now, it's clear (even to me! ;-) and it sounds like a good proposal, 
if

summarisers can (and are willing to) get used to such a `double
system'...


Maybe some summarisers can say whether they would be willing to try 
this, or if some other changes are needed, please?


[...]

Could you explain what do you feel would be wrong with a list of
licenses?
Do you think it would be misunderstood?


The summaries sent to this list are already misreported, perhaps 
maliciously sometimes but surely from misunderstanding sometimes. I 
think a red/green list of licences would be abused in a similar way, 
no matter what we do to it. It seems better to use packages as 
examples. We may even find some licences apply to both packages which 
are free and ones which are non-free, perhaps because of author 
interpretation or things not covered in the main licence (patents?).


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: PROPOSED: the Dictator Test (was: Contractual requirements [was: request-tracker3: license shadiness])

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-06-30 23:05:08 +0100 Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



suggest that any license which attempts to prohibit that which would
otherwise be legal is non-free by definition.


I think this would actually bring debian closer to FSF's position: "If 
a contract-based license restricts the user in an unusual way that 
copyright-based licenses cannot, and which isn't mentioned here as 
legitimate, we will have to think about it, and we will probably 
decide it is non-free." (from the page "The Free Software Definition" 
/philosophy/free-sw.html on GNU mirrors).


IIRC, if it requires a contract to be formed, there needs to be some 
sort of consideration from licensee to licensor in exchange for the 
permissions. Could that consideration arguably be called a fee and 
therefore this test would be a simple illustration of DFSG 1?


We should come up with a name for this test.  Maybe the "Autocrat 
Test"
or the "Dictator Test"?  The copyright (or patent, or trademark) 
holder

does not get to make up his or her own laws?


I have been referring to these things as "enforcement-by-copyright". 
Maybe it's the "Private Laws Test"?


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: PROPOSED: the Dictator Test

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-01 03:16:10 +0100 Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



[...] You might find the last two weeks of MPL & Contract discussion
useful.


...or not. I'm afraid I don't particularly want to learn huge detail 
about foreign law systems right now, as I have enough trouble trying 
to follow the way the English one bucks and weaves. I found many of 
the emails on that contract subthread aggressive, hostile and 
difficult to read, so I skipped a lot of them. If it was important, 
someone would post a summary.



Consideration is apparently required only in common-law systems, and
the civil-law nations' lawyers persist in translating a wildly
different concept with the word "contract"


The one I saw ("Vertrag") seems more like a binding or a pact than a 
contract.


I guess if a licence agreement requires one of those to be formed, 
then either someone who understands those systems explains why it 
would not follow the guidelines, or Branden's proposed test needs 
limiting to licenses permitting application under 
contract-based/common-law jurisdiction.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: request-tracker3: license shadiness

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-01 08:12:56 +0100 Nick Phillips 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 04:51:06PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:

# Unless otherwise specified, all modifications, corrections or
# extensions to this work which alter its source code become the
# property of Best Practical Solutions, LLC when submitted for
# inclusion in the work.

[...]
No, it's not. It's only saying that *if* you submit them for 
inclusion in

the work.

Nothing is forcing you to do that.


Aren't we meant to be free to distribute our improvements, even if we 
might possibly distribute them to the original maintainer too? Then 
again, making it available to people including the maintainer might 
not be interpreted as submission by a court unless we send it with "I 
do hereby submit this patch to you" properly notorised, but at best it 
looks like a lawyerbomb.



[...] If you don't want to pass ownership of your patch
to them, don't send it in. This is merely an attempt to reduce the 
hassle

of accepting patches.


From what I understand of the USA, it's unlikely to be regarded as a 
valid copyright assignment there, isn't it? If so, it's not only 
unclear or non-free, it's also ineffective for the task you think they 
want to do.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: definitions of free

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-02 22:28:54 +0100 Zenaan Harkness <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Question: what would it take to provide to the user the option to 
choose

"FSF Free" as well as "DFSG Free" (and perhaps "OSI") as the set of
packages they wish to install?


Add to apt and friends some way to categorise packages other than by 
data from the archive index they appear in, then get FSF to publish 
package categorisations. The apt bit may be possible already: I don't 
know OTTOMH and haven't looked it up.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

I'm not really familiar with debian's release management, as has been 
pointed out to me with the strange effects of GR votes, so I'll only 
cover the debian-legal aspects. Please reply to debian-legal alone, 
asking for cc if you need it.


On 2004-07-06 18:17:45 +0100 Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


3) The way the DFSG is currently interpreted by debian-legal is not 
obvious 
to an outsider, and some interpretations are felt to be excessively 
extreme. 


Surely the opinions of any large group will include extremes? The 
larger the group, the more likely that some will be relatively 
extreme. I think this is just a symptom of people being unused to 
seeing a project try to harness a large public participation.


Some companies feel that various licenses were genuine efforts to be 
DFSG 
free, but the discussion that followed their release was sufficiently 
confrontational to reduce any desire to fix any bugs.


I think this is an important point to note. It's also part of the 
reason why I think the summaries to date haven't been terribly useful 
and I've tried to start discussion about them. From the response, I 
suspect many d-l contributors are ignoring the summaries now, sadly. I 
think that we might see something different with Evan's forthcoming CC 
summary, so keep watching and please participate if you can.


[...] However, if we 
want to make any significant argument here, it seems likely that we 
need the 
ability to make a solid legal argument as to why copyright law is the 
wrong 
way of handling this.


This seems simple: careless use of copyright licences to enforce 
trademarks frequently results in loss of freedom to make 
non-infringing use of the trademark in other (related) software. As 
such, if a copyright permission condition is an "everything is 
forbidden except X" trademark enforcement term, then that contaminates 
other software. It doesn't matter that some other use might not 
infringe the trademark: it would mean we have no copyright permissions 
on the licensed software. Therefore, we would be infringing copyright.


The correct way to do this seems to be either include a simple 
trademark notice, not as a condition of copyright, or to use a 
statement of "X is permitted by all distributors" about the trademark 
if that is what you meant.


What do you mean by "solid legal argument"? Do we need to find a 
lawyer to check my reasoning?



[...] The consensus appears to be that GNOME will never ship code that
can't be run with free Java implementations.


This is good news. Well done to GNOME.

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: Creative Commons license draft summary

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-06 20:15:25 +0100 Evan Prodromou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


included the three main arguments why Attribution 2.0 is non-free


At least in this context, we should say instead that software released 
under it alone will not be free software. It usually doesn't make 
sense to say a licence is free or non-free in abstract, as I have 
noticed in the past. The copyright holder can grant extra permissions 
or not.



(revocation, "any other comparable authorship credit", trademark
restrictions).


As keeps getting claimed in cc-licenses, the trademark restrictions 
usually included as the end of a CC licence are not supposed to be 
part of the licence. They have been unwilling to fix the obviously 
misleading "legal code" page to date, so it does seem to get included 
in some uses. So, this is a user problem not helped by CC's 
distribution, rather than a problem of the licence itself.



You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
publicly digitally perform the Work with any technological
measures that control access or use of the Work in a manner
inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement.
I know that the anti-DRM clause in the GFDL was a cause of problems. 
I'm

worried that this loosely-phrased clause may be one, too.


Looks like a lawyerbomb to me. Without more information on its 
meaning, I wouldn't say anything other than "could be clearer" unless 
pushed. If pushed, I'd probably say that software covered by this term 
isn't free software.



Am I sparring with ghosts here, or is this a real issue?


It's real that I'd like more explanation. ;-)


Does the
"publicly" part of the sentence mean that it only applies to
technological restrictions on _public_ distributions of the work?


No, it seems to apply to any distribution. On that level, this looks 
it could be a practical problem for any private debian mirrors.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: CeCILL license : Free Software License for french research

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-07 00:19:57 +0100 Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
posted:



FREE SOFTWARE LICENSING AGREEMENT CeCILL


First off, I was told again today that French has no direct equivalent 
word for "software". "Logiciel" only means "program". I've no idea 
what other words don't translate. Basically: Beware.


[...]

4.2. TERM

The Agreement shall remain in force during the whole legal term of
protection of the economic rights over the Software.

[...]

and that, in the event that only the Software's Object Code is
redistributed, the Licensee allows future Licensees unhindered access 
to

the Software's full Source Code by providing them with the terms and
conditions for access thereto, it being understood that the additional
cost of acquiring the Source Code shall not exceed the cost of
transferring the data.


Possible practical problem: do we have to allow access for the entire 
term of the agreement, which could be until the copyright expires?


[...]
13.2. In the absence of an out-of-court settlement within two (2) 
months

as from their occurrence, and unless emergency proceedings are
necessary, the disagreements or disputes shall be referred to the 
Paris

Courts having jurisdiction, by the first Party to take action.


Here we go again. Are these "you will use *my* court" terms acceptable 
or not? :-/


(By the way, comrade Garrett, it was Oslo not Amsterdam.)

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-06 20:21:39 +0100 Matthew Garrett 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



[...] things like the desert island test are excessive.


Excessive in what way? Yes, it's an extra concept, but it's usually 
easier to explain than "does not follow DFSG 1, 3, 5, 6 and/or 7, for 
a significant number of debian users, in reasonably forseeable 
circumstances". Do you think the tests should never appear in a 
summary, because they are extreme test cases used to detect common 
failings?


What do you mean by "solid legal argument"? Do we need to find a 
lawyer to 
check my reasoning?
Lawyers have told people that releasing images of their trademarks 
under

a free license would potentially harm their trademarks. [...]


If asked a suitable question, I expect some lawyers to say that 
talking in one's sleep will potentially harm one's trademarks because 
you may utter a blanket licence, but that's just normal lawyerly 
caution.


Seriously, I'd be interested to know more about the reasoning and try 
to understand it, although I'm not qualified to dispute it. If this 
advice is accurate, then trademarked images are not easy to include in 
free software. If the registrant wants to produce free software, they 
should reconsider how they are using their trademarks.



Us saying "That's not what the law says" is not going to carry a great
deal of weight here unless we have some sort of legal support. [...]


Of course. This is not as familiar territory as the newbies claiming 
that fair rights in the US means they don't need to grant basic 
copyright permissions. However, it seems difficult to question when 
faced only with "our lawyer said X" and not knowing why. Maybe we 
should show some examples of trademark terms we like? Maybe we could 
even make the damn debian logo artwork into one?


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-07 11:04:33 +0100 Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



The Dictator Test: [...]
If anyone has an objection, please speak up ASAP.


Please connect this to specific DFSG if possible. Of course, the FAQ 
notes that not everything failing a common test is necessarily not 
free, so I don't see a problem in adding it there.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
(Morrissey)

Re: Summary Update: MPL inconclusive, clarifications needed

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-07 12:42:22 +0100 Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 12:32:27AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
>> I just got a cc of questions sent by a Mozilla rep to the relevant 
>> person. 
>> More news later, hopefully.
[...]
> Has there been any progress on this?

Not much. I provided some supplementary information and got a first 
reply on 30 June. Here is the current situation. Please let me know if 
I have accidentally dropped something:

The LEGAL update notice should be not a problem for software licensed 
by the Mozilla Foundation under the MPL. The usual public 
announcements of changes to debian packages are sufficient.

The Mozilla Foundation regards their CVS repository as fulfilling the 
requirement to offer source.

The venue clause looks like it inescapably commits any licensee to be 
judged in that US venue. I'm still not sure about this. I asked 
another question about it on 1 July, with no reply yet. The aim is to 
provide "consistency", although I'm not sure what that means.

There are currently no plans to produce a new version of the MPL.

(For information: I am corresponding with Gervase Markham and Mitchell 
Baker.)

-- 
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"To be English is not to be baneful / To be standing by
the flag not feeling shameful / Racist or partial..."
 (Morrissey)
RFC3156 defines security multipart formats for MIME with OpenPGP.

pgpKjsApVdy59.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Bug#256332: Clarification of redistribution

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-09 10:53:35 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


* Brian M. Carlson:

[0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/04/msg00031.html

This is a different license, version 1.0 of the Attribution license.
The current version 2.0 of the Attribution Share-Alike license does
not seem to have those problems.


I think there are still problems with works under 2.0. There's an 
additional problem that most people include the CC trademark terms as 
part of their copyright licence because CC haven't clearly indicated 
the end of the licence.



[...] We still can make a case-by-case decision, as suggested
in .


That URL suggests that some debian-legal regulars have argued against 
DFSG evasion for documentation many times, which probably isn't what 
you meant to post.


The licence seems to refer only to "software" and not "programs". I 
don't see a problem in putting the documentation included under the 
same licence. If greater clarity is desired, one could clearly define 
"software" covered by the licence somehow, such as the programs and 
other included material relating to them. IANAL but I don't remember a 
lawyer pointing me at a software-program equivalence in law; in fact, 
quite the opposite.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Before we try to work out if he's competent,
 let's work out if he's conscious." (anon. exam marker)

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

Josh, Good summary. I think you've taken recent discussions about them 
into account a bit. I've a few comments...


On 2004-07-09 22:59:18 +0100 Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



* Clause 6c requires modified versions that are not distributed to the
public to be provided to the original developer on request.  This
requirement fails the "Desert Island" test and the "Dissident" test 
(see

sections 9a, 9b, and 12o of the DFSG FAQ at
http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html).


I think it would be better to refer to the DFSG directly if we can.


DFSG-free licenses must
allow non-distributed or privately-distributed modifications, and 
cannot

require distribution to anyone, except for requiring that source be
distributed to those who receive a binary.


The wording of this seems clumsy and it's probably confusing. Better 
to avoid paraphrasing the DFSG: that way lies the whisper game. I 
suspect it's sufficient to state that compelled upstream distribution 
of non-public mods fails to meet them.



* The license contains a "choice of venue" clause, which states that
"Disputes shall be settled by Amsterdam City Court.".


Not in the copy of the QPL I'm looking at!

If you wish to summarise the views on libcwd, please do that instead. 
I think that would be more directly useful right now, even.



Since in many
legal jurisdictions, a party that fails to appear and defend 
themselves

in the courts of the given jurisdiction will automatically lose such a
dispute, such "choice of venue" clauses place an undue burden on the
recipient of the software in the face of any legal action (whether
legitimate or not), and are therefore considered non-free.


"non-free by some." Or maybe many. At least I hope for a Smart Person 
explaining why we're wrong on these, as they are in a couple of 
painful places and I have trouble believing that Mozilla, OSI and FSF 
all slept through this problem.



For software currently licensed under the QPL 1.0 whose authors desire
its inclusion in Debian, debian-legal recommends licensing that 
software
under a Free Software license such as the GNU GPL, either in place of 
or

as an alternative to the QPL 1.0.


Should we suggest striking 6c and the choice of venue as an acceptable 
(but inconvenient thanks to source patches only, and not recommended) 
alternative?


Definitely should note that Qt, the most prominent example of a 
QPL-covered work, is also available under the GPL.


Hope that helps,
--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Before we try to work out if he's competent,
 let's work out if he's conscious." (anon. exam marker)

Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-10 00:24:46 +0100 Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


Er, well, whether and how it fails a clause of the DFSG depends 
[...] I would expect most failures

of the Dictator Test to violate DFSG 1.

Does that help any?


Yes, thanks. I think it's worth including that in the FAQ submission, 
else we'll have to start on a DFSG (FAQ)^2 soon.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Before we try to work out if he's competent,
 let's work out if he's conscious." (anon. exam marker)

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-10 00:47:24 +0100 Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

"On request" doesn't seem to create any problems for the dissident 
test.

For the request to be made, the dissident must already be known.


Nothing says it should be an individual request, or time-limited, or 
anything. I'm not sure whether such requests would be kindly regarded 
in court but danger UX-lawyerbomb.



Likewise, if the change author is on a desert island, I don't see how
the change author can receive any requests.


Radio? Skywriting? Even a 2-way radio would make this a PITA. Not sure 
if they're allowed on the desert island. Probably depends on whether 
the author listens to BBC R4.


This sort of clause is accepted as free software by the FSF, but it's 
the sort of thing they've argued against in the past. I asked a few 
questions about it on gnu.misc.discuss aka [EMAIL PROTECTED] and got a 
couple of replies, but they're more interested in other threads just 
now.


I have some concerns about the reliance on the tests, but as long as 
we can ground any failings in the DFSG rather than tests alone, I hope 
they're uncontroversial.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Before we try to work out if he's competent,
 let's work out if he's conscious." (anon. exam marker)

Re: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

To summarise: yes, tell us where debian-legal goes wrong, but don't be 
a sniper.


On 2004-07-10 08:07:08 +0100 Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


Well, while you're all vigorously agreeing with each other, it would 
be
nice if you guys would cite actual examples of debian-legal people 
"beating

upstreams about the head and shoulders with ideology".


Sadly, you don't have to look too far to find debian-legal people 
flaming upstreams, but these aren't usually regular posters, DDs or 
particularly concerned with ideology. Also, those who are regulars or 
DDs do usually try to fix that bug when they notice it.


Even more common is are -legal subcribers flaming DDs if they fail to 
express their ideas (or are just plain wrong), which is also not 
helpful.


Really, this is one of the problems of running an open list and 
inviting all-comers to help. On the whole, the benefits outweigh the 
drawbacks, but we need to keep on top of it.


So, I second your invitation to Buddha Buck, David Nusinow and Andrew 
Pollock to make us aware of things we need to fix or learn from, 
rather than propogating the myth that we see "beating upstreams about 
the head" as a good tool. I want more free software and friends of 
free software.



[...] some third party Debian developer who seems enraged
that questions are even being asked.[3]


I dislike DDs who want this list to engage in a conspiracy of silence 
and denial, never look at existing packages and so on. It helps me if 
everyone who wants to understand these issues does. If we 
misunderstand something, then I'd love us to be corrected, as then I 
know more. The likes of Marco d'Itri are snipers, sitting in their 
ivory towers and trying to improve the school by shooting at those 
they think are failing, breeding fear and mistrust. I have much more 
respect for people like Matthew Garrett, who actually help, even 
though I don't completely agree with him.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Before we try to work out if he's competent,
 let's work out if he's conscious." (anon. exam marker)

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-10 19:35:58 +0100 Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


Agreed.  Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything in the DFSG that 
I

could point to which would directly cover the right to make private
modifications. [...]


Personally, I'm not sure that is as much of a problem as the 
requirement to distribute unpublished mods to a central authority on 
request. I'd be interested to know whether this aspect of the tests is 
grounded in the DFSG, and see that information added to the FAQ.


It can be argued that 6c requires the developer to pay something on 
demand from the original developer (DFSG 1) or is discrimination 
against a significant group (DFSG 5) and the task of political 
opposition (DFSG 6), although some don't think that's convincing.



Given that this issue seems to be one of the most common
Freeness issues that isn't covered in the DFSG, at some point it 
should

be added as an additional Guideline.


Maybe. Where did these tests originate? There's no reference in the 
FAQ.



[...] valid copy of the QPL 1.0, given that there was no indication in
that file that the license had been modified from the original.  I 
will

correct this in a second draft.


I'm sure that this has been covered, but does this modified QPL 
infringe any copyrights or trademarks by being called QPL? Rather a 
nasty hack perhaps, but libcwd really shouldn't be in main yet, if so.


Also, I do plan to help with the libcwd case, but I wanted to 
summarize

the QPL first, because the author seems to really want something more
official than mailing list discussions to tell him that the QPL is
non-free.  I thought a license summary on
http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses might help in that regard.


As you can read elsewhere, I am not convinced that debian-legal is 
equipped or wise to try to analyse licences in abstract. It seems more 
helpful to build case studies on that page by summarising the Real 
Work of this list, to show people how DFSG applies to their software. 
I'd welcome your opinion, as someone who is drafting a summary. Thread 
starts at http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/06/msg00521.html



MJ Ray wrote:

"non-free by some." Or maybe many. At least I hope for a Smart Person
explaining why we're wrong on these, as they are in a couple of 
painful
places and I have trouble believing that Mozilla, OSI and FSF all 
slept

through this problem.


Recall that the IBM Common Public License contains "Each party waives
its rights to a jury trial in any resulting litigation.", and it is
listed as free by both the OSI and FSF. [...]


Actually, now I look, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by OSI 
farting. Their "process" appears to rely on random laymen raising 
objections against a summary prepared by the licensor's lawyer, at 
least in the public part of their process. 
http://www.opensource.org/docs/certification_mark.php#approval


Unfortunately, FSF is mostly a black box to outsiders like me. I have 
asked them questions sometimes, but the answers so far have been slow, 
incomplete and/or cautious first-line responses, rather than involving 
any words from the decision-makers. This has been a problem I've had 
with FSF, Inc for a long time. We all know that they have good lawyers 
involved, but I can't figure out the reasoning myself and the people 
who have answered questions fully get offended that you even ask the 
question. The Europeans are more accessible, but seem not to want to 
duplicate the US FSF licensing team, so I don't have any official 
channel for questions there.


Further, if FSF front-line volunteers connect a request with anything 
sent to this list, I get bloody suspicious questions back and I think 
it gets tagged as "low priority, answer before next ice age". Why 
can't you all get over stuff and take each case as it comes? Learn 
from it, but get over it. Gah!



I suspect that one of the major objections to choice of venue clauses
(as opposed to choice of law clauses) is that they place more of a
burden on those being sued. [...]


Is this hindering cost-free distribution by being able to demand 
payment to represent the licensee in that venue? Or do we regard this 
as discrimination by denying foreign defendants the right to be heard 
in a local court using their residency's law and language, as normally 
would happen?



I also suspect that "If you sue us over
this software, you must do so in this jurisdiction" would be far less
problematic than "If we sue you over this software, you must defend
yourself in this jurisdiction".  After all, we are much more concerned
about being sued than about the ability to sue the author.


I agree with you about that.

Should we suggest striking 6c and the choice of venue as an 
acceptable

(but inconvenient thanks to source patches only, and not recommended)
altern

Re: Free Debian logos? [was: Re: GUADEC report]

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-10 23:13:50 +0100 Francesco Poli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


IMHO, Debian logos should be DFSG-free. Their appropriate use should 
be

enforced via trademark laws, not copyright ones, if this is possible.


Great. Please review 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200309/msg00837.html 
and the original discussion of the logo licensing at 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/1999/debian-legal-199902/msg00088.html

and tell us how to proceed.

I suspect a first step is to split the licences into copyright and 
trademark sections if possible. I assume this needs to be a US law 
copyright licence and proposed to SPI's board as copyright holder? Or 
must debian instruct them somehow? If both, which route first?


Anyone know which package in the BTS this is filed against?

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-11 10:59:22 +0100 Mahesh T. Pai <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


MJ Ray said on Sun, Jul 11, 2004 at 10:24:26AM +0100,:
Personally, I'm not sure that is as much of a problem as the > 
requirement 
to distribute unpublished mods to a central authority on > request. 
[...]

At some point  of generalisation, this becomes an  issue of striking a
balance between a particular user's right to keep his modifications to
himself, and right of the community  as a whole to have access to free
software.


I know that many in the free software community tend towards belief in 
anti-proprietary stances (preventing software hoarding, and similar). 
I am surprised that there is any support for expropriation (forcibly 
taking another's private software). Maybe I have misunderstood what 
balance you are describing?


As you can read elsewhere, I am not convinced that debian-legal is > 
equipped or wise to try to analyse licences in abstract.

I'm afraid that  this list will have to do both  - analyse licenses in
general,  and also scturinise  specific packages  when brought  to our
notice.


Why?


In the specific case of  licenses which are outright non-free, we need
to tell DDs / upstream that packages under a particular license cannot
be in the archives.


No, we need to tell DDs/upstream what changes need to be made for a 
package under that licence to be part of debian. "Just saying no" is 
the wrong thing to do.


Even if a package is under a poor licence, there maybe could still be 
exceptions/waivers granted. I'm not sure whether debian has accepted 
such things before.


In general, analysing licences out of context is no use to debian 
(does not get more software in the archive) or to the licensors (if 
their software is not trying to get into debian). The only case when 
it is useful is if this list is asked for comments on a draft, usually 
with some particular software for debian in mind.


Licence analysis has its place, but as part of considering a package, 
rather than outreach on its own. The debian event and country-specific 
groups are far better places for outreach. I hope we see some legal 
members helping them, too. Instead, -legal needs to "inreach" more, to 
keep as many DDs as reasonable on board.


As I wrote before, I think a summary of consensus on the libcwd > 
situation 
is more useful than a licence summary.

If we decide that because libcwd is solely under the QPL,


I think we've noticed that libcwd is not a pure QPL. I'm still 
wondering whether it has infringed the copyright on the QPL. I doubt 
Trolltech would do anything: their "copyright" link at the foot of the 
licence page displays trademark details entitled "copyright 
acknowledgements", so maybe they don't have a competent and watchful 
legal department. http://www.trolltech.com/company/copyright.html



it cannot be
in main,  will some situation  arise where application X,  also solely
under QPL can be in main?


No, but it would be possible that QPL-like +extras could be. Having a 
checklist QPL=>non-free decision isn't as helpful as we could be. 
Worked examples are a far better explanation.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: CeCILL license : Free Software License for french research

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-11 15:54:05 +0100 Francesco Poli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


This looks like a weak definition of source code: what is *required* 
so

as to modify a program written in C?


I agree, this looks like a lawyerbomb.


Moreover, I think it should say explicitly "the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation" and specify one 
or

more versions.


Agreed. Maybe version specifier should be "latest available version on 
the date of relicensing, or any later version"?



Do I understand this correctly?
The Holder guarantees he/she will go on distributing the Initial
Software until copyright expires: that's really a long time...  :-?


I wonder that too. What happens if the holder violates this?

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 04:32:30 +0100 David Nusinow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


The acrimony stimulated by the questioning of the mozilla license 
this late in

the sarge release process is no small matter.


It probably doesn't matter too much. debian-legal and 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] both seem not to move particularly quickly on things 
of this seriousness. That's probably quite right. Lots of deep 
thinking helps this. I think part of the acrimony was caused by a 
draft summary 2 days after the first thread many of us say; then that 
being reported in DWN.


Anyway, the current mozilla-firefox package seems to have far more 
immediate bugs which stop it getting into unstable. Presumably this 
means that there will be an old version in sarge, if that's fixed very 
soon. I've tried to solve 254522 (with a *very* steep learning curve 
to play with a non-debianised build for comparison) but I can't find a 
way. Maybe one of these moz-experts who flames us over the licence 
will help, or maybe they don't really care about mozilla as much as 
kicking debian-legal?


I know there are other packages under MPL, but if:

1. someone can explain why choice of venue can be DFSG-free;

2. we get the necessary agreement from upstreams about:
 a. our changelogs being acceptable notice of LEGAL change;
 b. our archives being suitable archival of modifications;
 c. general waiver of choice of venue (depending on 1);

then I don't see any other problems to resolve. (I might have 
forgotten something, as I am only human.) The MPL is a fugly licence, 
though, IMO.


Rest assured that I definitely don't want MPL stuff removed if it is 
intended as free software and I hope we can work together to solve any 
problems, *once* we know reasonably surely what problems exist.


this sort of wrangling is done based on tests (Chinese Dissident, 
etc) which

few are aware of makes the situation worse.


I'd like to see the tests explained, but few seem to be aware of any 
specific legalities of free software, even those who ought to know. 
(For example, the licence author's "copyright" page containing only 
trademark details, which I noticed earlier today.) debian-legal needs 
to "inreach" better because I have worries about NM, as you may know.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Email OLR management, was: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 05:07:03 +0100 Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


[...] Once again, you're spamming the list, sending dozens
of messages without actually reading threads so you don't waste 
everyone's

time with repetition.  This is a very bad habit; please break it.


I don't remember "must not use off-line readers" as part of the lists 
code of conduct. Even so, I think a busty list like -legal suffers 
disproportionately if people don't use OLRs very carefully, so I 
humbly suggest my 3-box solution:


1. make four boxes with whatever software you use:
 Lists - mailing list incoming messages
 ListMe - incoming messages directly to you or cc'd to you or in reply 
to you (maybe filter dups a little)

 Reply - list messages to reply to
 Draft - outgoing replies postponed

2. Download email
3. Read ListMe, then Lists... move stuff you'll reply to to Reply
4. Read Reply and write replies, saving to Draft
5. Repeat 3
6. Prune Draft contents as necessary
7. Send Draft contents

Maybe too many hoops, but it seems to work. I also simply junk a lot 
of Lists contents, especially if they have bad subjects or bad quoting 
or top-posting or...


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: CC-based proposal (was FDL: no news?)

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 08:18:21 +0100 Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


Why, particularly, should he deviate from the fine example set by 
Craig

Sanders and other supporters of Proposal D?


Craig Sanders himself voted Further Discussion as second preference 
and ignored all other outcomes, despite claiming "We had enough 
discussion on this subject and some of us are sick of it" in his 
rationale. Most of his supporters did the same. I think it's a bit 
late to start expecting consistent behaviour.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: request-tracker3: license shadiness

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 07:49:55 +0100 Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


At least, not as the DFSG is currently written.  You could propose 
that

GPL-compatibility be a DFSG criterion.  It might pass.


I think restrospectively justifying a "Holier than Stallman" tag with 
such a decision is unlikely to happen. The MIT/X11-style licences are 
fine for some tasks.

Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test

[MJ Ray]

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.


If a condition, let's try trimming to just relevant parts:


  Permission is hereby granted [...] subject to [...]
  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, 
EXPRESS

  OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
  MERCHANTABILITY, FIT- NESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND 
NONINFRINGEMENT.


Well, that part seems no-op, as long as you are legally capable of 
accepting the licence, which I think we assume all are.


  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE X CONSORTIUM BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES 
OR
  OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR 
OTHERWISE,
  ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE 
OR

  OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.


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.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: GPL-compatible, copyleft documentation license

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 09:30:26 +0100 Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



I would appreciate commentary and analysis.

I'd also like to know if this simple enough that we could recommend 
it for

usage more broadly. [...]


Confusing but probably consistent. I wouldn't be happy recommending 
this for general use.



  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. [...]


I don't follow the reasoning of this part. The GPL section 6 says any 
"recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor 
to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and 
conditions" and I thought "these" was the GPL, not GPL + any extras. 
Therefore, 2a and 2c further restrictions must be applied to the 
entire work by any redistributor, as you only stated a proviso rather 
than granted a general exception to 2a and 2c, didn't you?


Then again, I wouldn't argue this in court unless forced :D

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 09:18:35 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


| 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 suspect it would, as it says nothing that the disclaimer must be 
effective in your local law. IANAL.



Do we really want to randomly punish licenses which use the wrong
catch phrases, even if they are legally equivalent to perfectably
acceptable licenses.


No, but legal equivalence claims are very difficult to test, so be 
afraid.



In addition, there seems to be a general consensus in Debian *against*
the Dictator Test. [...]


This seems to be arguable, then. Please someone show data and 
methodology, or everyone admit they have none, then we decide how to 
collect some.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 10:48:57 +0100 Matthew Garrett 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



As I mentioned on IRC, we shipped QT in main under the QPL before the
GPL was added. I don't think the above is a terribly convincing
argument. [...]


Given the apparent lack of comment either way, it seems null as data.

1) The FSF list the QPL as a free software license, despite it being 
in
violation of "You should also have the freedom to make modifications 
and

use them privately in your own work or play, without even mentioning
that they exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be
required to notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way."
(from www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) - I guess this is an
RFC-style "should". The word "must" is used elsewhere on the page, 
which

tends to support that.


I'm puzzled by this, given what was said about APSL 1, but I've 
expressed my problems asking [EMAIL PROTECTED] questions elsewhere. Can 
someone else ask them about this apparent confusion in that page, 
please? Failing that, I will, but expect a reply just before the next 
ice age.


[...]
It's worth remembering that using QT under the GPL is only possible 
with

GPL compatible code. There is certainly non-GPL compatible code that
uses QT under the QPL. I have no idea if we ship any of it.


Licence combinations are often missed. It would be interesting to know 
if they exist in this case.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Proposal: changes to summary guidelines

[MJ Ray]

Jeremy Hankins proposed guidelines for writing summaries in 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/03/msg00227.html


Following discussion on this list after recent unpleasantness, I would 
like to propose replacing them with:


1) Draft summaries should be marked clearly and invite further 
discussion. The same minimum discussion period applies as for a GR 
(currently given in s4.2 of the constitution). If there are serious 
objections to summarising, discussion should be allowed to continue 
and be summarised later. After discussion, a second draft should be 
posted and list members invited to send signed confirmation that it is 
a representative view.


2) The first sentence clearly states the full name of the licence, the 
version number and any software packaged or ITP'd for debian that is 
under that licence, with links as appropriate.


3) Anything regarded by a consensus of debian-legal as a possible 
problem meeting DFSG follows in list form, with reasons.


4) Each reason should refer explicitly to the freedom that is 
restricted, and how it is restricted. Link to relevant parts of the 
included licence and illustrative posts from debian-legal and 
elsewhere.


5) An optional section titled "Suggestions" follows the list of 
reasons. It includes d-l's suggestions on how to resolve the 
problem(s). If applicable, this should include any typographical, 
clarity, or other minor problems that debian-legal recommends fixing 
if a new version of the license is written. Again, link to 
illustrative posts.


6) On archive copies, the confirming signatories should be listed. The 
archiver should check signatures are good before listing them.


7) The full text of the license is included at the end.


Rationale:

Point 1 is rewritten to make summaries a bit more robust against 
misreporting of the type the MPL one had; 2 changed to discourage 
headline condemnations and to show why debian-legal is interested 
(merging the old 6) to counter accusations that we are a vigilante 
sqad; 3 changed to give more general information; 4 changed to refer 
back to the list (because I think summaries more useful if they give 
references); 5 only has the advice to link added; the new 6 aims to 
help readers verify whether a summary actually summarises consensus; 7 
is unchanged.



Process:

There is no formal process to handle this proposal, I believe. Please 
tell me if otherwise.


I would welcome comments whether this would improve the summaries and 
*especially* what regular contributors and past summarisers think of 
it. If it's liked, I'll submit patches to 
http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ in 2 weeks and probably ask for 
help updating past summaries.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: GPL-compatible, copyleft documentation license

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 13:27:53 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Creative Commons is doing this already, so why not use their efforts?


...because CC*SA is not DFSG-free at the moment, which I think might 
be Branden's aim.



I don't think there are affordable self-publishing deals that also
include CD production, but I could be wrong.


I think there might be now. The 2003 dive book/zine/something 
published by FACT of Liverpool includes a CD on a foam pad in a centre 
page. It doesn't look *that* expensive.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: GPL-compatible, copyleft documentation license

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 13:42:36 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


...because CC*SA is not DFSG-free at the moment,

Why do you think so?  ShareAlike 2.0 hasn't been reviewed so far.


ShareAlike 2.0 hasn't been reviewed because it doesn't exist! Maybe 
you mean BY-SA? That shares the troublesome clause 4a of BY. 
Meanwhile, anything under NC and ND terms should trivially fail to 
follow DFSG. That completes the set of CC 2.0 licences, as far as I 
can tell from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: RE-PROPOSED: The Dictator Test

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 05:26:00 +0100 Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



[...] If I remember correctly, implied
warranties are incurred by distribution, not by licensing, at least 
in the

US.  (Is this true in Britain as well?)


I'm not sure, but I believe they happen when any sale occurs or 
contract exists.


Watford Electronics Ltd v Sanderson CFL Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 317 (23 
February 2001) off www.bailii.org.uk seems to show unfair terms being 
struck, but a contract existed between parties and Unfair Contract 
Terms Act is cited. Sale of Goods Act is also mentioned in the 
judgement.


Now, in the UK, can you agree to the license for purposes of the 
licensed

activities *without* losing your right to sue regarding any statutory
warranties which would cover fair dealing, library privilege, or other
always-permitted uses of the copyrighted work?


Yes, broadly, based on the above.

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: GPL-compatible, copyleft documentation license

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 14:42:39 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


I fail to see how this clause is troublesome.  What's wrong with
removing the names of authors upon request, as long as it practicable?


Consider the author's name outside any attributions, such as in a 
factual history. Clearly, it is practicable to remove them, even if 
that makes the work inaccurate or incomplete. You can't just add them 
back, else you've not satisfied the conditions. This is a milder 
version of the "invariant sections" method of restricting 
modifications of works released under FDL.


The "my name on the cover" term seems to have gone from 2.0. Yay!

Finally, some licensors include the CC trademark terms as a condition. 
I expect Branden wouldn't make that mistake, though.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 15:46:16 +0100 Steve McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


1. someone can explain why choice of venue can be DFSG-free;

How is it not, exactly? It does not limit, in any way, your rights to
use, modify or distribute the software.


As I understand it, it limits all those rights by allowing the 
licensor to require out-of-pocket expenditure by any licensee on legal 
representation in the given venue, instead of possibly representing 
yourself in the court local to your offence as seems to happen 
otherwise. At worst, some of these venues will grant summary judgment 
against you for not appearing, so it becomes an effective arbitrary 
termination clause. At best, we need assurance the chosen venue 
doesn't behave in that way.


I hope that people will correct me if I've misunderstood the case 
against these clauses.


On the other hand, the only case I remember being told for them is 
that they "ensure consistency" and give the licensor an advantage. 
Neither of those seem particularly relevant in helping explain why it 
is acceptable for free software, given the above.



There's far too much navel-gazing going on here...


I don't think that observation helps.

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: handling Mozilla with kid gloves [was: GUADEC report]

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 15:53:45 +0100 Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


The flames that issue forth every time someone dares to downgrade or
suggest temporarily ignoring a "foo is non-free" bug that came from
-legal speak for themselves.


If there are that many, I guess a lot of these are either not brought 
to -legal's attention or are in response to flames or immediate closes 
(DDs, surely the correct tags are moreinfo and help if you don't 
understand why?) because someone dared to file a "foo is non-free" bug 
against their beloved package. Neither is particularly healthy, but it 
doesn't look as one-sided as your comment suggests.


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? [...]


Do other Mozilla packages suffer from the bug(s) keeping Mozilla 
Firebird 0.9.1 in experimental? If so and it's not solved, this line 
of discussion may be moot anyway :-/


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Bug#227159: ocaml: Worse, the QPL is not DFSG-free

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 15:43:55 +0100 Steve McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


*snort* This is just getting comical now. Since when is supplying a
copy of source considered a fee?


It was suggested to me that compelled contribution of copyrightable 
work to the upstream would probably be classed as consideration in 
England, although I've not been able to verify that. The suggestor is 
not a lawyer, but has studied contract law for another qualification, 
which is more than I have.


I think "consideration" is what Brian is trying to say but ICBW.


If you believe your argument about source requirements constituting a
fee, yes. In the real world, no. Try that in court and you'll get
laughed at.


I didn't know you were a lawyer or court expert, Steve McIntyre.

In general, I don't think this ocaml bug should be pursued until 
general issues have been settled (or comprehensively fail to reach 
anything like consensus in reasonable time) for libcwd, which came 
here more recently. Is it proper for any packager of a QPL'd work 
currently in main to tag this moreinfo,help and wait a while?


IANAL, as most people know.

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 16:33:35 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


[...] In fact, the DFSG do not
deal with _any_ conflicts that may arise, or with license termination.


Are you sure? Really sure? Can you explain why?

"DFSG require that software be freely redistributable, which certainly 
isn't the case if the license has been terminated arbitrarily." -- 
Bruce Perens, "Is Your Software In Danger of Termination?" at 
http://perens.com/Articles/Termination.html


It's also a practical difficulty, as we hope to be able to archive 
debian releases in their released state: 
http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive/


I feel sad that few people recently have directly referenced 
objections back to the DFSG. It makes these things more difficult for 
me to learn. I've been guilty of it too. I realise my mistake.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 16:37:33 +0100 Mahesh T. Pai <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Can -legal  do anything apart from saying  a `no'?


Yes, -legal can enumerate the problems.


So we  need to look at the license, is it not?


I will not answer a negated question directly here. What you described 
is not looking at a licence in abstract, but a practical example of 
software released under it.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Bug#227159: ocaml: Worse, the QPL is not DFSG-free

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 17:39:18 +0100 Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



Not really, since upstream will have as much trouble requesting the
modifications, or even knowing about them, won't they ? :)))


Nothing says it should be an individual request, or time-limited, or 
anything. I'm not sure whether such requests would be kindly regarded 
in court but danger UX-lawyerbomb. (first appeared in 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg00179.html repeating 
for benefit of BTS)


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 17:11:43 +0100 Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



[...] Otherwise, isn't it sufficient to just mention is as a
possible risk when the licence is being discussed and leave it at
that?


I'm happy with that, in general. Is this acceptable for a licence 
already covering part of the distribution?


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 18:39:57 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

[...]

non-free suddenly starts to include works released by the Free
Software Foundation.


That part seems inevitable in the current situation. FSF does not 
claim that FDL'd works are free software. That said, FDL is probably 
off-topic for now, until mako and whoever else it was report back. 
(...or maybe I missed it.)


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 19:06:37 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


For example, we could create a separate archive for
documentation which imposes different rules, somewhere between main
and non-free.


Please explain how you would do that without a GR in a new thread on 
-project.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 19:25:13 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


* MJ Ray:

Please explain how you would do that without a GR in a new thread on
-project.

I'm fully aware that this requires a GR because it involves changing
the Social Contract.


So it's not the current situation then! Avoid manufacturing fake 
disagreements. We have enough real ones to reconcile.


(I think I will vote against any definition which allows stuff which 
should really be in "non-free" to sneak into "non-dfsg-doc" or 
whatever you call it, or which allows "non-dfsg-doc" to be called part 
of the OS, but you probably guessed that.)


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 20:33:22 +0100 Joey Hess <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

 From the perspective of someone coming in late and reading the 
thread,

you are a proponent of choice of venue clauses not being DFSG free.


Cobblers. Any reasonable person can see I was only asked for the 
argument in one direction and I didn't yet know the contrary arguments 
well enough to summarise them. You should have seen that, as it was in 
the message you replied to!



[...] If you're trying to be a
disinterested observer or summariser, you should really do a better 
job

of presenting both sides of the argument.


I was entirely clear about my inability to summarise a view I wasn't 
familiar with. Also, many people know that I am not just observing 
here.


Finally, I think you should not send private correspondence to a 
public list.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 17:29:17 +0100 Matthew Garrett 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



MJ Ray wrote:

http://perens.com/Articles/Termination.html

Surely GPL 7 causes the same problem (admittedly under a different set
of circumstances)?


Is that arbitrary?

It's also a practical difficulty, as we hope to be able to archive 
debian 
releases in their released state: 
http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive/

Which is also a problem if a patent becomes actively enforced having
been previously docile.


So, is this practical difficulty already solved? Where has it been 
discussed before? I'm failing to find it in lists searches, given what 
hot topics patents have been.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-12 18:52:11 +0100 Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


* MJ Ray:

Can you explain why?

Maybe it didn't seem important when the DFSG were written? [...]


I doubt arbitrary termination clauses are a new problem, even since 
then.



Sorry for the complications.  There is an attempt to change the DFSG
through various "Tests".


Wow, that's paranoid! If one assumes that other -legal contributers 
are sincere and honest, I think one would say that the tests are 
attempts to apply the DFSG, but today's use of them isn't obviously 
doing that.



Some of them make sense, some of them are
just arbitrarily designed to exclude specific licenses (or even
specific software!).


Can you support that accusation?


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.


Please, not another flaming vote. Not unless we really really have to.

--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Bug#227159: ocaml: Worse, the QPL is not DFSG-free

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-13 00:33:38 +0100 Matthew Garrett 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



What if I only wish to distribute binaries? The requirement that I
distribute source alongside them is a fee.


How is this a fee, if we are not obliged to give it to the licensor?


[...] In order to claim that you can't distribute under
the same terms you need to demonstrate that the requirement to 
provide a

copy of the modifications upstream equates to a charge. I've seen no
convincing arguments of the sort.


Equally, I've seen no convincing arguments that our copyrighted 
modifications are without value. I am interested in such arguments, or 
other demonstrations that sending them upstream wouldn't be viewed as 
a charge.


Generally, *most* of those questions seemed fair and I hope they get 
interesting answers.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-13 11:14:45 +0100 Matthew Garrett 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



MJ Ray wrote:

Matthew Garrett wrote:

MJ Ray wrote:

http://perens.com/Articles/Termination.html
Surely GPL 7 causes the same problem (admittedly under a different 
set

of circumstances)?

Is that arbitrary?

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?


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know

Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-13 20:59:07 +0100 Joey Hess <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Please don't send me provate correspondance about public matters then,


There seemed little reason to point out your stupidity in public, but 
you think otherwise. Fine. It's still not good to repost private to 
public.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-13 19:33:47 +0100 Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



[...] your funny "fee" one, and I don't think that's
going to fly with a wider audience.


Funny to us possibly, but did anyone post better legal advice on that 
aspect yet? I still suspect that modifications are of sufficient value 
to be regarded as a fee.



[...] whether the DFSG says
anything about the freeness of licenses which require you to publish
distributed modifications. [...]


That's the core of this bit. Can it require one to distribute to a 
particular person?


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-13 22:39:36 +0100 Matthew Garrett 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[...] I still suspect that modifications are of sufficient value to 
be regarded as a fee.
The only way that this could realistically be defined as a "fee" is 
in a

narrow legal sense.


The idea of something of value as a fee is fairly well-known and in 
common language phrases. The idea of modifications as having value may 
well be a legal concept, but seem quite a common one in the current 
copyright climate.



But the DFSG is not written to be read in a narrow
legal sense - it's written to be read by humans. I do not believe that
DFSG #1's use of the word "fee" was intended to cover provision of 
code

to others.


Maybe not, but it seems to fit pretty well. I'd be interested to hear 
from the "early DFSG experts" again.



DFSG #1 makes no mention of who the fee must be payable to. [...]


Aren't royalties normally paid to the copyright holder? The phrase is 
"royalty or other fee" after all. Does it matter whether the royalty 
or other fee is $50, GBP200-worth of work or joint adoption of your 
first-born?


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-13 23:05:17 +0100 Matthew Garrett 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It has an "archive all distributed copies until the expiration of 
copyright"
requirement (QPL#6 has no expiration!), which is far more onerous, 
IMO.
As I said elsewhere, I'm unconvinced by that. At any point you can 
avoid

this by releasing the code to the general public. [...]


Can 6c be avoided entirely by the simple hack of a momentary general 
public release? I'll be surprised if that is the conclusion, 
especially given the annotations at 
http://www.trolltech.com/licenses/qpl-annotated.html


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know

Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-07-13 21:39:31 +0100 Francesco Poli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:



I agree. Focussing on packages only would require too many analyses,
indeed.


Are you claiming that "this package fails to follow for the same 
reasons as that one" requires more analyses than analysing the licence 
and then "this package fails to follow because it is only under 
licence L"? I remind you, we still should check the packages if asked. 
In fact, I think if there are n packages under some combination of 
that licence, we do at most n analyses if we mainly analyse packages 
and n+1 if we analyse the licence first. Marginal, but possibly still 
significant, for some.



We must also collect some sort of license database, so as we can say
"this package is solely under the L license, hence it cannot be
DFSG-free for sure".


What does this do that a database of summaries indexed by licence 
wouldn't?



[...] would be a waste of time if we had to review the
same licenses again and again or to dig in the archives to recall if
some old package in a similar situation was judged free or not...


This is where we are at the moment. I thought the summaries were an 
attempt to reduce the digging, but they seem to have drifted.


--
MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
"Matthew Garrett is quite the good sort of fellow, despite what
my liver is sure to say about him in [...] 40 years" -- branden