Re: A possible weakened rephrase of clause 5d [was: Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments]
On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:15:38 +0200 Lasse Reichstein Nielsen wrote:
On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:46:06 +0200, Francesco Poli
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
OK, this is my attempt to rephrase clause 5d in a form that is weak
enough to be less harmful than clause 2c of GPLv2:
begin proposed text
d) If the Program has interactive user interfaces which display
legal notices, this feature must be preserved in each
interactive interface that is also present in the work. In
this subsection, an interactive interface is said to display
legal notices if it includes a convenient feature that
displays an appropriate copyright notice, and tells the user
that there is no warranty for the work (unless you provide a
warranty), that licensees may convey the work under this
License, and how to view a copy of this License.
~ end proposed text ~
What does each interactive interface mean? I.e., what delimiters an
interface?
The term is not defined in a precise manner, but I think that it's clear
enough.
Does a program with more than one window have more than one interface?
Not in my understanding.
AFAICS, a program with two interfaces could be something that may be
started in such a way to offer a GUI, but also in a different way to
offer an interactive textual command interpreter, for instance...
What if it is a web application with several clients? That each open
different
windows? (This is not specified in the GPLv3 draft either, but I don't
think
it is at all obvious.)
As long as the web application presents the same kind of window to each
client, it has only one interface, AFAICT.
Anyway, consider this case:
Program A has a graphical user interface with an about feature
showing legal
notices. It also has some very clever algorithms in its belly.
Program B wants to use the algorithms, but cares not for the
interface of program A.
Minor nitpick: program B wants to reuse the algorithm *implementations*
(algorithms are not copyrightable, only their implementations are).
But anyway, let's go on...
Program B has an interactive textual user interface.
(Can the *feature* be preserved when going from graphical to
textual?)
Maybe, but my proposed clause is *not* intended to mandate this, as no
interactive interface of program A is kept in program B.
Maybe it's clearer if the clause says:
this feature must be preserved in each interactive interface that is
present both in the Program and in the work
Program B extracts the algorithms and uses them, but dumps the
interface. Should Program B preserve the legal notices? Obviously
yes.
As stated above, my proposed clause is *not* intended to mandate the
preservation of the feature that displays legal notices, when the
affected interactive interfaces are dropped.
Of course program B must have appropriate copyright notices and stuff
required by the rest of the GNU GPL. But, with my proposed clause,
program B would not be compelled to implement a feature to display legal
notices in the interactive interfaces that are not taken from program
A.
Now the people at Program B Software first extract the clever
algorithms and distributes them, alone, under the original license,
as allowed by
the GPL.
Then they use *this* distribution in program B. The program they use
has
no interactive
user interface at all, and no feature displaying legal notices, so
program B isn't
required to have it either.
That is the same exact result that we would get in your previous example
(assuming that my proposed clause works as intended...).
This problem is inherent to linking a requirement relating to an
entire program
to only parts of that program (here: the user interface). Anybody can
remove those
parts and distribute the rest, thereby removing the requirement.
Your version does alleviate this problem. Clause 5d of GPLv3draft3, as
you quoted it,
does. It requires that legal notices be inserted if deriving form a
program with no user interface (but not from one with a user interface
but without legal notices). It's not necessarily the same notices as
the original program, though,
just the default GPL notices.
Wait, let me understand: are you criticizing my proposed clause because
you feel that it's not restrictive enough?
If this is the case, please note that it's *intended* to be *more*
permissive than clause 5d of GPLv3draft3! After all, I said that my
proposed clause is a *weakened rephrase* of clause 5d!
Indeed, I hope that my proposed clause is more permissive than clause 2c
of GPLv2...
--
http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/etch_workstation_install.html
Need to read a Debian etch installation walk-through?
. Francesco Poli .
GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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A possible weakened rephrase of clause 5d [was: Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments]
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 20:50:27 +0200 Francesco Poli wrote: On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:26:42 +0100 Gervase Markham wrote: Francesco Poli wrote: Clause 5d in GPLv3draft3 is basically unchanged with respect to previous drafts. It's worse than the corresponding clause 2c in GPLv2... :-( [...] I would like to see clause 5d dropped entirely. I agree that it's not very good. Given that persuading the FSF to drop the clause entirely at this late stage is unlikely, can we come up with a form of wording to suggest which at least makes it no worse than GPLv2? Well, I think that clause 2c of GPLv2 is already suboptimal (even though not so bad to become non-free) and should have been weakened in GPLv3, rather than strengthened, as it currently is... Anyway, we *could* perhaps try to rephrase it in a weaker form, assuming that the FSF won't drop it, but could consider weakening it, instead... I don't know whether that will actually be the case, but maybe it's worth trying. It won't be easy, though: the simplest solution remains dropping it entirely, IMO. I will try and find the time to draft something and come back later (or at least, I hope...). OK, this is my attempt to rephrase clause 5d in a form that is weak enough to be less harmful than clause 2c of GPLv2: begin proposed text d) If the Program has interactive user interfaces which display legal notices, this feature must be preserved in each interactive interface that is also present in the work. In this subsection, an interactive interface is said to display legal notices if it includes a convenient feature that displays an appropriate copyright notice, and tells the user that there is no warranty for the work (unless you provide a warranty), that licensees may convey the work under this License, and how to view a copy of this License. ~ end proposed text ~ Constructive critics and suggestions are welcome. For reference, here's clause 5d of GPLv3draft3: |d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must |include a convenient feature that displays an appropriate |copyright notice, and tells the user that there is no warranty for |the work (unless you provide a warranty), that licensees may |convey the work under this License, and how to view a copy of this |License. Specifically, if the interface presents a list of user |commands or options, such as a menu, a command to display this |information must be prominent in the list; otherwise, the |work must display this information at startup. However, if the |Program has interactive interfaces that do not comply with this |subsection, your work need not make them comply. and clause 2c of GPLv2: |c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively |when run, you must cause it, when started running for such |interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an |announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a |notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide |a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under |these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this |License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but |does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on |the Program is not required to print an announcement.) -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/etch_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian etch installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpfKEO33bhsN.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
* Gervase Markham [EMAIL PROTECTED] [070404 01:09]: Calling Affero code proprietary is a pretty big stretch. Yes, there's a clause in there which is a restriction on modification - so it's not entirely free. But you still have to release the source to modifications, source follows the binary - all that GPL goodness, because the Affero license is based on the GPL. While proprietary might not be the proper term using the dictionary meaning of proprietary, it's often used in the meaning more evil than I want to deal with. And in that meaning it fits. Forcing users to surrender their right to run for their right to modify, is nothing I'd consider less free, it's not free at all. And, from a practical point of view, there's hardly any code under the Affero. Proprietary software companies are not going to relicense under the Affero in order to link with GPLed code - because the Affero doesn't let them keep their code secret. So, imposing the condition that everyone is allowed to make the code non-free is OK, because it would be a form of non-free that currently no proprietary software companies has any use for? I don't choose my licenses to destroy proprietary software companies, but to keep my code free. Some of your other points were good, but this one is really not going to be a problem in practice. It's an obvious and large problem in theory. Free software is to an large part idealism. Idealism and big problems in the theory don't fit well together. Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:09:30 +0100 Gervase Markham wrote: Francesco Poli wrote: Well, *when* I want a copyleft, I want one that *actually works*... Exemptions for specific incompatible licenses should be left out of the license text (so that who wants them can add them as additional permissions). *When* I choose the GNU GPL, I want to prevent my code from being linked with proprietary code (including AfferoGPL'd code). I'm simplifying things to a great extent here, but I think what I mean is clear enough... Not-quite-DFSG-free != proprietary. On the contrary: Not-quite-DFSG-free == non-free, even though close to the freeness boundary == proprietary, even though close to the freeness boundary By definition, whatever is not free, is proprietary. It may be closer to or farther from the freeness boundary, but it remains proprietary. Likewise DFSG-free works may be closer to or farther from the freeness boundary (on the right side, this time!), but they still are DFSG-free. Calling Affero code proprietary is a pretty big stretch. IMHO, it's just calling things with their name... [...] Some of your other points were good, but this one is really not going to be a problem in practice. The problem is that (if this clause is not dropped) GPLv3'd code will be linkable to non-free-restriction-encumbered code. That's not in the spirit of the GNU GPL v2. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/etch_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian etch installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpNJCSw4AOdP.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
Francesco Poli wrote: Not-quite-DFSG-free == non-free, even though close to the freeness boundary == proprietary, even though close to the freeness boundary By definition, whatever is not free, is proprietary. I was using proprietary in what I thought was its fairly common meaning, i.e. closed source, controlled by only one company. I have no intention of getting into a fight about whether the Affero additional restriction is acceptable or free or whatever. The FSF thinks it's free; other people disagree. Their reasons are credible. I don't like it. But my point is that you are acting as if this exception turns all GPLed code into LGPLed code - i.e. Microsoft can come along and link it into Windows, or whatever. But that's obviously not true. The only non-GPLed code your GPLed code can be linked with is code that also follows the GPL exactly _except_ that it has a single additional restriction on modification to a small part of it. This may not be a good thing, but it's not even on the same planet as some of the scenarios the phrase being able to link with proprietary code could cover. And considering the small amount of code actually covered by the Affero GPL (and that there's very little evidence that version 2 of the Affero GPL will cause it to suddenly surge in popularity) then it's also very unlikely that code you write will end up in this situation. Lastly, the FSF is keeping their promises. If you can think of a better way for them to do so (and this way is already a whole load better than their last attempt), then suggest it. So I'd suggest you concentrate your efforts on the other points you made in your analysis, which were good and reasonable. In order to facilitate this, I'm not going to contribute further to this discussion, because its very continuance is counter-productive to its point. The problem is that (if this clause is not dropped) GPLv3'd code will be linkable to non-free-restriction-encumbered code. That's not in the spirit of the GNU GPL v2. True. And Debian can easily refuse to distribute applications so linked. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gervase Markham [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes Francesco Poli wrote: Not-quite-DFSG-free == non-free, even though close to the freeness boundary == proprietary, even though close to the freeness boundary By definition, whatever is not free, is proprietary. I was using proprietary in what I thought was its fairly common meaning, i.e. closed source, controlled by only one company. Actually, I wish people would use the word proprietary in its proper meaning, ie the property of someone. Linux is proprietary, because it's copyrighted and owned by people. Oh - and you know where the fairly common meaning came from? Yes. Our friends at Microsoft - Windows is open, Unix is proprietary. Cheers, Wol -- Anthony W. Youngman - [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:40:12 +0100 Gervase Markham wrote: Francesco Poli wrote: Not-quite-DFSG-free == non-free, even though close to the freeness boundary == proprietary, even though close to the freeness boundary By definition, whatever is not free, is proprietary. I was using proprietary in what I thought was its fairly common meaning, i.e. closed source, controlled by only one company. I instead used the above-stated definition: now I think we clarified our terminology... I have no intention of getting into a fight about whether the Affero additional restriction is acceptable or free or whatever. The FSF thinks it's free; other people disagree. Their reasons are credible. I don't like it. But my point is that you are acting as if this exception turns all GPLed code into LGPLed code - i.e. Microsoft can come along and link it into Windows, or whatever. But that's obviously not true. I'm not acting like that. I'm saying that the clause under consideration permits linking with code encumbered by more restrictive terms than the ones of the GNU GPL v3 (this is true for sure, otherwise there would be no reason for special-casing the AfferoGPL v2...). This is a flaw for a license that claims to be a copyleft in the spirit of the GNU GPL v2. I'm simply pointing out this flaw. The only non-GPLed code your GPLed code can be linked with is code that also follows the GPL exactly _except_ that it has a single additional restriction on modification to a small part of it. Wait, AFAIK, there are no publicly disclosed drafts of the AfferoGPL v2 yet: hence we cannot know what it will look like. It could be better than how you depict it, but it could even be worse. We simply do not know. The only thing we know for sure is that it will be more restrictive than the GNU GPL v3, as explained above. This may not be a good thing, but it's not even on the same planet as some of the scenarios the phrase being able to link with proprietary code could cover. It's on the same planet (Propworld), just closer to the spaceport where ships that go to the other planet (DFSGworld) take off! ;-) And considering the small amount of code actually covered by the Affero GPL (and that there's very little evidence that version 2 of the Affero GPL will cause it to suddenly surge in popularity) then it's also very unlikely that code you write will end up in this situation. Do not underestimate the power of FSF endorsement: see how popular and widespread the GFDL is, despite its relatively young age and debian-legal's efforts to explain its freeness issues... :-( Lastly, the FSF is keeping their promises. They are keeping recent promises, by forgetting less recent ones. Back in 1991 the FSF wrote GNU GPL v2 which, in section 9, stated: | The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions | of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions | will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in | detail to address new problems or concerns. One of the key principles of the GNU GPL v2 copyleft mechanism is the prohibition to impose further restrictions. A license that allows adding further restrictions is *not* similar in spirit to the GNU GPL v2, IMO. If you can think of a better way for them to do so (and this way is already a whole load better than their last attempt), then suggest it. My suggestion for the FSF is: first, keep promises made to the *whole* free software community inside one of the most important documents ever published by the FSF (namely the GNU GPL v2), *then*, if at all possible, keep promises made to the *few* AfferoGPL enthusiasts. Please note that I don't actually know how many people love the AfferoGPL, I just assumed you're right in saying that there are not many of them... So I'd suggest you concentrate your efforts on the other points you made in your analysis, which were good and reasonable. In order to facilitate this, I'm not going to contribute further to this discussion, because its very continuance is counter-productive to its point. OK, let's stop here, then. -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/etch_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian etch installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpEDA5pvidqF.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
Francesco Poli wrote: On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:26:42 +0100 Gervase Markham wrote: I can't see any judge with a decent grasp of English or the notion of a legal notice or author attribution permitting the attachment of the GNU Manifesto to a work under this clause. Can you give a concrete example of a problematic situation you see? I cannot depict a specific scenario off the top of my head, but my alarm bell rang as soon as I saw the word preservation coupled with undefined (and hence vague) terms as reasonable legal notice and author attribution. Undefined in the license != vague. There are lots of English words the license uses which it does not explicitly define, and yet we seem to manage to understand it pretty well. An author attribution is text which tells you the name of an author. A reasonable legal notice is any notice of relevance to and on the topic of the legal situation surrounding the product. I really can't see any GFDL-like insert GNU Manifesto here problems with this. Since the clause does not seem to be designed as sufficiently narrow to avoid posing nasty problems in the future, I assumed the worst case scenario and concluded that the clause will bite. That was my line of reasoning. How would you rephrase it? BTW, does this section make GPLv3 compatible with the license of OpenSSL? I don't know: I didn't check, as it was not my primary concern. It was a question for the group :-) This clause is a permission to link; therefore, as I read it, the GPLv3 copyleft weakens to an LGPL-style copyleft in the case of linking with the Affero GPL. Each bit of code remains under its own license. Yes, and I dislike it: it sounds as (and probably actually is...) an endorsement of the AfferoGPL v2 by the FSF. Yes, it is. If you never use the Affero GPL, is it really a big deal? They made a promise ages ago, and now are looking for the least painful way to keep it. Having a special exception everyone else can ignore is a far better solution than the previous section-7-based attempt. P.S.: Please do not reply to me, Cc:ing the list, as I didn't asked you to do so. Sorry. It wasn't intentional. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 21:50:12 -0400 Joe Smith wrote: [...] I think most courts do not rule on uncontested fact. This clause is probably intended to prevent EvilCorp(TM) from claiming that the work falls into that class. The other party is unlikely to contest that, claiming the work does fall into that class, as that could only hurt said other party. I'm not sure I follow your reasoning, sorry. Anyway, as I stated, what concerns me is that declaring a fact as true in a license does not make it magically true. It could instead prevent the adoption of the license for some works, or, at any rate, become problematic in some scenarios... [...] I think this stems from source code not requireing a patent license. So if the source code is available, the patent can be bypassed by having the consumer download and compile the code themselves. Of course all of this can only protrect the downstream consumer if the compiled binaries are not being passed around. Hence, with this kind of protection from patents we lose the permission to distribute binaries! It does not look as a good enough protection, then... -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/etch_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian etch installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpiLicZpM9Wc.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Mon, 2 Apr 2007 21:50:12 -0400 Joe Smith wrote: [...] I think this stems from source code not requireing a patent license. So if the source code is available, the patent can be bypassed by having the consumer download and compile the code themselves. Of course all of this can only protrect the downstream consumer if the compiled binaries are not being passed around. Hence, with this kind of protection from patents we lose the permission to distribute binaries! It does not look as a good enough protection, then... I agree. It does protect the freedom of the end user, but without more effort on the part of the licensor, things can be problematic. I'm not sure about commerical entities compiling from source code and using the application. I suspect that sort of use may still need a patent license. Thus we have effetive discrimination against businesses. (That discrimination is not part of the licence, but is part of the source-code only software patent workaround.) Thus ideally the GPL v3 would not allow public availability of source code as an option, but require further protections. However that could be a problem. There has historicly been a fair amount of GPLv2 covered code that was distributed source-only because of patent issues. On the other hand, most of the time most of the time that happened the party did not have an actual patent license, so that clause would not apply to them. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:17:42 +0100 Gervase Markham wrote: Francesco Poli wrote: [...] I cannot depict a specific scenario off the top of my head, but my alarm bell rang as soon as I saw the word preservation coupled with undefined (and hence vague) terms as reasonable legal notice and author attribution. Undefined in the license != vague. You're right, but, in the present case, I felt that those terms could be intepreted in a broader sense than intended. There are lots of English words the license uses which it does not explicitly define, and yet we seem to manage to understand it pretty well. An author attribution is text which tells you the name of an author. A reasonable legal notice is any notice of relevance to and on the topic of the legal situation surrounding the product. I really can't see any GFDL-like insert GNU Manifesto here problems with this. I'm afraid that some extra care should be taken to avoid such problems... Since the clause does not seem to be designed as sufficiently narrow to avoid posing nasty problems in the future, I assumed the worst case scenario and concluded that the clause will bite. That was my line of reasoning. How would you rephrase it? That's a hard one... I will try and find the time to draft something (h... I'm saying so too often lately!). [...] This clause is a permission to link; therefore, as I read it, the GPLv3 copyleft weakens to an LGPL-style copyleft in the case of linking with the Affero GPL. Each bit of code remains under its own license. Yes, and I dislike it: it sounds as (and probably actually is...) an endorsement of the AfferoGPL v2 by the FSF. Yes, it is. If you never use the Affero GPL, is it really a big deal? Well, *when* I want a copyleft, I want one that *actually works*... Exemptions for specific incompatible licenses should be left out of the license text (so that who wants them can add them as additional permissions). *When* I choose the GNU GPL, I want to prevent my code from being linked with proprietary code (including AfferoGPL'd code). I'm simplifying things to a great extent here, but I think what I mean is clear enough... -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/etch_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian etch installation walk-through? . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpH4Yk4zQWSm.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
Francesco Poli wrote: Well, *when* I want a copyleft, I want one that *actually works*... Exemptions for specific incompatible licenses should be left out of the license text (so that who wants them can add them as additional permissions). *When* I choose the GNU GPL, I want to prevent my code from being linked with proprietary code (including AfferoGPL'd code). I'm simplifying things to a great extent here, but I think what I mean is clear enough... Not-quite-DFSG-free != proprietary. Calling Affero code proprietary is a pretty big stretch. Yes, there's a clause in there which is a restriction on modification - so it's not entirely free. But you still have to release the source to modifications, source follows the binary - all that GPL goodness, because the Affero license is based on the GPL. And, from a practical point of view, there's hardly any code under the Affero. Proprietary software companies are not going to relicense under the Affero in order to link with GPLed code - because the Affero doesn't let them keep their code secret. Some of your other points were good, but this one is really not going to be a problem in practice. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
Francesco Poli wrote: Clause 5d in GPLv3draft3 is basically unchanged with respect to previous drafts. It's worse than the corresponding clause 2c in GPLv2... :-( It's an inconvenience and border-line with respect to freeness. Actually this clause restricts how I can modify what an interactive program does when run. It mandates a feature that I *must* implement in *any* interactive interface of my modified work. It's very close to place an unacceptable restriction on modification. What is more awkward is that it seems that when a non-interactive work is modified so that it becomes an interactive work, the modifier is *compelled* to implement these features in *any* newly created interactive interface... I would like to see clause 5d dropped entirely. I agree that it's not very good. Given that persuading the FSF to drop the clause entirely at this late stage is unlikely, can we come up with a form of wording to suggest which at least makes it no worse than GPLv2? I would be happy to see all these permissions to add restrictions entirely dropped from Section 7. === not a Freeness issue, but a great loss, since, if this mechanism is kept in the final GPLv3 text, GPL-compatibility will no longer be a DFSG-compliance guarantee... :-( Can you give an example of a DFSG-non-compliant term that could be introduced under section 7? b. requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in source or object code forms of material added by you to a covered work; or Kills copyleft: are these the cousins of GFDL's Invariant Sections? What exactly is a reasonable legal notice? What exactly is an author attribution? It seems that these terms are not defined anywhere in the license. I'm concerned that they could be interpreted in a broad sense and allow people to take a GPLv3'd work and add some sort of invariant long text that nobody will ever be able to remove or modify... I can't see any judge with a decent grasp of English or the notion of a legal notice or author attribution permitting the attachment of the GNU Manifesto to a work under this clause. Can you give a concrete example of a problematic situation you see? BTW, does this section make GPLv3 compatible with the license of OpenSSL? 13. Use with the Affero General Public License. Kills copyleft: compatibility with a yet unknown license This section introduces a form of compatibility with a license that is yet unreleased and thus possibly non-free: the Affero General Public License, version 2. The AfferoGPL v1 is, in my opinion, a non-free license, due to its clause 2(d). I won't restate all the reasons for my conclusions (more details in http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/readsay.html?filename=gplv3-draft-3id=1663). As a consequence, I have few hopes that the forthcoming version 2 of the AfferoGPL will be a free license. Being compatible with an unknown (and thus possibly non-free) license destroys the copyleft mechanism of the GPLv3. Destroys is a bit strong. This clause is a permission to link; therefore, as I read it, the GPLv3 copyleft weakens to an LGPL-style copyleft in the case of linking with the Affero GPL. Each bit of code remains under its own license. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
On Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:26:42 +0100 Gervase Markham wrote: Francesco Poli wrote: Clause 5d in GPLv3draft3 is basically unchanged with respect to previous drafts. It's worse than the corresponding clause 2c in GPLv2... :-( [...] I would like to see clause 5d dropped entirely. I agree that it's not very good. Given that persuading the FSF to drop the clause entirely at this late stage is unlikely, can we come up with a form of wording to suggest which at least makes it no worse than GPLv2? Well, I think that clause 2c of GPLv2 is already suboptimal (even though not so bad to become non-free) and should have been weakened in GPLv3, rather than strengthened, as it currently is... Anyway, we *could* perhaps try to rephrase it in a weaker form, assuming that the FSF won't drop it, but could consider weakening it, instead... I don't know whether that will actually be the case, but maybe it's worth trying. It won't be easy, though: the simplest solution remains dropping it entirely, IMO. I will try and find the time to draft something and come back later (or at least, I hope...). I would be happy to see all these permissions to add restrictions entirely dropped from Section 7. === not a Freeness issue, but a great loss, since, if this mechanism is kept in the final GPLv3 text, GPL-compatibility will no longer be a DFSG-compliance guarantee... :-( Can you give an example of a DFSG-non-compliant term that could be introduced under section 7? What concerns me is an invariant text that could be introduced by exploiting clause 7b: see below for more details. b. requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in source or object code forms of material added by you to a covered work; or Kills copyleft: are these the cousins of GFDL's Invariant Sections? What exactly is a reasonable legal notice? What exactly is an author attribution? It seems that these terms are not defined anywhere in the license. I'm concerned that they could be interpreted in a broad sense and allow people to take a GPLv3'd work and add some sort of invariant long text that nobody will ever be able to remove or modify... I can't see any judge with a decent grasp of English or the notion of a legal notice or author attribution permitting the attachment of the GNU Manifesto to a work under this clause. Can you give a concrete example of a problematic situation you see? I cannot depict a specific scenario off the top of my head, but my alarm bell rang as soon as I saw the word preservation coupled with undefined (and hence vague) terms as reasonable legal notice and author attribution. Since the clause does not seem to be designed as sufficiently narrow to avoid posing nasty problems in the future, I assumed the worst case scenario and concluded that the clause will bite. That was my line of reasoning. BTW, does this section make GPLv3 compatible with the license of OpenSSL? I don't know: I didn't check, as it was not my primary concern. 13. Use with the Affero General Public License. Kills copyleft: compatibility with a yet unknown license This section introduces a form of compatibility with a license that is yet unreleased and thus possibly non-free: the Affero General Public License, version 2. The AfferoGPL v1 is, in my opinion, a non-free license, due to its clause 2(d). I won't restate all the reasons for my conclusions (more details in http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/readsay.html?filename=gplv3-draft-3id=1663). As a consequence, I have few hopes that the forthcoming version 2 of the AfferoGPL will be a free license. Being compatible with an unknown (and thus possibly non-free) license destroys the copyleft mechanism of the GPLv3. Destroys is a bit strong. I admit that weakens would have been a more appropriate term... This clause is a permission to link; therefore, as I read it, the GPLv3 copyleft weakens to an LGPL-style copyleft in the case of linking with the Affero GPL. Each bit of code remains under its own license. Yes, and I dislike it: it sounds as (and probably actually is...) an endorsement of the AfferoGPL v2 by the FSF. I don't want to open the can of worms of the FSF legal theory of linking, hence, let's assume for the sake of the argument that it's a legally sound theory. If this is the case, I don't want a general exemption for a license that will probably be non-free (and will for sure be GPLv3-incompatible, only artificially linkable due to this section and a corresponding one in its text). P.S.: Please do not reply to me, Cc:ing the list, as I didn't asked you to do so. I am a debian-legal subscriber and would rather avoid receiving the same message twice. Reply to the list only (as long as you want to send a public response). See http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct for more details. Thanks. --
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
The following is intended to be a compression of your comments down into the most important points (generally, the areas you are concerned about), to aid further discussion. As well as some responses to your comments. (I had to manually fix the quoting, so apologies if I mess it up somewhere). Francesco Poli wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [...] 3. No Denying Users' Rights through Technical Measures. No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures. Problematic: possibly untrue This clause is improved (being now denationalized), but still problematic. It could be seen as an untrue statement in some cases. How can the licensor say that the covered work won't be judged as part of an effective technological measure under a given law? That is for the courts to decide. In some scenarios, GnuPG may actually be considered part of an effective technological measure and could be deemed so by a judge... I think most courts do not rule on uncontested fact. This clause is probably intended to prevent EvilCorp(TM) from claiming that the work falls into that class. The other party is unlikely to contest that, claiming the work does fall into that class, as that could only hurt said other party. When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technical measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, Bad: possibly overreaching This clause is clearer than in the previous draft, but still troublesome, as it seems to be overreaching. For instance, it could be interpreted as covering legal powers to forbid computer crimes such as unauthorized intrusion into computer systems. E.g.: suppose that the covered work is a vulnerability scanner, or password cracker, or anyway a tool that could be used (among other things) to break into other people's computers. Using that tool in this manner is exercising a right under this License and is a circumvention of appropriate technical measures set to protect a computer system or network from unauthorized access. Gaining unauthorized access to a protected computer system or network is forbidden by law in several jurisdictions; do I waive such a legal protection, when I convey the covered work? I suggest dropping the waiver entirely, thus leaving the following disclaimer only. === waiving legal rights can be seen as a fee: this clause could fail DFSG#1 and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technical measures. Agree with your assesment, assuming the disclaming of intention could let a defentent invoke estoppel or other similar. Presumably that clause is intended to prevent the obvious workaround of moving the anti-copyprotection-circumvention law outside the copyright law. Overall, I find this to be one of the parts of the licence that is very unclear if approched without knowing it is about DCMA-style anti-circumvention laws. If one was not aware of that problem, one may well be quite confused while tying to figure out the purpose of that section [...] d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must include a convenient feature that displays an appropriate copyright notice, and tells the user that there is no warranty for the work (unless you provide a warranty), that licensees may convey the work under this License, and how to view a copy of this License. Specifically, if the interface presents a list of user commands or options, such as a menu, a command to display this information must be prominent in the list; otherwise, the work must display this information at startup. However, if the Program has interactive interfaces that do not comply with this subsection, your work need not make them comply. Bad: too restrictive Clause 5d in GPLv3draft3 is basically unchanged with respect to previous drafts. It's worse than the corresponding clause 2c in GPLv2... :-( It's an inconvenience and border-line with respect to freeness. Actually this clause restricts how I can modify what an interactive program does when run. It mandates a feature that I *must* implement in *any* interactive interface of my modified work. It's very close to place an unacceptable restriction on modification. What is more awkward is that it seems that when a non-interactive work is modified so that it becomes an interactive work, the modifier is *compelled* to implement these features in *any* newly created interactive interface... I would like to see clause 5d dropped entirely. === very close to
Re: GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:07:34 -0400 Joe Smith wrote: [...] For the record: IANAL, IANADD. My comments on the new draft follows. I will send them to the FSF public consultation system RSN (since they are accepting comments for only 60 days, starting on 28 March). IANAL and IANADD either. [...] - -- GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Discussion Draft 3 of Version 3, 28 March 2007 THIS IS A DRAFT, NOT A PUBLISHED VERSION OF THE GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE. [...] TERMS AND CONDITIONS 0. Definitions. [...] The Program refers to any copyrightable work licensed under this License. Style: Program or Work? Since the GPL is designed to be applicable to any work of authorship (not only computer programs), I would suggest using a more neutral term than the Program. Something like the Work would avoid misleading many many people into thinking that the GPL can only be applied to computer programs. [...] To modify a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of a verbatim copy. The resulting work is called a modified version of the earlier work or a work based on the earlier work. A covered work means either the unmodified Program or a work based on the Program. Good: clear definitions The definitions of modify, modified version, work based on another work, and covered work are slightly changed with respect to GPLv3draft2, but they are still clear. It's good that the definition of modified version exploits applicable copyright law without trying to rewrite it. This ensures that the license does not place restrictions on activities that do not require permission under applicable copyright law. [...] To propagate a work means to do (or cause others to do) anything with it that requires permission under applicable copyright law, except executing it on a computer or making modifications that you do not share. Propagation includes copying, distribution (with or without modification), making available to the public, and in some countries other activities as well. To convey a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies, excluding sublicensing. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying. Good: clear definitions The definitions of propagate and convey seem fairly clear. Again, their linking to copyright law ensures that the license does not place restrictions on activities that do not require permission under applicable copyright law. [...] 1. Source Code. Good: clear and appropriate This section seems OK to me. The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. Object code means any non-source form of a work. Good: please keep these definitions I like the definitions of source code and Object code as they are. Good to see that they were kept unaltered. [...] 2. Basic Permissions. All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program. The output from running a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given its content, constitutes a covered work. This License acknowledges your rights of fair use or other equivalent, as provided by copyright law. Good: mentioning of fair use is an improvement Good to see that fair use and similar rights are explicitly mentioned. This is an improvement over GPLv2. Propagation of covered works that you do not convey, and making modified versions of the Program that you do not convey, are permitted without conditions, so long as your license otherwise remains in force. Conveying is permitted under the conditions stated below. Sublicensing is not allowed; section 10 makes it unnecessary. Good: overreaching patent retaliation clause has been dropped I'm glad that the patent retaliation clause has been dropped: it was overreaching IMHO. 3. No Denying Users' Rights through Technical Measures. No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures. Problematic: possibly untrue This clause is improved (being now denationalized), but still problematic. It could be seen as an untrue statement in some cases. How can the licensor say that the covered work won't be judged as part of an effective technological measure under a given law? That is for the courts to decide. In some scenarios, GnuPG may actually be
GPL v3 Draft 3- text and comments
The entire draft can be found at the end of the message. I belive some positive changes have been made, but some changes are for the worse. Here is my analysis of the license. This is more a general analysis, but I am trying to point out any DFSG-freeness problems I find. I have no real comments on the preamble. Copyright also means copyright-like laws that apply to other kinds of works, such as semiconductor masks. (from Section 0) I like this, but I'm not sure that it is not problematic. I am aware that Nintendo's official policy on ROMs (Dumps of the data contained in the ROM chip of a cartidge based game) is that they are not lawful, even if you both own the original, and are creating the ROM file yourself. They mention some sort of exception to the rules regarding media-shifting and backup/archival copying due to the games being stored on a chip in a cartrige. I'm guessing they are trying to claim that Mask Rights apply. They may be right if a user intends to create a new ROM chip containg the data, but if a computer file is the final destination, that seems highly unlikely. I'm guessing this clause intended to cover these sorts of claims with respect to GPL'ed software. It also clarifies that if a semiconductor mask design is what is being licenced, then Mask Rights are licenced just as Copyright is. No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures. (from Section 3) Trying to remove the US specific law refernce on this clause intended to defeat the concept of DCMA-like anti-circumvention rules only makes this harder to understand, and makes its purpose less clear. When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technical measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technical measures. ( from section 3) That sentence is only a little less cryptic. Sure we understand what it is intended to mean, but what about other people unfamilar with the DMCA anti-circumvention rules. What would they think is being said? Section 4 (about verbatim source code copying) looks fine to me. I see not problems with it, except perhaps that the section title may be a bit misleading as it only applies to works in source form. The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified it, and giving a relevant date. (from section 5) This is ok, but I'm not sure about the relevant date. Would the date I first thought about making the change be sufficient? (The date the change was made or published is presumeably what was intended). Section 5d (If the work has interactive user interfaces ...) is one I've never liked. I don't like the way it is worded currently. Especially the last sentence. The way it was stated in GPLv2 seemed clearer to me than this does. Section 6b says valid for at least three years and valid for as long as you offer spare parts or customer support for that product model, That is an interesting concept. I suppose it is good. That is not a new change so I must have missed that change when it was first made. The new stuff at the end of section 6, about consumer products and Installation infromation is the new form of the TiVo clause, and is likely a DFSG--freeness minefeild. I'm not certain of that, but it seems big and complicated and consists almost entirely of completely new wording. This is one section that is important to look closely at. Section 7 Seems better, and far less problematic. Section 8 looks ok to me, but perhaps there is some freeness problem with it that I am not seeing. Section 11 may be tricky as it is covers patents. I would not be too suprised to find freness problems associated with this section. Section 13 is far better than the equivlent that was found in the previous section 7. I'm not a fan of the licence explicitly referencing that other licence, but it prevents Affero-covered code from being considered GNU-gpled. It is basically equivlent for our purposes to an additional permission that allows linking to a proprietary library. If used the complete work as a whole is non -free, but the GNU-GPL'ed part seperated is free, but may need to be in contrib it it depends on the Affero Code. (This is all based on the assumption that the affero V2 is considered DFSG-nonfree. If it is considered DFSG-free then this is not an issue at all.). My current conclusion is that I'm not seeing any DFSG-freeness problems. Some may still exist, and iif so likely exist witith the
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Florian Weimer wrote: * Nathanael Nerode: I think this is overly broad. What about the following? You must not add any functionality to programs licensed under this License which may not be removed, by you or any third party, according to applicable law. Such functionality includes, but is not limited to, technological measures which effectively control access to any work, provided that removal of the measure would be prohibited by applicable law. Good idea. We need to do some more wording work, of course I don't think such an approach would be popular with the FSF, though. If you propagate the view that features you cannot remove from the software are harmful (which is, as far as I can see, a pretty reasonable general position), it's a bit hard to explain why you are in favor of AGPL-like provisions that introduce such non-removable features. Well, we were hoping that the FSF would be willing to accept replacement text which would achieve the AGPL goals *without* introducting non-removable features, of course. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Breaking new. Barnes Thornburg LLP on the GPL (Wallace v IBM et al): - Although it is not clear how it is relevant to whether the per se or rule of reason analysis would apply, Plaintiff also argues that the GPL purports to defeat the requirements of contractual privity and thus evade the prohibition under 17 U.S.C. 301 concerning the contractual regulation of copyrights. (Response at 4.) Section 301 of 17 U.S.C., however, concerns the preemptive effect of the Copyright Act with respect to other laws and does not prohibit contractual regulation of copyrights. To the contrary, as is evident from the ProCD case Plaintiff cites, copyrights may be licensed by a uniform contract effective against all who choose to use it. (Response at 6) (citing ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447, 1454 (7th Cir. 1996).) The court in ProCD held that a shrinkwrap software license, that is, a license that accompanies software limiting its use, is an effective contract under the UCC against anyone who receives the terms of the license and uses the software. Id. at 1452. The court also held that state enforcement of such contracts under the UCC would not be preempted by the Copyright Act or 17 U.S.C. § 301. Id. The GPL, like the shrinkwrap license in ProCD, is a license applicable to anyone who receives its terms and chooses to use it, and by using it, accepts the terms under which the software was offered. Id. - My, this is such a fun. Kudos to Wallace. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Barnes Thornburg LLP on price: --- Plaintiff's argument that an agreement to license any derivative works at no charge is somehow a minimum re-sale price is untenable given that the provision does not set a price for licenses at all, but rather provides that there shall be no price for licenses. (Response at 10; GPL para. 2(b).) Furthermore, a minimum price agreement requires that any price below that price would violate the agreement. There is no indication that in the unlikely event a licensor wished to license modifications to the GPL at a price below zero (i.e., an effective negative price by paying the licensee to take the license), such would in any way violate the GPL. To the extent the GPL is analogous to any type of price restraint, it would be no more than a maximum vertical restrain subject to the rule of reason. --- He he. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 2/15/06, Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 10:26:10AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:47:32PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 2/14/06, John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:01:05PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: But we all know that the GPL is a license-not-a-contract, and so UCC and related case law simply doesn't apply. Do we? I thought that a license was a contract. Everyone who is neither blind nor an idiot knows for certain that the GPL is a *LICENSE NOT A CONTRACT* -- Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen have clarified that fact at least a hundred times. What purpose do you feel calling a person blind or an idiot serves? I don't think you are contributing anything to this discussion. He's not. Would you please killfile him so that we can get on with life? :) Oh c'mon, I try all my best. http://www.ifso.ie/documents/gplv3-launch-2006-01-16.html - This would not be a presentation about the GPL by me if emphasis was not placed on what you see before you now. This license is Not a Contract. You are not required to accept this License in order to receive a copy of the Program. We have not argued now, nor will we, nor can anyone argue, who reads the text of the language, that the receipt of the code is some quid-pro-quo for the acceptance of some terms. If you are existing in a legal system in which that wasn't what made it a contract, then ...go with God, but arguments based on the contractual exchange of the code for promises of compliance have nothing to do with us. We give permissions here and the enforcement weight of our license lies in the fact that you have no permission to propagate, that is, you have no permission to do what copyright law requires permission to do, but through this license. That's our legal theory and we are sticking to it. - Oh just love it. Moglen comedian. Brilliant one. This theory make sense. Copyright law requires that you must have an explicit permission to copy/modify, etc... the software. The GPL give you this permission on certain conditions. If someone does not respect the GPL, he will not be sued for having breaking the contract, he will be sued because he distribute/modify a software without the explicit permission required by copyright law. I do not see why you object to this theory. GPL give more permission than copyright law: if you think that it does not give enough permission for you, then what you must attack is copyright law. I cannot understand the theory (which apparently you defend) that because you do like the GPL or because you do not agree to it; you would have the right to do whatever you want with a GPL software. The only problem is that if you find a way to not respect the GPL by doing something not forbidden by copyright law. But the GPL is made that there is no such situation (exept maybe in some very marginal cases). Olive -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 2/22/06, olive [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [... Not a Contract ...] I do not see why you object to this theory. Go ask Barnes Thornburg LLP. [O]ne of the Midwest's largest law firms says that The GPL, like the shrinkwrap license in ProCD, is a license applicable to anyone who receives its terms and chooses to use it, and by using it, accepts the terms under which the software was offered. Id.. (In ProCD the court then held the license valid and enforceable as a contract.) regards, alexander. P.S. Never mind that EULAs don't convey any rights under 17 USC 106 (subject to limitations under 17 USC 117 and etc.) at all.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 2/22/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Barnes Thornburg LLP on price: --- Plaintiff's argument that an agreement to license any derivative works at no charge is somehow a minimum re-sale price is untenable given that the provision does not set a price for licenses at all, but rather provides that there shall be no price for licenses. (Response at 10; GPL para. 2(b).) Furthermore, a minimum price agreement requires that any price below that price would violate the agreement. There is no indication that in the unlikely event a licensor wished to license modifications to the GPL at a price below zero (i.e., an effective negative price by paying the licensee to take the license), such would in any way violate the GPL. To the extent the GPL is analogous to any type of price restraint, it would be no more than a Uhmm. Wallace's argument was about collective works to begin with. - Alternative Vertical Analysis In the alternative, if the GPL license is viewed simply as distributing a collective work in a vertical agreement ... - Somehow it got translated by Barnes Thornburg LLP to Plaintiff's argument that an agreement to license any derivative works Any ideas, all? Oh, Ah, BTW... does anyone know where can I find a negatively priced GPL'd stuff? Half the profit for a link! Heck, 75 percent!! 90 if you insist!!! regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 2/22/06, olive [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [... Not a Contract ...] I do not see why you object to this theory. Go ask Barnes Thornburg LLP. [O]ne of the Midwest's largest law firms says that The GPL, like the shrinkwrap license in ProCD, is a license applicable to anyone who receives its terms and chooses to use it, and by using it, accepts the terms under which the software was offered. Id.. (In ProCD the court then held the license valid and enforceable as a contract.) I do not know exactly ProCd; but there is usually a big difference. Proprietary software license give you *less* permissions than copyright law; so that these companies need an enforceable contract because otherwise you have your normal rights. The GPL give you *more* permissions than copyright law; so a contract is not needed because the forbidden things by the GPL are forbidden by copyright law anyway. If you break the GPL you just can get sued because you have distributed/modified softwares without the required permission; not because you have not respected a contract. Although, as you have shown in ProCD, the first situation is defendable (you have agreed to the license since you use the software); this is nevertheless more fragile: for example if you buy a CD with software on it and if there is no license on the CD (visible before you buy the products); some juridiction might decide that by buing the CD, you have the right to use it and that you haven't to agree with any further terms (this seems logical, reciprocally if you have bought a CD you cannot make extra conditions in other that the vendor get paid). There are GPL software which are sold in this way. I do not know what courts will decide if you use a software downloaded from the net but anyway the second second argument seems juridically stronger. Olive -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Barnes Thornburg LLP on conspiracy. -- Finally, the Response confirms that there is no alleged conspiracy, as the GPL is allegedly public by its nature with hundreds and potentially an unlimited number of programmers using the program. (Response at 3.) The allegations support no more than a unilateral decision by each of the Defendants, and the hundreds of others, to use the GPL for distribution of software. (Second Am. Compl. at 2.) The Second Amended Complaint must therefore be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. -- Well, well, well. http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/paramountdoc_1946equity.htm (The U.S. Declares Hollywood Guilty of Antitrust Conspiracy) http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/paramountdoc_1948supreme.htm - The District Court found that the defendants in the licenses they issued fixed minimum admission prices which the exhibitors agreed to charge, whether the rental of the film was a flat amount or a percentage of the receipts. It found that substantially uniform minimum prices had been established in the licenses of all defendans. Minimum prices were established in master agreements or franchises which were made between various defendants as distributors and various defendants as exhibitors and in joint operating agreements made by the five majors with each other [334 U.S. 131 , 142] and with independent theatre owners covering the operation of certain theatres. 4 By these later contracts minimum admission prices were often fixed for dozens of theatres owned by a particular defendant in a given area of the United States. Minimum prices were fixed in licenses of each of the five major defendants. The other three defendants made the same requirement in licenses granted to the exhibitor-defendants. We do not stop to elaborate on these findings. They are adequately detailed by the District Court in its opinion. See 66 F.Supp. 334-339. The District Court found that two price-fixing conspiracies existed-a horizontal one between all the defendants, a vertical one between each distributor-defendant and its licensees. The latter was based on express agreements and was plainly established. The former was inferred from the pattern of price-fixing disclosed in the record. We think there was adequate foundation for it too. It is not necessary to find an express agreement in order to find a conspiracy. It is enough that a concert of action is contemplated and that the defendants conformed to the arrangement. Interstate Circuit v. United States, 306 U.S. 208 , 226, 227, 474; United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U.S. 265, 275 , 1076. That was shown here. - regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
debian-legal is not your personal blog. Stop spamming it with off-topic troll postings already. If you want to rant or rave about nutcases tilting at windmills, do it in an appropriate place. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 2/22/06, olive [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] The GPL give you *more* permissions than copyright law; so a contract is not needed because the forbidden things by the GPL are forbidden by copyright law anyway. If you break the GPL you just can get sued because you have distributed/modified softwares without the required permission. Distribution of authorized (not pirated) copies is permitted under 17 USC 109. Similarly, owners of authorized copies can modify software under 17 USC 117. So distributed/modified (WITHOUT AUTHORITY OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS) of publicly available GPL'd works is explicitly permitted by the copyright law. It doesn't require permission. Copyright doesn't contemplate copyleft. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Moglen's underling Fontana in action. http://www.ciocentral.com/article/Questions+Still+Abound+over+GPL+3+/171577_1.aspx On the DRM front, there is little the GPL can do to fix this, and this is a matter that needs to be taken up by the legislature, Fontana said. But, that being said, the license also makes it difficult for people to use the GPL to invoke DRM protections, and we want to make sure that if they are going to invoke DRM restrictions that they can't use our license to do that, he said. Also, on the issue of derivative works, Fontana said the draft license has not changed the language that defines what a derivative work is, and I don't think that we can. But Lawrence Rosen, a partner with Rosenlaw Einschlag, said people want to know whether, if they linked two pieces of work together, this creates a derivative work. People do not know if that is the case here, and the license is not entirely clear about the obligation to release source code, and that uncertainty hurts potential adoption of the GPL, he said. Blogging-ly-yours. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Page 2 exhibit managed to escape. Bringing it back. On 2/22/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Moglen's underling Fontana in action. http://www.ciocentral.com/article/Questions+Still+Abound+over+GPL+3+/171577_1.aspx On the DRM front, there is little the GPL can do to fix this, and this is a matter that needs to be taken up by the legislature, Fontana said. But, that being said, the license also makes it difficult for people to use the GPL to invoke DRM protections, and we want to make sure that if they are going to invoke DRM restrictions that they can't use our license to do that, he said. Also, on the issue of derivative works, Fontana said the draft license has not changed the language that defines what a derivative work is, and I don't think that we can. But Lawrence Rosen, a partner with Rosenlaw Einschlag, said people want to know whether, if they linked two pieces of work together, this creates a derivative work. People do not know if that is the case here, and the license is not entirely clear about the obligation to release source code, and that uncertainty hurts potential adoption of the GPL, he said. --- Rosen said he is still trying to figure out what the wording of the license actually means. You have to make sure that all the words fit together, and right now, I'm nor sure they actually do, so it's useful to have all these committees looking at it, he said. Rosen also wants to know how and why this license differs from others, and is looking forward to hearing from the FSF about that. He unsure that all the language in the license has legal effect and what the drafters are hoping the legal effect of the license will be. Mike Milinkovich, the executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, stressed that code licensed under the EPL (Eclipse Public License) remain EPL code under any condition. --- Still-blogging-ly-yours. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Olive, this guy is just a troll. Feeding him just seems to make him waste more of Debian's bandwidth and my spambox. My advice is to leave him be. -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 2/15/06, Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 10:26:10AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:47:32PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 2/14/06, John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:01:05PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: But we all know that the GPL is a license-not-a-contract, and so UCC and related case law simply doesn't apply. Do we? I thought that a license was a contract. Everyone who is neither blind nor an idiot knows for certain that the GPL is a *LICENSE NOT A CONTRACT* -- Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen have clarified that fact at least a hundred times. What purpose do you feel calling a person blind or an idiot serves? I don't think you are contributing anything to this discussion. He's not. Would you please killfile him so that we can get on with life? :) Oh c'mon, I try all my best. http://www.ifso.ie/documents/gplv3-launch-2006-01-16.html - This would not be a presentation about the GPL by me if emphasis was not placed on what you see before you now. This license is Not a Contract. You are not required to accept this License in order to receive a copy of the Program. We have not argued now, nor will we, nor can anyone argue, who reads the text of the language, that the receipt of the code is some quid-pro-quo for the acceptance of some terms. If you are existing in a legal system in which that wasn't what made it a contract, then ...go with God, but arguments based on the contractual exchange of the code for promises of compliance have nothing to do with us. We give permissions here and the enforcement weight of our license lies in the fact that you have no permission to propagate, that is, you have no permission to do what copyright law requires permission to do, but through this license. That's our legal theory and we are sticking to it. - Oh just love it. Moglen comedian. Brilliant one. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 2/16/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2/15/06, Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 10:26:10AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:47:32PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 2/14/06, John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:01:05PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: But we all know that the GPL is a license-not-a-contract, and so UCC and related case law simply doesn't apply. Do we? I thought that a license was a contract. Everyone who is neither blind nor an idiot knows for certain that the GPL is a *LICENSE NOT A CONTRACT* -- Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen have clarified that fact at least a hundred times. What purpose do you feel calling a person blind or an idiot serves? I don't think you are contributing anything to this discussion. He's not. Would you please killfile him so that we can get on with life? :) Oh c'mon, I try all my best. http://www.ifso.ie/documents/gplv3-launch-2006-01-16.html - This would not be a presentation about the GPL by me if emphasis was not placed on what you see before you now. This license is Not a Contract. You are not required to accept this License in order to receive a copy of the Program. We have not argued now, nor will we, nor can anyone argue, who reads the text of the language, that the receipt of the code is some quid-pro-quo for the acceptance of some terms. If you are existing in a legal system in which that wasn't what made it a contract, then ...go with God, but arguments based on the contractual exchange of the code for promises of compliance have nothing to do with us. We give permissions here and the enforcement weight of our license lies in the fact that you have no permission to propagate, that is, you have no permission to do what copyright law requires permission to do, but through this license. That's our legal theory and we are sticking to it. - On another forum, I've posted a link to http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/research-agenda.html as an example of Moglen's talent in bullshit rap: Current research proceeds by facilitating high-energy collisions between widely-dispersed non-homogeneous randomly-motivated incremental acts of individual creativity and large masses of ill-gotten wealth. I've also asked if anyone ever saw a computer program written by Eben I am a historian and a computer programmer, (nodody replied thus far). Finally, I suggested that someone must tell Eben that he got a broken link to Manifesto of the Communist Party. See Moglen, The DotCommunist Manifesto[link] (2003). See and hear Moglen, The DotCommunist Manifesto: How Culture Became Property and What We're Going to Do About It[link] (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, November 8, 2001). See also Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York, Prentice-Hall: 1952) (mult. repr.) (unfree); Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy; Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, Beacon Press: 1966) (mult. repr.) (unfree); Karl Marx Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party[BROKEN link], (English ed. London, 1888) (Engels ed.) (mult. repr.) (mult. trans.). daydone commented: Now Alex let's not rag on Eben's qualities. It is well known that Eben has impeccable credentials and legal judgement. His wisdom is spread far and wide. Ever free software advocate in the United States accepts what Eben says as gospel truth: Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html Even Groklaw's PJ knows this to be a fact: The GPL is a License, Not a Contract, Which is Why the Sky Isn't Falling http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031214210634851 Only a small, irrelevent segment of the U.S. population doesn't know this. . . the entire federal judiciary and the professional lawyers hired to defend the F.S.F. Perhaps with Eben's charm they'll come to see things his way. . . I guess one can always hope. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
I respectfully suggest to Debian and Software in the Public Interest, Inc. to consider sponsoring a new glasses (let's not dilute $4 million grant from OSDL) to crazy Eben, and let him take a brief look at ... http://www.ifso.ie/documents/gplv3-launch-2006-01-16.html Because the deterrent effect of denying the right to have and use and distribute free software is not enough in and of itself to break most patent aggression schemes. Where we have satisfied ourself that narrow targeted patent retaliation may have true deterrent affect, we have however incorporated it into the license as part of a general attempt to do everything we can about the patent problem. Here we believe that one narrow form of retaliation may actually have meaningful effect, so this license gives unlimited permission to privately modify and run the program provided that you do not bring suit for patent infringement against anyone for making, using, or distributing, their works based on the program. And as Richard has already told you, we believe the operative effect of this clause would be to deny continued opportunity to maintain privately modified versions on the part of any party who seeks to use its patent claims to prevent similar or equivalent modifications from being made by others. In this very narrow field we think retaliation may actually deter aggression and we wish therefore to include it. Please note also the way in which the next paragraph makes use of our copyright-culture-free notation scheme. Propagation of covered works is permitted without limitation provided it does not enable parties other than you to make or receive copies. Propagation which does enable them to do so is permitted, as 'distribution', under the conditions of sections 4-6 below. So let us, just for a moment, attend to the question of non-US statutory copyright schemes under the new license. - ... Sections 109 and 117 in the US statutory copyright scheme. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/17/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/17/06, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Eben had a really humorous explanation, which I will attempt to paraphrase from my (impressively imperfect) memory: No lawyer knows exactly why we have been shouting at eachother for the past 50(?) years; but since everyone is shouting, everyone thought there must be some reason. I've decided to take take the initiative and return to mixed case, ending the endless shouting match. Yeah. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit: Uniform Commercial Code § 2-316(2), which requires that any exclusion or modification of the implied warranty of merchantability be conspicuous, and that any exclusion or modification of the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose be made in a conspicuous writing. A contract's warranty disclaimer satisfies the conspicuous requirement when it is printed in all capital letters, when it appears in a larger type than the terms around it, or when it is in a larger and boldface type. Likewise, a disclaimer in boldface type, printed in all capitals on the face of the warranty above the buyer's signature meets the definition of conspicuousness. A disclaimer is not [*25] conspicuous, however, when it is printed in small print on the back of the document, when it is the same size and typeface as the terms around it, or when it is not in boldface or capital lettering. But we all know that the GPL is a license-not-a-contract, and so UCC and related case law simply doesn't apply. regards, alexander. --- LWN: So, if the kernel is covered solely by the GPL, you would see proprietary modules as an infringement? Eben: Yes. I think we would all accept that. I think that the degree of interpenetration between kernel modules and the remainder of the kernel is very great, I think it's clear that a kernel with some modules loaded is a a work and because any module that is dynamically loaded could be statically linked into the kernel, and because I'm sure that the mere method of linkage is not what determines what violates the GPL, I think it would be very clear analytically that non-GPL loadable kernel modules would violate the license if it's pure GPL. Analytically, the above would be true only if the first Nth hyperbolic cosines of the address registers are congruent (in a Hilbert Space) to the metric tenor of the hard drive space when mapped one to one onto (or is it into?) a finite but unbounded timelike manifold. Eben's got more bullshit rap than Snoop Dogg. -- day5done.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:01:05PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: But we all know that the GPL is a license-not-a-contract, and so UCC and related case law simply doesn't apply. Do we? I thought that a license was a contract. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 2/14/06, John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:01:05PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: But we all know that the GPL is a license-not-a-contract, and so UCC and related case law simply doesn't apply. Do we? I thought that a license was a contract. Everyone who is neither blind nor an idiot knows for certain that the GPL is a *LICENSE NOT A CONTRACT* -- Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen have clarified that fact at least a hundred times. regards, alexander. --- [... ICE MILLER lawyers in Wallace v FSF: the contract controls ...] If Moglen doesn't fire them he has some serious explaining to do to thousands of people on why he misled programmers and companies on the legal nature of the GPL -- he is, after all, a Professor of Law and lead counsel for the FSF. This right to exclude implies an equally large power to license--that is, to grant permission to do what would otherwise be forbidden. Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits. http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-12.html -- day5done
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:47:32PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 2/14/06, John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:01:05PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: But we all know that the GPL is a license-not-a-contract, and so UCC and related case law simply doesn't apply. Do we? I thought that a license was a contract. Everyone who is neither blind nor an idiot knows for certain that the GPL is a *LICENSE NOT A CONTRACT* -- Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen have clarified that fact at least a hundred times. What purpose do you feel calling a person blind or an idiot serves? I don't think you are contributing anything to this discussion. In fact, if you were to pull up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License as I have now done, you would see: The GPL was designed as a license, rather than a contract. In some Common Law jurisdictions, the legal distinction between a license and a contract is an important one: contracts are enforceable by contract law, whereas the GPL, as a license, is enforced under the terms of copyright law. However, this distinction is not useful in the many jurisdictions where there are no differences between contracts and licences, such as Civil Law systems. Further reading will show that most of Europe, Japan, and Louisiana have Civil Law systems. This right to exclude implies an equally large power to license--that is, to grant permission to do what would otherwise be forbidden. Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits. That statement, if true, would appear to be valid only in 49 of the United States and parts of Europe, apparently. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 2/14/06, John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] What purpose do you feel calling a person blind or an idiot serves? I don't think you are contributing anything to this discussion. How about this: http://www.linuxworld.com/story/43614.htm (I am an Adjunct Professor at Duquesne University School of Law teaching upper-level intellectual property law...) I mean read it now (and try not to die... very high degree of ROFL). And it's not a hoax. http://www.santanderlaw.com/Nav%20Bar/Articles.htm - Practicing Law Without a License, (a rebuttal of a non-lawyer's attack on software open source General Public License validity issues), LinuxWorld, February 6, 2004. - Done with it? Now turn to http://www.santanderlaw.com/Files/SCO%2520Litigation%2520Case%2520Study.pdf When Linux is distributed under the GPL, the distributor (if it has contributed to the code base) is the licensor and is sublicensing code from other authors under the authority of the GPL to the user-licensee. The result is that a large number of contributors to the Linux kernel code are licensors (as well as licensees) under the GPL and have the ability to enforce their contractual rights under the GPL just as any other licensor would. Contractual rights? User-licensee? GPLv3: 9.[5] Not a Contract. (Rationale: Section 9 revises the corresponding section in GPLv2 in various ways to make the provision clearer.) You are not required to accept this License in order to receive a copy of the Program. Hmmm. It's just mind boggling how many different legal faces the GPL possesses in Prof. Celia's mind. Ranging from unilateral-permission-not-a-contract to just-like-normal-eula. Prof. Celia must be truly excited by such legal chameleon. [...] This right to exclude implies an equally large power to license--that is, to grant permission to do what would otherwise be forbidden. Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits. That statement, if true, would appear to be valid only in 49 of the United States United Sates? Lee Hollaar the author of http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise2.html (I mean his treatise, not the Foreword written by the Chief Judge and the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee) commented on that statement. Here's what Lee Hollaar who worked with the Chief Judge and the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Internet, copyright, and patent issues as a Committee Fellow said regarding truthfulness of that statement: http://groups.google.com/group/misc.int-property/msg/4d2438aa5d80f803 -- In article [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits. [quoting Eben Moglen] That might be true IF she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits. But as I have pointed out here and in my comments to the FSF regarding the new GPLv3, that is not the case. United States copyright law provides a number of exceptions to the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, including first sale as covered in 17 U.S.C. 109 and the right in 17 U.S.C. 117 of the owner of a copy of a computer to reproduce or adapt it if necessary to use it. The convenient redefinition of things in the GPL reminds me of a quote from Abraham Lincoln: How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. -- regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 10:26:10AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:47:32PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 2/14/06, John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Feb 14, 2006 at 04:01:05PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: But we all know that the GPL is a license-not-a-contract, and so UCC and related case law simply doesn't apply. Do we? I thought that a license was a contract. Everyone who is neither blind nor an idiot knows for certain that the GPL is a *LICENSE NOT A CONTRACT* -- Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen have clarified that fact at least a hundred times. What purpose do you feel calling a person blind or an idiot serves? I don't think you are contributing anything to this discussion. He's not. Would you please killfile him so that we can get on with life? :) -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
* Nathanael Nerode: I think this is overly broad. What about the following? You must not add any functionality to programs licensed under this License which may not be removed, by you or any third party, according to applicable law. Such functionality includes, but is not limited to, technological measures which effectively control access to any work, provided that removal of the measure would be prohibited by applicable law. Good idea. We need to do some more wording work, of course I don't think such an approach would be popular with the FSF, though. If you propagate the view that features you cannot remove from the software are harmful (which is, as far as I can see, a pretty reasonable general position), it's a bit hard to explain why you are in favor of AGPL-like provisions that introduce such non-removable features. I still see problems. :-/ This could be interpreted to prohibit adding access control features, rather than to require that they be removable. The restriction would only apply to licensees (not those who control execution of the software, without receiving a copy of it), and I think it is our intent that access control features which cannot be circumvented by licensees are prohibited. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Florian Weimer wrote: * Nathanael Nerode: Hrrm. We need a different clause then. No program licensed under this License, which accesses a work, shall require the authority of the copyright owner for that work, in order to gain access to that work. Accordingly, no program licensed under this License is a technological measure which effectively controls access to any work. I think this is overly broad. What about the following? You must not add any functionality to programs licensed under this License which may not be removed, by you or any third party, according to applicable law. Such functionality includes, but is not limited to, technological measures which effectively control access to any work, provided that removal of the measure would be prohibited by applicable law. Good idea. We need to do some more wording work, of course (It would make sense to include language which requires the possibility of legal redistribution without the features, but I'm too tired to rephrase it again.) I still see problems. :-/ This could be interpreted to prohibit adding access control features, rather than to require that they be removable. The rationale is that we don't care if a piece of code enforces a restriction if we can legally patch it away. This is the difference between mandatory DRM and an ACL check in a file system. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
* Nathanael Nerode: Hrrm. We need a different clause then. No program licensed under this License, which accesses a work, shall require the authority of the copyright owner for that work, in order to gain access to that work. Accordingly, no program licensed under this License is a technological measure which effectively controls access to any work. I think this is overly broad. What about the following? You must not add any functionality to programs licensed under this License which may not be removed, by you or any third party, according to applicable law. Such functionality includes, but is not limited to, technological measures which effectively control access to any work, provided that removal of the measure would be prohibited by applicable law. (It would make sense to include language which requires the possibility of legal redistribution without the features, but I'm too tired to rephrase it again.) The rationale is that we don't care if a piece of code enforces a restriction if we can legally patch it away. This is the difference between mandatory DRM and an ACL check in a file system. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Walter Landry wrote: Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That is the basic problem with these anti-DRM clauses: differentiating between DRM and legitimate privacy controls is basically impossible. I think it is possible. It requires a sharp focus on the *legal* issues, since the technology is not different, but the legal basis is. A legitimate privacy control may control access to many things -- but it does *not* exert control over works you have published (since they're, well, *public*.) A legitimate privacy device may function very much like DRM. Consider classified environments, where you really don't want people to copy things around willy-nilly. Making it hard to copy information won't eliminate leaks, but it will reduce them. I don't see why making a system to handle classified documents should be disallowed by the GPL. Again, the goal of this clause isn't to prohibit the creation of such systems. The goal is merely to curtail the application of laws such as the DMCA which would give such systems the force of law. I believe the best solution to this confusion would be to frame the clause with something like For the purposes of [laws like the DMCA, stated in some generic manner] This does raise another interesting point: there are laws in some jurisdictions which mandate the use of certain measures to protect privacy in certain situations, such as patient medical records. It would be problematic if this clause was taken as a legal definition in those cases as well, preventing the use of GPLed software for that purpose. Thus, the above indication of scope might actually be necessary, with a sufficiently narrow description of DMCA-like laws. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Wed, 25 Jan 2006 08:44:21 -0800 Josh Triplett wrote: This does raise another interesting point: there are laws in some jurisdictions which mandate the use of certain measures to protect privacy in certain situations, such as patient medical records. It would be problematic if this clause was taken as a legal definition in those cases as well, preventing the use of GPLed software for that purpose. Indeed, this clause could really backfire... Thus, the above indication of scope might actually be necessary, with a sufficiently narrow description of DMCA-like laws. I don't know if it's at all possible to say something like: for the purposes of law $NASTY_LAW this is not a $THING, but for the purposes of $PRETTY_GOOD_LAW this can indeed be a $THING Well, maybe you can say it, but it won't necessarily hold... This clause looks more and more problematic, each time we review it. :-( Wouldn't it better to not have it at all? -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgp8P1HQOoy2L.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/23/06, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] A legitimate privacy device may function very much like DRM. Consider classified environments, where you really don't want people to copy things around willy-nilly. Making it hard to copy information won't eliminate leaks, but it will reduce them. I don't see why making a system to handle classified documents should be disallowed by the GPL. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html Because I don't believe that it's really desirable to have security on a computer, I shouldn't be willing to help uphold the security regime. I like also this: So the result is that we had a smoothly functioning anarchy, and after my experience there, I'm convinced that that is the best way for people to live. Unfortunately the AI lab in that form was destroyed. Amen. regards, alexander.
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hrrm. We need a different clause then. No program licensed under this License, which accesses a work, shall require the authority of the copyright owner for that work, in order to gain access to that work. This is too broad. If I have a machine on the internet which is secured using GPL'd programs, I certainly do not give anyone and everyone the legal authority to see what is on the machine. That's using your authority as the *machine owner*, though. Not your authority as a *copyright holder*. That's precisely the distinction I'm trying to make here, though I clearly haven't succeeded. In that case, a better example would be if I put up an file encrypted with your public key on a webserver. I am not giving anyone but you the authority to access the contents. That is the basic problem with these anti-DRM clauses: differentiating between DRM and legitimate privacy controls is basically impossible. I think it is possible. It requires a sharp focus on the *legal* issues, since the technology is not different, but the legal basis is. A legitimate privacy control may control access to many things -- but it does *not* exert control over works you have published (since they're, well, *public*.) A legitimate privacy device may function very much like DRM. Consider classified environments, where you really don't want people to copy things around willy-nilly. Making it hard to copy information won't eliminate leaks, but it will reduce them. I don't see why making a system to handle classified documents should be disallowed by the GPL. Cheers, Walter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 09:07:42 -0800 Don Armstrong wrote:
Here is version 3; it's also available on gplv3.fsf.org as well.
OK, I'm going to comment here first, so that I can get some feedback
from other debian-legal regulars.
Feel free to comment on my concerns.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. Definitions.
A licensed program means any program or other work distributed under
this License. The Program refers to any such program or work,
Is it supposed to be licensed program or licensed Program?
Since the GPL is designed to be applicable to any work of authorship
(not only computer programs), I would prefer seeing a more neutral term
than Program.
Since licensed program is defined as any program or other work
distributed under this License, why don't they use a term such as
licensed Work?
Calling it Program is misleading and actually confuses many many
people into thinking the GPL can only be applied to computer programs.
and a
work based on the Program means either the Program or any derivative
work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the
Program or a portion of it, either modified or unmodified.
This defines a work based on the Program as either the Program or any
derivative work under copyright law and then tries to restate this
definition by expanding what derivative work is supposed to mean under
copyright law.
This is troublesome, since in the opinion of some people with legal
expertise, the restatement is flawed and fails to actually mean the same
as the real definition.
For instance, the restatement seems to catch collective works containing
the Program; on the other hand those works are neither the Program, nor
derivative works of the Program under copyright law...
Moreover, what is actually a derivative work under copyright law is
subject to change in time (laws can be updated) and could even be
jurisdiction-dependent in some corner cases (despite the Berne
Convention).
Linking the definition of work based on the Program to definitions
found in copyright law can be a good thing to keep, but then the license
text should avoid hard-coding a particular meaning that the referred-to
legal concepts are supposed to have...
Throughout
this License, the term modification includes, without limitation,
translation and extension.
The rationale (http://gplv3.fsf.org/rationale) explains that extension
is intended to refer to activities such as adding text to a work.
But, unfortunately, extension seems to be too vague a term: for
instance, one can say that a script that preprocesses input data for a
given program extends that program.
I would not classify this as modification though (as the program is
actually unchanged) and I don't think I need a license from the program
copyright holders to write and distribute such a script.
This could fail DFSG#9.
A covered work means either the Program
or any work based on the Program.
:-?
Thus (after substituting the definition of work based on the Program)
a covered work means:
either
{ the Program }
or
{
either
{ the Program }
or
{ any derivative work under copyright law }
}
Now I'm puzzled.
Isn't this the same as a work based on the Program?
In other words: are they calling the same thing with two distinct names?
Why?
Each licensee is addressed as you.
To propagate a work means doing anything with it that requires
permission under applicable copyright law, other than executing it on
a computer or making private modifications. This includes copying,
distribution (with or without modification), sublicensing, and in some
countries other activities as well.
If I understand correctly, broadcast or public performance are included
in the term propagation. This may be useful, let's see how it is
used...
1. Source Code.
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work
for making modifications to it. Object code means any non-source
version of a work.
This seems to be OK.
The Complete Corresponding Source Code for a work in object code
form means all the source code needed to understand, adapt, modify,
compile, link, install, and run the work, excluding general-purpose
tools used in performing those activities but which are not part of
the work. For example, this includes any scripts used to control those
activities, and any shared libraries and dynamically linked
subprograms that the work is designed to require, such as by intimate
data communication or control flow between those subprograms and other
parts of the work, and interface definition files associated with the
program source files.
Complete Corresponding Source Code also includes any encryption or
authorization codes necessary to install and/or execute the source
code of the work, perhaps modified by you, in the recommended or
principal context of use, such that its functioning in all
circumstances is
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hrrm. We need a different clause then. No program licensed under this License, which accesses a work, shall require the authority of the copyright owner for that work, in order to gain access to that work. This is too broad. If I have a machine on the internet which is secured using GPL'd programs, I certainly do not give anyone and everyone the legal authority to see what is on the machine. That's using your authority as the *machine owner*, though. Not your authority as a *copyright holder*. That's precisely the distinction I'm trying to make here, though I clearly haven't succeeded. That is the basic problem with these anti-DRM clauses: differentiating between DRM and legitimate privacy controls is basically impossible. I think it is possible. It requires a sharp focus on the *legal* issues, since the technology is not different, but the legal basis is. A legitimate privacy control may control access to many things -- but it does *not* exert control over works you have published (since they're, well, *public*.) -- Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] This space intentionally left blank. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
I wrote: Accordingly, no program licensed under this License is a technological measure which effectively controls access to any work. Walter Landry wrote: Again, writing this sentence into the license doesn't make it true. Well, no, but I think it is in fact true. It is decided by external factors, such as whether the people implementing the scheme know how to do decent crypto. No; if I wrote this correctly, it is true. According to the legal definitions which I was using, it effectively controls access if it requires the application of information (etc.) with *copyright holder authority* in order to access. This is impossible because there is no mechanistic way to test whether the information is being provided with copyright holder authority or without it. No program can actually require copyright holder authority; it's unimplementable. -- Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] It's just a goddamned piece of paper. -- President Bush, referring to the US Constitution http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Andrew Donnellan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/20/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There seems to be some rift between the law and reality, though. If the law is taken literally, it's a no-op: it forbids writing software that can't be written (if you write software for an effective protection scheme, then, well, it's not effective). If the law is being enforced anyway (which it is, of course), then it's being interpreted to mean something a little different--where effective means something other than what it does in English. In that case, anti-DRM clauses, and evaluations of their potential effectiveness, need to be done while under the influence of the courts' private version of the language. I think that effective does not mean perfect. Having a police force is an effective way of combatting crime, but it is far from perfect. What about a clause which says 'designed to be' rather than 'effective'? Because GnuPG is an effective TPM, but it is designed as a personal privacy program rather than a copyright enforcement program. This sounds like the disclaimers you sometimes see stating that a particular piece of software is not designed for safety critical systems. If it is just a disclaimer, then there is no freeness problem. But then I don't really see the point. If it is meant to prohibit certain types of modifications of the software, then we run squarely into DFSG #3 and/or #6. Cheers, Walter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 09:49:09AM -0800, Walter Landry wrote: I think that effective does not mean perfect. Having a police force is an effective way of combatting crime, but it is far from perfect. A security mechanism which has been defeated by a piece of software is not imperfect. If I post my root password to this list, it is not an imperfect but still effective security mechanism; it is useless and defeated. (It seems to me that the real goal of this law is so that once a security mechanism is defeated, and is no longer effective, the real security mechanism becomes the law itself: by pretending that the obsolete mechanism is still effective, the deterrent becomes the threat of prosecution, instead of actual security.) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A security mechanism which has been defeated by a piece of software is not imperfect. If I post my root password to this list, it is not an imperfect but still effective security mechanism; it is useless and defeated. But, as you note below, that's not the case. (It seems to me that the real goal of this law is so that once a security mechanism is defeated, and is no longer effective, the real security mechanism becomes the law itself: by pretending that the obsolete mechanism is still effective, the deterrent becomes the threat of prosecution, instead of actual security.) Precisely. IIRC, effective security mechanism was defined in terms of controlling access in the normal course of operation -- which the copyright holder is going to have a great deal of flexibility to define. If you want to be charitable, you might say that effective here is being used in the sense of effectively, it's a security mechanism. But whether you want to be charitable or not, it's clearly not being used in a way that requires the mechanism to be robust. -- Jeremy Hankins [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 10:30:29PM -0500, Jeremy Hankins wrote: If you want to be charitable, you might say that effective here is being used in the sense of effectively, it's a security mechanism. But whether you want to be charitable or not, it's clearly not being used in a way that requires the mechanism to be robust. I thought about effectively, but that just means in reality. If I post my password to the internet, it is no longer, in reality, a security mechanism. In any case, it's not my interpretation, or a rational interpretation, that counts, it's the court's--which was my original point. Evaluations of anti- DRM clauses need to bear in mind the reality of the laws, not just the literal word. Walter says, I think, that merely stating GPG isn't an effective encryption software doesn't make it true. That's so--but if it's not actually the effectiveness of the security mechanism that the law cares about, but something else (such as stated intent), then the apparent simple untruth of the statement may not indicate that it won't be effective (and taken in context of the interpretation of the law, may not be untrue). If the authors of the statement have done some research into this (which I would hope), it might be interesting to hear their rationale in more detail, even if it's we don't know if this will work, we're just throwing darts at the courts (which is fine with me, as long as the clause seems harmless). -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On 1/19/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] compatible with itself The GPL is incompatible with itself. quote*** A recent press conference of the Free Software Foundation confirmed the rumors that the GNU General Public License was found to be incompatible with itself. This newly discovered fact may actually cause a lot of disorder in the free software world in which most programs and libraries are licensed under this license. Richard Stallman, chairman of the FSF, called upon developers to immediately exempt GPL-licensed software from the GPL, as far as linking them with GPL programs is concerned. We have already made sure all GNU software and every other software that is licensed to the Free Software Foundation would be ad-hoc compatible with itself. However we need other developers to do the same for their software, Stallman said. Eben Moglen, the FSF's attorney outlined the subsequent steps that his organization will take to overcome this crisis. The first step would be releasing a Modified General Public License (or MGPL for short) that will be compatible with the GPL and with itself as well as with all other licenses that the GPL is already compatible with. It will be labeled the GPL version 2.1, thus allowing developers to convert their software to it. He noted that care would be taken to make sure the upcoming GPL version 3.0 will be compatible with itself, as well as the MGPL. For the time being, though, there is an explosion of commentary, confusion and otherwise bad temper about the newly formed situation. Eric S. Raymond, the famous Open Source Guru notes: This is one of the greatest blows to the Open Source world, I have yet encountered. I have already exempted all of my own software from the GPL in this regard, but there is a lot of other software out there, and many of its authors are not very communicative. Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, on the other hand, seems to find the situation very amusing: I said times and again, that viral licenses such as the GPL are a bad idea, and many open-source advocates disagreed. Now they see that even making sure one's license is compatible with itself, is hard to do when you open that can of worms. The integrity of many software projects whose license is the GPL and yet contain works licensed by several developers is in jeopardy. The Linux kernel is a prominent example of such a case. In a post to its mailing list, Linus Torvalds commented that, in their case, it was not an issue. My interpretation of the GPL is already quite unusual, so I'll simply rule that I also interpret the GPL as compatible with itself. /quote regards, alexander. ***) Posted by Shlomi Fish on Monday April 01
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? On Thu, Jan 19, 2006 at 02:33:41PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: Alexander On 1/19/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Alexander [...] Alexander compatible with itself Alexander Alexander The GPL is incompatible with itself. Alexander Alexander quote*** Alexander Alexander A recent press conference of the Free Software Foundation confirmed Alexander the rumors that the GNU General Public License was found to be Alexander incompatible with itself. This newly discovered fact may actually Alexander cause a lot of disorder in the free software world in which most Alexander programs and libraries are licensed under this license. Alexander Alexander Richard Stallman, chairman of the FSF, called upon developers to Alexander immediately exempt GPL-licensed software from the GPL, as far as Alexander linking them with GPL programs is concerned. We have already made Alexander sure all GNU software and every other software that is licensed to Alexander the Free Software Foundation would be ad-hoc compatible with itself. Alexander However we need other developers to do the same for their software, Alexander Stallman said. Alexander Alexander Eben Moglen, the FSF's attorney outlined the subsequent steps that Alexander his organization will take to overcome this crisis. The first step Alexander would be releasing a Modified General Public License (or MGPL for Alexander short) that will be compatible with the GPL and with itself as well Alexander as with all other licenses that the GPL is already compatible with. Alexander It will be labeled the GPL version 2.1, thus allowing developers to Alexander convert their software to it. He noted that care would be taken to Alexander make sure the upcoming GPL version 3.0 will be compatible with Alexander itself, as well as the MGPL. Alexander Alexander For the time being, though, there is an explosion of commentary, Alexander confusion and otherwise bad temper about the newly formed situation. Alexander Eric S. Raymond, the famous Open Source Guru notes: This is one of Alexander the greatest blows to the Open Source world, I have yet encountered. Alexander I have already exempted all of my own software from the GPL in this Alexander regard, but there is a lot of other software out there, and many of Alexander its authors are not very communicative. Alexander Alexander Bill Gates, Microsoft's co-founder, on the other hand, seems to Alexander find the situation very amusing: I said times and again, that Alexander viral licenses such as the GPL are a bad idea, and many open-source Alexander advocates disagreed. Now they see that even making sure one's Alexander license is compatible with itself, is hard to do when you open that Alexander can of worms. Alexander Alexander The integrity of many software projects whose license is the GPL and Alexander yet contain works licensed by several developers is in jeopardy. The Alexander Linux kernel is a prominent example of such a case. In a post to its Alexander mailing list, Linus Torvalds commented that, in their case, it was Alexander not an issue. My interpretation of the GPL is already quite unusual, Alexander so I'll simply rule that I also interpret the GPL as compatible with Alexander itself. Alexander Alexander /quote Alexander Alexander regards, Alexander alexander. Alexander Alexander ***) Posted by Shlomi Fish on Monday April 01 Alexander -- Yorick signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On 1/19/06, Yorick Cool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? A troll hunter. regards, alexander.
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On 1/19/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/19/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] compatible with itself The GPL is incompatible with itself. [ ... Shlomi Fish on Monday April 01 ...] Beside that, http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/09/22/gpl3.html?page=2 RMS: - Even small changes from version 2 of the GPL will result in an incompatible license. Two slightly different licenses, each saying that modified versions of a program must be distributed under the same license, are inevitably incompatible. That's why we suggest that programs permit use of future versions of the GPL. It is the only way they can migrate. - regards, alexander.
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Yorick Cool [EMAIL PROTECTED] What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? A clue-by-four, the same as used for top-post/whole-quoters. (ObSerious: please stop feeding the troll, please follow the code of conduct and no top-posting. That means you.) -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Hands Off Yorick! On 1/19/06, MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yorick Cool [EMAIL PROTECTED] What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? A clue-by-four, the same as used for top-post/whole-quoters. (ObSerious: please stop feeding the troll, please follow the code of conduct and no top-posting. That means you.) -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au wrote: On Mon, Jan 16, 2006 at 02:15:09PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: No covered work constitutes part of an effective technological protection measure: that is to say, distribution of a covered work as part of a system to generate or access certain data constitutes general permission at least for development, distribution and use, under this License, of other software capable of accessing the same data. It sounds like this means if your GPL application accesses data, you grant a GPL license to every other application that accesses the data. Not quite -- it says you give general permission for other applications to be distributed under the GPL. Which means that when someone does reverse engineer your stuff, and puts it in a GPLed app, you can't then say You don't have permission to do that because you're violationg my patents|the DMCA -- because you've already given them the permission you claim they don't have. I am not disagreeing with you here, but my main issue with this paragraph in the license is that it can just not be true. GPG is an effective way of encrypting communications, and having the license say otherwise does not change that. OK, there's a subtle issue here which could be cleared up with a small change in the license. Effective technological protection measure is supposed to mean Effective technological protection measure for preventing copying or distribution. This is what it means in the DMCA, which is what the clause is referring to. GPG is not in fact an effective way of doing that, since an encrypted copy is still a copy (and can be decrypted given some computing power). That is not how the court ruled in MPAA v. 2600. 2600 was not circumventing copy protection, they were circumventing the encryption. If the DVD CCA had disallowed software implementations and used any of the algorithms implemented in GPG, they would have had a much more effective technological protection measure. Cheers, Walter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Arnoud Engelfriet [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the DMCA actually speaks about access to the work (17 U.S.C. 1201): (2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; (...) And access is defined such that I don't think it covers copying of the protected work: (3) As used in this subsection-- (A) to circumvent a technological measure means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure effectively controls access to a work if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/17usc1201.htm Hrrm. We need a different clause then. No program licensed under this License, which accesses a work, shall require the authority of the copyright owner for that work, in order to gain access to that work. Accordingly, no program licensed under this License is a technological measure which effectively controls access to any work. Think that will do it? The point here is that the authority of the copyright owner cannot be enforced technologically, only legally. So this doesn't actually impose any restrictions on the content of the program, and it's true. (The program can still require the application of information, or a process or a treatment, but can't require the authority of the copyright owner). (Incidentally, the DMCA text makes me think of South Park: respect my authoriteh!) We need to see the clauses from countries with similar DMCA-like laws to successfully eviscerate them as well. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Nathanael Nerode wrote: So here it is: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. I like this, together with Arnoud's suggestions. But Walter is right; the devil is in the detail of defining user. In order for the clause to maintain the market in addon clauses which the FSF has talked about, you have to leave it up to the specific clause to define where the line is. And then debian-legal will have the lovely job of judging 27 different variants and deciding which ones are free. There's also a comment discussing potential revisions of this clause on their wiki-like thing. It has my suggestion in, which is along the same lines, but I like yours better. http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/readsay.html?id=204 I think it's inevitable that, whatever this clause ends up like, it'll be possible to write a non-free additional term with it. But we can at least get it phrased in a way which makes it possible to, and encourages people to write free terms. Gerv -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Nathanael Nerode wrote: No program licensed under this License, which accesses a work, shall require the authority of the copyright owner for that work, in order to gain access to that work. I'm not sure how a program _can_ require authority of a copyright holder? Did you mean The exercise of the rights granted under this License shall not require the authority...? Accordingly, no program licensed under this License is a technological measure which effectively controls access to any work. That reads like a statement of fact, and you can debate whether it is true in the general case. GPG is in fact an effective measure to control access to any work. Lawyers usually say is deemed to be, so maybe you can write it as something like The copyright holder considers/deems no program licensed under this License to be... We need to see the clauses from countries with similar DMCA-like laws to successfully eviscerate them as well. They all came from the WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996, so the wording will be largely the same everywhere. Here's the EU Copyright Directive: Linkname: European Union Final Directive on Copyright URL: http://cryptome.org/eu-copyright.htm There they use acts which are not authorised by the copyright holder. Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Thu, Jan 19, 2006 at 02:46:52PM +0100, Yorick Cool wrote: What is it you need to get rid of trolls? Fire? A billy goat gruff, if I remember my mythology correctly. - Matt -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
Nathanael Nerode [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hrrm. We need a different clause then. No program licensed under this License, which accesses a work, shall require the authority of the copyright owner for that work, in order to gain access to that work. This is too broad. If I have a machine on the internet which is secured using GPL'd programs, I certainly do not give anyone and everyone the legal authority to see what is on the machine. That is the basic problem with these anti-DRM clauses: differentiating between DRM and legitimate privacy controls is basically impossible. Accordingly, no program licensed under this License is a technological measure which effectively controls access to any work. Again, writing this sentence into the license doesn't make it true. It is decided by external factors, such as whether the people implementing the scheme know how to do decent crypto. Cheers, Walter Landry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Thu, Jan 19, 2006 at 07:53:46AM +0100, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote: Nathanael Nerode wrote: Effective technological protection measure is supposed to mean Effective technological protection measure for preventing copying or distribution. I think the DMCA actually speaks about access to the work (17 U.S.C. 1201): (2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; This doesn't even make sense. If a measure effectively controls access to a work, it's not possible to create technology to bypass it; conversely, if it's possible to bypass a control measure, then it is, by definition, ineffective. GPG is effective because it can't be reasonably bypassed; if someone successfully wrote a program to decrypt its files, then it would obviously no longer be effective. (Of course, laws and courts have free reign to interpret words in any way that suits their agenda, so effectively probably really means pretends to ...) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/19/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] (Of course, laws and courts have free reign to interpret words in any way that suits their agenda, so effectively probably really means pretends to ...) It meansin effect here. regards, alexander.
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Thu, Jan 19, 2006 at 01:58:08PM -0800, Walter Landry wrote: Accordingly, no program licensed under this License is a technological measure which effectively controls access to any work. Again, writing this sentence into the license doesn't make it true. It is decided by external factors, such as whether the people implementing the scheme know how to do decent crypto. There seems to be some rift between the law and reality, though. If the law is taken literally, it's a no-op: it forbids writing software that can't be written (if you write software for an effective protection scheme, then, well, it's not effective). If the law is being enforced anyway (which it is, of course), then it's being interpreted to mean something a little different--where effective means something other than what it does in English. In that case, anti-DRM clauses, and evaluations of their potential effectiveness, need to be done while under the influence of the courts' private version of the language. (Unfortunately, I don't speak that language ...) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/20/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There seems to be some rift between the law and reality, though. If the law is taken literally, it's a no-op: it forbids writing software that can't be written (if you write software for an effective protection scheme, then, well, it's not effective). If the law is being enforced anyway (which it is, of course), then it's being interpreted to mean something a little different--where effective means something other than what it does in English. In that case, anti-DRM clauses, and evaluations of their potential effectiveness, need to be done while under the influence of the courts' private version of the language. What about a clause which says 'designed to be' rather than 'effective'? Because GnuPG is an effective TPM, but it is designed as a personal privacy program rather than a copyright enforcement program. andrew -- Andrew Donnellan http://andrewdonnellan.com http://ajdlinux.blogspot.com Jabber - [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Member of Linux Australia - http://linux.org.au Debian user - http://debian.org Get free rewards - http://ezyrewards.com/?id=23484 OpenNIC user - http://www.opennic.unrated.net
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Mon, Jan 16, 2006 at 11:52:43PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: Eben had a really humorous explanation, which I will attempt to paraphrase from my (impressively imperfect) memory: No lawyer knows exactly why we have been shouting at eachother for the past 50(?) years; but since everyone is shouting, everyone thought there must be some reason. I've decided to take take the initiative and return to mixed case, ending the endless shouting match. FWIW, I just noticed on http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/default.asp?url=/archive/en-us/dx8_vb/directx_vb/graphics_iface_vb_9202.asp a small warranty disclaimer that's not screaming: Archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy. Content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist. However--and this may be significant--the text is colored red. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Anti-DMCA clause (was Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/20/06, Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] (Unfortunately, I don't speak that language ...) Hey legals, drop this link http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=effectively to poor Maynard. regards, alexander.
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not going to defend patch clauses. I think they're massively horrible things, and the world would be a better place without them. But deciding that they're not free any more would involve altering our standards of freedom, and I don't see any way that we can reasonably do that. Agreed. The original DFSG used to reflect pretty well what was the consensus about freedom in the free software community (not just Debian). While patch clauses are indeed highly annoying they have always been widely considered free, both in and outside Debian. It's unfortunate that, after trying for years to subtly change its meaning, newcomers now are proposing to radically remove some of its balances. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/18/06, Joe Buck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 03:34:24AM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 1/18/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/18/06, Joe Buck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 01:48:11AM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: Care to post a link to rules of New York? It's not up to me. You charged Moglen with offenses, you back it up. In this type of offence it sorta goes the other way around: let Moglen back up some of his fraudulent legal claims like the GPL is not a contract (no need to upper case disclaimers aside for a moment). Here's an example. http://groups.google.com/group/misc.int-property/msg/af75f708f55b4f5a (PTRAVEL is a practicing IP lawyer and litigator) So this guy disagrees with Moglen, therefore Moglen is wrong and a fraud, based on what? His credentials? Moglen is also a practicing IP lawyer as well as a law professor. Moglen is a liar. And Stallman too. http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-March/004301.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004306.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004308.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004309.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004321.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004353.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004358.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004384.html regards, alexander.
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Matthew Garrett: Because saying We used to think that this sort of license provided you with all necessary freedoms, but now we've decided that it doesn't looks astonishingly bad? Is not looking bad more important than getting it right eventually? (Start aliasing [EMAIL PROTECTED] to /dev/null: a big BTS looks bad.) Another irony. I thought Matthew Garrett usually argued for changing views at the drop of a hat. For example, changing position and letting the project sell stuff near the end of http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/09/msg00091.html even though saying we used to say that we wouldn't compete with debian retailers, but now we've decided that we will looks astonishingly bad. I don't think looking bad is a good reason not to re-evaluate a position, but let's honour past agreements until obsoleted. Personally, I think some patch clauses are free enough to allow the four freedoms, although most are a nuisance in practice. I'm happy to discuss that: why not? -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/18/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/18/06, Joe Buck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 03:34:24AM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: On 1/18/06, Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/18/06, Joe Buck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 01:48:11AM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: Care to post a link to rules of New York? It's not up to me. You charged Moglen with offenses, you back it up. In this type of offence it sorta goes the other way around: let Moglen back up some of his fraudulent legal claims like the GPL is not a contract (no need to upper case disclaimers aside for a moment). Here's an example. http://groups.google.com/group/misc.int-property/msg/af75f708f55b4f5a (PTRAVEL is a practicing IP lawyer and litigator) So this guy disagrees with Moglen, therefore Moglen is wrong and a fraud, based on what? His credentials? Moglen is also a practicing IP lawyer as well as a law professor. Moglen is a liar. And Stallman too. http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-March/004301.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004306.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004308.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004309.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004321.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004353.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004358.html http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-April/004384.html Beside that, quote Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html is simply legal nonsense. ** Here's an email exchange with RMS: I assume, however, that at least some people want the GPL to be binding--nothing can make it binding except a claim of contract. http://lists.essential.org/upd-discuss/msg00131.html -- the respondent's email address resolves to: MICHAEL H. DAVIS, (Professor of Law) Cleveland State University. Education: Occidental College (B.A.,1967); Hofstra Law School (J.D., 1975); Harvard Law School (LL.M., 1979). ** Perhaps further consideration should be given to: (A``non-contractual copyright permission'' would be some sort of license that does not involve a contract I suppose, but that is not a well defined term.) http://lists.softwarelibero.it/pipermail/diritto/2002-Februa ry/000641.html -- the respondent's email address resolves to: PETER D. JUNGER Professor of Law Emeritus Case Western Reserve University College: Harvard College, A.B. 1955 Law School: Harvard Law School, LL.B. (magna cum laude) 1958 ** How about this: The GPL IS a contract. Calling it a license simply describes the type of contract it is. http://www.mail-archive.com/license-discuss at openso urce.org/msg01522.html -- the respondent's email address resolves to: ROD DIXON J.D. LL.M. Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Rutgers University School of Law, Camden, New Jersey, Fall 1999 to present. EDUCATION: LL.M. (with Distinction), Georgetown University Law Center, 1998. J.D., George Washington University Law School, 1992. M.A., University of Pittsburgh, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 1986. B.A., University of Pittsburgh, College of Arts and Sciences, 1984. ** Doesn't anyone outside the academic legal community harbor any suspicion that the GPL is broken? Eben Moglen has propounded specious legal theories without ever citing relevant case, statute or other legal authority supporting his stance on the validity of the GPL and his claim that it is not a(n) (invalid) contract. Moglen makes extraordinary claims about the GPL, so why doesn't he come forward with the appropriate legal citations? Moglen is a J.D. with a Ph.D. in history and not an LL.M. He would not even be accepted as qualified for Professorship at many institutions. What qualifies his word alone as legal authority? /quote regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Alexander Terekhov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Doesn't anyone outside the academic legal community harbor any suspicion that the GPL is broken? Eben Moglen has propounded specious legal theories without ever citing relevant case, statute or other legal authority supporting his stance on the validity of the GPL and his claim that it is not a(n) (invalid) contract. No idea about that, but I'd like to point out that the world is larger than just the US. A german court has stated that the GPL is valid in Germany, and that it is to be treated as a (valid) contract. Or rather as the Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen; if you go to a shop and buy something, not only the individual words you talk with the shopkeeper (how much is that shirt? 20 Euro Here you are) are part of the contract, but also a non-individual legalese text if it can plainly be seen at the cash desk, or if you are referred to it in an online-shop. The german original text is at http://www.jbb.de/urteil_lg_muenchen_gpl.pdf, an english translation at http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_munich_gpl.pdf Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/18/06, Frank Küster [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] http://www.jbb.de/urteil_lg_muenchen_gpl.pdf, an english translation at http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_munich_gpl.pdf I know. See http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/01/msg00088.html Pls read that message in its entirety (and also follow the links and read the linked stuff as well, and do it recursively ;-) ) before starting writing a reply (if any). As for US, http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/opinions/saris/pdf/progress%20software.pdf The standard for PI under copyright infringement claim includes presumption of irreparable harm. The judge didn't apply it (and used a contract standard instead). Note also portion breach of contract claim and didn't cure the breach wording (you just can't cure a copyright violation). Finally, that decision is tagged as Nature of Suit: 190 and that's neither 820/840 nor 190/820/840 (all three). http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/documents/natsuit.pdf 190 is CONTRACT/Other Contract 820 is PROPERTY RIGHTS/Copyrights 840 is PROPERTY RIGHTS/Trademark regards, alexander. P.S. I must say that I disgust Welte's efforts for his legal ignorance and because his attorneys (the gang from ifross/jbb) try to advance the idiotic theory under which the GPL'd works are exempted from the doctrine of exhaustion (equivalent of 17 USC 109 in Europe).
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 06:24:19AM +, Matthew Garrett wrote: What mistakes? Pretty much the entire free software community believes that patch-clause licenses are acceptable. Why do you think that they're not? You're asking me to repeat the entire discussion I just had with you and Michael, where I explained very explicitly the serious problems of patch clauses? If you've accidentally deleted your mailbox, I'm sure it's in the list archives. No, you've described why they cause practical inconvenience. You haven't described why everyone else ever was wrong. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Michio Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is not looking bad more important than getting it right eventually? (Start aliasing [EMAIL PROTECTED] to /dev/null: a big BTS looks bad.) Nngh. Another irony. I thought Matthew Garrett usually argued for changing views at the drop of a hat. For example, changing position and letting the project sell stuff near the end of http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2005/09/msg00091.html even though saying we used to say that we wouldn't compete with debian retailers, but now we've decided that we will looks astonishingly bad. You seem to have misunderstood me. I'm not saying that changing our minds on things is bad. I'm saying that diverging from the rest of the community for no good reason looks bad. It's hardly as if patch clauses were badly understood when the DFSG were written. There's no way you can claim Oh, they didn't know what they were talking about. The people who wrote this document considered the issue and decided that the practical implications were not sufficiently offensive to avoid describing them as free. Since then, the practical freedoms provided by patch clauses have increased. Altering the DFSG would be a clear redefinition of our stance on freedom, and there would be no way that anyone could argue that it was in any way in line with community consensus. Do I think that would look bad? Yes, I do. The DFSG should reflect reality, like our website should do. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] My preferred name is you -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Well, I did devise a potentially Free alternative for the infamous clause 7d after an hour or two's thought. The key point here was that the clause suffered from specifying means rather than ends, which we have diagnosed as a major source of license drafting errors. By restricting the functionality of the program and all derivative works, it causes endless trouble. Instead, I attempted to rewrite this as a restriction which could be imposed on the recipients of the license. So here it is: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. This leverages the careful definition of propagate up top, so that it avoids restricting any acitivities which do not require a copyright license. A restriction along these lines would mean that (1) it imposes no restrictions on the *writers* of derivative works (2) If you've already distributed (or offered to distribute) the work to all its users (the normal case and the troublesome one for the original clause), you have no additional obligations (3) making the program available for users over the Internet (or on a local server) -- if and only if that requires a copyright license, which it probably does -- requires that you provide access to the source code to those users, according to the usual GPL v3 clauses regarding distributing copies. What do other people think of this? It's sort of a forced distribution clause, but it only forces distribution to the people you're already allowing to use the program. If it's considered acceptable, we could push to have this replace the proposed (7d). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:35:55AM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: Moglen is a liar. And Stallman too. *plonk* -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/18/06, Joe Buck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:35:55AM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: Moglen is a liar. And Stallman too. *plonk* And how long is your plonk? Longer than Pool's one? regards, alexander.
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Nathanael Nerode wrote: The key point here was that the clause suffered from specifying means rather than ends, which we have diagnosed as a major source of license drafting errors. By restricting the functionality of the program and all derivative works, it causes endless trouble. That perfectly describes my problem with the clause as written. Instead, I attempted to rewrite this as a restriction which could be imposed on the recipients of the license. So here it is: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. This leverages the careful definition of propagate up top, so that it avoids restricting any acitivities which do not require a copyright license. A restriction along these lines would mean that (1) it imposes no restrictions on the *writers* of derivative works (2) If you've already distributed (or offered to distribute) the work to all its users (the normal case and the troublesome one for the original clause), you have no additional obligations (3) making the program available for users over the Internet (or on a local server) -- if and only if that requires a copyright license, which it probably does -- requires that you provide access to the source code to those users, according to the usual GPL v3 clauses regarding distributing copies. What do other people think of this? It's sort of a forced distribution clause, but it only forces distribution to the people you're already allowing to use the program. If it's considered acceptable, we could push to have this replace the proposed (7d). I believe this clause addresses the issue perfectly, and I agree with proposing it as a replacement. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Nathanael Nerode wrote: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. This sounds a lot better. I would suggest using work based on the Program to re-use that definition as well. Also, how about just to receive copies and add under the terms of this License. Or maybe refer to the article that allows you to make copies. Then you nicely catch all the other requirements that you have to fulfil (storage medium, written offer, etc). And this just occurs to me: do I need to have a world-readable /usr/src if I let people log into my system and use a tool that is GPLv3 with 7d enabled? Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:52:39AM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Well, I did devise a potentially Free alternative for the infamous clause 7d after an hour or two's thought. The key point here was that the clause suffered from specifying means rather than ends, which we have diagnosed as a major source of license drafting errors. By restricting the functionality of the program and all derivative works, it causes endless trouble. Instead, I attempted to rewrite this as a restriction which could be imposed on the recipients of the license. So here it is: 7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and receive copies of the work. This leverages the careful definition of propagate up top, so that it avoids restricting any acitivities which do not require a copyright license. Neat, although a little hard to understand at first without the context of what it's referring to (Affero-like clauses). I certainly like it a lot more than the original, though, for all of the reasons you cited. What do other people think of this? It's sort of a forced distribution clause, but it only forces distribution to the people you're already allowing to use the program. If it's considered acceptable, we could push to have this replace the proposed (7d). I like it, and I think it should be definitely be submitted to the FSF for consideration. - Matt -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 07:18:10PM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: But in that case, you might find it more fruitful to discuss this clause with the FSF itself rather than with debian-legal. Well, I'm not discussing these things here to try to get the weight of this would make Debian call the GPLv3 non-free, since the GFDL showed just how much weight that holds with the FSF. I do want to know what others here think about these things, though, and to let anyone who agrees with these things to lend their voice to fixing them. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Clause 7d (was Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On 1/18/06, Matthew Palmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...} What do other people think of this? I think the GPLv3 is great. It's perfect impotence pill for (ordinary contractual) stuff like OSL, IPL, CPL and whatnot the FSF is going to deem now compatible. The OSI approval (I just pray that someone submits it) will be fun. regards, alexander.
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:41:05 -0800 Josh Triplett wrote: Bas Zoetekouw wrote: Hi Glenn! You wrote: 3. Digital Restrictions Management. As a free software license, this License intrinsically disfavors technical attempts to restrict users' freedom to copy, modify, and share copyrighted works. Each of its provisions shall be interpreted in light of this specific declaration of the licensor's intent. Regardless of any other provision of this License, no permission is given to distribute covered works that illegally invade users' privacy [...] IMO, this is a clear violation of DFSG 6. If we allow terrorists to use our code, and allow it to be used in biological weapons research, clearly also black hat hackers must be allowed to use it to produce spyware. It seems particularly hypocritical in light of http://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html: It's indeed a hypocrisy masterpiece... :-( -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgp2ipqcjVbUB.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 10:13:18 +0100 Jacobo Tarrio wrote: d) Distribute the Object Code by offering access to copy it from a designated place, and offer equivalent access to copy the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place. You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the Object Code. It's nice that they include this because it's theoretically not permitted in GPLv2, and that's how Debian (and everyone else) distributes its stuff :) It was in fact permitted by GPLv2... See GPLv2, section 3., last paragraph: | If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering | access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent | access to copy the source code from the same place counts as | distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not | compelled to copy the source along with the object code. -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpL05gwAHZ0k.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 15:26:47 -0500 Glenn Maynard wrote: I'm in favor, in principle, of being allowed to make anonymous changes. So do I! The right to make anonymous changes is indeed an important one. -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpNeVvC9GEog.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anthony Towns aj@azure.humbug.org.au wrote: On Mon, Jan 16, 2006 at 02:15:09PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: No covered work constitutes part of an effective technological protection measure: that is to say, distribution of a covered work as part of a system to generate or access certain data constitutes general permission at least for development, distribution and use, under this License, of other software capable of accessing the same data. It sounds like this means if your GPL application accesses data, you grant a GPL license to every other application that accesses the data. Not quite -- it says you give general permission for other applications to be distributed under the GPL. Which means that when someone does reverse engineer your stuff, and puts it in a GPLed app, you can't then say You don't have permission to do that because you're violationg my patents|the DMCA -- because you've already given them the permission you claim they don't have. I am not disagreeing with you here, but my main issue with this paragraph in the license is that it can just not be true. GPG is an effective way of encrypting communications, and having the license say otherwise does not change that. OK, there's a subtle issue here which could be cleared up with a small change in the license. Effective technological protection measure is supposed to mean Effective technological protection measure for preventing copying or distribution. This is what it means in the DMCA, which is what the clause is referring to. GPG is not in fact an effective way of doing that, since an encrypted copy is still a copy (and can be decrypted given some computing power). What constitutes an effective technological protection measure for preventing copying or distribution? Well, I suppose at first glance a locked safe might be. Or a password-protected site might be. There is obviously no such thing as an effective technological protection measure which prevents copying or distribution of data *while* providing access to it. I'm not even sure there is such a thing as an effective technological protection measure for preventing copying and distribution *at all*. Safes can be cracked (and if you own the safe, it's your right to do so, unless you have a contract with someone where you agreed not to); password-protected sites can be accessed by the hardware administrator (who again usually has the right to do so). So, if clearly restricted to measures for preventing copying and distribution, this clause may in actual fact be *true*. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
Glenn Maynard wrote: No, I've described why they practically *prohibit* code reuse. The only counterarguments I've ever seen are: - code reuse isn't important (often thinly veiled as eg. you don't really need to reuse code, you can always rewrite it), and - if you really want to reuse code, you can create a complex, massively impractical patching system to handle it (and I'm not convinced that's even possible, when two separate patch-clause code bits end up mashed closely together). Incidentally, I think you're right about this; I don't really see how to distribute a single file in the form of a patch to TeX and a patch to, say, an old release of Qt (under their patch clause) simultaneously. If I put the Qt code into the patch to TeX, I violate the Qt license; if I put the TeX code into the patch to Qt, I violate the TeX license; if I do neither, I violate both licenses. Have you heard argument three? A new license incompatible with all other free software licenses practically prohibits code reuse in the same way. This sucks, but we consider it Free (while discouraging it). Patch clauses suck in the exact same way, so we should consider them Free too (while discouraging them). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ironies abound (was Re: GPL v3 draft)
On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 11:14:03PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: Have you heard argument three? A new license incompatible with all other free software licenses practically prohibits code reuse in the same way. This sucks, but we consider it Free (while discouraging it). Patch clauses suck in the exact same way, so we should consider them Free too (while discouraging them). The difference is that such a license is at least compatible with itself: if you put your software under the same license, or something almost guaranteed to be compatible (eg. public domain), you can reuse the code. Patch clauses aren't even compatible with themselves: putting your work under the same license doesn't fix it. Also, a license incompatible with other licenses wouldn't cause problems like can't put the code in CVS. I have trouble viewing any software under a license that prohibits the use of ordinary source control as a valuable contribution to free software. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
Nathanael Nerode wrote: Effective technological protection measure is supposed to mean Effective technological protection measure for preventing copying or distribution. I think the DMCA actually speaks about access to the work (17 U.S.C. 1201): (2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-- (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; (...) And access is defined such that I don't think it covers copying of the protected work: (3) As used in this subsection-- (A) to circumvent a technological measure means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure effectively controls access to a work if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work. http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/17usc1201.htm Arnoud -- Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 05:05:26PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: HTTP and FTP sound pretty equivalent to me. I don't think you'd have any problems finding an expert witness to testify to that. HTTP and rsync might not be, though. I'm not sure a court would have much difficulty in allowing equivalent to allow for well, the source archive is /more/ capable, we figured that woudl be fine, though. What about binaries via BitTorrent, source via HTTP? BT would be more capable than HTTP for many projects' binaries, and HTTP more capable for source, where a lot of people download binaries and few download source. They're clearly not equivalent, but it seems like a perfectly reasonable distribution scheme. d) They may require that the work contain functioning facilities that It's interesting that the word they've chosen is contain, not retain. Well, retain would imply I can't change it, which would be even worse. allow users to immediately obtain copies of its Complete Corresponding Source Code. Such terms make code reuse with non-networked applications extremely inconvenient, and prohibit reuse in embedded environments (eg. a device with 32k of memory, no network facilities, and limited or no visual output). I'd find it disturbing for the FSF to even call such terms free; they're going much further, and condoning it by making it GPL-compatible. (This is, by a wide margin, my biggest objection.) OTOH, at its absolute worst, it doesn't make GPLv3 stuff that doesn't make use of that option non-free. I think you're the third person to say something along those lines: be thankful, it could be a lot worse. It's still endorsing an extremely onerous class of restriction, implying that it's acceptable, helpful, and that the classes of application screwed over by it is unimportant. It's discouraging that people are thankful that's all it is ... -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, 17 Jan 2006, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 16.[11] There is no warranty for the Program, to the extent permitted by | applicable law. Except when otherwise stated in writing the copyright | holders and/or other parties provide the Program as is without warranty | of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, | the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular | purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the Program | is with you. Should the Program prove defective, you assume the cost of | all necessary servicing, repair or correction. I WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LEGAL THEORY THAT WARRANTY DISCLAIMERS ARE VALID ONLY IF THEY ARE PRESENTED WITH A STYLE OF TYPOGRAPHY THAT MAKES IT ESPECIALLY UNLIKELY THAT ANY USER WILL EVER FEEL INCLINED TO TRY TO READ THEM CAREFULLY, SUCH AS BY USING ALL-UPPERCASE LETTERS TO MAKE THEM EFFECTIVELY UNREADABLE. PERHAPS THE PRESENCE OF LOWERCASE LETTERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH IS JUST AN EDITING MISTAKE? SURELY IT CANNOT BE MEANT TO READ THAT WAY IN THE FINAL LICENSE. Eben had a really humorous explanation, which I will attempt to paraphrase from my (impressively imperfect) memory: No lawyer knows exactly why we have been shouting at eachother for the past 50(?) years; but since everyone is shouting, everyone thought there must be some reason. I've decided to take take the initiative and return to mixed case, ending the endless shouting match. [He said it yesterday in the first session when he went through the rationale towards the end before questions; when people can actually watch it someone will hopefully correct me. ;-)] Don Armstrong -- Cheop's Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget. -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p242 http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 02:49:24AM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 05:05:26PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: HTTP and FTP sound pretty equivalent to me. I don't think you'd have any problems finding an expert witness to testify to that. HTTP and rsync might not be, though. I'm not sure a court would have much difficulty in allowing equivalent to allow for well, the source archive is /more/ capable, we figured that woudl be fine, though. What about binaries via BitTorrent, source via HTTP? BT would be more capable than HTTP for many projects' binaries, and HTTP more capable for source, where a lot of people download binaries and few download source. They're clearly not equivalent, but it seems like a perfectly reasonable distribution scheme. The interpretation of equivalent here is up to the courts to settle; which I think is how it should be. While equivalent doesn't mean identical, you can always resort to *using* identical methods if in doubt. Just to be clear, do you believe there's a freeness issue here, or are you merely suggesting ways the license could be improved? allow users to immediately obtain copies of its Complete Corresponding Source Code. Such terms make code reuse with non-networked applications extremely inconvenient, and prohibit reuse in embedded environments (eg. a device with 32k of memory, no network facilities, and limited or no visual output). I'd find it disturbing for the FSF to even call such terms free; they're going much further, and condoning it by making it GPL-compatible. (This is, by a wide margin, my biggest objection.) OTOH, at its absolute worst, it doesn't make GPLv3 stuff that doesn't make use of that option non-free. I think you're the third person to say something along those lines: be thankful, it could be a lot worse. It's still endorsing an extremely onerous class of restriction, implying that it's acceptable, helpful, and that the classes of application screwed over by it is unimportant. It's discouraging that people are thankful that's all it is ... I'm thankful that it's not *built into* the license in such a way that everything released under GPLv3 will have this issue. The FSF had a hard job of balancing quite a few disparate interests; it's to be expected that the resulting license would allow people to use it in some ways that Debian considers non-free, the good news is if it can also still be applied in ways that *are* free. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: GPL v3 Draft
El lunes, 16 de enero de 2006 a las 09:07:42 -0800, Don Armstrong escribía: The Complete Corresponding Source Code for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to understand, adapt, modify, compile, Good, now even if someone codes a piece of firmware directly in machine code, they cannot say that the preferred form for modification is this raw listing of 73894 hex codes. There's probably some comments and some documentation that was used to understand the program while it was being written, and that's now being considered part of the complete source code too... Propagation of covered works is permitted without limitation provided it does not enable parties other than you to make or receive copies. Given up on the ASP loophole yet? :-) this specific declaration of the licensor's intent. Regardless of any other provision of this License, no permission is given to distribute covered works that illegally invade users' privacy, nor for modes of This is a restriction on running the program disguised as a restriction on distribution... c) If the modified work has interactive user interfaces, each must include a convenient feature that displays an appropriate copyright notice, and tells the user that there is no warranty for No longer optional? startup--except in the case that the Program has such interactive modes and does not display this information at startup. But the message on startup is still optional. I'm not sure it's exactly what they mean... d) Distribute the Object Code by offering access to copy it from a designated place, and offer equivalent access to copy the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place. You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the Object Code. It's nice that they include this because it's theoretically not permitted in GPLv2, and that's how Debian (and everyone else) distributes its stuff :) Aside from additional permissions, your terms may add limited kinds of additional requirements on your added parts, as follows: I can see now the coming 15 years of debian-legal flamewars, since some of these allowed additional requirements are non-DFSG-free (some forms of patent retaliation and of mandatory link to download the source code, for example). So some GPLv3-ed works will be non-DFSG-free because they contain components which are non-DFSG-free. And, of course, people won't say d-l says that work X under the GPLv3 which contains component Y under the license Z is non-free, but d-l says that the GPLv3 is non-free. Such is life in d-l. When others modify the work, if they modify your parts of it, they may release such parts of their versions under this License without additional permissions, by including notice to that effect, or by deleting the notice that gives specific permissions in addition to this License. Then any broader permissions granted by your terms which are not granted by this License will not apply to their modifications, or to the modified versions of your parts resulting from their modifications. However, the specific requirements of your terms will still apply to whatever was derived from your added parts. This paragraph is using permissions and requirements interchangeably, which is confusing (and incorrect). -- Jacobo Tarrío | http://jacobo.tarrio.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 12:49:31AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 02:49:24AM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: What about binaries via BitTorrent, source via HTTP? BT would be more capable than HTTP for many projects' binaries, and HTTP more capable for source, where a lot of people download binaries and few download source. They're clearly not equivalent, but it seems like a perfectly reasonable distribution scheme. The interpretation of equivalent here is up to the courts to settle; which I think is how it should be. If a license requires a court to interpret, to find out what my rights are, then it's a poor license; I should be able to find out what I'm allowed to do under a license by reading it, not waiting to be sued. I don't think this is an obscure corner case, either, but a realistic example, where I think the license should make its intent clear. While equivalent doesn't mean identical, you can always resort to *using* identical methods if in doubt. If I have reason to want to use different methods, saying don't do that isn't a very helpful solution. Just to be clear, do you believe there's a freeness issue here, or are you merely suggesting ways the license could be improved? I think this clause is a superset of the GPLv2's version, so for Debian's purposes, I don't think there are freeness issues. (It's 4am, though, so I'm not sure.) -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/17/06, Don Armstrong [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Eben had a really humorous explanation, which I will attempt to paraphrase from my (impressively imperfect) memory: No lawyer knows exactly why we have been shouting at eachother for the past 50(?) years; but since everyone is shouting, everyone thought there must be some reason. I've decided to take take the initiative and return to mixed case, ending the endless shouting match. Yeah. So legal mandates like, for example, http://www.courts.state.va.us/text/scv/amendments/rule_71_75_SC.html When the communication is in writing, the disclaimer shall be in bold type face and uppercase letters in a font size that is at least as large as the largest text used mean nothing for Moglen. I'm not surprised. Moglen is a blatant violator of rules like A lawyer shall not, on behalf of the lawyer or any other lawyer affiliated with the lawyer or the firm, use or participate in the use of any form of public communication if such communication contains a false, fraudulent, misleading, or deceptive statement or claim. to begin with. regards, alexander.
