From: Arkin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright was invented to cover literary work and protect the authors of
literary work. Legal documents are not literary works. There are so many
ways you can express the same contractual agreement. Thus, you may
freely copy all portions of the GPL that are
Derek J. Balling writes:
Your position seems contradictory. You support "freedom for the people",
but you don't support the right of people to pick the pieces of licenses
that best suit their needs.
The only true freedom you have is choice -- the choice of not using
software if you
"R. L. Kleeberger" wrote:
Quoting Derek J. Balling ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
At 11:29 PM 4/14/99 -0400, R. L. Kleeberger wrote:
There is no reason anymore. I was still unsure whether the GNU GPL was able
to be legally modified into another license. It seems it is legal,
According to the
The author of the GPL, as far as I can infer from his writings and talking to
him, does not believe that "alteration of a copyrighted work is a PRIVILEGE,
not a right", because he does not believe that software should have any owners
at all.
Without understanding that, you can't understand the
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
From: Arkin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright was invented to cover literary work and protect the authors of
literary work. Legal documents are not literary works. There are so many
ways you can express the same contractual agreement. Thus, you may
freely copy all
On 14 April 1999 at 20:52, "Derek J. Balling" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[snip]
I would FURTHER go so far as to allow alteration of the licenses, but that
the "lineage" must be documented, so that people familiar with [for lack of
a better term] the OSI-BSD license (whatever they come up with)
Copyright laws apply to the actual source code (and thus binary) of the
software because it is a literary work, see the test below. If I set on
the task of writing a spreadsheet and end up with Excel, what are the
chances that I was copying Excel one for one?
On the other hand, I might write it
OK, I'll open by stating that this is all very new to me, but fun and
interesting so far. Thanks for the heavy discussions.
Here's my take:
Have a few complete licenses set up -- like OSI-restrictive,
OSI-public, and OSI-open, each one being progressively more open.
People can cut-paste
testing
NatePuri
Certified Law Student
Debian GNU/Linux Monk
McGeorge School of Law
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://ompages.com
qmail seems to think this thread is too long, so I'll at least take a hint
and try to trim down my rejected message.
Derek J. Balling writes:
The author of the GPL, as far as I can infer from his writings and talking to
him, does not believe that "alteration of a copyrighted work is a
It would be fun to write a grammar for all the licenses that could be
produced this way, though. Then you could write a very concise definition
of
a particular license.
This has been lightly discussed on the web communities Slashdot and
Segfault:
On Thu, Apr 15, 1999 at 18:32:32 +1000, Martin Pool wrote:
I've been wondering about the interactions between GPL clause 3
(requirement to distribute source with modified redistributions) and
non-free OSs.
gnu.misc.discuss is often viewed as the definitive forum for discussion the
GPL; you
Brian Behlendorf wrote:
I think it's redundant for a license to specify things that the legal code
of a given country already mandates, which is why things like export
provisions are generally pretty silly.
E.g., if I wrote a program that implemented a crypto algorithm, by
(current) U.S.
By the way, the license-discuss mailing list is now fully managed by
ezmlm. Back issues are now available -- ask the robot at -request for
help. No, there's no archives on the web, cuz I haven't written the
software yet. Any volunteers? All you have to do is expose a
directory of directories
Yes, I agree with your point regarding the TIGER CDs. They were in the public
domain, but until I put them up on my FTP site, they may not really have been
Open Source simply becuase they were not available without an odious
distribution fee - even getting them on 5 CD-Writables cost $100 in
On Thu, Apr 29, 1999 at 07:23:57PM -0500, Signal 11 wrote:
Could you post a link or the original text?
Pardon the diabolical href:
can a distinction be made between the code that goes into an opensource
project under gnu gpl and the interface and/or artwork that comprises what
the user sees and interacts with. if the code specifies a novel
interface, how can a gpl'd project protect the design from commercial
scavenging?
On Tue, May 04, 1999 at 01:04:23 -0700, Paul Nathan Puri wrote:
See the www.w3.org, and check out it's problem with P3P technology.
See http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/19452.html for media
coverage.
http://www.w3.org/P3P/ (the most obvious place), unfortunately has no
details on
Mark Rafn wrote:
You _CAN_ probably demand that all versions including modified ones with a
different name include a custom header like:
X-Server-Copyright: Based on WebFoo (c) 1999 Foo Inc. http://www.foo.com
This would be no different than the requirement that interactive programs
No modifications to Server Identification Field. You agree not
to remove or modify the Server Identification Field contained in the
Response Header as defined in Section 1.6 and 1.7.
I'm concerned about the _precedent_ here, which could be used to enforce a
more rigid adherence to some
From: Russell Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Because it doesn't seem all that different from existing licenses, and
because license proliferation inhibits code reuse. The major effect
of Open Source code is to reduce the transaction cost of using it.
Hear, Hear!
We are in danger of tying
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hear, Hear!
We are in danger of tying ourselves up in red tape as we are saddled with
more licenses, and their incompatibility, every day. The OSI should act
to discourage license proliferation when possible, lest it do itself and
its community a disservice.
Just
Hurray. What would be ideal, is to develop common
set of underlying clauses and algebraic rules for
combining those clauses. Say that a decomposition
lead to 26 clauses, A..Z,
Then each OS license would be defined in
terms of these clauses. So that
Artistic = A, B, C,F, G, Y
[ an anonymized license -russ ]
NOTES.
These notes do not form part of the license.
Preamble. This explains why we have created a new license. The license is
based on the NPL version 1.1, with some definitions from the GNU LGPL. The
preamble will be included in the license.
Section 1.4.
Perhaps this is a bit of an odd objection, since I'm objecting to something
taken verbatim from the GPL, but I've argued about this clause in the GPL
before.
On 11 May 1999, Russell Nelson wrote:
You are not required to accept this license, since you have not signed it.
However, nothing else
-Original Message-
From: Paul Crowley [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 1999 4:14 AM
To: Ken Arromdee
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: A new open source license
The clause following the "Therefore" doesn't logically follow from
the
clauses that it is
Bruce Perens writes:
I don't agree. It's just like the public-domain to GPL case. You have the
option to distribute the program under the LGPL. You choose the GPL. You
re-distribute that. The person to whom you redistribute it has the option to
use the GPL, just as you did.
Sure, but the
Wilfredo Sanchez writes:
So this linking business is RMS's interpretation, but is not in
the license text. I know certain other licenses get heavily
critiqued for being vague, but I don't see the same scrutiny applied
to the GPL here.
Well, that sort of scrutiny _has_ been applied
Fred:
Protecting one's right to
share code by removing one's right not to doesn't seem like a Good
Thing to me.
You're not considering the unpaid contributor. If my only choice was
a license like the BSD, I would contribute a lot less. The protective
provisions of the GPL are what make
On Tue, 18 May 1999, Seth David Schoen wrote:
Wilfredo Sanchez writes:
Well, that sort of scrutiny _has_ been applied to the GPL on many lists for
many years, so that many people are sick of it. :-) Take a look at
gnu.misc.discuss, and you should find such a thread fairly quickly.
Yeah, and it
On Tue, 18 May 1999, Bruce Perens wrote:
Re: the GPL standing up in court: a law student mailed me a 100+ page thesis
on that topic. He said it would stand up in court. I have not yet had time to
study his arguments thoroughly, too much travel. Hopefully I can do this next
week.
Did that law
From: "Pat St. Jean" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I gave up BECAUSE of the GPL. I can't make any money off of
that code with programs that I DON'T want to release the source for.
No, you have been given wrong information. You may apply any number of
licenses, in parallel, to your own work. You can apply
Seth David Schoen wrote:
Clark Evans writes:
I feel that if anyone is trying to make money from
software that is GPL'd, then they obviously do not
believe in the GPL, thus they really should not be
using the GPL.
I think you should amend this to "to make money from applying a
At 09:09 AM 5/19/99 -0500, Patrick St. Jean wrote:
On Tue, 18 May 1999, Bruce Perens wrote:
Did that law student take a look at some of the federal circuit court
rulings concerning shrink-wrap licenses? The gist of them is that unless
there is a signature on a document, they're pretty much
You could reduce this to the BSD license, an added attribution sentence,
and a separate trademark statement, and thus save us from the evils of
"license proliferation" - one more license in the world for programmers
to figure out, one more license that is not compatible with other pre-existing
Charles,
You are trying to create an open source license for
a technology which is protected by patent and trademark.
You are tying the patent use to the trademark?
"Charles A. Jolley" wrote:
This technology exists as a specification, a set of rules, that we want
to license to people and
Basically, we are working on a license for the technology that gives
people free license (as protected by our patents, copyrights, and
trademarks) to use the technology in their products and limited use of the
technology's name in relation to their product, unless they sell it for
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On Tue, 13 Jul 1999, Pat St. Jean wrote:
On 13 Jul 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
My main criticism is that some of the language is _oblique_ and should be
phrased as a "permission" rather than an "understanding". The license is meant
to be
On Tue, 13 Jul 1999, Mark Wells wrote:
I think Bruce mis-stated his point to some extent, but he's right. A
license written in terms of 'understandings' rather than specific
assignment of permissions to the licensee is ambiguous. This makes it
both harder for the end user (as opposed to the
Forrest J. Cavalier III wrote:
In
fact, could you GPL it, and include a notice along the lines of "if you
want to use our trademarks, certification marks, etc. contact
us for a different agreement." That would clean up the open
source license a great deal, I think.
The point is that
Charles:
Splitting this into two license would simplify the free component, but it
would also mean that people buying and using products would have to get to
know two separate license...
I think that's to your advantage. It helps reinforce the destinction
between Degas-certified products and
Thought I'd mention that the licensing has changed for "php4" aka zend.
It was under the GPL, but now it appears to be under the QPL (just like
kde).
Seems to be a backlash against the GPL lately - slashdot has posted numerous
articles on freebsd, which invariably say that "the gpl is evil (blah
Hi all;
... a maiden poster here. Trust me to pick a holy war to start
with, eh?
snip
Seems to be a backlash against the GPL lately - slashdot has posted
numerous
articles on freebsd, which invariably say that "the gpl is evil (blah
blah),
and use freebsd because it's better. insert holy
| For the software I personally write, there really isn't much
choice but the
| GPL. That's because I donate my time to increase the amount of
available
| free software, _not_ non-free software. I absolutely will not
tolerate being
| treated as an unpaid employee by someone who takes my
1 Infinite Loop, 302-4K, Cupertino, CA
This has got to be a joke...?
No. It is a circular road in Cupertino which, IIRC, surrounds one of
Apple's campuses. (or something like that).
The NAMING of the road was certainly a joke, but :)
D
|NeXT used GPL'ed code for years without adding much value to the
| GNU Project because they made lots of NeXT-specific changes and
| didn't care at all whether they got folded into the FSF source
base.
| Sure the software remaind "free", but none of it ever made it into
| the
On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Wilfredo Sanchez wrote:
[for readability I've reformatted some comments]
| Except the *NeXT* community.
OK, that's fair.
| making open systems in the first place), of course. My objective
| is to benefit the user, and make the user's life nice.
OK, I like that
| I disagree -- it looks like people are starting to see the benefits of
| getting their end users to fix bugs. Which can be a different animal
| from open source entirely.
Not entirely. I don't mind paying for software. What kills me is
"that damned bug that's been there forever and
On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Wilfredo Sanchez wrote:
snip
Certainly the GPL has worked well here. Writing a compiler is
enough of a pain in the ass that dealing with the GPL, regardless of
your objections, is likely worthwhile.
The GPL has had many areas of success. I wonder, out of sheer
| Obviously, the GPL is aimed at being "user-protective" rather than
| "business-protective".
No. It's "author-protective". You write software. You want
people to use it (for whatever reasons), but you have certain
restrictions you use on usage to protect you as the author. This is
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 20:13:25 -0700
From: Wilfredo Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED]
| Do you mean by this that if the GPL were more specific in its
| allowances and prohibitions, it would make for more acceptance and a
| better license?
Most certainly. For starters, it should
[EMAIL PROTECTED] scripsit:
For example, I'd submit that _reference_ is derivation where software is
concerned. If you call into my library from your program, it's a derived
work.
Then in your view, only GPL-compatible programs can be run under Linux?
--
John Cowan
Kyle Rose scripsit:
[T]he LGPL, the license under which the major libraries are
released, specifically allows non-free programs to link to binaries
under that license.
The kernel, however (which is just another library), is under the GPL.
I know that Linus explicitly states that the GPL's
John Cowan writes:
Kyle Rose scripsit:
[T]he LGPL, the license under which the major libraries are
released, specifically allows non-free programs to link to binaries
under that license.
The kernel, however (which is just another library), is under the GPL.
I know that Linus
Matthew C. Weigel writes:
On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, Seth David Schoen wrote:
It could be viewed as an additional permission, making Linux
dual-licensed, except that Linus doesn't have authority to grant that
permission on behalf of all of the other developers -- who presumably have
the
| For example, I'd submit that _reference_ is derivation where
software is
| concerned. If you call into my library from your program, it's a
derived
| work. However, copyright law doesn't take that into account and is only
| concerned with copying.
And therein lies a serious problem,
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Postulate that you write an application that works with a library full of
no-op stubs. That library just happens to match the interface of a GPL-ed
product I've written, and with that library it is a functioning product. Then
you ship that
From: Kyle Rose [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unfortunately, as much as I love the GPL, I don't think this is
enforcable. Remember that the GPL covers only distribution, not use;
hence, if the distribution of a work linked against a library
interface (even that for which only a GPL'ed implementation
Postulate that you write an application that works with a library full of
no-op stubs. That library just happens to match the interface of a GPL-ed
product I've written, and with that library it is a functioning product. Then
you ship that application with the _intent_ that the user combine
Date:Wed, 28 Jul 1999 12:01:12 +0200 (CEST)
From: Martin Konold [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 28 Jul 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
1. If an alternate implementation from mine exists
2. and is available for the user to run with your application on that platform
3. and the
I have a basic patent question that is possibly license related. I
apologize in advance if this is the wrong forum.
I wrote some software in my free time. I think one of the algorithms
is patentable. It's not earth shattering by any means, but that
hardly seems to be a requirement these days.
Hi all:
Well, we've finally got people back in town long enough to revise the
license for "Degas". I have posted the revised version below.
You will notice that we did not split this license into two licenses (or
a license + commercial addendum). This was done for several reasons:
1.
From: John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 08:29:54 -0400 (EDT)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] scripsit:
1) I don't want to spend a lot of money or do a lot of work.
(i.e. I don't want to go through the hassle of applying for a
patent myself.)
2) I don't
On Wed, Jul 28, 1999 at 20:07:40 -0600, Jacques Chester wrote:
I got to thinking some about the license how-to thing. I *do* believe
that a guide to selecting licenses *would* be useful.
Have you taken a look at
Mark Koek, "Free Software Licensing"?
(See
Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
One easy and relatively inexpensive way to publish an algorithm with a
legally verifiable date in the U.S. is to register it with the
U.S. copyright office. You can send them a program listing, and they
will basically file it with a timestamp.
Sorry, not enough.
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 09:43:04 -0400
From: John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
One easy and relatively inexpensive way to publish an algorithm with a
legally verifiable date in the U.S. is to register it with the
U.S. copyright office. You can send them a
Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 09:43:04 -0400
From: John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
One easy and relatively inexpensive way to publish an algorithm with a
legally verifiable date in the U.S. is to register it with the
U.S.
Are there any archives for this list?
I'm particularly interested in discussion of not-quite-free licenses
such as the BitKeeper license.
--
J C Lawrence Life: http://www.kanga.nu/ Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-(*)Work (Linux/IA64): [EMAIL PROTECTED]
... Beware of
I got to thinking some about the license how-to thing. I *do* believe
that a guide to selecting licenses *would* be useful.
I was planning on writing that document. The following is the table of
contents I thought it should have, as I wrote it two days ago:
1 Introduction
Just
Hello all!
Would someone be so kind as to make clear for me what the difference is
between a system call, and the use of a function in a program.
These terms are used to describe when something is or isn't a derived work
for purposes of copyright.
Bruce has stated that copyright law
Would someone be so kind as to make clear for me what the difference is
between a system call, and the use of a function in a program.
These terms are used to describe when something is or isn't a derived work
for purposes of copyright.
Bruce has stated that copyright law recognizes
Copyright law concerns distributing copies of published works
in portion or entirety.
Thanks for the lesson ;).
Cutting and pasting a function (or even retyping from a book)
when writing a program creates a "derived work."
You haven't answered my question. What is a function?
If you want to ensure the algorithm is prior art against any future patents,
the strongest (but more expensive) solution is to use something called a
"statutory invention registry" provided by the patent office. Its
essentially a purely defensive patent--look at the PTO web site for a bit
more
On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Nate wrote:
You're telling me about law again. What is a function? What is a system
call?
Thank you.
Sorry about that. Sometimes people do miss the question. A function is a
contained piece of code called by some other piece of code. A system call
is a request made
Hello all;
I got to thinking some about the license how-to thing. I
*do* believe that a guide to selecting licenses
*would* be useful.
It's a reasonable thing to look at. As I've said before:
there's no reason why hackers should *have* to be
lawyers too. Of course, some of us enjoy
On 1 Aug 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
However, you can also take Linus' note as an interpretation of the scope of the
GPL and not an exception at all.
If you accept that another person can reinterpret phrases like "dervived work",
and you also accept that this reinterpretation can apply to
I've been thinking about a license I've been tempted to use:
This program is under the GPL, v2. You may also use it under the XFree
license as long as you aren't Theo de Raadt or Tom Christianson. *
I would guess that it's non-free, which leads me to the weird conclusion
that adding further
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On Sun, 1 Aug 1999, David Starner wrote:
I've been thinking about a license I've been tempted to use:
This program is under the GPL, v2. You may also use it under the XFree
license as long as you aren't Theo de Raadt or Tom Christianson. *
I
From: Mark Wells [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The interesting thing is that this license is *not* an open source
license. (The OSD specifically prohibits discrimination against
individuals or groups.) So the set of open-source licenses is not quite a
superset of the set of free software licenses.
No,
Hello there;
I'm sending this email to a number of people. The majority of you
have already been asked in the past about what I am going to
describe. Namely, I have asked most of you to perform a
peer review of an essay about economics and free software.
Some of you have *not* been asked
Hello all;
So far, license-discuss has yielded my best
response. I've posted to several newsgroups,
but usenet being as it is I don't expect too
many timely responses.
To answer a mild criticism, which has already
arisen; namely, "such a paper is off-topic to
this list".
I emailed the RFC
Hello all;
So far, license-discuss has yielded my best
response. I've posted to several newsgroups,
but usenet being as it is I don't expect too
many timely responses.
To answer a mild criticism, which has already
arisen; namely, "such a paper is off-topic to
this list".
I emailed the RFC
Hello again;
As it happens, I have been unable to meet my goal of
delivering the completed essay this weekend. This was
a result of classic scheduling errors - the time-vacuum
and the job underestimation.
Instead of the complete essay, I have instead included
those sections which *are* ready
On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
2. Brooks's Law is not precisely *equivalent* to LODR, but is rather
a special
case of it involving *particular* nonlinear scaling phenomena.
Accordingly,
one may assert that the bazaar mode repeals Brooks's Law without
making
any
Oh, and btw:
As wild as this sounds, I am starting to get ground
into the dirt by the programming involved in getting
this project to Just Work, dammit. If anyone can help
me, email me, quick! :)
JC.
X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy
*Coughs politely*
Jacques Chester [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Fifthly, the possible conclusions so far are:
* That ESR is completely correct, that Free Software *does* break
the
LODR and that it represents a new economic phenomenon in
production
* That
Jacques Chester wrote:
[...] Brook's Law [...]
BTW, it's Brooks's law (not Brook's law or Brooks' law); the
current draft consistently gets this wrong.
Projects
So what are projects, and what are their factors? Brooks
example can be characterised as a project with two factors,
being
Jacques Chester wrote:
Forking is important and healthy, in my view.
The trouble with forking is that it divides attention, which is
the true scarce resource. The World Wide Web Consortium, for
example, is fiddling around with its structure now, experimenting
with subdividing and re-merging,
On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Jacques Chester wrote:
The issue of quadratic paths of communications. It's one of the
suggested causes of Brook's Law.
Mathematically, N^2-N is only the number of *two-ended* communication
paths. I could see several situations in which what would matter would be
the
Richard Stallman wrote:
Some of us have other goals. My principal goal in writing GNU Emacs,
GCC and various other programs was to produce a complete free
operating system, so that we could have the freedom to form a
community.
A complete free operating system *of sufficiently high
Back to it!
Mark wrote:
On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Jacques Chester wrote:
The issue of quadratic paths of communications. It's one of the
suggested causes of Brook's Law.
Mathematically, N^2-N is only the number of *two-ended* communication
paths. I could see several situations in which what
Hello all, again.
Jacques Chester wrote:
[...] Brook's Law [...]
BTW, it's Brooks's law (not Brook's law or Brooks' law); the
current draft consistently gets this wrong.
Bugger. I spotted this myself at one point, whereupon it
was promptly forgotten. It's rude for me to do so, as the
same
There was a time that the GNU/Linux system was not of "sufficiently high
quality" to do much of anything useful. If that had been the deciding factor
we would have never made it to this point.
Speak for yourself. I have been using GNU software and Linux since
its very early ages to do
I'm getting frustrated. I'm hoping someone here
can help me out.
On 7/16, I sent an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
about an Artistic License variant I wanted to get
certified. That's where the OSI Certification Mark
page said to send it.
A week or so later, I discovered that the page had
been
How do Open Source projects differ from the above?
In two very important ways. Firstly, OSPs have no
time-bound. That is, there is no deadline whereby
the next version of GNOME has to be delivered, "or
I agree entirely with your argument, but the words raise a background
issue
Or alternatively, simply list another project so as not to confuse the
issue midstream. As Richard points out, the FSF doesn't want the terms
"Open Source" and "Free Software" lumped together. Rather than switching to
a different terminology mid-stream, it would make more sense to simply
Speak for yourself. I have been using GNU software and Linux since
its very early ages to do useful work. 7 years so far of using free software.
This really depends on what you want to use the computer for. Not
everybody does kernel development. For a lot of people useful work
depends on
- Original Message -
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 01, 1999 7:24 PM
Subject: remove
please remove me from the dist list
thanks
On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, NotZed wrote:
It just happens to be a little difficult to talk about another project
in this case, because Gnome is the project under study.
I would have to agree with Richard, it is part of the free software
movement, not the "open source" one. Although the means are
On Wed, Aug 18, 1999 at 03:50:54PM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
Richard, you should be careful what you wish for; you might get it.
In your zeal to distance your doctrinal purity from the OSI's filthy
but effective pragmatism, you are mainly succeeding in marginalizing
both the FSF and
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