Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On Sat, 2015-04-04 at 06:47 -0700, Rick Moen wrote: So, convenience, yay. I wish you luck with that campaign. Which campaign? I thought we were having a discussion. I'm sorry, but _who_ exactly are you saying is advocating abolition of copyright? And what colour is the sky in their vicinity? Well, Karl Fogel [1, 2], for example, unless I've misunderstood him. FWIW, seems to me, you very much have. The nub of Karl's argument is typified by this paragraph near 0the end of the first cited piece: The proprietary stream cannot survive forever, in the face of such competition. The abolition of copyright law is optional; the real force here is creators freely choosing to release their works for unrestricted copying, because it's in their interests to do so. At some point, it will be obvious that all the interesting stuff is going on in the free stream, and people will simply cease dipping into the proprietary one. Copyright law may remain on the books formally, but it will fade away in practice, atrophied from disuse. That sounds like a statement about what might be likely to happen, rather than what ought to happen. From the second cited piece, starting from the very first sentence: How bad is the current copyright system? Should we push for abolition, or just radical reform? Both. Sounds like he's advocating abolition to me. Tim ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On Wed, 2015-04-01 at 08:32 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote: On Apr 1, 2015 4:04 AM, Tim Makarios tjm1...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 6:24 PM, Tim Makarios tjm1...@gmail.com wrote: Really? Then do the BSD and ISC licences also violate the OSD and FSD, because they don't require the source code of derivative works to be made available? But they do make the source code of the original work available, which makes them open source but not copyleft. No, the licences don't make the source code available, the programmers (generally) do. There's nothing to stop someone from applying the ISC licence to a binary blob. So is CC-BY-SA also non-copyleft? No, the ShareAlike aspect of CC-BY-SA makes it copyleft. Right, but CC-BY-SA doesn't require the publication of source code, does it? Someone, for peculiar reasons of their own, could choose to apply CC-BY-SA to a binary blob. Of course, this wouldn't make the binary blob into open source software, since the source wouldn't be available. But nor would it make CC-BY-SA into a non-copyleft licence. I contend that it's possible to write a simple copyleft licence that doesn't require the publication of source code. When such a licence is applied to human-preferred source code, it would make that source code into open source software; when it's applied to binary blobs (which might be derivative works of open source software covered by the licence), it wouldn't make those binary blobs into open source software, but it would still be a copyleft licence. Tim ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting Tim Makarios (tjm1...@gmail.com): [...] And that's sort of my point, really. A lot of talk about convenience. Thank you for that, I guess. And thank you for having reminded us that literary works available under redistrubution-permitting licences such as CC-BY-SA have typically been put into machine-readable form by _somebody_. So, even though I was guesstimating that, as a fast typist, I'd have been able (if my OCRing facilities didn't suffice) to type in, and correct, the full text of _Pride and Prejudice_ in a week, creating plaintext suitable for markup, that work would be seldom necessary. So, convenience, yay. I wish you luck with that campaign. I'm sorry, but _who_ exactly are you saying is advocating abolition of copyright? And what colour is the sky in their vicinity? Well, Karl Fogel [1, 2], for example, unless I've misunderstood him. FWIW, seems to me, you very much have. The nub of Karl's argument is typified by this paragraph near 0the end of the first cited piece: The proprietary stream cannot survive forever, in the face of such competition. The abolition of copyright law is optional; the real force here is creators freely choosing to release their works for unrestricted copying, because it's in their interests to do so. At some point, it will be obvious that all the interesting stuff is going on in the free stream, and people will simply cease dipping into the proprietary one. Copyright law may remain on the books formally, but it will fade away in practice, atrophied from disuse. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 01/04/15 17:14, Lawrence espe wrote: You really don't have to read all that stuff in order to protect your own work. But if you want to know what those protections are, you need to understand what the law says. You should also pray that you're not sued for software patent infringement, and for most software programmers that's probably not much of an issue recently in many jurisdictions. :-) And the final limiting clause of a slew of patents granted by the USPTO I recently read was, paraphrased The use of a different sequence of steps, including the omission of steps listed here, and steps not listed here, shall be deemed to be an infringement of this patent. Overarching, and hopefully not legally binding, but as the final, limiting clause of the patent, it looks like no work-arounds are possible. (Yes, I do know better than to read patents, but dam it, when somebody has obtained a patent that is nothing more than a series of steps I wrote, years before the patent was applied for, I'd like to know what it says, especially since they didn't give me the courtesy of telling that they were monetizing my non-invention.) jonathon signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting Tim Makarios (tjm1...@gmail.com): On Wed, 2015-04-01 at 09:58 -0700, Rick Moen wrote: Software has special problems that CC's classes of licences don't need to address. I have no problem reverse-engineering the construction of a novel to determine how to write my own. (There cannot be a proprietary secret sauce, no unavailable or obscured source code.) But if you wanted to write a look-alike parody, or make an adaptation that adds something completely new to the existing text (like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, for example), or even just print your own copies in a larger font, it might be useful for you to have the .tex source that was used to typeset the novel. I expected someone to raise this edge-case-obsessive point, but, as a matter of fair perspective, here you are talking about improved convenience rather than elimination of any serious obstacle. Given that Seth Grahame-Smith was already probably lavishing about a year of his life on writing _Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!_, I doubt that the sad modern-era unavailability of Jane Austen's 1797 TeX source files (from which Knuth got the idea[1]) was much of an obstacle to the writing of his novel, in context. Nothing's totally free of cost. This is just an example, by way of introducing the question: How much extra effort is it reasonable for a free culture or free software licence to demand people go to, on top of merely demanding that they don't sue people who re-use their work? Demanding? Reasonable? Sorry, but all this sounds to me like out-of-scope ideological concerns with little or no releance to licensing. (Your mileage may differ.) Reasonable people will give different answers to this question, I'm sure, but I don't think it's consistent for the sub-culture that advocates copyright abolition to demand anything other than a promise not to sue (but I do think it's reasonable for them to demand a promise not to sue in exchange for a promise not to sue). I'm sorry, but _who_ exactly are you saying is advocating abolition of copyright? And what colour is the sky in their vicinity? [1] Yes, I was trying to be amusing, there. Sorry if I missed. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On Apr 1, 2015 4:04 AM, Tim Makarios tjm1...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 6:24 PM, Tim Makarios tjm1...@gmail.com wrote: Really? Then do the BSD and ISC licences also violate the OSD and FSD, because they don't require the source code of derivative works to be made available? But they do make the source code of the original work available, which makes them open source but not copyleft. I may have misunderstood what you were saying about your proposal. In either case, not providing the source in derivative works would still make it non-copyleft. So is CC-BY-SA also non-copyleft? No, the ShareAlike aspect of CC-BY-SA makes it copyleft. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On Wed, 2015-04-01 at 09:58 -0700, Rick Moen wrote: Software has special problems that CC's classes of licences don't need to address. I have no problem reverse-engineering the construction of a novel to determine how to write my own. (There cannot be a proprietary secret sauce, no unavailable or obscured source code.) But if you wanted to write a look-alike parody, or make an adaptation that adds something completely new to the existing text (like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, for example), or even just print your own copies in a larger font, it might be useful for you to have the .tex source that was used to typeset the novel. This is just an example, by way of introducing the question: How much extra effort is it reasonable for a free culture or free software licence to demand people go to, on top of merely demanding that they don't sue people who re-use their work? Reasonable people will give different answers to this question, I'm sure, but I don't think it's consistent for the sub-culture that advocates copyright abolition to demand anything other than a promise not to sue (but I do think it's reasonable for them to demand a promise not to sue in exchange for a promise not to sue). What licence should this sub-culture use? I might be wrong, but I'd anticipate that if there was a copyleft software licence that didn't demand the publication of the source code of derivative works, such source code would almost always be available on public git repositories, anyway. Why would you try to hide source code from people you're allowing to reverse-engineer your binaries? As it stands, what proportion of derivatives of permissively-licensed software are not also open source? And derivative works for which the source code was not available clearly couldn't be called open source, just as closed-source derivatives of permissively-licensed software would not be called open source, even if an OSI-approved licence was applied to the binaries. I began with an example, and I'll end with another, inspired by a discussion about electronic device freedom [1]. If you were designing a copyleft free culture licence for hardware designs, and if someone wanted to make and sell slightly different hardware based on hardware that was covered by such a licence, how much detail would you require them to publish about the design of the hardware they're selling? In what way should they publish it, and how long should they make sure such a publication remains available? Tim [1] https://singpolyma.net/2015/01/electronic-device-freedom/ ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On Tue, 2015-03-31 at 18:13 +, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz wrote: The Simple Public License (SimPL) is a lawyer-written, OSI-approved, plain language and relatively short copyleft license. It's available on the OSI website. Thanks for pointing this out; I hadn't seen that one before, and I'm sure it's significantly shorter than any other copyleft licence I've seen --- for software or anything else. Tim ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 4/1/15, 5:44 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: Quoting David Woolley (for...@david-woolley.me.uk): It means he may think that the licence is preventing the sort of commercial exploitation he doesn't like, but the commercial exploiter will ignore the words he is relying on and instead exploit based on their attempt to re-interpet the letter of the formal licence. Nigel should and can speak for himself, but I suspect preventing twisty people from imagining they've found subverting dodges, believed defensible in court, is simply outside the scope of what any 'human language' licence summary can or should reasonably aim to achieve. Like locks I treat the CC-BY-NC-SA marking as an indicator for honest folks or folks that can be deterred with a vague threat of possible legal action. Do I believe that marking pictures of my kid playing soccer CC-BY-NC-SA prevents them from being used on billboard in Asia if someone there was so inclined? No. It will possibly deter the local sporting goods store from just grabbing it off Facebook and using in a flyer and that¹s good enough. Especially since my pics are nothing particularly special. Mostly I mark them so that the pictures of any other kids that might be in the pic are not used without their parent¹s permission in some kind of commercial derivative work. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On Tue, 2015-03-31 at 09:17 -0400, Ben Cotton wrote: On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 6:24 PM, Tim Makarios tjm1...@gmail.com wrote: It doesn't require making the source code available, but recipients of binaries will always be free to make derivative works by reverse engineering the binaries. That seems like a non-starter to me. It violates both the OSD and the FSD. Really? Then do the BSD and ISC licences also violate the OSD and FSD, because they don't require the source code of derivative works to be made available? Even though it has the can't-be-proprietized aspect of copyleft, the lack of source code would make it non-copyleft. So is CC-BY-SA also non-copyleft? Looking again at my suggestion, I wonder why I put the first seven words in. And Rick Moen's comment has made me aware of how the law sometimes assumes people have promised things that they never mentioned, so I've come up with another draft, with a somewhat modified version of the ISC disclaimer. At the risk of having it derided as a crayon licence, here it is: Anyone who obtains a copy of this work is licensed to: * make further copies and derivative works from their copy of the work and * use and distribute their copies and derivative works, provided that all such derivative works are governed by this licence. UNLESS THEY HAVE EXPRESSLY PROVIDED A SEPARATE WARRANTY, THE DISTRIBUTORS AND CREATORS OF AND CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS WORK PROVIDE NO WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT OF ANYONE'S RIGHTS OTHER THAN THEIR OWN; NOR WILL THEY BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT OR NEGLIGENCE OR IN ANY OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS WORK, EVEN IF THEY HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. My goal wasn't solely brevity, though I do see that as a feature of licences, rather than a bug. I also wanted to avoid extraneous requirements, so that I can promise not to sue anyone for what they do with copies of my work, with the *sole* proviso that they promise not to sue other people who use their derivative works. I don't want to be making an implicit threat to sue people who don't give me attribution in just the right way, or don't attach the licence in just the right way, or don't ensure that the source code is available in perpetuity (or encumbers every download of binary versions of the software, as Maxthon Chan's suggested modification to the BSD licences sounds like it would do); I just want to be able to defend against other people who might try to sue me for such omissions. Also, I owe a correction to this list. I'm not sure where I got the idea that the Open Publication Licence was copyleft, but on further investigation, it looks like its predecessor, the Open Content License [1], was copyleft, and perhaps very slightly shorter. Tim [1] http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/oclicense.html ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 3/30/15, 10:00 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: Or perhaps they simply wish software licenses were as easy to understand and use as the creative commons ones. It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. The Simple Public License (SimPL) is a lawyer-written, OSI-approved, plain language and relatively short copyleft license. It's available on the OSI website. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 3/31/15, 3:24 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: Quoting Tzeng, Nigel H. (nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu): Or perhaps they simply wish software licenses were as easy to understand and use as the creative commons ones. Yes, it's common to wish that highly technical fields (such as law) were simple. Very small benefit, large downside as shown by those who've gotten this wrong. Creative Commons seems successful and it does not appear that they have ³gotten this wrong². It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. A copyleft licence without a political/social agenda? I'll await this with interest. CC-BY-SA Sufficiently apolitical for me without manifestos, widely accepted and used. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
How to use CC in software licensing then? Or do we need a specific CC variant or addendum for code? On Apr 1, 2015, at 22:37, Tzeng, Nigel H. nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu wrote: On 3/31/15, 3:24 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: Quoting Tzeng, Nigel H. (nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu): Or perhaps they simply wish software licenses were as easy to understand and use as the creative commons ones. Yes, it's common to wish that highly technical fields (such as law) were simple. Very small benefit, large downside as shown by those who've gotten this wrong. Creative Commons seems successful and it does not appear that they have ³gotten this wrong². It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. A copyleft licence without a political/social agenda? I'll await this with interest. CC-BY-SA Sufficiently apolitical for me without manifestos, widely accepted and used. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
And how about the software patent issue (which is a highlight of GPLv3 and Apache 2.0) Is this rough equivalents: CC-by ~ 2BSDL, CC=by-sa ~ GPLv2? On Apr 1, 2015, at 22:37, Tzeng, Nigel H. nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu wrote: On 3/31/15, 3:24 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: Quoting Tzeng, Nigel H. (nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu): Or perhaps they simply wish software licenses were as easy to understand and use as the creative commons ones. Yes, it's common to wish that highly technical fields (such as law) were simple. Very small benefit, large downside as shown by those who've gotten this wrong. Creative Commons seems successful and it does not appear that they have ³gotten this wrong². It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. A copyleft licence without a political/social agenda? I'll await this with interest. CC-BY-SA Sufficiently apolitical for me without manifestos, widely accepted and used. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Then we would need to create a CC-style set of software licenses to solve this issue, without the manifestos, politics and technicalities. On Apr 1, 2015, at 23:17, Ben Cotton bcot...@fedoraproject.org wrote: On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 11:01 AM, Maxthon Chan xcvi...@me.com wrote: How to use CC in software licensing then? Or do we need a specific CC variant or addendum for code? For what it's worth Creative Commons says not to: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_apply_a_Creative_Commons_license_to_software.3F -- Ben Cotton ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 11:01 AM, Maxthon Chan xcvi...@me.com wrote: How to use CC in software licensing then? Or do we need a specific CC variant or addendum for code? For what it's worth Creative Commons says not to: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_apply_a_Creative_Commons_license_to_software.3F -- Ben Cotton ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
In case the point wasn't clear: You're right; it would be a good thing if someone skilled in the art were to attempt that. Short summaries of existing licences would be a fine start, though I could swear that there have been a few. It should be remembered that the CC 'human-readable' summaries are not the operative texts, though. Like the other CC licences, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ stresses at the top: This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode has the operative text. After copying and pasting from the title 'Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License' through the end of concluding Section 8 (just above the greyed-text notices) into a 80-column text file: $ wc cc-by-sa-4.0 233 2144 13982 cc-by-sa-4.0 $ 233 lines, 2144 words or word-like text blocks, 14kB of text. For comparison's sake, taking http://opensource.org/licenses/GPL-2.0 and removing the preamble (legal NOOP irrespective of claims it's essential blah-blah), the four lines of notices below the title, and the 'How to Apply' instruction at the bottom: $ wc gplv2 204 2023 12095 gplv2 $ 204 lines, 2023 words or word-like text blocks, 12kB of text. (The four lines of notices _are_ esential to the licence, but I was trying to create a direct comparison omitting the same small legal metadata from both.) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 4/1/15, 1:43 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: I find that assumption vexing enough that, at one point, I proposed to do a lecture on 'Proven Ways to Use GPLv2 as the Core of a Proprietary Software Business Model'. (I don't know for sure what the backlash would have been.) *cough*MySQL AB*cough* Is it odd that the only time I am inclined to use GPL is when I wish to protect certain competitive advantages from potential competitors? ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 4/1/15, 12:49 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: I should hasten to say that you have a very good point that the Creative Commons approach has merit, and I wrote my comment far too hastily. You're right; it would be a good thing if someone skilled in the art were to attempt that. Short summaries of existing licences would be a fine start, though I could swear that there have been a few. Yes. There appeared to be a short lived effort to wrap software licenses with CC like text at CC but that doesn¹t appear to have met much success/interest. Probably because it was seen as outside their swim lane and the lack of CC branding on the licenses themselves. I think that the branding of the CC-BY and CC-whatever has significant value. I used ³software commons² or ³SC² as an example as not to be too blatantly suggestive but OSI-BY and OSI-BY-SA could have equal if not more brand value within the software domain. Have I read all the legalese behind the CC licenses? No. I trust the brand and while I have perused some just as a sanity check I also realize that I¹m not a lawyer and I would miss the nuances anyway. So I depend that the CC organization has put forth a best effort in making sure the human-readable summaries match the legal text. It should be remembered that the CC 'human-readable' summaries are not the operative texts, though. That¹s true. For professional work I would have our legal office determine if it suitable for use. For personal stuff, like I said, I trust the brand so I mark my photos CC-BY-NC-SA. Fair enough. I honestly wish people wouldn't get hung up on the manifestos, as they are NOOPs in the functioning of the legal instruments. I tend to disregard them. I dislike the presumption that the use of GPL implies support for the FSF viewpoint. A perspective that the FSF fosters as evidence of how much they dominate the FOSS world as opposed to say BSD/Apache. Yes, WE all know this is not true. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting Tzeng, Nigel H. (nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu): On 3/31/15, 3:24 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: Very small benefit, large downside as shown by those who've gotten this wrong. Creative Commons seems successful and it does not appear that they have ³gotten this wrong². I should hasten to say that you have a very good point that the Creative Commons approach has merit, and I wrote my comment far too hastily. You're right; it would be a good thing if someone skilled in the art were to attempt that. Short summaries of existing licences would be a fine start, though I could swear that there have been a few. It should be remembered that the CC 'human-readable' summaries are not the operative texts, though. (Just to point out: I didn't say that getting it wrong _must_ follow the attmept at hyper-simplicity, merely that it happens often enough to be a warning.) It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. A copyleft licence without a political/social agenda? I'll await this with interest. CC-BY-SA Sufficiently apolitical for me without manifestos, widely accepted and used. Fair enough. I honestly wish people wouldn't get hung up on the manifestos, as they are NOOPs in the functioning of the legal instruments. I tend to disregard them. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting Tzeng, Nigel H. (nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu): I dislike the presumption that the use of GPL implies support for the FSF viewpoint. A perspective that the FSF fosters as evidence of how much they dominate the FOSS world as opposed to say BSD/Apache. Yes, WE all know this is not true. I find that assumption vexing enough that, at one point, I proposed to do a lecture on 'Proven Ways to Use GPLv2 as the Core of a Proprietary Software Business Model'. (I don't know for sure what the backlash would have been.) But anyway, yes. I tend to stress, somewhat less provocatively, that the only actual meaning of any legal instrument lies in what it _does_, and that the views and intentions of the instrument's author are irrelevant to the matter at hand -- rather like if I drop a heavy book about Jainism on your foot. ;- ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting Tzeng, Nigel H. (nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu): On 4/1/15, 1:43 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: I find that assumption vexing enough that, at one point, I proposed to do a lecture on 'Proven Ways to Use GPLv2 as the Core of a Proprietary Software Business Model'. (I don't know for sure what the backlash would have been.) *cough*MySQL AB*cough* Among others. I actually had a whole talk outline covering several distinct models. Is it odd that the only time I am inclined to use GPL is when I wish to protect certain competitive advantages from potential competitors? That always struck me as a really obvious application. (And a legal instrument is what it does.) To quote Asimov's Mayor Salvor Hardin: 'An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.' (Not the great epigram that Hardin's 'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent' has become, but it'll do.) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting David Woolley (for...@david-woolley.me.uk): It means he may think that the licence is preventing the sort of commercial exploitation he doesn't like, but the commercial exploiter will ignore the words he is relying on and instead exploit based on their attempt to re-interpet the letter of the formal licence. Nigel should and can speak for himself, but I suspect preventing twisty people from imagining they've found subverting dodges, believed defensible in court, is simply outside the scope of what any 'human language' licence summary can or should reasonably aim to achieve. (It _is_ outside the scope of CC's aims, seems to me.) Which was my point in my prior thread, and I could swear it was pretty clear the first time, albeit I don't mind stating it twice. (Twice is plenty; stepping back now.) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting David Woolley (for...@david-woolley.me.uk): It gets political by the second word of the full form of CC! Common ownership of intellectual property is definitely a political goal. 1. Nigel's claim was merely that the CC-BY-SA licence itself was apolitical. 2. Interpreting the _organisation's_ name in a daftly literalist way is IMO unconstructive in this context: Despite what 'commons' traditionally means in law, the Creative Commons organisation neither aspires to common ownership nor achieves it. Like much else in real life, there's a metaphor involved. A more complete manifesto can be found in http://creativecommons.org/about/reform. Which would be irrelevant to Nigel's point. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting David Woolley (for...@david-woolley.me.uk): On 01/04/15 18:32, Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote: So I depend that the CC organization has put forth a best effort in making sure the human-readable summaries match the legal text. A significant number of postings on this list are from people who are trying to interpret GPL in a way that would be inconsistent with any CC-like summary of it. Those people would still try to find loopholes based on the full licence, not the lay summary. IMO, their pain is a happy accident. So, basically, what's your point? I believe Nigel's audience of concern was reasonable people seeking to understand a legal instrument, not rules-lawyering proprietary software businesspeople. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 01/04/15 22:17, Rick Moen wrote: Quoting David Woolley (for...@david-woolley.me.uk): A significant number of postings on this list are from people who are trying to interpret GPL in a way that would be inconsistent with any CC-like summary of it. Those people would still try to find loopholes based on the full licence, not the lay summary. IMO, their pain is a happy accident. So, basically, what's your point? I believe Nigel's audience of concern was reasonable people seeking to understand a legal instrument, not rules-lawyering proprietary software businesspeople. It means he may think that the licence is preventing the sort of commercial exploitation he doesn't like, but the commercial exploiter will ignore the words he is relying on and instead exploit based on their attempt to re-interpet the letter of the formal licence. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting Maxthon Chan (xcvi...@me.com): How to use CC in software licensing then? Or do we need a specific CC variant or addendum for code? The CC licences have been skillfully crafted for a different problem space (culural/artistic works), so I'd say that would be generally a bad idea. Broadly speaking, Creative Commons set out to encourage authors of written works, music, and similar copyright-eligible works to accept the concept of remixing and third-party redistribution to create derivative works, by publishing a diverse set of licences, some proprietary and others not, with differing degrees of control about commercial use, attribution requirements, and making of derivative works -- so as to maximise the commons. Software has special problems that CC's classes of licences don't need to address. I have no problem reverse-engineering the construction of a novel to determine how to write my own. (There cannot be a proprietary secret sauce, no unavailable or obscured source code.) There are no patent minefields in the way of novels. (I know: I just challenged the Internet to conjure up a counter-example.) -- Cheers, I'm ashamed at how often I use a thesaurus. I mean bashful. Rick Moen Embarrassed! Wait--humiliated. Repentant. Chagrined! Sh*t! r...@linuxmafia.com-- @cinemasins McQ! (4x80) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Maxthon Chan wrote: I still remembered my days reading through 17 USC and Chinese copyright law just to grasp an idea on how copyright works, and before I filed my patents I bought a book on how patent laws work. I have to educate myself in those legal concepts just to protect my own work. As a lawyer and the author of such a book I'll tell you a secret: You really don't have to read all that stuff in order to protect your own work. Your own work is protected automatically except for things you copy from others or for inventions that others patented first. In almost all other respects, your own work is yours to do with as you please even without registering your copyrights or filing for patents. Nor is such detailed reading necessary if you merely want others to use your works. As Nigel Tzeng and several others here pointed out, CC-BY-SA or one of the standard FOSS licenses will probably work for you without studying law. Engineers should become familiar at least with open source concepts if you want to copy the works of others. You should also pray that you're not sued for software patent infringement, and for most software programmers that's probably not much of an issue recently in many jurisdictions. :-) As a self-employed lawyer, I'm glad that not every programmer has the need to become a lawyer also. /Larry Lawrence Rosen If this were legal advice it would have been accompanied by a bill. Rosenlaw Einschlag (www.rosenlaw.com) -Original Message- From: Maxthon Chan [mailto:xcvi...@me.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 11:00 AM To: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence I have a gut feeling that this thread have somewhat common point as my “simple English BSD equivalent” thread as there are just too many politics and complexities involved in those licenses and engineers, being not-so-professional in law, gets confused easily. I still remembered my days reading through 17 USC and Chinese copyright law just to grasp an idea on how copyright works, and before I filed my patents I bought a book on how patent laws work. I have to educate myself in those legal concepts just to protect my own work. On Apr 1, 2015, at 01:54, Tzeng, Nigel H. nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu wrote: On 3/30/15, 10:00 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: It's an object lesson in why coders should not attempt to draft what are often on this mailing list termed 'crayon licences'. A broader point: The quest for the shortest possible licence (of whatever category) strikes me as solving the wrong problem. If your problem is that you're dealing with people having difficulty contending with the reality of a worldwide copyright regime and trying to wish it out of their lives, maybe overcoming that lack of reality orientation ought to be your task. (My opinion, yours for a small fee and waiver of reverse-engineering rights.) Or perhaps they simply wish software licenses were as easy to understand and use as the creative commons ones. It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discus s ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 01/04/15 18:32, Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote: Have I read all the legalese behind the CC licenses? No. I trust the brand and while I have perused some just as a sanity check I also realize that I¹m not a lawyer and I would miss the nuances anyway. So I depend that the CC organization has put forth a best effort in making sure the human-readable summaries match the legal text. A significant number of postings on this list are from people who are trying to interpret GPL in a way that would be inconsistent with any CC-like summary of it. Those people would still try to find loopholes based on the full licence, not the lay summary. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 01/04/15 15:37, Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote: CC-BY-SA Sufficiently apolitical for me without manifestos, widely accepted and used. It gets political by the second word of the full form of CC! Common ownership of intellectual property is definitely a political goal. A more complete manifesto can be found in http://creativecommons.org/about/reform. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
How about this copyleft clause for 2BSDL or 3BSDL (that is, add this clause into the existing clauses of 2BSDL or 3BSDL to make it copyleft) with a rewritten clause 2 and a new clause 3 (3BSDL’s clause 3 get bumped to clause 4 in this case) 2. Redistributions in binary form of this work or any derivative work of this work must be accompanied with the corresponding, human-preferred source code. 3. Redistribution of any derivative work must be also licensed under the same license as this work. On Mar 31, 2015, at 06:24, Tim Makarios tjm1...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, 2015-03-30 at 10:24 -0400, co...@ccil.org wrote: That's pretty much what the Sleepycat license does. Here's a very lightly edited version of its additional clause: Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for the licensed software and any accompanying software that uses the licensed software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and must be freely redistributable under reasonable conditions. For an executable file, complete source code means the source code for all modules it contains. It does not include source code for modules or files that typically accompany the major components of the operating system on which the executable file runs. I might have misunderstood it, but this seems like very weak copyleft to me. The (presumably possibly modified) source code could be made freely redistributable under reasonable conditions that were themselves a permissive licence, allowing the next person to re-monopolize their own derivatives of the derivative work. Or have I missed something? How about this for a licence? The creators of this work affirm that anyone who obtains a copy of this work is licensed to: * make further copies and derivative works from their copy of the work, and * use and distribute their copies and derivative works, provided that all such derivative works are governed by this licence. 50 words. It doesn't require making the source code available, but recipients of binaries will always be free to make derivative works by reverse engineering the binaries. It does make itself incompatible with other copyleft licences, though, which seems difficult to avoid in a very short, non-weak copyleft licence. I'd be keen to be proven wrong on that point, though. Tim ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Tim Makarios scripsit: 50 words. It doesn't require making the source code available, but recipients of binaries will always be free to make derivative works by reverse engineering the binaries. It does make itself incompatible with other copyleft licences, though, which seems difficult to avoid in a very short, non-weak copyleft licence. I'd be keen to be proven wrong on that point, though. Simply add or under the GNU General Purpose License (any version). In practice, the GPL is the only major copyleft software commons. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Your worships will perhaps be thinking that it is an easy thing to blow up a dog? [Or] to write a book? --Don Quixote, Introduction ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting Tzeng, Nigel H. (nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu): Or perhaps they simply wish software licenses were as easy to understand and use as the creative commons ones. Yes, it's common to wish that highly technical fields (such as law) were simple. Very small benefit, large downside as shown by those who've gotten this wrong. It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. A copyleft licence without a political/social agenda? I'll await this with interest. -- May those that love us love us; and those that don't love us, may God turn their hearts; and if he doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Hmm… Would OSI itself be such an organisation? Since my personal preference of BSDL, I would like to see people writing BSDL-like clauses for different purposes (like my proposed BSDL-like copyleft clause) and a developer can just cherry-pick license features they want by choosing individual clauses and construct a license for themselves. OSI would supervise the creation of such clauses and determine whether any combination of such clauses would create a non-open license or not. Clauses can be created my taking features out of existing licenses, like a GPL-style copyleft clause, an Apache-like patent protection clause, or a CC-like version upgrade clause. Localisations should be also considered if this project is to be carried out, as not all US-centric license licenses would work around the world. On Apr 1, 2015, at 02:11, Tzeng, Nigel H. nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu wrote: On 3/31/15, 1:59 PM, Maxthon Chan xcvi...@me.com wrote: I have a gut feeling that this thread have somewhat common point as my ³simple English BSD equivalent² thread as there are just too many politics and complexities involved in those licenses and engineers, being not-so-professional in law, gets confused easily. I still remembered my days reading through 17 USC and Chinese copyright law just to grasp an idea on how copyright works, and before I filed my patents I bought a book on how patent laws work. I have to educate myself in those legal concepts just to protect my own work. If only there were some (mostly) apolitical organization that could hire lawyers and create a universal set of attribution and share alike software licenses that would work across legal systems (with variants if required under the hood) with simple ways to mix and match features to achieve the desire of the developer in a commonly understood way. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
I have a gut feeling that this thread have somewhat common point as my “simple English BSD equivalent” thread as there are just too many politics and complexities involved in those licenses and engineers, being not-so-professional in law, gets confused easily. I still remembered my days reading through 17 USC and Chinese copyright law just to grasp an idea on how copyright works, and before I filed my patents I bought a book on how patent laws work. I have to educate myself in those legal concepts just to protect my own work. On Apr 1, 2015, at 01:54, Tzeng, Nigel H. nigel.tz...@jhuapl.edu wrote: On 3/30/15, 10:00 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: It's an object lesson in why coders should not attempt to draft what are often on this mailing list termed 'crayon licences'. A broader point: The quest for the shortest possible licence (of whatever category) strikes me as solving the wrong problem. If your problem is that you're dealing with people having difficulty contending with the reality of a worldwide copyright regime and trying to wish it out of their lives, maybe overcoming that lack of reality orientation ought to be your task. (My opinion, yours for a small fee and waiver of reverse-engineering rights.) Or perhaps they simply wish software licenses were as easy to understand and use as the creative commons ones. It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 3/31/15, 1:59 PM, Maxthon Chan xcvi...@me.com wrote: I have a gut feeling that this thread have somewhat common point as my ³simple English BSD equivalent² thread as there are just too many politics and complexities involved in those licenses and engineers, being not-so-professional in law, gets confused easily. I still remembered my days reading through 17 USC and Chinese copyright law just to grasp an idea on how copyright works, and before I filed my patents I bought a book on how patent laws work. I have to educate myself in those legal concepts just to protect my own work. If only there were some (mostly) apolitical organization that could hire lawyers and create a universal set of attribution and share alike software licenses that would work across legal systems (with variants if required under the hood) with simple ways to mix and match features to achieve the desire of the developer in a commonly understood way. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 3/30/15, 10:00 PM, Rick Moen r...@linuxmafia.com wrote: It's an object lesson in why coders should not attempt to draft what are often on this mailing list termed 'crayon licences'. A broader point: The quest for the shortest possible licence (of whatever category) strikes me as solving the wrong problem. If your problem is that you're dealing with people having difficulty contending with the reality of a worldwide copyright regime and trying to wish it out of their lives, maybe overcoming that lack of reality orientation ought to be your task. (My opinion, yours for a small fee and waiver of reverse-engineering rights.) Or perhaps they simply wish software licenses were as easy to understand and use as the creative commons ones. It should be as easy as SC-BY-SA 1.0 with a clear english (or whatever) description without some debatable political/social agenda behind it all like with the FSF/GPL. ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
please remove or do not e mail daunevin, he is no longer with us. On 30-Mar-15, at 10:54 AM, Daunevin Janz wrote: On 30-Mar-15, at 1:40 AM, Tim Makarios wrote: I posted this question to the contact form at opensource.org, which sent me an automated response suggesting (among other things) posting the question to this list, which I thought was a good idea. I like copyleft licences preventing derivative works from being re-monopolized, but every copyleft licence I've seen is quite long. Is there a really short copyleft licence, comparable in length to, say, the ISC licence? It may be hard to write a copyleft licence quite that short, but I'm sure someone can do better than what I've seen so far. What's the shortest copyleft licence people on this list know of? It doesn't have to be specifically a software licence; it could be one designed for free cultural works in general. I think the shortest copyleft licence I've seen so far (judging it against the others by glancing at the text in a browser) is the Open Publication Licence [1], which a more careful (automated) word-count measures at nearly 800 words. [1] http://opencontent.org/openpub/ Tim ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license- discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license- discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 6:24 PM, Tim Makarios tjm1...@gmail.com wrote: It doesn't require making the source code available, but recipients of binaries will always be free to make derivative works by reverse engineering the binaries. That seems like a non-starter to me. It violates both the OSD and the FSD. Even though it has the can't-be-proprietized aspect of copyleft, the lack of source code would make it non-copyleft. Thanks, BC -- Ben Cotton ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Maxthon Chan scripsit: Is it favorable to add a copy left clause into 2BSDL to make it copyleft? You must provide the source code, in its human-preferred format, with this work or any derivatives of this work you created when redistributing. That's pretty much what the Sleepycat license does. Here's a very lightly edited version of its additional clause: Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for the licensed software and any accompanying software that uses the licensed software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and must be freely redistributable under reasonable conditions. For an executable file, complete source code means the source code for all modules it contains. It does not include source code for modules or files that typically accompany the major components of the operating system on which the executable file runs. The restrictions pretty much match those of the GPL2. The Sleepycat license itself is redundant and non-templatized, so it can't be reused directly. If someone felt like proposing something like 2-clause BSD + the above, I for one would welcome it. Unlike the GPL, this does not create a new and distinct software commons. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV cop shows. When it's explained to them that they are in a different country, where those rights do not exist, they become outraged. --Neal Stephenson ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 2015-03-30 at 20:40:56, Tim Makarios wrote: What's the shortest copyleft licence people on this list know of? You may want to look at copyleft-next since it is an effort to create an effective but short copyleft license: https://gitorious.org/copyleft-next The latest release (0.3.0) is 1500 words long. Francois -- http://fmarier.org/ ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Is it favorable to add a copy left clause into 2BSDL to make it copyleft? You must provide the source code, in its human-preferred format, with this work or any derivatives of this work you created when redistributing. Sent from my iPad On Mar 30, 2015, at 18:22, Francois Marier franc...@fmarier.org wrote: On 2015-03-30 at 20:40:56, Tim Makarios wrote: What's the shortest copyleft licence people on this list know of? You may want to look at copyleft-next since it is an effort to create an effective but short copyleft license: https://gitorious.org/copyleft-next The latest release (0.3.0) is 1500 words long. Francois -- http://fmarier.org/ ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Then I would like to propose this Copyleft-modified 2BSDL (or its 3BSDL-based cousin) but how? I would prefer writing the additional clause in the same fashion of the original clauses though. Sent from my iPhone On Mar 30, 2015, at 22:24, co...@ccil.org wrote: Maxthon Chan scripsit: Is it favorable to add a copy left clause into 2BSDL to make it copyleft? You must provide the source code, in its human-preferred format, with this work or any derivatives of this work you created when redistributing. That's pretty much what the Sleepycat license does. Here's a very lightly edited version of its additional clause: Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for the licensed software and any accompanying software that uses the licensed software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and must be freely redistributable under reasonable conditions. For an executable file, complete source code means the source code for all modules it contains. It does not include source code for modules or files that typically accompany the major components of the operating system on which the executable file runs. The restrictions pretty much match those of the GPL2. The Sleepycat license itself is redundant and non-templatized, so it can't be reused directly. If someone felt like proposing something like 2-clause BSD + the above, I for one would welcome it. Unlike the GPL, this does not create a new and distinct software commons. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV cop shows. When it's explained to them that they are in a different country, where those rights do not exist, they become outraged. --Neal Stephenson ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
On 30/03/15 07:40, Tim Makarios wrote Publication Licence [1], which a more careful (automated) word-count measures at nearly 800 words. Isn't the DWTFYL license shorter? (I can't override the NSFW search on my browser, to find a copy of that license.) jonathon signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
The wtfpl both isn't copyleft, nor is it a valid copyright license for software. On Mar 30, 2015 4:23 PM, jonathon jonathon.bl...@gmail.com wrote: On 30/03/15 07:40, Tim Makarios wrote Publication Licence [1], which a more careful (automated) word-count measures at nearly 800 words. Isn't the DWTFYL license shorter? (I can't override the NSFW search on my browser, to find a copy of that license.) jonathon ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
What does copyleft mean? The purpose of a copyleft provision in my mind is to make it so that changes get contributed back. While it is clear that the Sleepycat license attempts to do so, it does not stop source being available for a nominal fee under an additional copyright license chosen by the contributor. If that license happens to be the GPL, well OK. But Sleepycat can't use that code without changing their license. If that license happens to be something preventing further modification and redistribution, then you've lost the whole point of copyleft. Nailing down copyleft and making it actually work is surprisingly tricky. That is one reason why careful copyleft licenses are so verbose. On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 7:24 AM, co...@ccil.org wrote: Maxthon Chan scripsit: Is it favorable to add a copy left clause into 2BSDL to make it copyleft? You must provide the source code, in its human-preferred format, with this work or any derivatives of this work you created when redistributing. That's pretty much what the Sleepycat license does. Here's a very lightly edited version of its additional clause: Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for the licensed software and any accompanying software that uses the licensed software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and must be freely redistributable under reasonable conditions. For an executable file, complete source code means the source code for all modules it contains. It does not include source code for modules or files that typically accompany the major components of the operating system on which the executable file runs. The restrictions pretty much match those of the GPL2. The Sleepycat license itself is redundant and non-templatized, so it can't be reused directly. If someone felt like proposing something like 2-clause BSD + the above, I for one would welcome it. Unlike the GPL, this does not create a new and distinct software commons. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowanco...@ccil.org Police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV cop shows. When it's explained to them that they are in a different country, where those rights do not exist, they become outraged. --Neal Stephenson ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] Shortest copyleft licence
Quoting jonathon (jonathon.bl...@gmail.com): On 30/03/15 07:40, Tim Makarios wrote Publication Licence [1], which a more careful (automated) word-count measures at nearly 800 words. Isn't the DWTFYL license shorter? (I can't override the NSFW search on my browser, to find a copy of that license.) WTFPL v. 2 (latest) is so badly written it grants rights only to the _licence_ itself, and not to any ostensibly covered work. (Read it.) Noting that it leaves warranty liability intact (probably accidentally) seems beside the point, in comparison. It's an object lesson in why coders should not attempt to draft what are often on this mailing list termed 'crayon licences'. A broader point: The quest for the shortest possible licence (of whatever category) strikes me as solving the wrong problem. If your problem is that you're dealing with people having difficulty contending with the reality of a worldwide copyright regime and trying to wish it out of their lives, maybe overcoming that lack of reality orientation ought to be your task. (My opinion, yours for a small fee and waiver of reverse-engineering rights.) -- Cheers, I know you believe you understood what you think I said, Rick Moenbut I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not r...@linuxmafia.com what I meant. -- S.I. Hayakawa McQ! (4x80) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
