Re: the provide, license verbs
Sorry for the late reply. Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. said on Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 06:09:00PM -0400,: private and personal use. Who would bring such a lawsuit, and how would the suit get past a motion to dismiss? How about a dictatorship? Consider a tech-savvy dissident, who modified his legally acquired copy of software. The typical, contractual, acceptance-required _license_ does not allow him to do that though. The dictatorship raids the dissident's den, finds nothing incriminating; his hard disk is clean ... except for this modification prevented by the EULA. The Dictator can hand over the dissident to the BSA (or its equivalent), who will initiate proceedings for infringement of copyright. Rod Do you say the law prevents me from taking a legal copy of a copyrighted work, which is a program, and privately modifying that program for my own use? John Cowan says yes: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/modifications Dan Bernstein says no: http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html -- Mahesh T. Pai http://paivakil.port5.com Distribute Free Software -- Help stamp out Software Hoarding! -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
RE: the provide, license verbs
...Not the real world example that I was looking for but, admittedly, the hypo works. In fact, the USA Patriot Act might mean the hypo need not reference a dictatorship. Today, even in a democracy, lawful entry into a tech-savvy dissident's home by the government is possible under the circumstances and in the manner as the hypothetical. -Original Message- From: Mahesh T. Pai [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mahesh T. Pai Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 2:36 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: the provide, license verbs Sorry for the late reply. Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. said on Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 06:09:00PM -0400,: private and personal use. Who would bring such a lawsuit, and how would the suit get past a motion to dismiss? How about a dictatorship? Consider a tech-savvy dissident, who modified his legally acquired copy of software. The typical, contractual, acceptance-required _license_ does not allow him to do that though. The dictatorship raids the dissident's den, finds nothing incriminating; his hard disk is clean ... except for this modification prevented by the EULA. The Dictator can hand over the dissident to the BSA (or its equivalent), who will initiate proceedings for infringement of copyright. Rod Do you say the law prevents me from taking a legal copy of a copyrighted work, which is a program, and privately modifying that program for my own use? John Cowan says yes: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/modifications Dan Bernstein says no: http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html -- Mahesh T. Pai http://paivakil.port5.com Distribute Free Software -- Help stamp out Software Hoarding! -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Hmm... I would not uncritically accept the principle that no matter what a licensor says in her license, a licensee must follow the restriction because of an assumption that it is legally enforceable. The rub -- no doubt -- is that one must be careful not to ignore the terms of a license at the same time as one is aware of the tension created between this default rule and the subjectivity involved in choosing not to follow terms that seem unworkable. For example, most end-users, who never bothered to read their software license in the first place, were said to routinely violate proprietary license terms in the early 1990's that prohibited making a second copy of the program disk of a software application (for backup, archive, or any other purpose). I never read that anyone of those end-users, including myself, became defendants in a legal dispute brought by the licensor. Hence, my point that some aspect of our discussion is purely academic. Rod - Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.cyberspaces.org .. Original Message ... On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 22:32:52 -0400 No Spam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's not entirely academic what do you with your legal copy of a program in the darkness of your room... :-) after all, what if you were legal corporation or entity, using it for your private use and making money from it? The GPL doesn't care. The QPL, reflecting Trolltech's concerns, does. Look at 4c and especially 6c. Obviously they are concerned about companies getting a legal albeit free copy, making changes and/or incorporating into their own proprietary products and neither releasing the code nor paying them, essentially defeating their revenue model. Cheers, Glen Low, Pixelglow Software www.pixelglow.com -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
The problem is that corporations like to define their coproprate self, including all those that they hire or sub-contract from as a single entity, just like the end user you (which may by the same extension be a family all sharing one computer). Now, traditionally, companies have not tracked down individual users of copyrighted materials and tried to enforce non-infringement clauses upon them. However, traditionally, the mechanism for making quality duplication of originals was by itself prohibitively expensive. So, if I took out my cassette deck and recorded a song that was playing on the radio, it wasn't much harm to their profits--I would probably eventually buy the same material (on an LP record or a 45) to get a durable copy of decent quality. Equally importantly, if some money making concern, say a dentists office wanted to play the music, companies *would* charge them for individual use--e.g. Muzak. Now, in constrast, things have changed. Everyone can make high qualtiy copies with an effectively infinite life-span. The music and movie industries have started suing individual users. It isn't a far stretch to see the same things applying to software. As a result, I think at some point someone will sue someone over the fact that the party being sued internally distributed software violating the suing party's license which had requirements on distribution that the party being sued did not meet. -Chris * Chris ClarkInternet : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Compiler Resources, Inc. Web Site : http://world.std.com/~compres 23 Bailey Rd voice : (508) 435-5016 Berlin, MA 01503 USA fax: (978) 838-0263 (24 hours) -- -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Sorry to follow-up to myself, but As a result, I think at some point someone will sue someone over the fact that the party being sued internally distributed software violating the suing party's license which had requirements on distribution that the party being sued did not meet. I think that someone will also sue over making a private derivative version too. However, I don't know if such a suit is possible under an open source license as I believe all current open source licenses reserve the right to make derivatives to the recipient, and I believe further that to be OSI-compatible they must do so. I have often contemplated writing an open source license that requires derivatives to be made publicly available (either by publishing or by sending back to the author who can then publish). However, working with a lawyer to get such a license drafted is an expensive proposition and would only result in yet-one-more-incompatible open source license, which is not a good thing in my eyes. -Chris * Chris ClarkInternet : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Compiler Resources, Inc. Web Site : http://world.std.com/~compres 23 Bailey Rd voice : (508) 435-5016 Berlin, MA 01503 USA fax: (978) 838-0263 (24 hours) -- -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting Chris F Clark ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): The problem is that corporations like to define their coproprate self, including all those that they hire or sub-contract from as a single entity, just like the end user you (which may by the same extension be a family all sharing one computer). As someone else said, the only opinion that matter, in such cases, are His Honour's. I think that someone will also sue over making a private derivative version too. However, I don't know if such a suit is possible under an open source license as I believe all current open source licenses reserve the right to make derivatives to the recipient, and I believe further that to be OSI-compatible they must do so. Correct. (I think you mean convey, not reserve.) I have often contemplated writing an open source license that requires derivatives to be made publicly available (either by publishing or by sending back to the author who can then publish). An earlier version of the Apple Public Source License (currently at 2.0) contained such a provision. It was judged OSD-compliant (because, well, it _was_ OSD-compliant), occasioning some mildly unpleasant spats between commentators who found the provision reasonable and others (e.g., Stallman) who considered it to infringe privacy rights nobody had previously considered in that context. However, working with a lawyer to get such a license drafted is an expensive proposition and would only result in yet-one-more-incompatible open source license, which is not a good thing in my eyes. Thank you. Too few people worry about gratuitous licence incompatibility and other related problems. Relevant to that, here's a off-list e-mail I sent to someone whose company is currently involved in OSI licence certification (but will go nameless). About my sketch of stepwise corporate follies, he says Bingo. Would OSI consider trying to do something about its Web site's tendency to promote creation of basically pointless new open-source licences? I'd be glad to help. Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 17:38:41 -0700 From: Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [omitted] Quoting [omitted]: Yes, we have this lawyering problem here. At our last meeting with our attorney we complained that much bigger companies than ours can use the Common Public License, why can't we. Still have no clear answer. It may be in the best interest of the OSI to dig in and declare a moratorium on new licenses, except they appear to be in the business of reviewing and approving licenses, so... I wish they would. In that sense, they're in a tarpit of their own devising: If you tell the corporate world Here are the hoops you must jump through to get your very own MyOwnDamnedLicence OSI approved without giving them a strong disincentive against doing so needlessly, it's predictable that vast numbers of them will do so. The approved list at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ doesn't even say the most important thing: With rare exceptions, if you use a licence other than BSD (new or old), MIT/X, GPL, LGPL, MPL, CPL, AFL, OSL, you're probably dooming your project to gratuitous and pointless licence incompatibility with third-party codebases and ensuring that it will be ignored by the very developers you're trying to reach by adopting open source. Most of the other licences on this list are traps for the unwary, since their use tends to marginalise any codebase put under them. If you secure for your project(s) OSI approval for yet another new licence without an extremely compelling (to outside developers) reason for its existence, you might as well not bother, because, in a year or two, you'll either be relicensing everything to one of the main licences or (if you're slow on the uptake) sitting around wondering why open source didn't work. Meanwhile, Russ Nelson typically has to plead with the mailing list's regulars to review new candidate licences, since, statistically, the latter are almost all pointless. What might be useful would be an OSI-blessed licence taxonomy covering the major choices, and a pointedly-worded notice that submitters of new licences should explain why none of the majors sufficed and what's innovative in the candidate text. Unfortunately, firms tend to do the following: 1. CEO finally decides that open source is worth a try. Issues vague mandate. 2. Matter is judged to involve legal matters, and so is referred to corporate counsel. 3. Corporate counsel notes OSI approval process, crafts MyOwnDamnedLicence in some eccentric fashion to fit. 4. Technical flunkie is delegated to shepherd MyOwnDanmedLicence through OSI approval process. Flunkie has no other authority, and is merely charged with jumping the hoops. Thus, complaints from OSI land that the initiative is ill-conceived fall on deaf ears, since the only parties who could change things are the corporate counsel (who doesn't
Re: the provide, license verbs
Rick Moen scripsit: With rare exceptions, if you use a licence other than BSD (new or old), MIT/X, GPL, LGPL, MPL, CPL, AFL, OSL, you're probably dooming your project to gratuitous and pointless licence incompatibility with third-party codebases and ensuring that it will be ignored by the very developers you're trying to reach by adopting open source. I did a little research at Sourceforge and Freshmeat, looking at licenses (excluding the non-FLOSS ones at Sourceforge). First of all, the GPL has about 70% of the projects, so let's leave it out so that the contrasts between other licenses become clearer. Averaging the two sites together, we get the following: 32% LGPL 31% BSD (old or new) 5% MIT/X 5% MPL 2% CPL or IBM 1% OSL 1% AFL Licenses you didn't mention: 8% Artistic or Perl 5% Apache (any version) 1% Qt 1% zlib/libpng 8% all others (none more than 1% individually) -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. --John Donne -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs - numbers
hi ya john On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rick Moen scripsit: With rare exceptions, if you use a licence other than BSD (new or old), MIT/X, GPL, LGPL, MPL, CPL, AFL, OSL, you're probably dooming your project to gratuitous and pointless licence incompatibility with third-party codebases and ensuring that it will be ignored by the very developers you're trying to reach by adopting open source. I did a little research at Sourceforge and Freshmeat, looking at licenses (excluding the non-FLOSS ones at Sourceforge). First of all, the GPL has about 70% of the projects, so let's leave it out so that the contrasts between other licenses become clearer. Averaging the two sites together, we get the following: 32% LGPL 31% BSD (old or new) 5% MIT/X 5% MPL 2% CPL or IBM 1% OSL 1% AFL i'd be curious why there's a big differences in your average vs david wheeler's averages http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html i'd assume you mean lgpl relative to *bsd ?? ( leaving out gpl ) i think the numbers would be more meaningful to include the averages with GPL as part of the average figures Licenses you didn't mention: 8% Artistic or Perl 5% Apache (any version) 1% Qt 1% zlib/libpng 8% all others (none more than 1% individually) ?? sendmail ?? ?? dns ?? c ya alvin -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): I did a little research at Sourceforge and Freshmeat, looking at licenses (excluding the non-FLOSS ones at Sourceforge). Thanks! Interesting and worthwhile, as usual. Licenses you didn't mention: 8% Artistic or Perl 5% Apache (any version) 1% Qt 1% zlib/libpng 8% all others (none more than 1% individually) Apache-licensed code would be one of those rare exceptions I cited, being either intended to be part of an ASF-issued codebase or to work very closely with it (e.g., Apache httpd DSOs). Same for Perl Artistic Licence (various versions). -- Cheers,Ceterum censeo, Caldera delenda est. Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs (was: Dual licensing)
Quoting Marius Amado Alves ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): Sam Barnett-Cormack wrote: The author gives me a copy of the software... Under no license? Marius, if you receive a piece of software encumbered by copyright (as essentially all useful software is), you have the implied right to use and (if needed) compile the software -- as provided by copyright statute. Other rights such as the right of redistribution, and the creation and distribution of derivative works, are by default reserved to the copyright holder. So, if you (lawfully) acquire a piece of software, you have a bundle of rights by statutory action, by default. Upon acquiring it, you might find a licence grant from the copyright holder that is contingent on a stated set of obligations. If the obligations don't appeal to you, nothing requires you to accept the licence, but then you possess only the rights conveyed by statute (e.g., no right of redistribution). Copyright owners who don't want recipients to have that option often resort to clipwrap agreements (an intended instrument of contract law), instead. (There are other reasons some authors prefer such instruments, but that's a different discussion.) -- Cheers,Rehab is for quitters. Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs (was: Dual licensing)
I essentially agree with Rick's comment, but it may be somewhat misleading. I suspect a copyright holder who issues a license would argue that the license changes everything. As such, if you are in lawful possession of software that is accompanied by a license, you are restricted to accepting the terms of the license or rejecting them. That's it. On the other hand, the default rules Rick mentions would apply to a work like a book, which is not customarily distributed with a license. Rod - Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.cyberspaces.org .. Original Message ... On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 08:33:15 -0700 Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marius Amado Alves ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): Sam Barnett-Cormack wrote: The author gives me a copy of the software... Under no license? Marius, if you receive a piece of software encumbered by copyright (as essentially all useful software is), you have the implied right to use and (if needed) compile the software -- as provided by copyright statute. Other rights such as the right of redistribution, and the creation and distribution of derivative works, are by default reserved to the copyright holder. So, if you (lawfully) acquire a piece of software, you have a bundle of rights by statutory action, by default. Upon acquiring it, you might find a licence grant from the copyright holder that is contingent on a stated set of obligations. If the obligations don't appeal to you, nothing requires you to accept the licence, but then you possess only the rights conveyed by statute (e.g., no right of redistribution). Copyright owners who don't want recipients to have that option often resort to clipwrap agreements (an intended instrument of contract law), instead. (There are other reasons some authors prefer such instruments, but that's a different discussion.) -- Cheers,Rehab is for quitters. Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs (was: Dual licensing)
Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. scripsit: I suspect a copyright holder who issues a license would argue that the license changes everything. As such, if you are in lawful possession of software that is accompanied by a license, you are restricted to accepting the terms of the license or rejecting them. That's it. I think there is room to at least doubt it. Proprietary software companies uniformly take the view that because the software has not been sold to you (it says so right on the shrink-wrap), you have neither ownership nor possession but at best natural detention of it, and the only thing separating you (who have plonked down for it) from an outright thief is the license. (I suppose your ownership of the *medium* is undisputed, but that's a different matter.) Therefore, you have no rights except what the license gives you, and in particular the first-sale rule does not apply (since there has been no sale at all). They would hardly bother with this machinery if the mere act of providing a license were enough. No, they have to deny you the iure proprietatis altogether. the default rules Rick mentions would apply to a work like a book, which is not customarily distributed with a license. But it is customarily sold. Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old. Now Roman is to Roman More hateful than a foe, And the Tribunes beard the high, And the Fathers grind the low. --Macaulay, _Lays of Ancient Rome_ -- [W]hen I wrote it I was more than a little John Cowan febrile with foodpoisoning from an antique carrot [EMAIL PROTECTED] that I foolishly ate out of an illjudged faith www.ccil.org/~cowan in the benignancy of vegetables. --And Rosta www.reutershealth.com -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting Marius Amado Alves ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): I know all this. But can you give an open source software without a license? Think of it this way: There's a default licence (absent an explicit licence statement) that is implicit in copyright law. Copyright law grants to lawful recipients the right to compile and the right to use -- but not the right to create derivative works or redistribute.[1] Because the rights to create derivative works and redistribute are an important core concept of what we mean by open source, works under such terms are classified as proprietary. For example, most software produced by Daniel J. Bernstein was released in that state -- as a deliberate choice, since Bernstein happens to like the resulting rights grant. In the mailing list thread, the querent asked how it was possible to give someone a software codebase under no licence. That was the question I asked. The querent didn't ask if the resulting software would be proprietary. Had he asked that question, my answer would have been yes. [1] I'm speaking of copyright statutes in countries that are signatory to the Berne Convention on Copyrights. This covers almost all countries; it's possible that some of the exceptions have significantly different copyright regimes, though I doubt it. -- Cheers,I've been suffering death by PowerPoint, recently. Rick Moen -- Huw Davies [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Think of it this way: There's a default licence (absent an explicit licence statement) that is implicit in copyright law. Copyright law grants to lawful recipients the right to compile and the right to use -- but not the right to create derivative works or redistribute.[1] Do you say the law prevents me from taking a legal copy of a copyrighted work, which is a program, and privately modifying that program for my own use? Wouldn't that be a bit like owning a legal copy of copyrighted music, but not having the right to change any of the notes? Or buying a magazine but having the right to remove any of the pages or to add it to a scrapbook? Is software treated specially in copyright law? Surprised, Stephen North -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs (was: Dual licensing)
Quoting Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): I essentially agree with Rick's comment, but it may be somewhat misleading. I suspect a copyright holder who issues a license would argue that the license changes everything. As such, if you are in lawful possession of software that is accompanied by a license, you are restricted to accepting the terms of the license or rejecting them. That's it. I suppose it might depend on the facts of the case. I had in mind the sort of situation where you download a source tarball, unpack it, and find source code with a copyright notice and (say) a GPLv2 COPYING file, which states as clause 5: You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it. Of course, the GPL authors' surmise about how licensing works may be mistaken, and I imagine a judge would look at the facts of the case to determine the intent of the parties. -- Cheers,Ceterum censeo, Caldera delenda est. Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting Stephen C. North ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): Do you say the law prevents me from taking a legal copy of a copyrighted work, which is a program, and privately modifying that program for my own use? John Cowan says yes: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/modifications Dan Bernstein says no: http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html When you get that resolved, please let me know. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): Rick Moen scripsit: When you get that resolved, please let me know. Resolved how? I was looking forward to seeing Stephen C. North make the attempt -- but then, I always did have a deplorably low sense of humour. -- Cheers, This is Unix. Stop acting so helpless. Rick Moen -- D.J. Bernstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
I was looking forward to seeing Stephen C. North make the attempt -- but then, I always did have a deplorably low sense of humour. As with most matters raised here, it's been resolved - in the imagination of the writer. This is license-discuss, not license-reality so, all's well. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting Stephen C. North ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): As with most matters raised here, it's been resolved - in the imagination of the writer. To be serious for a moment, I don't have a definitive answer to your question. Sorry. On a prior occasion (elsewhere) when the question came up, I referred querents to John Cowan's opinion and analysis on the matter -- which then drew personal abuse (towards _me_) from Prof. Bernstein. The intended humour (such as it was) in my reply this time lay in my making a somewhat more determined effort to not get caught in the middle again. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs (was: Dual licensing)
On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. wrote: I essentially agree with Rick's comment, but it may be somewhat misleading. I suspect a copyright holder who issues a license would argue that the license changes everything. As such, if you are in lawful possession of software that is accompanied by a license, you are restricted to accepting the terms of the license or rejecting them. That's it. On the other hand, the default rules Rick mentions would apply to a work like a book, which is not customarily distributed with a license. The authors of the GPL seem to disagree. . Original Message ... On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 08:33:15 -0700 Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Marius Amado Alves ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): Sam Barnett-Cormack wrote: The author gives me a copy of the software... Under no license? Marius, if you receive a piece of software encumbered by copyright (as essentially all useful software is), you have the implied right to use and (if needed) compile the software -- as provided by copyright statute. Other rights such as the right of redistribution, and the creation and distribution of derivative works, are by default reserved to the copyright holder. So, if you (lawfully) acquire a piece of software, you have a bundle of rights by statutory action, by default. Upon acquiring it, you might find a licence grant from the copyright holder that is contingent on a stated set of obligations. If the obligations don't appeal to you, nothing requires you to accept the licence, but then you possess only the rights conveyed by statute (e.g., no right of redistribution). Copyright owners who don't want recipients to have that option often resort to clipwrap agreements (an intended instrument of contract law), instead. (There are other reasons some authors prefer such instruments, but that's a different discussion.) -- Cheers,Rehab is for quitters. Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- Sam Barnett-Cormack -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Now, that is a genuine academic argument. I am sure the issue will never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction...primarily because no one cares enough about what you do to software you lawfully possess and want to hack for private and personal use. Who would bring such a lawsuit, and how would the suit get past a motion to dismiss? Rod - Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.cyberspaces.org .. Original Message ... On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 11:29:14 -0700 Rick Moen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Stephen C. North ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): Do you say the law prevents me from taking a legal copy of a copyrighted work, which is a program, and privately modifying that program for my own use? John Cowan says yes: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/modifications Dan Bernstein says no: http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html When you get that resolved, please let me know. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): Now, that is a genuine academic argument. I am sure the issue will never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction...primarily because no one cares enough about what you do to software you lawfully possess and want to hack for private and personal use. Who would bring such a lawsuit, and how would the suit get past a motion to dismiss? Thank you for making that point. (I was thinking that. I was also thinking: In general, how is the copyright holder even going to find out, let alone care?) There are any number of legal issues people are curious about that will probably never be adjudicated because nobody cares enough to pay for the legal costs -- and this seems like a classic. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
It's not entirely academic what do you with your legal copy of a program in the darkness of your room... :-) after all, what if you were legal corporation or entity, using it for your private use and making money from it? The GPL doesn't care. The QPL, reflecting Trolltech's concerns, does. Look at 4c and especially 6c. Obviously they are concerned about companies getting a legal albeit free copy, making changes and/or incorporating into their own proprietary products and neither releasing the code nor paying them, essentially defeating their revenue model. Cheers, Glen Low, Pixelglow Software www.pixelglow.com -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting No Spam ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): The QPL, reflecting Trolltech's concerns, does [care what you do with code in private]. Look at 4c... 4. You may distribute machine-executable forms of the Software or machine-executable forms of modified versions of the Software, provided that you meet these restrictions: [...] c. You must ensure that all modifications included in the machine-executable forms are available under the terms of this license. This has nothing to do with private usage. It states that if you distribute modified executables, you must make the source available under QPL terms. and especially 6c. 6. You may develop application programs, reusable components and other software items that link with the original or modified versions of the Software. These items, _when distributed_, are subject to the following requirements: [...] c. If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one. This doesn't, either. (Emphasis added.) Obviously they are concerned about companies getting a legal albeit free copy, making changes and/or incorporating into their own proprietary products and neither releasing the code nor paying them, essentially defeating their revenue model. If so, neither of the licence provisions you point to reflects that concern. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
All, esp. Rick: It depends on what you mean by distribute. If distribute here means offer or give to the public (i.e. anyone who is not you) then QPL 6c doesn't make any sense, since by definition then the item is available to the general public. If distribute here means offer to give to a subset of the public (or perhaps your own subsidiaries or divisions, see Trolltech's FAQ on the GPL), then this would violate OSD #5, although perhaps Trolltech means to include proprietary software that links to their stuff in this group. Even so, then invoking clause 6c, the limited distributor would have to give Trolltech an executable at least, and then by clause 6a and 6b, the distributor would have to give Trolltech the source and a license to use it. I would have favored the QPL over the GPL in my thoughts about relicensing macstl, since it seems simpler and slightly stronger, except for: 1. It is a company-specific license and rewiring it for Pixelglow Software would necessarily mean resubmission to OSI. 2. The network effect of GPL, there's simply more GPL stuff out there, despite my (minor) worries about its suitability for a dual-licensing scheme. Cheers, Glen Low, Pixelglow Software www.pixelglow.com -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: the provide, license verbs
Quoting No Spam ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): If distribute here means offer or give to the public (i.e. anyone who is not you) then QPL 6c doesn't make any sense, since by definition then the item is available to the general public. Not my reading. It seems to me to say If you distribute this outside your personal world (e.g., intracompany) at all, then you must make your work available directly to the original developer (us) upon request, rather than obliging us to hunt it down. Trolltech wants to be able to say We hear you provided a modified Qt toolkit to an external coder in Outer Mongolia. We don't want to have to seek out some guy in Ulan Bator, so kindly file-attach your changes to return e-mail immediately, in accordance with QPL clause 6c. -- Cheers, The Viking's Reminder: Rick Moen Pillage first, _then_ burn. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
