Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Thomas Hood]

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 05:16, Branden Robinson wrote:
> * Under U.S. law and the laws of most countries I'm familiar with,
>   copyright IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT.  [...]
>   This means that one should not use the
>   terminology or rhetoric of natural rights (such as the right to free
>   speech, exercise of religion or freedom of conscience, security and
>   privacy in one's person and effects, freedom from cruel and unusual
>   punishments, and so forth).

Indeed, the relevant right is the right to free speech, which
is the right to promulgate ideas, not to do the opposite.

Thanks for the well written rant.

-- 
Thomas Hood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

__
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com

Re: OSD && DFSG convergence

[John Goerzen]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 12:09:03AM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
> So ... you agree that any interesting license discriminates.  You

Discrimination is inherent in most everything; as it is simply the act of
noting differences.  We can note differences between our opinions on
licensing, car style, keyboard style, etc.

Sure, every license discriminates.  It discriminates between people that
adhere to the license and those that do not.  But that is irrelevant.
The DFSG does not simply say "No discrimination"; it says "no discrimination
against persons or groups."  While you may enjoy your over-legalistic
interpretation, a reasonable person understands that this clause does not
mean to reject every possible license.

> should use that term of the DFSG in the manner it was intended, not in
> the manner you would like to twist it into.

Interesting that you make yourself an authority on the intent of the DFSG. 
You come in here under the guise of trying to "work together", but instead
mean "ram OSD down Debian's throats" and "troll based on lies of omission."
I do not accept your claim as an authority on the intent of the DFSG.

> What you're doing is amending the DFSG without telling the rest of the 

What I'm doing is futilely trying to explain why the RPSL is not in Debian
to somebody that has no interest in listening.  This author should probably
learn from failure and refrain from future comments on the topic to you :-)

I have proposed amendments before.  You would have known it if you had seen
it.

-- John

Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[John Goerzen]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 12:22:33AM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
> I'm on the mailing list, there's no need to CC me.
> 
> John Goerzen writes:
>  > And yet every proposal you put forth is "Debian must become more like OSI
>  > and the DFSG must become more like OSD."
> 
> ... and the OSD must become more like the DFSG, and proposed open
> source licenses should be run past debian-legal.  I'm not proposing
> unilateral action on anybody's part.  I'm prepared to compromise (or
> rather, to recommend compromise to my board of directors).  Are you?

I am NOT prepared to compromise Debian's high Free Software standards.  I am
NOT prepared to accept RPSL-licensed software into Debian.  In this case,
"compromise" seems to me merely a word for "cave-in".

I have no prima facie opposition to clarifying points of the DFSG based on
important case history from debian-legal; however, I would rather see this
as a "DFSG companion" rather than an amendment to the DFSG itself.

>  > I for one am glad that RPSL-licensed software is not in Debian, and
> 
> Why?  The sole objections that I can see from debian-legal archives
> refer to text which has been changed in the final OSI-approved license.

My objections referred to the text as posted on your website under the
approved section as of... about two days ago.

-- John

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Terry Hancock]

On Tuesday 28 January 2003 08:16 pm, Branden Robinson wrote:
> Okay, I'm going to a pull an RMS and plead for a change in our
> collective use of certain terms.
> []

A nice collection of arguments, but I'm really uncertain why you're posting 
it here. Isn't this kind of "preaching to the choir"?  Or did I miss 
something so that the "cluebat" needs to be used on me? :-D

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com

Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[Russell Nelson]

John Goerzen writes:
 > On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 12:22:33AM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
 > > I'm on the mailing list, there's no need to CC me.
 > > 
 > > John Goerzen writes:
 > >  > And yet every proposal you put forth is "Debian must become more like 
 > > OSI
 > >  > and the DFSG must become more like OSD."
 > > 
 > > ... and the OSD must become more like the DFSG, and proposed open
 > > source licenses should be run past debian-legal.  I'm not proposing
 > > unilateral action on anybody's part.  I'm prepared to compromise (or
 > > rather, to recommend compromise to my board of directors).  Are you?
 > 
 > I am NOT prepared to compromise Debian's high Free Software standards.  I am
 > NOT prepared to accept RPSL-licensed software into Debian.  In this case,
 > "compromise" seems to me merely a word for "cave-in".

Of course.  You cave-in on some things, we cave-in on others.  Or
don't you understand what compromise means?  Compromise means that you 
give up on some things in order to get something else you want more.

Again, I must say that if the consensus of the debian-legal list is
that there is no need to change the DFSG, then we have no basis for
discussion.  There cannot be convergence unless the DFSG changes!

 > I have no prima facie opposition to clarifying points of the DFSG based on
 > important case history from debian-legal; however, I would rather see this
 > as a "DFSG companion" rather than an amendment to the DFSG itself.

Why?  What purpose would it serve, when that document would have equal
authority to the DFSG?  Why not amend the DFSG (modulo the fact that
it's hard work)?

 > >  > I for one am glad that RPSL-licensed software is not in Debian, and
 > > 
 > > Why?  The sole objections that I can see from debian-legal archives
 > > refer to text which has been changed in the final OSI-approved license.
 > 
 > My objections referred to the text as posted on your website under the
 > approved section as of... about two days ago.

Huh?  But your objection was bogus.  DFSG-free is DFSG-free even if a
given set of people have more freedom.  I could say, in the Russ
Nelson license, "Everybody can distribute this software.  If you
change the software, you must change the name, unless you're Russ
Nelson, in which case you don't have to change the name."  Would you
object to such a license?  (Hint: it is approximately the Apache
license.)

Besides which, you are but one person.  You do not get to say what the
consensus is on the RPSL.  Given that I, one member of debian-legal,
say one thing, and you, one member of debian-legal, say another thing,
it seems that 1) we don't have a consensus, and 2) in any case, two of
many is never consensus even if we agreed with each other.

-- 
-russ nelson  http://russnelson.com | You get prosperity when
Crynwr sells support for free software  | PGPok | the government does less,
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | not when the government
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | +1 315 268 9201 FAX   | does something right.

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Philip Charles]

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Branden Robinson wrote:

> [Followup to -legal.]
>
> Okay, I'm going to a pull an RMS and plead for a change in our
> collective use of certain terms.
>
> * Under U.S. law and the laws of most countries I'm familiar with,
>   copyright IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT.  It is a government-granted limited

*

Phil runs to his dictionary of ethics.  A summary of the theories of
"Rights"
1.  Rights are "natural" or "God given".  The US position?
2.  A contract between the state and individual where the individual has
Rights that cannot be contracted away (inalienable).
3.  Prima facie.  Well, it is obvious what is a Right and what is not.
4.  Utilitarian.  Rights promote the general welfare of individuals.
5.  Totalitarian.  The state decides what is a Right and what is not.

If a large company successfully lobbies a government to pass laws
restricting the copying of its product for personal use, a private act,
then that government is going down the totalitarian track.

Brandon's argument seems to me based on 1 "Natural Rights" or 2
"Contractual Rights".  The only quibble I have is that I personally do not
subscribe these theories even though they are highly favoured by lawyers
and law makers.  Societies and nations change, see below for an example.

If the PR machine is cranked up enough then the public perception of what
is a Right changes. The "prima facie" theories at work.

I personally favour the utilitarian approach.  If a powerful organisation
within the state wishes to be protected in a way that interferes with the
freedom of individuals and their general welfare, then that protection
should be denied even if it means the collapse of that organisation.  The
utilitarian theories take into account changes in societies without
falling into the simplistic prima facie trap.  In a state where famine was
endemic it made sense to execute a murderers as the resources used to keep
them alive may well have been used to prevent other people from starving
to death. In a state with more than adiquate resources to provide for its
citizens the death penalty should no longer be an option.

In years past the entertainment industries and the like were structured to
enhance the lives of individuals.  These times have gone and these
industries need to adapt to the new realities and not be allowed to use
law to protect themselves at the expense of individual citizens.

Yes, copyright, patents, and trademarks are of trivial importance to a
citizen compared with freedom of speech and the like.  Unfortunately some
nations, are beginning to follow the totalitarian models of rights.

Please CC me.  I am not subscribed to legal.

Phil.

--
  Philip Charles; 39a Paterson Street, Abbotsford, Dunedin, New Zealand
   +64 3 488 2818Fax +64 3 488 2875Mobile 025 267 9420
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] - preferred.  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 I sell GNU/Linux & GNU/Hurd CDs.   See http://www.copyleft.co.nz

Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[Lynn Winebarger]

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 01:47, Russell Nelson wrote:
> Of course.  You cave-in on some things, we cave-in on others.  Or
> don't you understand what compromise means?  Compromise means that you 
> give up on some things in order to get something else you want more.
 
 Yes! Now you have to supply what "something else you want more" is
for the Debian developers.  You made clear in the first email what the
OSI would perceive as a benefit.  Now you have to come up with a reason
Debian developers will go for.  The 2 groups have different reasons for
being, after all.
Otherwise, we're in for more wheel spinning.

Lynn

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

You wrote:
> Okay, I'm going to a pull an RMS and plead for a change in our
> collective use of certain terms.
>
>  If you share either of these perspectives, then you might also wish to
>  help restore sanity to modern discussions of intellectual property law by
>  not referring to allegedly infringing materials or actions as "illegal".

Thanks for the thoughtful essay.  Since you're "pulling an RMS" you might
reconsider using the term "intellectual property" in the context of
combining disparate areas of law (like patents and copyrights).  You could
have said "modern discussions of copyright law" above, for example.  But
this is not to take away from an interesting read.

RMS has lectured on the topic and (to my way of thinking) said similarly
thought provoking things.  See 
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/stallman-patents.html
for a transcript of one lecture where he addresses the problem.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty is a
brief description of the problem of using that term outside the context of
critiquing its use.

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Don Armstrong]

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Seth Woolley wrote:
> (I'm supposed to note that I'm not subscribed to debian-legal, but I
> appreciate responses be CC'd to me.)

Please set your Mail-Followup-To: appropriately then.

> we don't have to worry about "legal issues" as much, being
> source-based, but I've been looking for that smoking gun that says
> the MPlayer is illegal, or even risky!

I really do hope you and SM find a lawyer and talk to him or her. Just
distributing source does not magically make you immune to legal
challenges.

> Legal objection, That isn't torn to pieces? Please speak it now or,
> Forever hold your peace, eh?

There have already been numerous legal issues discussed in the mplayer
saga, ranging from licensing irregularities to copyright problems and
patent issues.

Unfortunatly, no one in the mplayer team seems to think these legal
issues are important, or seems to be willing to take the time
necessary to do an audit of their own codebase. They seem to be
relying on debian-legal's pundits to act as their pseudo-counsellor to
determine what is legal and what is not.

I'm sure you've read about the libmpeg2 problems I found after 5
minutes of looking through the code.[2] As far as I am aware, they
still haven't been fixed.

Obviously, if after such a short bit of searching, that such a problem
can be found brings a strong suspicion that there are other problems
lurking within the codebase. 

Whoever takes it upon themselves to package mplayer for possible
inclusion in Debian will most likely have to:

1) convince debian-legal that they have audited the codebase and
determined that everything in the codebase is legal for Debian and
it's distributors to distribute.

2) inform debian-legal (and/or the DD's in general) about any patents
that mplayer may or may not be infringing upon so an informed decision
can be made.

Until that happens, I'm pretty sure that the ftpmasters will refrain
from allowing mplayer into the archives.[1]

As far as I know, no Debian Developer or an individual sponsored by a
Debian Developer has stepped forward and offered to do this. Until
that happens, mplayer will (probably) not be in Debian.


Note that I am speaking only on behalf of myself, not Debian. I am
*NOT* qualified to speak on behalf of the project. If you think that I
am, you're nuts, and should seek psychiatric or medical evaluation.


Don Armstrong

1: Although, obviously, they will make their own decision, and could
refuse even then.
-- 
She was alot like starbucks.
IE, generic and expensive.  
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch3.htm

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Don Armstrong wrote:
> I'm sure you've read about the libmpeg2 problems I found after 5
> minutes of looking through the code.[2] As far as I am aware, they
> still haven't been fixed.

Grr. Missing reference.

2: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200301/msg01712.html


Don Armstrong

-- 
She was alot like starbucks.
IE, generic and expensive.  
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch3.htm

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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subscribe

[Andrea Mennucc]

subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Alessandro Rubini]

> reconsider using the term "intellectual property"

> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty

The problem here is that no alternatives are suggested. We in Italy
tendo to use "intellectual patrimony" (like heritage) or "intellectual
paternity" (like parenthood), according to the context.

Unfortunately, "we" refers to an exceedingly small number of people.

/alessandro

[no subject]

[Andrea Mennucc]

subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED]

another mplayer .deb of 0.90rc3 release

[Andrea Mennucc]

hello to everybody

here is another package of mplayer  :-)
(prepared for Debian testing)

http://tonelli.sns.it/pub/mplayer


Here is the history of our effort.
  ---
In Sep 2001, Dariush filed an "Intent to Package mplayer" for Debian.
I wished to sponsor. We decided (~1 year ago) to try to put
together a package of mplayer that would be accepted into the
mainstream Debian distribution.

I had these priorities in mind:
0) package must comply with Debian Free Software Guideline (DFSG)
  and with Debian policy
1) package must be lintian clean (as much as possible)
2) package should be well designed:  
debconf configuration
split documentation 
split gmplayer
3) package should offer some extras such as:
automatic codec download
flexible debian/rules that can be used by users for custom packages
mencoder and other tools
(and the general rule: keep it simple)

BTW: we knew that Christian Marillat would not mantain an official
Debian package.
[http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200301/msg00815.html]
Moreover, last time I looked into it, his packages contained some
extra features (e.g. lame) that are not accepted in Debian. This
was indeed discussed in the above thread.

So, we read all the licenses and copyrights (Debian is very picky 
about it), we waited until mplayer had runtime CPU detetection, 
and until it had an opensource debugged DivX player; then
we prepared a package, and we proposed it Debian in october.
It was refused, since ftp-installer asked more clarifications on some
licenses (there are files  with strange copyrights, 
see libvo/vo_md5.c as an example).

So we started again.

We asked the authors some clarifications on licenses. Now we think that
we have a package that suits 0 and 1; so I uploaded it into the
incoming queue. We are waiting for ftp-installer to reply.

Note that our package still needs some work on issues 2 and 3.

In the meantime Robert Nagy has posted another ITP
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200301/msg00796.html
I am currenty exchanging e-mails with him. I am trying to merge
the best of the two packaging.

 ---

Someone asked: Why bother? 
Because 'mplayer' is an hell of a wonderful program!
With the help of the win32 codecs (that the script 
/usr/share/mplayer/scripts/win32codecs.sh
will automatically download), it plays any kind of movie clip that
I have ever downloaded from Internet (and I have a big collection),
included Microsoft, Quicktime, Realplayer formats.

 ---

So now I am asking if people can test our package.

debian-legal: please read debian/README.Debian.2 in the source;
 do you think that  it is/isn't fit to go into Debian?

debian-devel: any comment/critics?

 ---

btw: I stumbled into 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200301/msg01712.html
I think that all issues are solved by now
(AFAIK Arpi was asking not to distribute binaries before
 run-time-cpu-detection); but for point 4.
So if people on debian-legal thinks that it is important, I will add
a diff of libmpeg2. 

 ---

have fun

a.

-- 
Andrea Mennucc
 "E' un mondo difficile. Che vita intensa!" (Tonino Carotone)

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS]

Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

> The Universal Declaration of Human
>   Rights[0], adopted by the United Nations in 1948, lists many other
>   rights commonly thought of as "natural rights" or "civil rights".
>   You'll note that the terms "copyright", "trademark", and "patent" do
>   not even appear in this document.  That's no accident.

However, Article 27 contains a part that could easily be interpreted
as referring to copyright and patents:

  (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and
  material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or
  artistic production of which he is the author.

I would be happy to see that part removed, obviously.

> * For many years, copyright infringement wasn't even illegal.

Does "illegal" mean "criminal"? Probably a lot of people think it
does, so that's reason enough for avoiding the term, I suppose, but I
don't think it's incorrect to refer to tortious acts as illegal.

> Needless to say, if you don't share my premises, feel free to ignore
> this message.  Please do not endeavor to persuade me that bypassing the
> region coding or CSS encryption on a DVD in any way morally resembles
> arson, assault, torture, or murder.  Thanks.

Or illegal parking, or not having a television licence. There are a
lot of crimes nowadays that don't seem "serious", while at the same
time a lot of very serious misdeeds are more successfully handled with
civil law, so the distinction is less clear, perhaps.

I find it amazing how many people fail to be outraged at the situation
where giving someone information about how to commit an act which
might be tortious but is probably not illegal at all (bypassing region
codes, making a back-up) is made *criminal* while giving someone
information about how to commit an act which is probably criminal
(kill someone, cause an explosion, buy heroine) is not illegal at all.
Perhaps people just don't expect laws to make sense any more.

Edmund

Re: subscribe

[Andrea Mennucc]

> subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED]

sorry: yesterday evening I commented out the lines

#on wakeup:
#  boot brain/0

I am now self-patching with the help of a java-cup

a.

-- 
Andrea Mennucc
 "E' un mondo difficile. Che vita intensa!" (Tonino Carotone)

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Seth Woolley]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Don Armstrong wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Seth Woolley wrote:
> > (I'm supposed to note that I'm not subscribed to debian-legal, but I
> > appreciate responses be CC'd to me.)
>
> Please set your Mail-Followup-To: appropriately then.

PINE apparently won't let me do that no matter how many different ways I
added that header to the Default-Compose-Headers.

I just followed the instructions on here:
http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/

If you don't want to CC me, it's up to you.  I'll see it anyways updated
every hour from the web archive.

>
> > we don't have to worry about "legal issues" as much, being
> > source-based, but I've been looking for that smoking gun that says
> > the MPlayer is illegal, or even risky!
>
> I really do hope you and SM find a lawyer and talk to him or her. Just
> distributing source does not magically make you immune to legal
> challenges.

We don't distribute sources.  We distribute links in variables, which when
used together with our "sorcery" allow a person to automatically initiate
a download from a website, when given a spell.  We do not have to store
anything on our servers.  Some spells in our z-rejected section require
user interaction if we've rejected the license, for example.  MPlayer is
not one of them because we evaluated the risks, at least on MPlayer...
like xvid is an optional dependency, which is in our z-rejected section
because it says they don't want people to download it who live in the US
or Japan.

Having a lawyer does not make one immune from legal challenges.  Getting a
lawyer to rubber stamp something as obvious as MPlayer's legality is not
something I'd look into paying someone for.

>
> > Legal objection, That isn't torn to pieces? Please speak it now or,
> > Forever hold your peace, eh?

BTW when I wrote the above, I had read the message that you linked
already.

>
> There have already been numerous legal issues discussed in the mplayer
> saga, ranging from licensing irregularities to copyright problems and
> patent issues.

is jpeg removed?  Patent issues on that.  How about any one-click
programs?  Patent issus on those.  PNG?  Apple's got some IP they could
mine...  Linux Kernel?  SCO sees to have some patent issues with Linux.

ClearType ring a bell?

We all won't know until they do something.  That's what Linus did.
That's what MPlayer did...

I'll discuss the licensing and copyright problems lower, where you
mention them.

>
> Unfortunatly, no one in the mplayer team seems to think these legal
> issues are important, or seems to be willing to take the time
> necessary to do an audit of their own codebase. They seem to be
> relying on debian-legal's pundits to act as their pseudo-counsellor to
> determine what is legal and what is not.

MPlayer's website: "Also, why does debian-legal think they know what is
GPL and what is not better than MPlayer and XAnim authors."

They already think they know what is legal, so your characterization is
prima facie false.

>
> I'm sure you've read about the libmpeg2 problems I found after 5
> minutes of looking through the code.[2] As far as I am aware, they
> still haven't been fixed.
>

"It's an 1.2.1 cvs version. The changes were discussed with Walken (aka.
Michel Lespinasse, current libmpeg2 maintainer) he even helped me with
some things. Teh fact is that libmpeg2 was designed for OMS (nowdays
called xine). Since teh architecture of it and mplayer differs a lot,
it had to be changed, and he didn't wanted those changes in the official
libmpeg2. Later he wanted, and the current 0.3.1 is very close to something
we need, but tere are still a few problems, our patch is still waiting at
mpeg2-dev list for commit. but it's gettig OT.
"So, i really doubt that he will sue us for using libmpeg2 with
modifications."

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200301/msg01775.html

You really think that's an issue, at all?

Submitted patches?  You can admit you're wrong whenever you feel like it.

> Obviously, if after such a short bit of searching, that such a problem
> can be found brings a strong suspicion that there are other problems
> lurking within the codebase.

The "I can find a nit, thus the rest is suspect" slippery slope argument
doesn't convince me of much anything these days.

>
> Whoever takes it upon themselves to package mplayer for possible
> inclusion in Debian will most likely have to:
>
> 1) convince debian-legal that they have audited the codebase and
> determined that everything in the codebase is legal for Debian and
> it's distributors to distribute.

Why is MPlayer so special?

And, even if they have audited the codebase, and they have convinced you
that they have made a determination... what if they are wrong in their
determination?  Do you trust it?

>
> 2) inform debian-legal (and/or the DD's in general) about any patents
> that mplayer may or may not be infringing upon so an informed decision
> can be made.

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Glenn Maynard]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:43:24AM -0500, Don Armstrong wrote:
> 2) inform debian-legal (and/or the DD's in general) about any patents
> that mplayer may or may not be infringing upon so an informed decision
> can be made.

Is this particularly good advice?  It's my understanding that the best
(only) way to minimize patent liability short of hiring a lawyer is to
avoid knowing anything about potentially relevant patents entirely.

-- 
Glenn Maynard

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Paul Hampson]

On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 11:16:24PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> [Followup to -legal.]
> 
> Okay, I'm going to a pull an RMS and plead for a change in our
> collective use of certain terms.
> 
> * Under U.S. law and the laws of most countries I'm familiar with,
>   copyright IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT.

Is this comparable to "the right to bear arms"?

Copyright is the right to make copies. That's the morphology of the
word... The logical leap comes in that it is an exclusive right.

> * For many years, copyright infringement wasn't even illegal.  The first
>   U.S. criminal copyright statue passed in 1897.  Prior to that --
>   meaning for over 100 years since the U.S. Constitution was ratified
>   with its Copyright Clause, copyright infringement could only be
>   tortious, not criminal.  This means that copyright infringement claims
>   had to be prosecuted by civil plaintiffs, not government prosecutors.
>   Times are different now, of course, and especially over the past
>   couple of decades the criminal penalties for copyright infringement
>   have skyrocketed, meaning that in the United States you can spend more
>   time in prison for annoying the Walt Disney Company than you can for
>   killing someone.  Some people might feel that punishing the
>   infringement of a legal fiction more harshly than we punish violations
>   of universally accepted human rights reflects a priority inversion in
>   the legal system.  Some people also feel that the very large media
>   corporations that now control most published, copyrighted works in
>   existence have ample resources to pursue tort claims against
>   infringer.

That's nice for those corporations. As a contract software developer,
I have no such legal muscle. A tort-based system would make the idea of
copyright essentially useless to me.

> If one is unconvinced that copyrights are fundamentally different from
> natural rights, one may wish to perform a thought experiment.  Do you
> believe that the ancient Greeks and medieval Europeans had a right to
> life and free exercise of religion?  Was it possible for a Greek to be
> murdered, or a medieval man or woman wrongly persecuted by the
> Inquisition for his or her heretical religious beliefs?  Now, then, do
> you think Euclid held a copyright in the _Elements_?  Did the apostles
Bad example. The elements are not an expression of an idea. They are the
matter themselves... Of course, the US Patent Office would probably have
granted him a patent on them...

> of Jesus hold a copyright in the gospels?  If so, when did these
The Evangelists? Of course. If I write a book, isn't it mine to control
who reads it?

> copyrights expire, or have they?  If they haven't, who controls them
Of course they should. Once the author (or authors) are dead, then time
should run out. Copyright isn't an asset to be bought and sold, it's a
right.

> now, and by what right?  Should the Roman Catholic Church have sued
> Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the other Protestant leaders for
> copyright infringement?  Do these questions sound ridiculous to you?  If
> so, then you shouldn't speak in terms of "illegal" copyright
> "violations".

> Needless to say, if you don't share my premises, feel free to ignore
> this message.  Please do not endeavor to persuade me that bypassing the
> region coding or CSS encryption on a DVD in any way morally resembles
> arson, assault, torture, or murder.  Thanks.

True, but none of those examples represents copyright infringement.

If I write my life's work, the book that will make me rich and famous,
and someone takes a photocopy, puts his name on it and sells it as his
work, is that as bad as if someone burns your house down while you're
not there... After all, a house and contents is just stuff. A book is
concentrated effort and achievement. (Extreme, I know. The point I'm
making is still valid, I feel.)

(For reference, the stuff I deleted seemed generally agreeable to me)

Now off to the list archives to see what interesting debate spawned
this crosspost.

-- 
---
Paul "TBBle" Hampson, MCSE
5th year CompSci/Asian Studies student, ANU
The Boss, Bubblesworth Pty Ltd (ABN: 51 095 284 361)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Of course Pacman didn't influence us as kids. If it did,
we'd be running around in darkened rooms, popping pills and
listening to repetitive music.

This email is licensed to the recipient for non-commercial
use, duplication and distribution.
---


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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Josselin Mouette]

Le mer 29/01/2003 à 05:22, Seth Woolley a écrit :
> Nobody has provided that, and I'm here, doing my part to lobby for you
> guys to improve your selection.  MPlayer is the best, the fastest, the
> most stable, and the easiest to use (IMHO) of any of the players, to date,
> and it would be terrible not to include it because of personal issues.

There are people who think Adobe Photoshop is the best, the fastest, the
most stable and the easiest to use imaging software. Unfortunately - for
them - it won't enter Debian.

> Gabucino is within his rights to say that he doesn't want to see bug
> reports from binary copies of MPlayer floating around and doesn't care
> about it being included in Debian.  But many of your responses were all
> unfair and baseless.

When you don't respect the others' wills regarding licensing, you are
hardly in a position to ask others to respect your wills.

> I, as an evangelist that suggests people use Debian instead of my own
> distro at times, think that you guys should get over your legal
> non-issues and include MPlayer, for the benefit of the regular end users
> that don't want to have to compile everything from source and who want a
> Totally Free (TM), non-corporate GNU/Linux distro for their desktop.

If someone builds a clean, entirely free, without legal problems,
package of mplayer (which Andrea has been trying to do for some months -
I insist on months, as most packages can enter Debian in a a few days
after someone started the job), it *will* be accepted. No matter how
many stupid rants Gabucino can write, no matter how crappy the code is,
no matter how many of us won't use it.

> P.S.  Anybody who thinks that MPlayer isn't substantially faster than any
> other free video player for Un*x systems is wholly ignorant of the facts.

I already encountered performance issues on my 700 MHz Athlon system
with mplayer. That is a fact. Seven hundred million is a measurable
number : the number of cycles per second on that system.
-- 
 .''`.   Josselin Mouette/\./\
: :' :   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
`. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED]
  `-  Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom


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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Gabucino]

Don Armstrong wrote:
> There have already been numerous legal issues discussed in the mplayer
> saga, ranging from licensing irregularities to copyright problems and
> patent issues.
That's fine to say, but if you let us know what they are, and we'll comment/fix
them.

So far there are libmpeg2 changes: we have no interest to fix that, as even
libmpeg2 author Michael Lespinasse took part of it, so it's unlikely that he's
gonna sue himself for his own code.

MPlayer's debian package maintainer will have to fix that, as the spoken
ChangeLog has no reason to be included in our CVS tree. And it will not be.


> Unfortunatly, no one in the mplayer team seems to think these legal
> issues are important
False. AFAIR around 0.50 we checked our code for license infringing, and
solved them either by contacting its author and requested permission for
GPL relicensing, or by rewriting the code in question.
If MPlayer is not 100% GPL (except lrmi.c, but that can be left out,
sacrificing the very useful VESA video output), we are willing to fix it.


> Until that happens, mplayer will (probably) not be in Debian.
Just be cautious, don't take an argument which also applies to xine ;)

-- 
Gabucino
MPlayer Core Team
  "not sure how we will proceed here - xine's potential in the video
   processing field is imho so great that i certainly don't want to miss
   the chance to work into that direction." - Guenter, xine developer


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Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[cfm]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 08:47:21PM +1300, Philip Charles wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Branden Robinson wrote:
> 
> > [Followup to -legal.]
> >
> > Okay, I'm going to a pull an RMS and plead for a change in our
> > collective use of certain terms.
> >
> > * Under U.S. law and the laws of most countries I'm familiar with,
> >   copyright IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT.  It is a government-granted limited
> 
> *
> 
> Phil runs to his dictionary of ethics.  A summary of the theories of
> "Rights"
> 1.  Rights are "natural" or "God given".  The US position?
> 2.  A contract between the state and individual where the individual has
> Rights that cannot be contracted away (inalienable).
> 3.  Prima facie.  Well, it is obvious what is a Right and what is not.
> 4.  Utilitarian.  Rights promote the general welfare of individuals.
> 5.  Totalitarian.  The state decides what is a Right and what is not.
> 
> If a large company successfully lobbies a government to pass laws
> restricting the copying of its product for personal use, a private act,
> then that government is going down the totalitarian track.
> 
> Brandon's argument seems to me based on 1 "Natural Rights" or 2
> "Contractual Rights".  The only quibble I have is that I personally do not
> subscribe these theories even though they are highly favoured by lawyers
> and law makers.  Societies and nations change, see below for an example.
> 

Brandon's arguments are based on the reasoning of the Founding Fathers
when they first put together US.  Copyright was given by the government
to the artist to encourage creations so that the commonwealth would
benefit as the work became available without restrictions after a
LIMITED time.  The deal was "to promote growth of science, etc... which
benefit us all we'll give you (copy)rights for a limited time" after
which work became public domain.

In that sense, trying to understand "copyright" as a right is
misleading.  It's more of a social contract (2).  I don't understand
the "inalienable" part in the contract; contracts can be changed, eg
the interpretation of the word "limited".

Lessig's CODE - if my memory is right - has a good section on it.



-- 

Christopher F. Miller, Publisher   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MaineStreet Communications, Inc   208 Portland Road, Gray, ME  04039
1.207.657.5078 http://www.maine.com/
Content/site management, online commerce, internet integration, Debian linux

Re: OSD && DFSG convergence

[Russell Nelson]

John Goerzen writes:
 > The DFSG does not simply say "No discrimination"; it says "no discrimination
 > against persons or groups."  While you may enjoy your over-legalistic
 > interpretation, a reasonable person understands that this clause does not
 > mean to reject every possible license.

Exactly my point.  So why are you using it that way?

 > > should use that term of the DFSG in the manner it was intended, not in
 > > the manner you would like to twist it into.
 > 
 > Interesting that you make yourself an authority on the intent of the DFSG. 

Nahhh.  I'm just reading Bruce's commentary to you.  He edited
Debian's members words into the DFSG.  Do you think he was wrong about
the intent of the no-discrimination clause?

I like the no-discrimination clause.  It's worked very well.  You just
don't see any software anymore that says "Free for educational and
personal use; government and commercial users must license it."  But
don't go over-reading it like you've been doing.

 > > What you're doing is amending the DFSG without telling the rest of the 
 > 
 > What I'm doing is futilely trying to explain why the RPSL is not in Debian
 > to somebody that has no interest in listening.

But ... the RPSL is not not in Debian.  There's no consensus.  If
somebody submits an RPSL-licensed packet, you'll say one thing and
I'll say another.  How can you say that debian-legal operates on a
consensus basis in the face of our disagreement?

Now, if you want to say that debian-legal operates on a veto basis --
where ANY debian-legal member can veto ANY license -- why, THAT I
would agree with.  Can you see why I think that's a bad thing?

 > I have proposed amendments before.  You would have known it if you had seen
 > it.

I understand that people have banged their head on that brick wall
before.  I suppose that at some point even I will run out of patience
and go back to SPI and say "Sorry, guys, I did my best.  One bright
thing did come out of it -- and that's to run licenses past
debian-legal as well as license-discuss -- because obviously there are 
opinionated people who don't bother to subscribe to license-discuss."

-- 
-russ nelson  http://russnelson.com | You get prosperity when
Crynwr sells support for free software  | PGPok | the government does less,
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | not when the government
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | +1 315 268 9201 FAX   | does something right.

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Seth Woolley]

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Hash: SHA1

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Josselin Mouette wrote:

> > MPlayer is the best, the fastest, the
> > most stable, and the easiest to use (IMHO) of any of the players, to date,
> > and it would be terrible not to include it because of personal issues.
>
> There are people who think Adobe Photoshop is the best, the fastest, the
> most stable and the easiest to use imaging software. Unfortunately - for
> them - it won't enter Debian.

non sequitur...

personal issues != awkward legalisms anyways, even if we grant that you
are correct.

> When you don't respect the others' wills regarding licensing, you are
> hardly in a position to ask others to respect your wills.

We all know that situation is over and was due to contradictory
circumstances.  Now that it's 100% GPL'd, I don't think you can use the
genetic fallacy to your advantage.

> it *will* be accepted. No matter how
> many stupid rants Gabucino can write, no matter how crappy the code is,
> no matter how many of us won't use it.

Are you bitter about something?

>
> > P.S.  Anybody who thinks that MPlayer isn't substantially faster than any
> > other free video player for Un*x systems is wholly ignorant of the facts.
>
> I already encountered performance issues on my 700 MHz Athlon system
> with mplayer. That is a fact. Seven hundred million is a measurable
> number : the number of cycles per second on that system.

s/the facts/the respective facts/ as it's idiomatic.

All I see from you people is "he's a bad, bad boy" and nothing
substantive.  You also whine as much as he does.

You guys blew the libmpeg2 "issue" way out of proportion, considering the
libmpeg2 author was in on the whole thing.

Here's what you can do:

"I know others mischaracterized the situation, but here's a real issue..."

So far, nobody's done this.

- --
Seth Alan Woolley , SPAM/UCE is unauthorized
Key id 7BEACC7D = 2978 0BD1 BA48 B671 C1EB 93F7 EDF4 3CDF 7BEA CC7D
Full Key at seth.tautology.org, see www.gnupg.org www.keyserver.net
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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:43:24AM -0500, Don Armstrong wrote:

> 2) inform debian-legal (and/or the DD's in general) about any patents
> that mplayer may or may not be infringing upon so an informed decision
> can be made.

In fact, I prefer to not hear about any software patents that are not
actively being enforced.  Aside from the point that having knowledge of
the patents can lead to charges of *willful* infringement, I believe it's
far better if Debian acts as if software patents did not exist until they
become an imminent issue -- just as we normally ignore any patents
pertaining to ftp sites and publishing of web content, until and unless
we see a letter from a patent holder's lawyer.

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer


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Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Simon Law]

On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 11:16:24PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> * Some countries, particularly some in Europe, have a concept of "moral
>   rights" that attach to creative works.  I admit I am not too familiar
>   with these, but they are not the same thing as copyright and have
>   little in common with copyright.  Moreover, moral rights are seldom
>   asserted in anything the Debian Project seeks to distribute.  So, let
>   us not confuse moral rights with copyrights and thus lazily introduce
>   the language of the former when speaking of the latter.

Here in Canada, we too have moral rights on our work.  From
http://www.trytel.com/~pbkerr/copyright.html

"Moral rights include the author's right to be associated with the work
by name, or pseudonym and the right to remain anonymous, and include the
author's right to the integrity of the work (that is, the author's right
to stop the work from being distorted, mutilated or modified, to the
prejudice of the author's honour or reputation, or from being used in
association with a product, service, cause or institution)."

So moral rights can be very well asserted aside from licensing.
For instance, if I allow modification and redistribution of a technical
document that I have written, that is a relaxation of copyright
restrictions.  However, if I understand Canadian law correctly; this
does not relax my moral rights.  If you edit my technical document such
that it uses language that is offensive (replacing the word "woman"
with a derogatory equivalent,) then you have violated my moral right to
the integrity of the work.

As well, my moral rights allow me to pursue legal action if
another institution adopts it as some form of symbol, and I do not wish
it to be associated as such.

Simon

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Craig Dickson]

Paul Hampson wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 11:16:24PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > [Followup to -legal.]
> > 
> > Okay, I'm going to a pull an RMS and plead for a change in our
> > collective use of certain terms.
> > 
> > * Under U.S. law and the laws of most countries I'm familiar with,
> >   copyright IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT.
> 
> Is this comparable to "the right to bear arms"?

Legally speaking, I suppose so. The "right to bear arms" is guaranteed by
the US Constitution (not that has much effect these days).

> Copyright is the right to make copies. That's the morphology of the
> word... The logical leap comes in that it is an exclusive right.

Then ignore the word (which is misleading; it's just a word) and examine
its definition and history in law.

> > Now, then, do
> > you think Euclid held a copyright in the _Elements_?
> Bad example. The elements are not an expression of an idea. They are the
> matter themselves... Of course, the US Patent Office would probably have
> granted him a patent on them...

Euclid's 'Elements' is no simply a catalog.

> >  Did the apostles
> > of Jesus hold a copyright in the gospels?
> The Evangelists? Of course. If I write a book, isn't it mine to control
> who reads it?

No. If you believe that, then you have no grasp of copyright whatsoever.
Copyright controls the making of copies, not the distribution of copies
that were lawfully made.

> >  If so, when did these
> > copyrights expire, or have they?  If they haven't, who controls them
> Of course they should. Once the author (or authors) are dead, then time
> should run out. Copyright isn't an asset to be bought and sold, it's a
> right.

Now you're really showing how little you understand the subject. Copyright
can indeed be bought and sold; in fact, this is how freelance writers make
their living. When you sell an article to a publication, you are selling
the copyright.

> If I write my life's work, the book that will make me rich and famous,
> and someone takes a photocopy, puts his name on it and sells it as his
> work,

That is not merely a copyright issue, but also a matter of proper
attribution. Your financial rewards may be reduced by copying, but
your literary reputation is not, unless your name is removed. So let's
not muddle the issue; attribution is separate from copyright.

> is that as bad as if someone burns your house down while you're
> not there... After all, a house and contents is just stuff. A book is
> concentrated effort and achievement. (Extreme, I know. The point I'm
> making is still valid, I feel.)

No, it isn't. You don't own a house, do you? I do. I've put a LOT of
concentrated, creative effort into mine, even though I didn't build it
myself.

Craig


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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> Is this particularly good advice? 

Heh. It's not really even advice, since IANAL. I just think it's
something that we should be aware of.

> It's my understanding that the best (only) way to minimize patent
> liability short of hiring a lawyer is to avoid knowing anything about
> potentially relevant patents entirely.

AFAIK, ignorance of patents doesen't protect you from being prosecuted
and/or found liable under them, at least in the US. (Unlike the
convergent re-creation of copyrighted works.)

If someone else knows differently and can quote caselaw, please do.


Don Armstrong

-- 
She was alot like starbucks.
IE, generic and expensive.  
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch3.htm

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: OSD && DFSG convergence

[Richard Braakman]

On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 02:18:10PM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
> Free Redistribution
> 
> The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from
> selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate
> software distribution containing programs from several different
> sources. The license may not require a royalty or other fee for
> such sale.
> 
> Nothing in this prevents a license from requiring click-wrap.
>
[...] 
> 
> Derived Works
> 
> The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must
> allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license
> of the original software.
> 
> Nothing in this prevents a license from requiring click-wrap.  You can
> modify the software as much as you want.  When you distribute the
> software, the terms of the license require that you acquire
> affirmative agreement with the license.  Same terms.

I think you're trying to have it both ways here.  If the license
stipulates a need to "acquire affirmative agreement
with the license" as a condition of distribution, then that's a
restriction on giving away the software.  If the license allows
free distribution but specifies that the software must acquire
this agreement when it's run, then that's a restriction on
distribution of derived works.

In other words, a click-wrap license may be able to meet these
guidelines individually, but not both at once.

Richard Braakman

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Gabucino wrote:
> we have no interest to fix that, as even libmpeg2 author Michael
> Lespinasse took part of it, so it's unlikely that he's gonna sue
> himself for his own code.

How can Debian be sure that that's the case? Debian (correctly) avoids
areas of questionable legality like the plauge.

> AFAIR around 0.50 we checked our code for license infringing, and
> solved them either by contacting its author and requested permission
> for GPL relicensing, or by rewriting the code in question.

How come the libmpeg2 issue wasn't caught? Or the lrmi.c issue which
you point out below?

> If MPlayer is not 100% GPL (except lrmi.c, but that can be left out,
> sacrificing the very useful VESA video output), we are willing to fix
> it.

Wait a minute. So even to your knowledge Mplayer isn't completely
under the GPL?

> Just be cautious, don't take an argument which also applies to xine

If xine is not free according to the DFSG or contains material which
it would be illegal for Debian to distribute in countries in which
major mirrors are located, then someone should file an RC bug against
xine, so the issues can be discussed and a concensus reached.

It would sadden me to see that happen, but that's the way things work.


Don Armstrong

-- 
She was alot like starbucks.
IE, generic and expensive.  
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch3.htm

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Gabucino]

Josselin Mouette wrote:
> it *will* be accepted. No matter how many stupid rants Gabucino can write
Huh? I am not against MPlayer being included into Debian.


> no matter how crappy the code is,
Uh.. MPlayer's code is crappy? Hm :)


> I already encountered performance issues on my 700 MHz Athlon system
> with mplayer.
What "performance issues?" Kernel compilation is slow while playing DVD?

I can play 800x600 MPEG4 movies on my AMD K6/2 500 without framedrop. We're
waiting for your bugreport on mplayer-users.


> That is a fact. Seven hundred million is a measurable number : the number of
> cycles per second on that system.
Then your computer has enough power to paste MPlayer's output to a text editor.

-- 
Gabucino
MPlayer Core Team


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Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[Steve Greenland]

On 29-Jan-03, 00:47 (CST), Russell Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> John Goerzen writes:
> Besides which, you are but one person.  You do not get to say what the
> consensus is on the RPSL.  Given that I, one member of debian-legal,
> say one thing, and you, one member of debian-legal, say another thing,
> it seems that 1) we don't have a consensus, 

"I don't think that word means what you think it means". "Consensus" is
not universal agreement. A single dissenter does not break consensus.

> and 2) in any case, two of many is never consensus even if we agreed
> with each other.

We probably have consensus on that point.

Steve

-- 
Steve Greenland

The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the
world.   -- seen on the net

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Paul Hampson]
> If I write a book, isn't it mine to control who reads it?

But if you publish it, you have no right to control who reads it.

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Steve Langasek wrote:
> Aside from the point that having knowledge of the patents can lead to
> charges of *willful* infringement, 

That's true. I should probably have said information about patents
that are being actively prosecuted, but then again, if it's something
that (in the minds of -legal) we can cease and desist quickly enough
so that it isn't a risk, so be it.

*Shrug*. Software patents are really annoying.


Don Armstrong

-- 
She was alot like starbucks.
IE, generic and expensive.  
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch3.htm

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Seth Woolley wrote:
> MPlayer's website: "Also, why does debian-legal think they know what
> is GPL and what is not better than MPlayer and XAnim authors."

If you want or need this point clairified, I suggest you contact RMS
or an FSF representative. I believe it's fairly clear.

> And, even if they have audited the codebase, and they have convinced
> you that they have made a determination... what if they are wrong in
> their determination?  Do you trust it?

If they make a determination, -legal concurs, ftpmasters agree, it
goes into debian, and a problem is found, an RC bug is filed, and the
problem gets resolved.


Don Armstrong

-- 
She was alot like starbucks.
IE, generic and expensive.  
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch3.htm

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 01:47:11AM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:

>>> ... and the OSD must become more like the DFSG, and proposed open
>>> source licenses should be run past debian-legal.  I'm not proposing
>>> unilateral action on anybody's part.  I'm prepared to compromise (or
>>> rather, to recommend compromise to my board of directors).  Are you?

>> I am NOT prepared to compromise Debian's high Free Software standards.  I am
>> NOT prepared to accept RPSL-licensed software into Debian.  In this case,
>> "compromise" seems to me merely a word for "cave-in".

> Of course.  You cave-in on some things, we cave-in on others.  Or
> don't you understand what compromise means?  Compromise means that you 
> give up on some things in order to get something else you want more.

And this, really, seems to be the sticking point.  Yes, the DFSG could
stand to be improved; but I don't understand how these improvements will
help, vis à vis the OSI.  We do a lot of work to improve the DFSG, which
though imperfect, seems to do its job ok as far as the people on this
list are concerned; and as a result, we get... a slightly clearer
document that still delineates the outer, not inner, bound of the main
archive, that is still interpreted by humans.  Is that all we get?  

What would the benefits to the greater community be if the DFSG were more
like the OSD?

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer


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Help with the Bloom Public License

[Drew Scott Daniels]

I would like to help Charles Bloom make the Bloom Public License (BPL)
DFSG compliant. It's available at: http://www.cbloom.com/bpl.txt

The version modified May 14, 2002 seems to have problems with it.

Item 2 asks that the distributor "MUST notify" "the recipient". I'm
guessing that a license file is not good enough? If so, is there a way to
make it mean that and still keep it DFSG compliant?

Item 5 states that "BPL code may not be sold in any form." If item 3A
(regarding GPL usage of the code) is clarified could item 5 be left?

Item 6 seems to be an advertising clause. I forget the history with
advertising clauses, but it at least seems undesirable.

Item 8 forbidding the sale of code and forbidding distribution fees looks
like it needs to be removed

Item 9 requiring the "author" to be "notified" about commercial use may be
a problem.

Item 10 is a no warranty clause. In some EULA's I see today, there's a
provision addressing the possibility of the need or an automatic warranty
in some jurisdictions. Is that kind of provision needed?
Thanks
 Drew Daniels
PS: Please CC me.


-- Forwarded message --
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 17:47:55 -0800
From: Charles Bloom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Drew Scott Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: PPM, BPL...


At 04:40 PM 1/28/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Hello,
>I've been following the PPM algorithm for a few years now. Of all the PPM
>algorithms I've looked at I believe PPMZ(2) to be one of the best. I would
>like to encourage it's use and development, but the BPL causes some
>problems and has some ambiguities. For one thing, the GPL allows for code
>to be sold and your license claims that it works with the GPL and says
>that your code cannot be sold.

Well, I was meaning to explicitly allow any use that's legal under GPL.
Personally, I think GPL is much too limitting because it requires users to
also use the GPL.  I'm trying to allow all GPL uses, plus some more.

>I'd like to see the BPL become compatible with the Debian Free Software
>Guidelines (DFSG) defined in
>http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s2.1.1
>
>If you're willing to have the source code and binaries for PPMZ2 become
>part of Debian, I can talk to the debian-legal about what the minimum
>license changes that would be required.
>
>If you don't want to make PPMZ2 DFSG compatible, then I'll be disappointed,
>but I'll understand.

It looks like DFSG requires users to make their code available (right?), so
I would be fine with that.



Charles Bloom[EMAIL PROTECTED]www.cbloom.com

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Richard Braakman]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:43:24AM -0500, Don Armstrong wrote:
> I'm sure you've read about the libmpeg2 problems I found after 5
> minutes of looking through the code.[2] As far as I am aware, they
> still haven't been fixed.
> 
> Obviously, if after such a short bit of searching, that such a problem
> can be found brings a strong suspicion that there are other problems
> lurking within the codebase. 

I think you use the wrong example here.  That part of the GPL is
widely ignored in favour of per-project changelogs.  (This is why I no
longer use the GPL on my own code, btw.)  As an indicator of licensing
irregularities it's pretty much useless.

> Whoever takes it upon themselves to package mplayer for possible
> inclusion in Debian will most likely have to:
> 
> 1) convince debian-legal that they have audited the codebase and
> determined that everything in the codebase is legal for Debian and
> it's distributors to distribute.

I haven't dug up the relevant history, but I gather that it had
been claimed before that mplayer's copyright licenses were okay
when they weren't.  If this is indeed the case, then this is a
reasonable requirement.

> 2) inform debian-legal (and/or the DD's in general) about any patents
> that mplayer may or may not be infringing upon so an informed decision
> can be made.

I don't think that this is reasonable.  Are you prepared to do the same
for gcc?  It's not possible to be sure that _any_ program is unencumbered
by patents.  We can only respond to patent threats as and when we become
aware of them.

Richard Braakman

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Henning Makholm]

Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> * Under U.S. law and the laws of most countries I'm familiar with,
>   copyright IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT.
...
>   So, let us not speak of "copyrights" in the same way we do "rights".

Your point seems to be that you think that the word "right" by itself
implies that the right in question is a natural one, and that we
should therefore refrain from calling "copyright" a "right".

Far be it from me to claim that my grasp of English is better than
yours, but would you please then suggest a term that we can use when
speaking about "rights" in the everyday sense, meaning the power to
make the judicial system enforce something, irrespective of whether
that right is perceived as "natural" or not?

> * Some countries, particularly some in Europe, have a concept of "moral
>   rights" that attach to creative works.  I admit I am not too familiar
>   with these, but they are not the same thing as copyright and have
>   little in common with copyright.

Over here they do. The right to be identified as the work's author,
etc., and the monpoly on copymaking, are two facets of the very same
legal concept, at least in Danish law and to the best of my knowledge
in EU law in general. We call this concept "ophavsret", which could be
literally translated to "authorship right" - but the only English word
that would be generally recognised as denoting the same concept is
"copyright".

> * Because copyrights are not inherent, are not natural rights, are not
>   granted by God, but in fact merely incentive programs instituted by
>   governments, one does not "violate" the rights of anyone when one
>   disregards or acts contrary to a person's copyright.

You seem to be happy enough with speaking about "infringing"
copyrights. Is there some kind of deep difference between "infringe"
and "violate"?

> * For many years, copyright infringement wasn't even illegal.

"Illegal" is a fuzzy word anyway, and is best avoided completely when
speaking about legal matters. In some contexts people use it narrowly
to speak of acts which the state has decided to forbid under threat of
punishment - in other contexts people will use the word about such
things as contract clauses that are simply unenforceable because the
law explictly supersedes contract terms in specific cases.

-- 
Henning Makholm "Det er du nok fandens ene om at
 mene. For det ligger i Australien!"

Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[Russell Nelson]

Steve Langasek writes:
 > What would the benefits to the greater community be if the DFSG were more
 > like the OSD?

Let me rephrase what you said.  I want to be clear that I expect
Debian to change the DFSG, and OSI to change the OSD.  Both documents
can be improved, but they should be improved to be the same thing.

 > What would the benefits to the greater community be if the DFSG and 
 > the OSD were more alike?

1) Surely you've seen the Monty Python movie "Life of Brian", where
the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front are
constantly at loggerheads?  While the real power are the Romans, of
course.  I needn't elaborate.

2) Besides that, there are at least four definitions of "free
software": the OSD, the DFSG, the DFSG as interpreted by debian-legal, 
and RMS's definition.  Suppose someone wants to join this community of 
software developers.  Which community does he join?  By joining one,
does he join all?  Confusion isn't good for us.

3) NOBODY is served well by a split (which I don't think has actually
occurred, but the potential alarms people) wherein the corporate
entities choose the OSD, and software developers choose from the list
of alternatives above.

-- 
-russ nelson  http://russnelson.com | You get prosperity when
Crynwr sells support for free software  | PGPok | the government does less,
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | not when the government
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | +1 315 268 9201 FAX   | does something right.

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Lynn Winebarger]

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 12:58, Henning Makholm wrote:
> Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > * Some countries, particularly some in Europe, have a concept of "moral
> >   rights" that attach to creative works.  I admit I am not too familiar
> >   with these, but they are not the same thing as copyright and have
> >   little in common with copyright.
> 
> Over here they do. The right to be identified as the work's author,
> etc., and the monpoly on copymaking, are two facets of the very same
> legal concept, at least in Danish law and to the best of my knowledge
> in EU law in general. We call this concept "ophavsret", which could be
> literally translated to "authorship right" - but the only English word
> that would be generally recognised as denoting the same concept is
> "copyright".

I could be wrong, but can't you distinguish the moral rights from the
copyrights by which ones you can trade?  I thought there was no
legally binding way for an author in Europe to contract away or sell their
moral rights, but they could contract away or sell outright the exclusive 
right to make and distribute copies (still subject to the moral rights).  
Isn't that the distinction between a property right and a 
human/natural/moral right?
   Of course it also means the property right is weaker in Europe 
(and apparently Canada) than in the US, for both the ownership of
the actual thing that is the embodiment of the expression and 
the copyright, and thus less economically valuable.

Lynn

Re: Help with the Bloom Public License

[Mark Rafn]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Drew Scott Daniels wrote:

> I would like to help Charles Bloom make the Bloom Public License (BPL)
> DFSG compliant. It's available at: http://www.cbloom.com/bpl.txt
> The version modified May 14, 2002 seems to have problems with it.

Very much so.  The license is kind of a mess in itself, and it's not clear 
that the author wants his software to be free, even if the license were 
cleaned up.

Permission to distribute modified copies is simply missing from the 
license (though it's kind of implied).  Debian accepts few limitations on 
this permission anyway, and the document seems to specifically exists to 
make this as onerous as possible.  

Further, all use restrictions must be removed.
 
> Item 2 asks that the distributor "MUST notify" "the recipient". I'm
> guessing that a license file is not good enough? If so, is there a way to
> make it mean that and still keep it DFSG compliant?

Is item 2 a typo?  Did he intend to write "must notify the author"?  Did 
he intend to put a "that" instead of a period in the middle of the item?  

Item 3 would be problematic if it had any meaning.  Debian does not accept 
software with usage limitations.  Fortunately, 3A allows all usages, as it 
defers to the GPL which allows all usages.

> Item 5 states that "BPL code may not be sold in any form." If item 3A
> (regarding GPL usage of the code) is clarified could item 5 be left?

No.  3a talks about usage, and is a no-op as I previously mention.  5 is 
about distribution.  Users must have the right to sell modified 
versions of the software.

If 3a said the software may be used or distributed according to the terms 
of the GPL at the distributor's option, we'd be fine (this is known as 
dual-licensing, where recipients can choose which license to use to 
govern their distribution rights).  I'd make that it's very own item, 
probably #1, if that's the intent.

> Item 6 seems to be an advertising clause. I forget the history with
> advertising clauses, but it at least seems undesirable.

Undesirable.  Acceptible in some cases, but this is a bit far-reaching.  

Item 7.  I can't make heads nor tails of it, but it sounds either silly or 
non-free, depending on what it means.

> Item 8 forbidding the sale of code and forbidding distribution fees looks
> like it needs to be removed

Yup.

> Item 9 requiring the "author" to be "notified" about commercial use may be
> a problem.

Any use restriction is a no-go.  Fortunately, 3A already gives the ability 
to ignore item 9.

The last sentence in item 9 is insane.

>  Drew Daniels
> PS: Please CC me.
> 
> 
> -- Forwarded message --
> Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 17:47:55 -0800
> From: Charles Bloom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: Drew Scott Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: PPM, BPL...
> 
> 
> At 04:40 PM 1/28/2003 -0600, you wrote:
> >Hello,
> >I've been following the PPM algorithm for a few years now. Of all the PPM
> >algorithms I've looked at I believe PPMZ(2) to be one of the best. I would
> >like to encourage it's use and development, but the BPL causes some
> >problems and has some ambiguities. For one thing, the GPL allows for code
> >to be sold and your license claims that it works with the GPL and says
> >that your code cannot be sold.
> 
> Well, I was meaning to explicitly allow any use that's legal under GPL.
> Personally, I think GPL is much too limitting because it requires users to
> also use the GPL.  I'm trying to allow all GPL uses, plus some more.
> 
> >I'd like to see the BPL become compatible with the Debian Free Software
> >Guidelines (DFSG) defined in
> >http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s2.1.1
> >
> >If you're willing to have the source code and binaries for PPMZ2 become
> >part of Debian, I can talk to the debian-legal about what the minimum
> >license changes that would be required.
> >
> >If you don't want to make PPMZ2 DFSG compatible, then I'll be disappointed,
> >but I'll understand.
> 
> It looks like DFSG requires users to make their code available (right?), so
> I would be fine with that.
> 
> 
> 
> Charles Bloom[EMAIL PROTECTED]www.cbloom.com
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: Help with the Bloom Public License

[Henning Makholm]

Scripsit Drew Scott Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> It's available at: http://www.cbloom.com/bpl.txt

Hm, first of all, clause 1 seems to severely restrict which software
the author himself is allowed to distribute. If he gives his neighbor
a disk with GCC on it, he will be in trouble with the GPL, or be lying
in his own license.

> Item 2 asks that the distributor "MUST notify" "the recipient". I'm
> guessing that a license file is not good enough?

It is unclear to say the least.

Clause 3 is a compilation of several statements that are not all
mutually consistent. For example, subclause A states that "usage which is
legal under the GNU Public License (GPL) is also legal under the BPL",
while subclause D implies that there are restictions on commercial
use.

> Item 5 states that "BPL code may not be sold in any form." If item 3A
> (regarding GPL usage of the code) is clarified could item 5 be left?

If the clarification is in the form of an explicit and unconditional
permission to revert to plain GPL, then nothing else can stop it from
being DFSG-free. However, such a clarification would be inconsistent
with the second half of clause 2.

> Item 6 seems to be an advertising clause. I forget the history with
> advertising clauses, but it at least seems undesirable.

It is more than an advertising clause; it is a restriction on program
behavior. I'd judge this to be more orneous than the DFSG can bear.

> Item 8 forbidding the sale of code and forbidding distribution fees looks
> like it needs to be removed

Agreed.

> Item 9 requiring the "author" to be "notified" about commercial use may be
> a problem.

Yes, but may be solved by redefining "commercial application" to mean
proprietary programs. The second half of clause 9 seems to reserve the
author's right to revoke or change the license retrospectively as he
pleases; this is also not DFSG-free.

> Item 10 is a no warranty clause. In some EULA's I see today, there's a
> provision addressing the possibility of the need or an automatic warranty
> in some jurisdictions. Is that kind of provision needed?

I don't think so. Apparently EULA authors are trying to work around
the risk that a court will tell them,

  "Our local law does not allow you to disclaim responsibility for
   X. Therefore, your statement where you disclaim responsibiltity
   for X and Y is invalid. Therefore, you are responsible for Y."

I have trouble imagining this kind of reasoning being applied to a
product that is being offered for free - but no matter what, such
working-around is not relevant for DFSG-freedom.

> From: Charles Bloom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> It looks like DFSG requires users to make their code available (right?), so
> I would be fine with that.

This is a misunderstood reading. On the contrary, the DFSG (at least
the way it is applied in practise) does *not* allow licenses which
require users or authors-of-derived-works to disclose their code to
other parties than those they decide to offer compiled code to.

-- 
Henning Makholm"Hvad skulle vi med en præsident,
 sådan en folkepolitibetjent
   med skrårem og hjelm og vandkanon
som stikker sin næse i alt?"

Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[Richard Braakman]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 12:49:54PM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
> 2) Besides that, there are at least four definitions of "free
> software": the OSD, the DFSG, the DFSG as interpreted by debian-legal, 
> and RMS's definition.

This seems to be the root of the issue: the DFSG is _not_ a definition.
It is a set of guidelines.  Guidelines are only meaningful when they
are applied (which is not the same as interpreting them), and as far 
as I know Debian is the only entity currently applying these guidelines.
So there is no "the DFSG" separate from "the DFSG as interpreted by
debian-legal", and neither of those is a "definition" anyway.

You keep trying to treat the DFSG as a definition, probably out of
habit from working with the OSD.  That's simply not going to work.
If you want a meeting of minds here, then you'll have to address
this fundamental difference.

I'll try to give it a start:

Do you think that Debian _should_ move from using guidelines to
using a definition?
If so, what's the benefit?  Do you understand the risks we see, and
do you have an answer for those?
If not, then what kind of convergence do you have in mind?  Same
text, different application?  Some kind of hybrid between the two
approaches?

What does the OSI currently do with licenses that meet the OSD
but are egregiously non-free?  (As a practical example, I don't
see anything in the OSD that would rule out a license that expires
at a certain date.)

Richard Braakman

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Richard Braakman wrote:
> I think you use the wrong example here.  That part of the GPL is
> widely ignored in favour of per-project changelogs. 

Yes. A lot of people ignore (rightly or wrongly) 2c. Should Debian
ignore it? That's not for me to decide.

What concerned me was that code as copied from another project
(mpeg2dec) without carefully examining the license for that code, and
utilizing the code under that license.

> I don't think that this [patent question] is reasonable.

It was a concern of mine, but since it doesn't seem to be thought
reasonable by other members of -legal, I withdraw it. [Not that it was
ever more than a thought anyway.]


Don Armstrong

-- 
She was alot like starbucks.
IE, generic and expensive.  
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/batch3.htm

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Henning Makholm]

Scripsit Lynn Winebarger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On Wednesday 29 January 2003 12:58, Henning Makholm wrote:

> > The right to be identified as the work's author,
> > etc., and the monpoly on copymaking, are two facets of the very same
> > legal concept, at least in Danish law and to the best of my knowledge
> > in EU law in general.

> I could be wrong, but can't you distinguish the moral rights from the
> copyrights by which ones you can trade?

You're right. My point was that we have only one word to cover both,
at least until you begin to pick more nits than is normal even in
casual conversation about legal matters.

-- 
Henning Makholm   "`Update' isn't a bad word; in the right setting it is
 useful. In the wrong setting, though, it is destructive..."

Re: Help with the Bloom Public License

[Walter Landry]

Drew Scott Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would like to help Charles Bloom make the Bloom Public License (BPL)
> DFSG compliant. It's available at: http://www.cbloom.com/bpl.txt

Looking at the message you quoted, it might be easier to just have him
dual-license under the GPL.

Regards,
Walter Landry
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: OSD && DFSG convergence

[Jason McCarty]

Simon Law wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2003 at 12:55:05PM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
[...] 
> > the DFSG does not prohibit a license from requiring a specific form of
> > affirmative assent known as click-wrap.  Our recently-passed change to 
> > the OSD fixes that problem.
> 
>   I fail to see how a useful software license could be DFSG-free
> and have a detrimental click-wrap license.  Perhaps you could provide an
> example?

Look at http://bugs.debian.org/132679 ; xsane has (or had?) a click
through license that the user was required to accept to run the program.
The EULA simply displayed the GPL, and xsane is licensed as GPL. So it's
DFSG-free, but it has a EULA. Of course, since it's GPL, the EULA could
be legally removed, but the "no warranty" part still would have to be
displayed at start-up, as per the GPL. In the end, the author asked
Debian not to remove the license, so it's still there.

Anyway, the only reason xsane is still dfsg-free is that the EULA _could_
be removed. If the license prohibited removal, then it wouldn't be
dfsg-free.

Just something to look at if you want an example of free software with a
click through.

Jason

Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[Mark Rafn]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Russell Nelson wrote:

> 1) Surely you've seen the Monty Python movie "Life of Brian", where
> the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front are
> constantly at loggerheads?  While the real power are the Romans, of
> course.  I needn't elaborate.

Perhaps I'm dense, or perhaps you do need to elaborate.  Debian and OSI 
can certainly work together and agree on many things even if these 
documents differ.  As far as I can tell, we're rarely at loggerheads.

If there are disagreements that are causing pain to OSI, Debian, or other
groups, let's talk about those specific problems and see if we can resolve
them.  Starting out by trying to change constitutions is a pretty wild
leap.

> 2) Besides that, there are at least four definitions of "free
> software": the OSD, the DFSG, the DFSG as interpreted by debian-legal, 
> and RMS's definition.

Of that list, only 1 claims to be a definition.  In reality, there are 
thousands of opinions about what constitutes freedom.  

> Suppose someone wants to join this community of 
> software developers.  Which community does he join?  By joining one,
> does he join all? 

Of course not, communities don't work that way.  He joins whatever 
community(ies) he wants to.  Communities are interconnected, so he 
probably gets introduced to many additional communities that he can join.

There is no "free software community".  There's probably no "Debian 
community", though there are various connected communities within Debian.  

> Confusion isn't good for us.

This phrase has no content.  Confusion is better than being ignored or 
forced into something, and worse than having everyone agree with us (for 
various us-es).

> 3) NOBODY is served well by a split (which I don't think has actually
> occurred, but the potential alarms people) wherein the corporate
> entities choose the OSD, and software developers choose from the list
> of alternatives above.

There is no community of "corporate entities" either.  Each individual 
corporation gets to choose it's criteria for distributing software.  As 
has been shown, they tend not to like to use existing licenses, so 
each one has to be judged seperately.

If you want to do some real good for the "corporate community", come up
with a set of licenses that netscape, ibm, apple, etc. agree to use and
both OSI and Debian agree is unambiguously free.  Then (like now), it
won't matter if our critera have different words and different processes
for determination.
--
Mark Rafn[EMAIL PROTECTED]  

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Gabucino]

Don Armstrong wrote:
> > we have no interest to fix that, as even libmpeg2 author Michael
> > Lespinasse took part of it, so it's unlikely that he's gonna sue
> > himself for his own code.
> How can Debian be sure that that's the case?
What do you need? A hand-written permission from Walken, photocopied 65535
times, and one piece sent to each goverment of the world for signature?
I don't care if you don't believe me. Go ask Walken (M. Lespinasse) then..


> Debian (correctly) avoids areas of questionable legality like the plauge.
Uh-huh.. See below.


> How come the libmpeg2 issue wasn't caught?
What "issue"? Do you disregard every mail? Convenient.


> Or the lrmi.c issue which you point out below?
> Wait a minute. So even to your knowledge Mplayer isn't completely
> under the GPL?
Heh. If MPlayer isn't GPL because one of its video output driver (vesa)
depends on lrmi, then what will happen to svgalib?

Yes, Debian's svgalib also contains a VESA driver, and it uses LRMI for
that. svgalib is included in Debian, however it isn't GPL. I wonder...

Please don't stand further against me with your transparent ideas, or in the
end everything will be stripped from Debian :)


> If xine is not free according to the DFSG or contains material which
> it would be illegal for Debian to distribute in countries in which
> major mirrors are located, then someone should file an RC bug against
> xine, so the issues can be discussed and a concensus reached.
And who will file that? :) Nobody is mazochist here except you :)


> It would sadden me to see that happen, but that's the way things work.
Only if you want it to be that way.

-- 
Gabucino
MPlayer Core Team
  "not sure how we will proceed here - xine's potential in the video
   processing field is imho so great that i certainly don't want to miss
   the chance to work into that direction." - Guenter, xine developer


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Re: Help with the Bloom Public License

[Joel Baker]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 11:26:45AM -0600, Drew Scott Daniels wrote:
> I would like to help Charles Bloom make the Bloom Public License (BPL)
> DFSG compliant. It's available at: http://www.cbloom.com/bpl.txt
> 
> The version modified May 14, 2002 seems to have problems with it.

[ ... ]

> Item 6 seems to be an advertising clause. I forget the history with
> advertising clauses, but it at least seems undesirable.

Definitely undesirable; I'm still gearing up to try to convince upstream on
the NetBSD sources to remove some of theirs (and, beyond that, some of the
authors who contributed to them... gotta love multiple upstream projects).

I don't recall the exact DFSG rendering (other than, at minimum, it *may*
conflict with some other licenses if it includes other software), but the
following page is a good collection of information on advertising clauses
and the problems they cause:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

(Note that UCB, who had the 'origional' advertising clause, has long since
abandoned that clause and relicensed all of their works, retroactively, to
no longer require it.)
-- 
Joel Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


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Re: OSD && DFSG convergence

[Russell Nelson]

I'm on the mailing list.  Debian policy is to not CC the author.  If
you guys can't follow Debian policy, how in the WORLD do you think
anybody can follow the DFSG, much less your interpretation of it?  I
am not encouraged by your behavior.  It's not something to engender
confidence.

Jason McCarty writes:
 > Anyway, the only reason xsane is still dfsg-free is that the EULA _could_
 > be removed. If the license prohibited removal, then it wouldn't be
 > dfsg-free.

You guys are funny.  You're like the temperance activist who, when
confronted with old Uncle Harry the drunkard, says "Oh, that's just
Uncle Harry.  You know how he is."

If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when
run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive
 
use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement
  ---
including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there
is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and
that users may redistribute the program under these conditions,
and telling the user how to view a copy of this License.

Why is it okay when the GPL prohibits removal of code that announces
the licensing, and yet a license which prohibits removal of code that
implements click-wrap is not okay?

-- 
-russ nelson  http://russnelson.com | You get prosperity when
Crynwr sells support for free software  | PGPok | the government does less,
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | not when the government
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | +1 315 268 9201 FAX   | does something right.

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Glenn Maynard]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 11:33:31AM -0500, Don Armstrong wrote:
> > It's my understanding that the best (only) way to minimize patent
> > liability short of hiring a lawyer is to avoid knowing anything about
> > potentially relevant patents entirely.
> 
> AFAIK, ignorance of patents doesen't protect you from being prosecuted
> and/or found liable under them, at least in the US. (Unlike the
> convergent re-creation of copyrighted works.)
> 
> If someone else knows differently and can quote caselaw, please do.

From http://www.advogato.org/article/7.html:

"The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (effectively the final word
on patent law, since the Supreme Court rarely takes patent cases) has
ruled that anyone who is not a patent attorney is not qualified to
determine the scope of the claims in a patent, and that it would be
unreasonable for you to determine that a particular patent is not
applicable to what you are doing unless you first get a legal opinion
from a patent attorney. Because, as a matter of law, you couldn't really
have believed that you understood the patent (yes, our federal courts
can be quite condescending), you will likely be found liable for triple
damages if it turns out that you were wrong, and that you really are
infringing the patent.

Because of this, lawyers routinely advise their clients to avoid
reading patents in areas they are working in. The danger posed by the
willful infringement doctrine is seen as outweighing any benefit that
can be gained from reading patents."

(Someone else can go shoveling through caselaw.  :)

-- 
Glenn Maynard

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Gabucino wrote:
> > Or the lrmi.c issue which you point out below?

So after looking, I find that lrmi.c is under this license:

  Copyright (C) 1998 by Josh Vanderhoof

  You are free to distribute and modify this file, as long as you do
  not remove this copyright notice and clearly label modified versions
  as being modified.

  This software has NO WARRANTY.  Use it at your own risk.

Which seems (to me anyway) to be GPL compatible. No big deal there.
The only questionable issue is the lack of labeling of modified
versions, albiet the only modification made to lrmi.c is the addition
of this line (oddly enough):

 diff lrmi.c lrmi.c.orig 
 11d10
 < Original location: http://cvs.debian.org/lrmi/

So now I'm totally clueless as to why lrmi.c was even brought up,
besides the fact that someone hasn't done their licensing homework.

Anyway, I hope Andrea Mennucc and company have been able to make sense
of mplayer and can convince the ftpmasters that they have done so.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Tell me something interesting about yourself.
Lie if you have to.
 -- hugh macleod http://www.gapingvoid.com/archives/batch20.php

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: OSD && DFSG convergence

[Glenn Maynard]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:46:03PM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
> I'm on the mailing list.  Debian policy is to not CC the author.  If
> you guys can't follow Debian policy, how in the WORLD do you think
> anybody can follow the DFSG, much less your interpretation of it?  I
> am not encouraged by your behavior.  It's not something to engender
> confidence.

That's funny.  I asked you whether you wanted CCs on mails, since you
didn't appear to be replying to mails not CCd to you.  I asked thrice,
in fact, but you didn't give an answer.  The only mails from me you've
ever replied to are ones I've CCd, and every time I've skimmed through
mails you've responded to, they're all ones CCd, and those not CCd were
not replied to.

Although this could be coincidental, it is an extremely reasonable
conclusion from this that you don't read the list.

And now you're complaining about CCs, and trying to use it as a lever
for your argument?

It's not something to engender confidence.

(And trying to compare behavior wrt. list policy that most people don't
even know about vs. the DFSG, a constitutional document of guidelines, is
meaningless, and you know it.  Please stop.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Richard Braakman]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:53:00PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> "Because of this, lawyers routinely advise their clients to avoid
> reading patents in areas they are working in. The danger posed by the
> willful infringement doctrine is seen as outweighing any benefit that
> can be gained from reading patents."

Does it bother anyone else that this completely subverts the point
of having patents in the first place?

Richard Braakman

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

/alessandro wrote:
> The problem here is that no alternatives are suggested.

Yes, specificity is the recommended alternative.  The page
(http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty)
says:

  "To give clear information and encourage clear thinking, never speak or
  write about ``intellectual property''; instead, present the topic as
  copyright, patents, or whichever specific law you are discussing."

So if you are talking about copyright law, say "copyright law", if you are
talking about patent law say "patent law", and so on.

> We in Italy tendo to use "intellectual patrimony" (like heritage) or
> "intellectual paternity" (like parenthood), according to the context.

According to how I read the FSF's page, the problem is not avoided by using
another phrase to replace "intellectual property".

Any opinions you convey about copyright (for instance) probably are not true
for patents, and vice versa.  So it is nearly impossible to have a fruitful
discussion trying to talk all these disparate areas of law simultaneously.

Re: OSD && DFSG convergence

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:46:03PM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:

> Jason McCarty writes:
>  > Anyway, the only reason xsane is still dfsg-free is that the EULA _could_
>  > be removed. If the license prohibited removal, then it wouldn't be
>  > dfsg-free.

> You guys are funny.  You're like the temperance activist who, when
> confronted with old Uncle Harry the drunkard, says "Oh, that's just
> Uncle Harry.  You know how he is."

> If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when
> run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive
>  
> use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement
>   ---
> including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there
> is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and
> that users may redistribute the program under these conditions,
> and telling the user how to view a copy of this License.

> Why is it okay when the GPL prohibits removal of code that announces
> the licensing, and yet a license which prohibits removal of code that
> implements click-wrap is not okay?

Because the GPL, on the rare occasion that this particular clause takes
effect, still doesn't put any conditions on the user's use of the
software.

Because the GPL's clause about not removing functionality is much less
limited in scope than any of the others so far discussed: it does not
apply if you turn an interactive program into something else; you're
allowed to add options to disable the display of the notice; you don't
have to display the notice at all if the original author didn't include
one to begin with.

This clause of the GPL is still something of a wart.  Perhaps a future
revision of the DFSG would clarify that GPL software is only free if it
*doesn't* take advantage of this clause.

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer


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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Glenn Maynard]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 11:40:32PM +0200, Richard Braakman wrote:
> > "Because of this, lawyers routinely advise their clients to avoid
> > reading patents in areas they are working in. The danger posed by the
> > willful infringement doctrine is seen as outweighing any benefit that
> > can be gained from reading patents."
> 
> Does it bother anyone else that this completely subverts the point
> of having patents in the first place?

Preaching to the choir on this one, I think.  :)

-- 
Glenn Maynard

Re: Help with the Bloom Public License (fwd)

[Drew Scott Daniels]

Sounds good to me. It should address the points brought up. I'm going to
ask about the removal of the section that allows him to revoke any part of
the license.

 Drew Daniels

-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:50:29 -0800
From: Charles Bloom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Drew Scott Daniels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Help with the Bloom Public License (fwd)


How about if I add this term at the top :

0. The software may be used or distributed according to the terms of
 the GPL (GNU Public License) at the distributor's option.
 If you do not wish to adhere to the terms of the GPL, you
 may still use my code, but the following points apply.  If
 you do adhere to the terms of the GPL, you may ignore all
 further points in this license.

--- correspondence cut here ---

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Terry Hancock]

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 09:58 am, Henning Makholm wrote:
> > * Because copyrights are not inherent, are not natural rights, are not
> >   granted by God, but in fact merely incentive programs instituted by
> >   governments, one does not "violate" the rights of anyone when one
> >   disregards or acts contrary to a person's copyright.
> 
> You seem to be happy enough with speaking about "infringing"
> copyrights. Is there some kind of deep difference between "infringe"
> and "violate"?

Well, as a native speaker of English, I would say, "yes", there is a *huge* 
difference in the connatative value between "violate" and "infringe". It may 
even be the difference you are looking for. "Infringe", does not, IMHO, imply 
any moral weight to the act.  If you build your fence two meters onto my land 
(by intent or accident), you are "infringing" my territory, but if you knock 
my fence over and come onto my land without permission, you are "violating" 
it.  In the former case, we discuss it quietly in civil court, in the latter, 
I go for my shotgun.  ;-D

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com

"Some things are too important to be taken seriously"

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Alessandro Rubini]

> According to how I read the FSF's page, the problem is not avoided by using
> another phrase to replace "intellectual property".

You are right. But I think I am too :)
 
> Any opinions you convey about copyright (for instance) probably are not true
> for patents, and vice versa.

Definitely. I am (well, "we are", the same "we" as in my other post)
careful about the difference.  But there are times where you need to
convey the more general idea of abstract assets, and "copyright" or
"droit d'auteur" doesn't convey that meaning [I never speak positively
about patents, I don't bless them as "intellectual" as in my country
the official name is "_industrial_ patent"].

But it's difficult to avoid a bad term without offering a better
alternative, that's why we looked for one. So I say the copyright
system is concerned about intellectual heritage, not property.

/alessandro

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Brian Nelson]

Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> * Because copyrights are not inherent, are not natural rights, are not
>   granted by God, but in fact merely incentive programs instituted by
>   governments, one does not "violate" the rights of anyone when one
>   disregards or acts contrary to a person's copyright.  When someone's
>   "rights" are "violated" we can and often do think of horrific things
>   like the torture of Abner Louima[1], or the mass execution of
>   Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot[2].  Putting Mickey
>   Mouse in your movie or trading Smashing Pumpkins songs with your
>   friends, or even the whole world, isn't even close to the same thing.
>   So, let us not speak of "violating someone's copyright", since this
>   confuses the language of natural rights with the legal fiction
>   called copyright.

Considering the Smashing Pumpkins made their final album freely
distributable, they are a poor example.  Use Metallica or some other
litigious band instead.

-- 
My secret to happiness... is that I have a heart of a 12-year-old boy.
It's over here in a jar.  Would you like to see it?


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Re: Help with the Bloom Public License (fwd)

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

Charles Bloom (via Drew Scott Daniels) wrote:
> How about if I add this term at the top :
> 
> 0. The software may be used or distributed according to the terms of
>  the GPL (GNU Public License) at the distributor's option.
>  If you do not wish to adhere to the terms of the GPL, you
>  may still use my code, but the following points apply.  If
>  you do adhere to the terms of the GPL, you may ignore all
>  further points in this license.

"GPL" doesn't stand for "GNU Public License" GPL stands for "General Public
License".  The GNU GPL FAQ suggests making it clear one is talking about the
GNU GPL before using the shorter term "GPL".  See
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesGPLStandFor in the GNU GPL
FAQ.

Also, one's copyright license may not set conditions on merely executing a
program.  The GNU GPL doesn't attempt to do this so Bloom's statement above
could be confusing.

What would be the problem with using an unmodified GNU GPL instead of this
Bloom Public License?  Looking at http://www.cbloom.com/bpl.txt I think
Bloom would be better off using a license written by people who understand
copyright law.

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Terry Hancock]

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 01:40 pm, Richard Braakman wrote:
> Does it bother anyone else that this completely subverts the point
> of having patents in the first place?

Heh. The patent system has outlived its usefulness, yes. I believe that it 
actually was still useful sometime around 1900 or possibly even as late as 
1950 or so.  But since then, it has gradually declined to the point of 
undermining its precise reason for being -- to promote technological 
progress. I don't even distinguish between software and hardware -- I think 
they're both pointless obstructions.

In the present era, I believe anyone who could actually afford to use the 
patent system to protect their inventions doesn't need patents to do so, and 
those who might conceiveably benefit can't afford to use it.  Furthermore, it 
promotes a general fear of litigation -- punishment for independent 
innovation.  It may serve to prop up existing institutions, but it does not 
serve the society, IMHO.

But then, I also believe I will have a very hard time convincing enough 
people of this to get the USPO abolished.  So we're just doing brinksmanship 
here, AFAICT.

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com

"Some things are too important to be taken seriously"

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Jakob Bohm]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 11:45:23PM +1100, Paul Hampson wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 11:16:24PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> ...
> 
> > If one is unconvinced that copyrights are fundamentally different from
> > natural rights, one may wish to perform a thought experiment.  Do you
> > believe that the ancient Greeks and medieval Europeans had a right to
> > life and free exercise of religion?  Was it possible for a Greek to be
> > murdered, or a medieval man or woman wrongly persecuted by the
> > Inquisition for his or her heretical religious beliefs?  Now, then, do
> > you think Euclid held a copyright in the _Elements_?  Did the apostles
> Bad example. The elements are not an expression of an idea. They are the
> matter themselves... Of course, the US Patent Office would probably have
> granted him a patent on them...
> 

OT:  A small note for those not trained in the history of
Mathematics: Euclids "The Elements" is a famous book in which he
introduces the then novel concepts of using purely logical
mathematical proofs to create a complete set of mathematical
theorems from a small set of axioms (Euclids 5 axioms).  This
was all done for the field of Geometry in a flat plane, and for
almost two millennia all mathematical proofs were referred to
using words such as "geometric".  A problem he never solved was
how to "square the circle", that is to prove the formula for the
area of a circle and the value of pi entirely within the toolset
defined by "The Elements" (actually, it was proven impossible to
implement about 2000 years later...).

If he wrote it today, he would have no problem getting
copyright, patent (ignoring the "no scientific methods" clause),
trademark and all sorts of other protections from most
governments.  Its a good hypothetical test case for the
universal applicability of so called "IP" theories.

> > of Jesus hold a copyright in the gospels?  If so, when did these
> The Evangelists? Of course. If I write a book, isn't it mine to control
> who reads it?
> 
> > copyrights expire, or have they?  If they haven't, who controls them
> Of course they should. Once the author (or authors) are dead, then time
> should run out. Copyright isn't an asset to be bought and sold, it's a
> right.
> 
> > now, and by what right?  Should the Roman Catholic Church have sued
> > Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the other Protestant leaders for
> > copyright infringement?  Do these questions sound ridiculous to you?  If
> > so, then you shouldn't speak in terms of "illegal" copyright
> > "violations".
> 

Actually, there is a famous piece of case law here (in Denmark):

In the mid 1970-es, hippie filmmaker, artist and provocateur
Jens J. Thorsen announced his intention to make a movie about
the Sex Life of Jesus Christ (nothing less).  He initially got a
grant from the Danish National Film Institute to finance it, but
after a lot of public outcry from the Roman Catholic Church and
other Christian groups around the world, they withdrew the grant
and used as a legal excuse, that the movie would violate the
never expiring "moral rights" part of the copyright with respect
to the copyright interests of the 4 Evangelists.  JJT sued for
broken promises, etc.  The legal battles went on for many years,
until finally at some time during the 1990-es he won back the
grant to make the movie (don't remember the particulars of the
decision).  But by then he was a lot older, times had changed
and the movie he ended up making was an unimportant flop.

Friendly

Jakob

-- 
This message is hastily written, please ignore any unpleasant wordings,
do not consider it a binding commitment, even if its phrasing may
indicate so. Its contents may be deliberately or accidentally untrue.
Trademarks and other things belong to their owners, if any.

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Philip Charles]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 08:47:21PM +1300, Philip Charles wrote:
> > On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Branden Robinson wrote:
> >
> > > [Followup to -legal.]
> > >
> > > Okay, I'm going to a pull an RMS and plead for a change in our
> > > collective use of certain terms.
> > >
> > > * Under U.S. law and the laws of most countries I'm familiar with,
> > >   copyright IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT.  It is a government-granted limited
> >
> > *
> >
> > Phil runs to his dictionary of ethics.  A summary of the theories of
> > "Rights"
> > 1.  Rights are "natural" or "God given".  The US position?
> > 2.  A contract between the state and individual where the individual has
> > Rights that cannot be contracted away (inalienable).
> > 3.  Prima facie.  Well, it is obvious what is a Right and what is not.
> > 4.  Utilitarian.  Rights promote the general welfare of individuals.
> > 5.  Totalitarian.  The state decides what is a Right and what is not.
> >
***
> Brandon's arguments are based on the reasoning of the Founding Fathers
> when they first put together US.  Copyright was given by the government
> to the artist to encourage creations so that the commonwealth would
> benefit as the work became available without restrictions after a
> LIMITED time.  The deal was "to promote growth of science, etc... which
> benefit us all we'll give you (copy)rights for a limited time" after
> which work became public domain.

>From the utilitarian viewpoint, I quite agree, and it seems from the above
that in the USA copyright was granted for utilitarian reasons and can be
changed when circumstances change.

> In that sense, trying to understand "copyright" as a right is
> misleading.  It's more of a social contract (2).  I don't understand
> the "inalienable" part in the contract; contracts can be changed, eg
> the interpretation of the word "limited".

The social contract theories are generally based on the idea that the
citizens grant powers to the state, but that certain areas have been
excluded from this grant.  These exclusions are the citizens Rights.  The
state has not been given the legal power to interfere with these Rights,
so they are inalienable.  This is based on a bottom up theory of the
creation of a state.

As a New Zealander I live in a country that does not have a written
constitution.  As a result there is a strong tendency for lawmaking to be
based on utilitarian principles with the corresponding attitude that
Rights have a utilitarian basis.  Mind you, if a great power starts to
lean on us to enact a certain copyright law which normally we would
reject, then utilitarianism would probably say it is in the interests of
NZ citizens to enact it to keep on good terms with that power.

In short, I find the political/legal system of the US confusing.  Good
luck with the US battle.  I can only cheer from the sidelines.

Phil.

--
  Philip Charles; 39a Paterson Street, Abbotsford, Dunedin, New Zealand
   +64 3 488 2818Fax +64 3 488 2875Mobile 025 267 9420
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] - preferred.  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 I sell GNU/Linux & GNU/Hurd CDs.   See http://www.copyleft.co.nz

Re: another mplayer .deb of 0.90rc3 release

[Junichi Uekawa]

>  please read debian/README.Debian.2 in the source;
>  do you think that  it is/isn't fit to go into Debian?

This sounds rather silly. I've read over README.Debian.2 and I think 
all of what is said in there should go into debian/copyright.


regards,
junichi

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Jeff Licquia]

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 09:43, Seth Woolley wrote:
> All I see from you people is "he's a bad, bad boy" and nothing
> substantive.  You also whine as much as he does.
> 
> You guys blew the libmpeg2 "issue" way out of proportion, considering the
> libmpeg2 author was in on the whole thing.

I haven't seen a statement from the libmpeg2 author in this whole thread
concerning his "in-ness" on "the whole thing".

Do you believe everything someone says on the Internet?  No?  Then why
should we?  Why is it so offensive that we ask for proof?

> Here's what you can do:
> 
> "I know others mischaracterized the situation, but here's a real issue..."
> 
> So far, nobody's done this.

Then you should rest easy, as it's very likely that such high-quality,
free, uncontroversial software will be a shoo-in for inclusion.  Indeed,
it would seem that someone is already hard at work to make this a
reality.  If the legal situation with mplayer is as you say, then
"apt-get install mplayer" should be a reality in a jiffy.

That is your goal, right?  Or are you (and others) just interested in
slamming people when you say things like that?
-- 
Jeff Licquia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Nick Phillips]

On Thursday, January 30, 2003, at 09:53  am, Glenn Maynard wrote:


From http://www.advogato.org/article/7.html:

"The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (effectively the final 
word

on patent law, since the Supreme Court rarely takes patent cases) has
ruled that anyone who is not a patent attorney is not qualified to
determine the scope of the claims in a patent, and that it would be
unreasonable for you to determine that a particular patent is not
applicable to what you are doing unless you first get a legal opinion
from a patent attorney. Because, as a matter of law, you couldn't 
really

have believed that you understood the patent (yes, our federal courts
can be quite condescending), you will likely be found liable for triple
damages if it turns out that you were wrong, and that you really are
infringing the patent.

Because of this, lawyers routinely advise their clients to avoid
reading patents in areas they are working in. The danger posed by the
willful infringement doctrine is seen as outweighing any benefit that
can be gained from reading patents."

(Someone else can go shoveling through caselaw.  :)



It seems that what you are saying, then, is that we should completely 
ignore any patent
issues until and unless we are prompted to do so by holders claiming 
that we are infringing.


In fact, anyone who actually *researches* such things (or worse still, 
comments on explicit issues on debian-legal) is exposing us/SPI/someone 
to extra liability...


...or can we argue that we paid no attention whatsoever to an 
unqualified opinion voiced on debian-legal, and so were no better 
informed as to the potential infringement?



Hmm... taken to the extreme, anyone who has ever read *any* patent 
would not be qualified to know that it did not apply to their work, and 
so would be wilfully infringing.


Let's face it, the whole system is a bad joke and should be ignored to 
as great an extent as possible.

Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Seth Woolley]

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On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Jeff Licquia wrote:

> On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 09:43, Seth Woolley wrote:
> > All I see from you people is "he's a bad, bad boy" and nothing
> > substantive.  You also whine as much as he does.
> >
> > You guys blew the libmpeg2 "issue" way out of proportion, considering the
> > libmpeg2 author was in on the whole thing.

s/You guys/a guy/  my mistake.

>
> I haven't seen a statement from the libmpeg2 author in this whole thread
> concerning his "in-ness" on "the whole thing".
>

There was a reply from the MPlayer author who wrote the libmpeg2 part.  If
you want something other than that, you can ask the libmpeg2 author
yourself.  It is on -devel.

> Do you believe everything someone says on the Internet?  No?  Then why
> should we?  Why is it so offensive that we ask for proof?

The only way you're getting proof besides a statement from them is to
directly contact the libmpeg2 author.  I think it's on track to be being
included, so I don't really feel like adding much more to the
discussion at this point.

>
> > Here's what you can do:
> >
> > "I know others mischaracterized the situation, but here's a real issue..."
> >
> > So far, nobody's done this.
>
> Then you should rest easy, as it's very likely that such high-quality,
> free, uncontroversial software will be a shoo-in for inclusion.

I agree.  I'm resting easy.

> Indeed,
> it would seem that someone is already hard at work to make this a
> reality.  If the legal situation with mplayer is as you say, then
> "apt-get install mplayer" should be a reality in a jiffy.
>
> That is your goal, right?  Or are you (and others) just interested in
> slamming people when you say things like that?

Is pointing out that there hasn't been a real issue demonstrated slamming
people?  Then I apologize.

I don't want to slam people.  I just couldn't find anywhere in all the
responses why the MPlayer devs were being treated exclusively the way they
were.  The only successful point on-issue (there are a lot off-issue) was
when the MPlayer devs pointed out the Xine unfair treatment.  I don't care
if the MPlayer devs are pissy at you.  Perhaps I also unfairly grouped
- -legal into a group when I shouldn't have.

My want to have MPlayer included in THE major distro was emotional, and I
cast the net a bit too wide.

Apparently I made the same grouping mistake here too:

http://www.alterslash.org/#MPlayer_Licence_Trouble_With_A_Twist

As I think this will be resolved soon anyways, I'll try to avoid posting
on-list anymore.

Regards,

Seth

- --
Seth Alan Woolley , SPAM/UCE is unauthorized
Key id 7BEACC7D = 2978 0BD1 BA48 B671 C1EB 93F7 EDF4 3CDF 7BEA CC7D
Full Key at seth.tautology.org, see www.gnupg.org www.keyserver.net
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Re: another mplayer .deb of 0.90rc3 release

[Don Armstrong]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Andrea Mennucc wrote:
> So if people on debian-legal thinks that it is important, I will add
> a diff of libmpeg2. 

Just so I'm not misunderstood, my point wasn't about a diff. [That's
definetly not required at all. The use of diff was just to demonstrate
that it had been modified.] Sorry if that wasn't clear.

All that needs to be done for this issue is add a

This file originated from mpeg2dec [url].
It was modified by foo for use in mplayer on date.
Changes to this file include:
* foo
* baz
A changelog is available at cvs.foo.bar.

to each of the files from mpeg2dec [and probably from other GPL'ed
libraries.]

Obviously, if -legal feels that's superfluous, so be it.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien
a ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien a retrancher.
(Perfection is apparently not achieved when nothing more can be added,
but when nothing else can be removed.)
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupe'ry, Terres des Hommes

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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Re: Bug#176267: ITP: mplayer -- Mplayer is a full-featured audioand video player for UN*X like systems

[Glenn Maynard]

On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 02:42:23PM +1300, Nick Phillips wrote:
> It seems that what you are saying, then, is that we should completely 
> ignore any patent
> issues until and unless we are prompted to do so by holders claiming 
> that we are infringing.

I'm just quoting from an article I read, which was written by someone
who knows a lot more about patent law than I do.  I believe your
interpretation matches the general Debian position on patents.

(I do agree that the patent system is a bad joke, but it's a joke at our
expense ...)

-- 
Glenn Maynard

Re: [Discussioni] OSD && DFSG convergence

[Jeff Licquia]

On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 00:49, Russell Nelson wrote:
> Mark Rafn writes:
>  > I _DO_ object to changing it's use to be a binding definition
>  > rather than a set of guidelines.
> 
> This seems to be a sticking point with a lot of people.

Perhaps that sticking point comes from the Social Contract:

http://www.debian.org/social_contract
-
1.  Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software

We promise to keep the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution entirely free
software. As there are many definitions of free software, we include the
guidelines we use to determine if software is "free" below. We will
support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian, but
we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free software.
-

We consider the force of the DFSG to arise from this clause of the
Social Contract; indeed, we don't even distribute the DFSG except as an
appendix to the SC.  If you will, the SC is the document that binds us
to the DFSG.  And, as you can see, the SC describes the DFSG as
"guidelines we use to determine if software is 'free'".  Debian is still
responsible for making the determination.

By contrast, your site contains the following:

http://opensource.org/docs/certification_mark.php
-
8.  Once we are assured that the license conforms to the Open Source
Definition and has received thorough discussion on license-discuss or by
other reviewers, and there are no remaining issues that we judge
significant, we will notify you that the license has been approved, copy
it to our website, and add it to the list below.
-

By your own admission, your document is a "definition".  I don't think
it's a stretch to consider it an authoritative definition, as grants of
rights to your trademarks are conditioned exclusively to conformance in
licensing to the OSD.

It's probably true that a court could be asked to arbitrate conformance
to the DFSG or the OSD equally.  In your case, however, proving
compliance with the OSD in court would cause an automatic trademark
license grant, as well as reason for believing that your refusal to
grant such a license was capricious and actionable.  By contrast,
proving compliance with the DFSG only proves that Debian *may* include a
given piece of software, not that Debian *must*.

>   Essentially,
> everyone seems to be defending their right to arbitrarily exclude
> software from Debian.  But that is a right you don't have.  

I beg to differ.

We have already refused to distribute quite a bit of software as a part
of Debian, despite the fact that the applicable licenses are DFSG-free. 
The 'contrib' and 'experimental' archives are full of such software.

> If you
> think that you have arbitrarily excluded software, think back on why
> you have been successful in doing so.  Undoubtedly you pointed to the
> DFSG or to case law, or else you made a new precedent.  But when you
> make a new precedent, you have to say exactly why, and justify it.
> Well... what is wrong with amending the DFSG so it incorporates the
> case law?  Because it's hard?  Shit, coding is *hard* and we do it
> anyway.  Because you think people will reject the change?  But the
> change has already taken effect operationally.  It seems to me rather
> that the membership would *want* to change the DFSG, if only so as to
> keep the subset of Debian which is debian-legal in check.

There are certainly good reasons to amend the DFSG, and I agree with you
that we should work out our differences on the procedural matters.

I don't believe that "case law" should be eliminated in favor of some
kind of authoritative document, however, just as I don't believe it
necessary to amend the US Constitution for every change in the law,
either through case law or by act of Congress.  Amending the DFSG should
be a rare and noteworthy event, done only after careful consideration of
the implications and the alternatives.

If we amend the DFSG to contain the entirety of case law, wouldn't the
DFSG itself become arbitrary and contradictory, just as case law is
now?  It seems to me that the rigidity of the DFSG (which it would still
retain to a lesser extent than it does now) would then become a
drawback, rather than a strength, as it would take an act of Congress
(figuratively) to get anything done.
-- 
Jeff Licquia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Paul Hampson]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 08:16:29AM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote:
> Paul Hampson wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 11:16:24PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > [Followup to -legal.]
> > > 
> > > Okay, I'm going to a pull an RMS and plead for a change in our
> > > collective use of certain terms.
> > > 
> > > * Under U.S. law and the laws of most countries I'm familiar with,
> > >   copyright IS NOT A NATURAL RIGHT.

Copyright Act 1968 Section 31:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/s31.html
31 Nature of copyright in original works 
(1) For the purposes of this Act, unless the contrary intention appears,
copyright, in relation to a work, is the exclusive right...

So under Australian Law,  Copyright _is_ a right.

Title 17 of the United States Codes, Chapter 1, Section 106:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106
106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this
title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the
following...

In US law, Copyright merely grants rights... Is this significantly
different?

> > Is this comparable to "the right to bear arms"?
> 
> Legally speaking, I suppose so. The "right to bear arms" is guaranteed by
> the US Constitution (not that has much effect these days).

BTW, that 'Milita' rider on the clause seems to make it much more ambiguous
than I would otherwise expect.

Certainly in Australia, where Copyright exists, it automatically vests.
Again, similar to the 'right to bear arms', I would think.

> > Copyright is the right to make copies. That's the morphology of the
> > word... The logical leap comes in that it is an exclusive right.
> 
> Then ignore the word (which is misleading; it's just a word) and examine
> its definition and history in law.

Why? Are you saying it's always been a misnomer? Or that it's changed
significantly since whenever the word was introduced?

> > > Now, then, do you think Euclid held a copyright in the _Elements_?
> > Bad example. The elements are not an expression of an idea. They are the
> > matter themselves... Of course, the US Patent Office would probably have
> > granted him a patent on them...
> 
> Euclid's 'Elements' is no simply a catalog.

OK, I completely did not understand that 'Elements' was a published book, as
explained elsewhere. I was thinking in terms of chemistry. My knowledge of
history is only slightly exceeded by my knowledge of Esperanto. :-) I
seriously thought you meant that Euclid had a copyright in the idea of
"Hydrogen Helium Lithium Berillyium" having earlier that night been
trying to explain Nuclear Fusion from first principles, when I'm not
that sure of it myself.

Anyway, the point that the _ideas_ are not copyrighted still stands. I
am free to read 'Elements' and apply the concepts myself. I could even
write a book about the concepts. Mind you, that's somewhat
orthogonal(sp?) to this discussion.

> > > Did the apostles of Jesus hold a copyright in the gospels?
> > The Evangelists? Of course. If I write a book, isn't it mine to control
> > who reads it?

> No. If you believe that, then you have no grasp of copyright whatsoever.
> Copyright controls the making of copies, not the distribution of copies
> that were lawfully made.

Sorry, let me rephrase that so it makes sense, and is actually correct...

If I write a book, isn't it mine to control whether it is read? And I
certainly have the right to control who is making copies. Through this,
I can limit the making of copies to entities who will distribute them in
the manner I see fit, or any other clauses I choose to include in the
contract.

> > >  If so, when did these
> > > copyrights expire, or have they?  If they haven't, who controls them
> > Of course they should. Once the author (or authors) are dead, then time
> > should run out. Copyright isn't an asset to be bought and sold, it's a
> > right.
> 
> Now you're really showing how little you understand the subject. Copyright
> can indeed be bought and sold; in fact, this is how freelance writers make
> their living. When you sell an article to a publication, you are selling
> the copyright.

Copyright can be assigned, in exchange for money or not. That changes
who has the right. In _that_ respect, it can be bought and sold. I guess
I should have said it isn't a "perpetual asset, to be bought and sold
for all eternity". Besdies, I personally feel that the idea of assigning
copyright to someone else is a poor idea, anyway. It should be vested in
the right person in the first place, the person who expressed the idea.

Copyright is to protect the interests of the author. Once the author's
dead, what interests can he have?

You can sub-let parts of Copyright, ie to a publisher, through a license to
make copies. That doesn't mean the publisher can prevent you making
copies, unless you've licensed exclusive access to that right to the
publisher (which is presumabley the common case). And it doesn't
change