Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 11:37:56PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > This is a totally valid concern, and I'm glad it keeps coming up, but I don't > feel like it's enough to paralyze any attempt to modify the DFSG. I'm > definitely against haphazardly modifying foundational documents (and the > recent > GR showed many ways how such a thing should not be handled) but at least > attempting to do so might be warranted. Sure, I'm not trying to do that. I havn't seen any proposed amendments to pick apart, though, except for the special case for choice of venue. > One possibility for something like -legal-announce would be to post an initial > mail like "Someone has requested that foo license be reviewed for package bar. > This license also applies to packages bas, etc". This would let people > subscribe to a low volume list, and if anything they're interested in goes > under review, they could join the discussion. I could see posting these things > to -devel or -devel-announce, but this strikes me as rather ugly. It's fairly easy to say "we're debating the QPL; this may affect these packages ...", but it's very hard to do the same for a specific restriction, which is probably what you're really looking for. The best that could be hoped for is common language to grep for, which usually works to a degree, but it's not reliable ... -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.
On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 02:07:54PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > David Nusinow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > No, you don't have to find one. Just write a very, very simple one. > I don't think it can be done in a free way, but if you show me one, > then I'll believe you. I've thought about this for a while, and I think that perhaps the simplest way that it would work would be to distribute changes to your immediate upstream, rather than the original upstream. You would have to have some relationship with your immediate upstream in order to get the software to modify in the first place, so there should be no additional fee associated with distribution upstream in this case. > >> I do think Sven might disagree, and have reason to be just a little > >> testy that I've made spamming him a condition of distributing > >> modifications to my software. If Linux were licensed that way, Debian > >> would have to send one kernel source tree per download per kernel > >> copyright holder to poor Sven. That would be thousands of kernel > >> sources. Surely, enough to put debian.org and its mirrors into some > >> unhappy territory. > > Ok, I misunderstood your question. I assumed Sven would want the changes. > > This > > would classify as discrimination against Sven, and would fail the DFSG. > > Fortunately, this is not necessarily the case with forced upstream > > distribution > > clauses. > Why is this discrimination against him? I think that's fairly > contorted, in comparison to the simplicity of saying that a Free > license cannot compel me to initiate action, only to do some things in > particular ways, and this compels me to initiate communication with somebody. I didn't realize you were headed in the "must pet a cat" direction with this. Harassing Sven when he doesn't want it would be discrimination. I'd rather not justify this, since I think it's pretty self-evident. As for the "must pet a cat" side of the question, I agree. > I asked if a free license could, in your view, require that any time > you distribute modifications, you also send a copy to the original > author. That would require sending them on *every download*. If > you're a mass distribution site, that's a problem. Ok, now I see. I'd see this as failing DFSG 1 because it would effectively prevent Debian from distributing the software. Not even getting in to fees and whatnot, this would definitely be a real restriction. Even looking at this from a pragmatic, rather than ideological point of view, this holds. > >> >> Can I say you must do it by a non-digital mechanism? > >> > This question could be asked for forced downstream source distribution > >> > as well. > >> > Why not? > >> Because those are expensive. Real mail costs a lot more than e-mail. > > > > Ok then, since this would fail the fee test by my definition of the word > > fee. > > But fortunately I've never seen a forced upstream distribution clause with > > this > > requirement, which would make it non-free. > > OK; but requiring me to use my network connection is not a fee, not > even if I pay by the bit? Is there a bright line, here? Or just a > vague idea that some costs are large enough to be non-free, but very > small costs are not worth worrying about? There's definitely no bright line, but again, what if the license forced you to send your changes downstream in hard copy, rather than upstream? I'd say that this would fail DFSG 1 too. > >> >> Can I say you must sign your changes? > >> > As above, this could be applied to downstream distribution. Why not, > >> > given the > >> > DFSG? (The dictator test obviously would apply, but I don't know if I > >> > agree > >> > with it as a functional tool) > >> Because it compels me to reveal my identity to distribute changes, > >> which is a cost. > > > > I don't consider this a valid argument. You reveal your identity > > distributing > > changes downstream as well. > > No I don't. I can drop CDs in the street, or paint code on walls. Ok, let's invoke the pet the cat argument from earlier. You said above "in comparison to the simplicity of saying that a Free license cannot compel me to initiate action, only to do some things in particular ways". This forces you to distribute your changes in a particular way. The revelation of your identity is the way in which you must distribute your changes. It's a restriction on behavior, much like the GPL places other restrictions on distribution of changes. > > Furthermore, nowhere in the DFSG is privacy guaranteed (and I won't > > accept discrimination as a valid reason for this because the license > > is not written with the intent to discriminate against people who > > need to keep their identity secret). > > > >> >> Can I require a license from you? More free than otherwise compelled > >> >> by the copyleft? What about a non-free license, can I require that? > >> > No, because this obviously fails DFSG 7. > >> No it doesn't. My license passes on to them. It
Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 12:54:29AM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 02:07:54PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > > David Nusinow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > No, you don't have to find one. Just write a very, very simple one. > > I don't think it can be done in a free way, but if you show me one, > > then I'll believe you. > > I've thought about this for a while, and I think that perhaps the simplest way > that it would work would be to distribute changes to your immediate upstream, > rather than the original upstream. You would have to have some relationship > with your immediate upstream in order to get the software to modify in the > first place, so there should be no additional fee associated with distribution > upstream in this case. So if I bought a Debian CD off the shelf, I'd have to offer my changes to that store? I wouldn't want to have to spend time on hold to try to explain that to a CompUSA clerk. :) I may not even live near the store (purchased while on a trip), the person that burnt my CD may have moved, it might be ten years later and I don't even remember where I got it or how to contact the person, or any other factors may change. What about automated nightly snapshots of my CVS tree of modifications (or even anonymous CVS access, for that matter)? I'm distributing new changes every day. (I think this is another problem with "send changes on demand", too. If I use CVS, upstream might request any revision that was ever downloaded; the freedom to purge old revisions to free up disk space--more generally, to not have to archive source--is important to me, at least.) I'm not sure that "the person you got your source from" really qualifies as "upstream", anyway; I suspect most people who really want upstream distribution wouldn't be satisfied with it, since the point is usually to allow integrating the code. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: ocaml, QPL and the DFSG: New ocaml licence proposal.
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 02:05:28AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 05:39:06PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > > Sven Luther wrote: > > > Ok, after a first contact with upstream, there seems to be some informal > > > agreement to modify the ocaml licence to the following text : > > > > > > > > > http://svn.debian.org/viewcvs/pkg-ocaml-maint/packages/ocaml/copyright?view=markup&rev=502 > > > > > > Changes are : > > > > > > a) Modified clause 3a to allow for adding authors to and translation of > > > copyright notices. > > > > > > b) Removed clause 6c. > > > > > > c) Removed choise of venue mention in the Choice of Law. > > > > Thank you very much for working to get this issue resolved. > > And no thanks for being such a fucking moron about what was a very Assufield, as one of those who bashed (and this is probably too feeble a word) on irc together with Branden and its crowd, you have no leason to give here, unless it is preceded with excuses for your abysmall behavior back then. > simple problem to fix. There is absolutely no excuse for all the > bullshit; this should have taken five minutes, not weeks and hundreds > of mails. The job of a maintainer is to fix their package, not waste > everybodies time arguing that they shouldn't fix it. Bah, i still don't believe that these two clause are really non-free. They may be a bother and everything, but not non-free accordying to the DFSG. Now, if you feel like solving problems in 5 minutes, could you please have a look at the unicode.data problem, which Sylvain Legal asked about here over 6 month ago, and which didn't find an appropriate solution and has been in limbo since then, even though it seems many other packages carry it already in main. Sylvain, could you quickly recapitulate the issue, so Andrew can help solving it as he so nicely volunteered to do in 5 minutes ? Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 03:15:57PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 08:58:39PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > Regardless of whether choice of venue is a "fee", the only people I've > > > seen who appear to believe that choice of venue is free are you, Lex > > > Spoon and Sven Luther. > > > So, there is : 4 against 15, or rhougly 21 % of people who think that choice > > of venue could be a "fee". IS 80% enough to get consensus ? > > For the sake of my own understanding of people's opinions, was there a fourth? Sorry, now, the line break made me read Lex and Spoon as two separate people, which is obviously not the case, sorry LEx. > > Also, i belive of some you listed, some consider choice of venue non-free, > > but > > don't consider it as a fee, if i remember well. > > That's what I meant in my first paragraph--I'm among them. Exactly. > > Well, i think if the question would be if the choice of venue consitutes a > > fee, and thus violate DFSG 1, or is not a fee and thus either needs a new > > DFSG > > entry, or violate DFSG 5 by discriminating against licence violators far > > away > > from the chosen venue, then you would have a much less consensual situation > > still. > > > > BTW, mt upstream is ready to drop choice of venue from the QPLish licence, > > so > > i won't argue here, but i still believe that one has to be hallucinating to > > consider choice of venue a fee. The DFSG 5 problem i may admit, but choice > > of > > venue as fee, not. > > My opinion is that choice of venue is a restriction, and that "fees" are just > one example of restrictions which "may not restrict" in DFSG#1 disallows. DFSG #1 says : "may not restrict any party from selling or giving away". I really don't understand how this can be covered by a choice of venue clause, since there is no restriction whatsoever involved, apart that you may be in trouble once you willingly violate the licence. I don't really buy the tentacle of evil argument, and feel that focalizing on potentially evil upstreams is a disservice and an insult to every reasonable-minded upstream. > Another restriction I believe would be in this class is "you may only > distribute this program on Thursday". (I agree that calling either of these > a fee is a stretch.) Absolutely not the same thing, since what you describe is indeed a restriction, since it limits effectively what you can do with the software. But the choice of venue is only a potential disagrement for those being sued, even in the case it gets supported in court, and furthermore doesn't pose any restriction on sales or gifting the software in question. Now, if you want to discuss DFSG #5, sure, but since the case of ocaml is solved, i don't really have an interest all that much in it. And BTW, upstream modified that clause, not because they are a tentacle of evil, but because they "localized" the original QPL who had a choice of venue of Oslo or something such. Friendly, Sven Luther > > -- > Glenn Maynard > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance
MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Are we sure that follows DFSG yet? FSF have been a little patchy about > broad software patent termination clauses, IMO, which is probably > partly because software patents are unfair and no software should be > patented. The presence of a license termination clause merely allows the license to fall back to a state that we'd consider free in the first place (though I expect Brian to turn up in a moment to complain that losing your patent license means you can't distribute it under the same license any more...) -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On 2004-07-28 03:35:31 +0100 David Nusinow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 1) MJ Ray has suggested doing more work with people in the NM queue. [...] As should be obvious, I don't understand the NM black box. How would we do this? 2) Steve McIntyre has continually suggested codifying [...] I agree with others that this is dangerous and likely to weaken the guidelines in nearly all cases. 3) As I stated earlier, I liked the news post to DWN. Keep those up [...] DWN is too difficult/demoralising for me and I'm used to rejections from real news mags. "bad news" like the premature MPL draft summary are included quickly, while -legal successes like the LPPL aren't reported. It's all well and good inviting contributions, but I don't even know whether my contributions got there or whether I should resend. There's easier stuff to do than spend time shouting into a black hole. 4) Announce major changes to things to -devel-announce. [...] This is a better idea, if summarisers are willing. If a major license is declared as non-free, [...] Ewww ;-) If you don't like this and would rather rant and talk in circles [...] Please refrain from false alternatives. We can dislike your suggestions and still not prefer to rant. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing Please email about: BT alternative for line rental+DSL; Education on SMEs+EU FP6; office filing that works fast
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
* David Nusinow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [040728 00:58]: > On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 06:27:36PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > I find 80% to be pretty clear. I guess you're one of the people claiming > > that there's a silent majority secretly disagreeing with the vast majority > > of d-legal (who can't be bothered to state their opinion and its rationale), > > so there's no point in arguing this further. > > Way to ignore what I actually wrote. What I said was that most DD's aren't > aware of the issue, which is very different than silent disagreement. DD's > have universally agreed to uphold the DFSG, not some additional material > that's > grounded in one interpretation of the DFSG. As a result, I'd bet that many > would be surprised when a license is declared non-free because of something > that they did not agree to. And you think that less people would be suprised, if a licence is declared free, though a flaw was found in it that only under a interpretion of a minority would not be a problem. Things get their meaning through their interpretation. There are always people suprised about some meaning, up to a level of "This was meant litaral? I thought that was a joke." Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link -- Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
Re: ocaml, QPL and the DFSG: New ocaml licence proposal.
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 10:26:42AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > Assufield Is this intended to be a witty play on Andrew's name? I'd have hoped that grade school name-calling, at least, was above DD's ... -- Glenn Maynard
Re: ocaml, QPL and the DFSG: New ocaml licence proposal.
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 05:06:00AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 10:26:42AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > Assufield > > Is this intended to be a witty play on Andrew's name? I'd have hoped > that grade school name-calling, at least, was above DD's ... Its his irc nickname. Maybe one s too much, if so i apologize. Sorry, but i am no english speaker and i didn't notice the name-calling connotation. Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
David Nusinow writes: > >2) Steve McIntyre has continually suggested codifying the various things in the >DFSG. I fully agree with this. If you really truly believe that your >interpretations are shared by the rest of the project, then you have nothing to >fear from this, and you only stand to gain. But it seems that codifying the more common non-free clauses would remove some of the ambiguities in the DFSG, and then people on -legal would have less to hand-wave about. That seems to be a core objection... >3) As I stated earlier, I liked the news post to DWN. Keep those up for big >things like new tests and interesting new interpretations. > >4) Announce major changes to things to -devel-announce. If a major license is >declared as non-free, announce it to -devel or -devel-announce (maybe the >-devel first in order to allow dissenters to weigh in before going for the >broader -devel-announce). Good plan. >5) Possibly start -legal-announce for summaries and such > >Hopefully those are good starting points for you. My goal isn't to tear down or >break consensus, but to bring some sort of peace and compromise. If you don't >like this and would rather rant and talk in circles, then I'm not the man to be >posting to this list. If you like any of these ideas, let me know and I can try >to help implement them. Good luck; you'll need it. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.[EMAIL PROTECTED] "I can't ever sleep on planes ... call it irrational if you like, but I'm afraid I'll miss my stop" -- Vivek Dasmohapatra
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance
On 2004-07-28 09:25:36 +0100 Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: The presence of a license termination clause merely allows the license to fall back to a state that we'd consider free in the first place That's only true if the licence only terminates the patent licence for patent infringment, rather than attempts to use copyright to enforce patents, surely? Some have posted things about whether that is some sort of misuse anyway, but I've not fully understood it yet. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing Please email about: BT alternative for line rental+DSL; Education on SMEs+EU FP6; office filing that works fast
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 10:35:35AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > My opinion is that choice of venue is a restriction, and that "fees" are > > just > > one example of restrictions which "may not restrict" in DFSG#1 disallows. > > DFSG #1 says : "may not restrict any party from selling or giving away". > > I really don't understand how this can be covered by a choice of venue clause, > since there is no restriction whatsoever involved, In order to distribute, you must agree to be bound by a choice of venue. That's a restriction. That doesn't mean that it's *necessarily* a restriction that Debian needs to considers non-free, of course. but I think "you must agree to this, this and that before you can redistribute" is certainly a restriction. > apart that you may be in > trouble once you willingly violate the licence. I don't really buy the > tentacle of evil argument, and feel that focalizing on potentially evil > upstreams is a disservice and an insult to every reasonable-minded upstream. Well, we disagree here; I'll forego debating it, since that's been done already. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
David Nusinow writes: >On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 11:52:42PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: >> It can help, though. There are multiple discussions going on here: >> 1: "does DFSG#1 only prohibit fees, or other stuff, too? What's a >> fee? Where's my dictionary?"; and 2: "is choice of venue an onerous >> restriction?" I believe #2 is the important question, and that #1 is >> rules lawyering, a waste of time. We might be able to reduce #1 with >> modifications like these, making it clear that: no, this isn't a bright >> line test, and yes, judgement is required. > >Indeed. Perhaps a more organized body of "caselaw" as it were would help >provide better judgement. Wading through mounds and mounds of posts over the >years makes it difficult to provide evidence from prior experience for >judgement. The FAQ is good obviously, but maybe a sort of collection of final >summaries would be helpful? A problem is that there is no mandate or attempt to make final decisions on some of the more controversial license clauses like choice of venue. Until these can be demonstrably, unarguably tied to the DFSG (that all the DDs have agreed to stand by), the "caselaw" has very little use. The rambling threads in -legal that discuss some of these points often have very little weight, neither with the rest of the project nor with upstream developers. The fact that this very thread has seen a claim of conensus due to simple numbers when several of the listed participants are not DDs (to my knowledge) bothers me a great deal. >> I don't think these types of amendments are what David and Steve M have >> in mind, though; I think they're aiming to reduce #2, as well, and that's >> hard to do without either special cases, or new generalizations that may >> backfire. > >I feel like there has to be a way to do it properly without simply saying "no >choice of venue clauses are allowed." Why are they not allowed, and what other >sorts of clauses could this reasoning be applied to? I think the answers to >these questions are the key to the problem. Quite. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Mature Sporty Personal More Innovation More Adult A Man in Dandism Powered Midship Specialty
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Andrew Suffield writes: >On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 01:42:56PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: >> This sort >> of declaration of consensus despite a lack of clarity grounded in the DFSG is >> exactly what's caused so much ire within the rest of the project towards this >> list. > >No, firstly (a) that's just a vocal minority, and (b) it's just >FUD. The form is "I don't like your conclusion, and I haven't thought >about it, so I'm going to blame you". And simply labelling the people who disagree with you as "a vocal minority" is what, then? -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.[EMAIL PROTECTED] "I suspect most samba developers are already technically insane... Of course, since many of them are Australians, you can't tell." -- Linus Torvalds
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If it was, and the project as a whole really did agree that the things > being argued recently--choice of venue, license-termination-at-my-slightest- > whim, forced distribution to upstream on demand, forced archival of source > for years (GPL#3b without 3a), forced smiling on distribution[2]--are free, > I'd probably throw in the towel and give up trying to keep Debian free, > because > the project would have drifted so far from my concept of Freedom as to make > it a futile effort. The "but the entire project wasn't consulted!" argument > could be applied to all of those. With the exception of smiling (and possibly the license termination stuff), the FSF believes that these things are all free. Now, the FSF are hardly noted for being moderates when it comes to software freedom (as distinct from RMS's opinions on the necessary freedoms in documentation). If we are going to hold stronger opinions than the FSF, we need to think about how to justify these opinions to the community at large. There's a world outside Debian, and Debian looking like holier-than-Stallman fanatics doesn't further anyone. And, rightly or wrongly, that's how we're currently appearing. If we do want to hold these opinions, we need to show why they're important. Corner cases of badness aren't convincing in themselves - we need to show why protecting those corner cases is important. We're really not doing that at the moment. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance
MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > That's only true if the licence only terminates the patent licence for > patent infringment, rather than attempts to use copyright to enforce > patents, surely? Some have posted things about whether that is some > sort of misuse anyway, but I've not fully understood it yet. The context is the IBM Public License. It only terminates the patent license, not the copyright one. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 01:34:04PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: > It's these sorts of potential problems, IMO, which have stifled DFSG > amendments. Mostly it's just a lack of time. You would not believe how much work it takes to put something like this together. I'm kinda planning on seeing it happen around the end of the year, starting in autumn. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance
On 2004-07-28 11:40:58 +0100 Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: The context is the IBM Public License. It only terminates the patent license, not the copyright one. Someone should have fixed the subject line. Further, 2(b) of IBMPL was not quoted, so it was a link chase to find what was terminated. EOT. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 09:46:00PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 02:00:53AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 05:56:16PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > > > DD's > > > have universally agreed to uphold the DFSG, not some additional material > > > that's > > > grounded in one interpretation of the DFSG. As a result, I'd bet that > > > many > > > would be surprised when a license is declared non-free because of > > > something > > > that they did not agree to. > > > > This argument applies equally to every interpretation of the DFSG, and > > therefore reduces to "The DFSG cannot be applied to > > anything". Reduction ad absurdum, etc; it's wrong. > > Wow Andrew. I thought we'd gotten beyond the reductio ad absurdium phase of > our > relationship. I guess not. Date somebody else. > It's only if you choose to interpret it that way. Good grief, the exact same argument repeated? > For major interpretive decisions not clearly grounded in the DFSG, > particularly > for major licenses such as QPL Stop right there. This is one of the most *obscure* and *little used* licenses in the project, let alone free software in general. There are probably no more than a dozen interesting QPLed projects in existence, and the namesake Qt isn't even one of them, since we're forced to use the GPL for that. > > > I personally don't think that -legal does a good enough job of > > > communicating > > > with the rest of the project, and I know I'm not the only one. > > > > Right, there's at least two or three of you running around and trying > > to undermine the project. Cut it out. This idiotic attempt to create > > discord is not productive; it's somewhere between trolling and > > deliberate sabotage. > > "No, don't ask questions and express opinions! Heaven forbid! You're > shattering > my precious worldview!" Don't run around stirring up trouble where previously there was none. There's a major difference between asking questions and expressing opinions, and posting FUD for political goals. You did not ask questions, you stated assumed conclusions and proceeded to assign blame and use this to undermine the credibility of Debian. As this thread has aptly demonstrated, they were wrong, and if you had asked questions instead then people would have told you why. > > -legal is a fucking mailing list. It's nonsensical to say it "doesn't > > communicate with the rest of the project". Anybody can subscribe and > > follow the discussions, and there are public archives. Anybody who is > > interested should do so. This is not a cabal or a clique, the project > > is not divided into departments, and there is nothing secret about > > it. -legal exists because a fair number of people are not interested > > and wanted to get the discussions away from other mailing lists. These > > people are by definition not interested, and therefore it's stupid to > > complain that they weren't informed; they had the choice, and *they* > > chose not to. > > -legal is a relatively high traffic mailing list full of minutia and > long-winded, often difficult posts. It's a very hard list to follow for > anyone, > and this makes it prohibitive for many people to contribute. Yeah, and guess what? That's intrinsic to the problem. Nobody can usefully contribute without expending a fair amount of effort. We're tackling extremely complicated licenses and they require careful analysis in order to understand their implications. When some aspect of them is determined to be non-free, it is as a direct result of that analysis. Assuming that you can comprehend them just by reading the conclusions is idiotic. If you don't want to do the thinking required, then you don't get to complain about the results when other people do it. You might as well complain that Linux is too complicated to understand, and say that people should rewrite it in under 10k lines of code. It's pretty much the same, and impossible for all the same reasons. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 10:55:21AM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: > Andrew Suffield writes: > >On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 01:42:56PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > >> This sort > >> of declaration of consensus despite a lack of clarity grounded in the DFSG > >> is > >> exactly what's caused so much ire within the rest of the project towards > >> this > >> list. > > > >No, firstly (a) that's just a vocal minority, and (b) it's just > >FUD. The form is "I don't like your conclusion, and I haven't thought > >about it, so I'm going to blame you". > > And simply labelling the people who disagree with you as "a vocal > minority" is what, then? Something which is not happening here. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
When a product is a derived product?
While working on my little wiki on yardradius, I found something which could be of interest for this ML. Cistron Radiusd 1.6 is released under GPL, and pkg description says: This GPLed Radius server is not based on any Livingston code. It is compatible with the Livingston-2.01 server though. Over radius-2.01, it has support for Exec-Program on authentication, it is possible to limit the number of concurrent logins reliably, it has tagged attribute support, it can replicate accounting packets, and more. If you worked like me on radiusd stuff since a few years, you know that the Cistron product was a clear derivation of the original Livingston 1.16 in the old days. The old product is yet available here: ftp://ftp.portmasters.com/pub/le/radius/ You can find that some files have yet the same names and some functions too (along with their arguments and returns types). Of course, the original product has been largerly rewritten and improved, a lot of stuff and code added and so on. Anyway, part of the ancient code is there. The old radiusd was released under a 1992 edition of a BSD-like license: * Copyright 1992 Livingston Enterprises, Inc. * * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any * purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that this * copyright and permission notice appear on all copies and supporting * documentation, the name of Livingston Enterprises, Inc. not be used * in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the * program without specific prior permission, and notice be given * in supporting documentation that copying and distribution is by * permission of Livingston Enterprises, Inc. * * Livingston Enterprises, Inc. makes no representations about * the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is * provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. Now, the obvious question: is the re-licensing under GPL legitimate? My opinion is not, due to GPL-incompatibily of the old-BSD license. When a 'derived' product can be considered not (or no more) 'derived' (i.e. how much of its code should change) by another one? -- Francesco P. Lovergine
Re: When a product is a derived product?
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 05:05:04PM +0200, Francesco P. Lovergine wrote: > While working on my little wiki on yardradius, I found something which > could be of interest for this ML. Cistron Radiusd 1.6 is released under > GPL, and pkg description says: Damn it, I joined a thread instead of starting a new one, sorry... -- Francesco P. Lovergine
long time no see
Are you looking for a date in your area? local young and mature men and women looking for a good time Just Copy and Paste in your Broswer onkandy.com/chick.html uhlivctkuqvqzmhbqjdejdeeuevs czraeiyxpnpznkextawkxs tgjrpyvphrgsgdrebaiffzcizlsa lpruonqsbkwgbvbhdqtrosgjw krgwudcyejufeblfczcaucynjjp rabustdclvzabygkkpluwpswthp ikmfhbbrdbtwtkbtngtetlfyxme dzhsoukkttvkdqvregcdjbfq zsrddjxbtyaznpzsrebbhl lxybodyddbtaceacyxouu umbujxhqowpeqnjkhxsrupmlckaxj sbajnksiusdchduwdkhdiuher ztjidhmidctkvtieiypwhscxed fyonakmlfcqwtsrojaamniua ufhkqpceerlabrbxzqqrphshqu rukbgkjngqmggeztqlrnfgqvyqrhe ozigoczfktgctouqvrcqhmageoo tcxcaheycnhrmvspaquyjjdhcpd nivoggyetficptwxxlyxrbjqhwts hxrsgmnmjfhthnmxtffevekc huiuygfiuyejwiiqtersr vbylkoxlvafvtxjbmqltcx abnuvdgkfckyqhnlmnrxwbfvitgii 2
W3 software license
I'm interested in adding cwm to Debian: http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/doc/cwm.html It's available under the W3 software license, appended to this message and also available at this URL: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/copyright-software-20021231 The license looks OK to me, with the possible exception that it says "obtaining, using and/or copying this work" implies acceptance of the license. Any opinions? ~ESP ---8<--- W3C® SOFTWARE NOTICE AND LICENSE http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/copyright-software-20021231 This work (and included software, documentation such as READMEs, or other related items) is being provided by the copyright holders under the following license. By obtaining, using and/or copying this work, you (the licensee) agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with the following terms and conditions. Permission to copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation, with or without modification, for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you include the following on ALL copies of the software and documentation or portions thereof, including modifications: 1. The full text of this NOTICE in a location viewable to users of the redistributed or derivative work. 2. Any pre-existing intellectual property disclaimers, notices, or terms and conditions. If none exist, the W3C Software Short Notice should be included (hypertext is preferred, text is permitted) within the body of any redistributed or derivative code. 3. Notice of any changes or modifications to the files, including the date changes were made. (We recommend you provide URIs to the location from which the code is derived.) THIS SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS," AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS. COPYRIGHT HOLDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION. The name and trademarks of copyright holders may NOT be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to the software without specific, written prior permission. Title to copyright in this software and any associated documentation will at all times remain with copyright holders. ---8<--- The mentioned 'W3C Software Short Notice' is: ---8<--- $name_of_software: $distribution_URI Copyright © [$date-of-software] World Wide Web Consortium, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, Keio University). All Rights Reserved. This work is distributed under the W3C® Software License [1] in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. [1] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/copyright-software-20021231 ---8<--- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [htdig-dev] Licensing issues...
On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 09:06:29PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 03:11:52PM -0600, Neal Richter wrote: > > > 2) Can I reasonably argue that htdig is gpl (or lgpl) if its linked > > > against a 3 or a 4 cloause BSD license? - htdig .3.1.6 builds static > > > libraries (.a) it links against. > > > > Sure you can! > > > > Note that although the Free Software Foundation may say that a 4-clause > > BSD license is incompatible with the GPL (and they do). that opinion > > only > > applies to code that the FSF holds the copyright for. > > Not quite. I believe that opinion derives directly from the text of the > license. The GPL prohibits adding further restrictions (GPL#6), and the > 4-clause BSD license does so. Unless a copyright holder specifically says > that he considers the 4-clause BSD license consistent with the GPL, it's > not safe for Debian to assume otherwise. > > That is, the "default" interpretation, lacking a statement from (all of) > the copyright holders of a work, should be the one that follows from the > license text, and that's the FSF's interpretation, at least in this case. As a point of note, RMS has said that this interpretation is considered to be a bug in the GPL, and that the FSF has no current intention of pursuing violations of this, because it wasn't intended (they still, of course, recommend going to a 3 or even 2 clause variant of the license). I believe I still have the email somewhere in my archives if necessary, but to date it hasn't been terribly relevant. -- Joel Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,''`. Debian GNU/kNetBSD(i386) porter : :' : `. `' http://nienna.lightbearer.com/ `- pgpwSNXDR9Cdv.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: ocaml, QPL and the DFSG: New ocaml licence proposal.
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 10:26:42AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 02:05:28AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 05:39:06PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > > > Sven Luther wrote: > > Bah, i still don't believe that these two clause are really non-free. They may > be a bother and everything, but not non-free accordying to the DFSG. > > Now, if you feel like solving problems in 5 minutes, could you please have a > look at the unicode.data problem, which Sylvain Legal asked about here over 6 > month ago, and which didn't find an appropriate solution and has been in limbo > since then, even though it seems many other packages carry it already in main. > > Sylvain, could you quickly recapitulate the issue, so Andrew can help solving > it as he so nicely volunteered to do in 5 minutes ? > Hello, Well, this problem has nothing to do with ocaml... But i can set this problem once again : - i have library which contains UnicodeData.txt - copyright of upstream and package contains references to UCD ( you can find this licence here : http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html ) - the files UnicodeData.txt is only shipped in the source ( there is a program to transform into ocaml readable file ) - after having read -legal archive, and submitted my problem http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/01/msg00022.html, i am still waiting for a solution To sum up, you told every one to wait for a release of a new miscfiles containing up to date UnicodeData.txt. The latest release date from October 2002. I contact maintainer/upstream author who told me he was no more in charge of this package... Now, i am waiting for a solution... Since, i begin to really need the package i am working on, it would be really nice to be able to upload the package in his native form ( ie without doing nasty replacement with files from other package ). Is the current licence of this data, should be enough DFSG free to allow a distribution in main ? Kind regard Sylvain Le Gall ps : my question is a trap : python, perl et al already shipped the file ( i don't know for whom is it a trap : perl maintainer or -legal... good luck perl maintainer )
100% Gua-rantee 0r M0ney Back! vW
Debian-laptop-request Volumizer Doubles, Triples, Quadruples and MORE! ... not just volume of ejaculate, but intensity and power of 0rgasms. " IT WILL ABSOLUTELY BLOW YOUR MIND" Enjoy a bigger, more impressive load of cum ejaculation. Experience orgasms that go on and on..and on! Best sexual experiences of a lifetime are here n0w! http://sizeit1.com/vol/?a=07 re m0ve: http://sizeit1.com/rvm/ Q[20-60
