Re: Moglen's "all good faith"

[Alexander Terekhov]

One more nail in EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL coffin...

On 1/30/06, Alexander Terekhov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 1/29/06, Marco d'Itri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > >Development of proprietary kernel modules is tolerated, see
> > >EXPORT_SYMBOL vs. EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.  AFAICS, this special exception
> > >to the GPL has never been formalized, but at least overe here the mere
> > While proprietary kernel modules are tolerated, there is no special
> > exception to the GPL, EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is just a technological measure
> > used to make GPL violations more evident and subject to the DMCA.
>
> What violations? And what does DMCA has to do with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
> and "tainting" idiocy which has the only purpose to impede
> interoperability with non-GPL'd code?
>
> Anyone can patch the kernel to get rid of that silliness completely or
> reexport what's required in a non-GPL<->GPL support module.
>
> That's not to mention straight "GPL\0sucks" workaround.
>
> The GNUtians among kernel developers simply never heard of Sega v
> Accolade. "Genesis III searches the game program for four bytes of
> data consisting of the letters "S-E-G-A" (the "TMSS initialization
> code")..."

And more recent Lexmark v. Static Control.

"In view of our conclusion regarding the Printer Engine Program, we
can dispose quickly of
Lexmark's DMCA claim regarding the Toner Loading Program."

regards,
alexander.

Re: Moglen's "all good faith"

[Alexander Terekhov]

On 1/29/06, Marco d'Itri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> >Development of proprietary kernel modules is tolerated, see
> >EXPORT_SYMBOL vs. EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.  AFAICS, this special exception
> >to the GPL has never been formalized, but at least overe here the mere
> While proprietary kernel modules are tolerated, there is no special
> exception to the GPL, EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is just a technological measure
> used to make GPL violations more evident and subject to the DMCA.

What violations? And what does DMCA has to do with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
and "tainting" idiocy which has the only purpose to impede
interoperability with non-GPL'd code?

Anyone can patch the kernel to get rid of that silliness completely or
reexport what's required in a non-GPL<->GPL support module.

That's not to mention straight "GPL\0sucks" workaround.

The GNUtians among kernel developers simply never heard of Sega v
Accolade. "Genesis III searches the game program for four bytes of
data consisting of the letters "S-E-G-A" (the "TMSS initialization
code")..."

regards,
alexander.

Re: Adobe open source license -- is this licence free?

[Walter Landry]

Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 01:18:55AM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> > > To be more specific, we generally consider choice-of-venue non-free when 
> it 
> > > applies to suits brought by the copyright holder (/licensor) against 
> > > other 
> > > people.
> > > 
> > > It's free when it only applies to suits brought by other people against 
> the 
> > > copyright holder (/licensor).
> 
> Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > I think I agree, but I don't know of a license brought here that actually
> > does this--I don't think it's been discussed.  Know of any examples, so we
> > can wave it around for a while and maybe conclude this for certain?  Being
> > able to give an alternative to a general choice of venue clause that is
> > uncontroversially free might go a long way towards fixing the problem.
> 
> Scottish Creative Commons license, attribution or
> attribution-sharealike.  (Drafted with our assistance.  And I
> believe 100% free.  And in fairly "plain English".  I love this
> license.)
> Here's the "attribution" version:
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/scotland/legalcode
> 
> 6.5 This Licence is governed by the law of Scotland and the parties
> accept the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of Scotland to
> decide any action or claim directed against the Licensor.

Doesn't this cause problems when the code is forked?  If someone in
France forks the code, then they have to travel to Scotland to defend
themselves against any frivolous lawsuits.  That allows the original
licensors a bit more control over the code than might be desired.

I am not sure that allowing choice of venue clauses to be overridded
is ever a good idea.  The law has a number of (imperfect) safety
hatches to prevent forum selection abuse.

Cheers,
Walter Landry
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: OFL license analysis

[Glenn Maynard]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2006 at 04:04:44PM -0800, Mark Rafn wrote:
> It seems a clear test: if I can't distribute a changed version that 
> can be dropped into a system without changing other software,
> it ain't free.

I'd take this just a little further, in that the user shouldn't have to
change his behavior, either.  Filenames are part of the "interface to
the user", when they're binaries in the path (or symlinks to them,
eg. alternatives).

I seem to recall some renaming clauses that said "don't name the binary
'foo'", which went too far.  (It's always a danger sign when licenses
start talking at so technical a level as to mention things like
"filenames" at all.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard


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Re: OFL license analysis

[Mark Rafn]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Debian decides to distribute works containing your font. The
original upstream disappears. A bug is discovered in the font, and
Debian needs to fix it.



On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Marco d'Itri wrote:

Yes, and this is considered a feature. Usually existing documents
should not break because a font is changed, even if this fixes a
bug.


On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Don Armstrong wrote:

The same argument applies equally well to programs. We should be
intelligent enough in our fixing of bugs in fonts not to break
existing documents, just like we should be intelligent enough in our
fixing of bugs in programs not to break existing scripts.


This discussion seems to have gone into the weeds about WHY someone 
would want to make a change and whether Debian is able to make such 
changes reasonably.


It doesn't matter to the free-ness of a package licensed this way whether 
Debian can or will be a good citizen.  If I can't make any changes I like, 
including nasty, stupid, ugly breakages, and distribute the result, it's 
non-free.  Name-change requirements are acceptible (barely) on the package 
name, but not API identifiers, and that includes filenames that are part 
of an API.


It seems a clear test: if I can't distribute a changed version that 
can be dropped into a system without changing other software,

it ain't free.

What ever happenened to the LaTex license, by the way?  That had the 
same non-freeness.

--
Mark Rafn[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: Adobe open source license -- is this licence free?

[Don Armstrong]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Raul Miller wrote:
> On 1/29/06, Don Armstrong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > The difference is that without this clause, the first step is to claim
> > that the court in question does not have jurisdiction over the
> > parties.[1] With this clause, before you can get the court to agree
> > that California is an improper venue, you have to get the court to
> > agree that the clause is non-binding.
> 
> You can still claim that the court in question does not have
> jurisdiction over the parties.

You can claim that the moon is cheese too, if you want.[1] The point
is that in order for the court to agree that they don't have
jurisdiction, you have to get them to agree that the clause is
non-binding. [The claiming is a lessser issue; what the court has to
do in order to agree with your claims is critical here.]

> Only if the case has merit -- only if there's a valid dispute
> involving the license -- would the CA courts have jurisdiction.

Issues of jurisdiction are one of the first things to be determined in
most cases, they occur well before the court even begins entertaining
issues of merit.[2]


Don Armstrong

1: Well, you'll likely be found in contempt for that... but... ;-)

2: We're almost into year 3 of the SCO case and we still haven't
answered the critical question of whether the case has any merit or
not...
-- 
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I 
realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked
Him to forgive me.
 -- Emo Philips.

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


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Re: OFL license analysis

[Don Armstrong]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Debian decides to distribute works containing your font. The
> > original upstream disappears. A bug is discovered in the font, and
> > Debian needs to fix it.
>
> Yes, and this is considered a feature. Usually existing documents
> should not break because a font is changed, even if this fixes a
> bug.

The same argument applies equally well to programs. We should be
intelligent enough in our fixing of bugs in fonts not to break
existing documents, just like we should be intelligent enough in our
fixing of bugs in programs not to break existing scripts.

We've proven in the past to be quite capable of doing that, at least
in most cases. [When we're not, we have the ability to determine which
is the proper course of action: breaking compatibility or living with
the bug.]

> > In the case where we introduce a change that breaks the end-user
> > documents, end-users are (hopefully) intelligent enough to realize
> > that they've gotten a version that is broken, and go about
> > tracking down the version that they actually want.
>
> You cannot install at the same time two fonts with the same name,
> and anyway you should not force users to do this.

You can't install two programs with the same name either. [Before
anyone bothers to tell me about $PATH, the same argument applies to
fonts as well.]

In any event, we're not just talking about the mere renaming of a file
that DFSG #4 allows; the clause in question goes much farther than
that.


Don Armstrong

-- 
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 -- Maritza Campos http://www.crfh.net/d/20020601.html

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


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Re: Adobe open source license -- is this licence free?

[Raul Miller]

On 1/29/06, Don Armstrong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The difference is that without this clause, the first step is to claim
> that the court in question does not have jurisdiction over the
> parties.[1] With this clause, before you can get the court to agree
> that California is an improper venue, you have to get the court to
> agree that the clause is non-binding.

You can still claim that the court in question does not have
jurisdiction over the parties.  Only if the case has merit --
only if there's a valid dispute involving the license -- would
the CA courts have jurisdiction.

On 1/29/06, Steve Langasek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> No, what you describe would be a bug in the legal system, not a bug in the
> license.  That's a crucial difference.  There is nothing *in the GPL* that
> gives the copyright holder unfair leverage to sue a bunch of people at low
> per-unit cost to them.

I'm still not convinced that this phrase "Any dispute arising out of or
related to this Agreement shall be brought in the courts of
Santa Clara County, California, USA." gives the copyright holder
unfair leverage against anyone in any free software context.

It gives Adobe some advantage if someone tries to sue them for not
providing a support for the software, but why should I care about
that?

What is the risk here?  What dispute can Adobe initiate against
someone in a legit free software context that wouldn't get laughed
out of court?  Trade secrets?  This ageement doesn't say anything
about trade secrets.  Violation of copyright?  The only way to
violate this copyright is to take more from Adobe than they've
given.  Patents?  This agreement doesn't say anything about
patents.  Trademarks?  That's already a problem, and I don't
think we have any free software requirement that people have
to be able to falsely claim a right to other people's trademarks.

But let's take trademarks as an example, since the license does
talk about trademarks.  If the trademark itself is in dispute,
it's not clear that the license is relevant -- only after you've
lost the case and it's been shown that you are abusing Adobe's
trademarks would this license be relevant.  And, usually people come
to an accomodation long before a court has to rule on that kind
of thing.

So what is this "harassing legal action" going to be about?

Thanks,

--
Raul

Re: Adobe open source license -- is this licence free?

[Francesco Poli]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 15:18:32 +1100 Andrew Donnellan wrote:

> I think DFSG#5 was written not because of this, but because of
> licenses that exclude some uses of the software, e.g. nuclear weapons
> factories, animal torture and things that people dislike.

That is DFSG#6, not #5.

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Re: Adobe open source license -- is this licence free?

[Marco d'Itri]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>here we have the most perfect example imaginable of a license being offered
>by a copyright holder with a known and public history of hostility towards
>information freedom, and people still don't acknowledge that there's a risk
>here.  It's flabbergasting!
The point is not if there is a risk or not, but if this is allowed or
not by the DFSG.

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Re: OFL license analysis

[Marco d'Itri]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>What you're trying to prevent is clear, it's just not necessary to use
>a license to do this. Consider the following: Debian decides to
>distribute works containing your font. The original upstream
>disappears. A bug is discovered in the font, and Debian needs to fix
>it. We can no longer distribute a fixed version of the font that
>interoperates seamlessly with existing user's documents because we're
>required to change the name of the font.
Yes, and this is considered a feature.
Usually existing documents should not break because a font is changed,
even if this fixes a bug.

>In the case where we introduce a change that breaks the end-user
>documents, end-users are (hopefully) intelligent enough to realize
>that they've gotten a version that is broken, and go about tracking
>down the version that they actually want.
You cannot install at the same time two fonts with the same name, and
anyway you should not force users to do this.

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Re: OFL license analysis

[Marco d'Itri]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>> Anyway, as you can see there is basically one problematic clause for
>> inclusion in Debian, and a few other minor issues that should probably
>> be resolved before font authors start using this license. 
>
>Are you sure the naming clause is really that problematic for inclusion
>in Debian?
I see no reason to believe that DFSG #4 forbids such a clause.

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Re: Moglen's "all good faith"

[Marco d'Itri]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>Development of proprietary kernel modules is tolerated, see
>EXPORT_SYMBOL vs. EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.  AFAICS, this special exception
>to the GPL has never been formalized, but at least overe here the mere
While proprietary kernel modules are tolerated, there is no special
exception to the GPL, EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is just a technological measure
used to make GPL violations more evident and subject to the DMCA.

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Re: Please review: The OFL (Open Font License)

[Marco d'Itri]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>Won't this forbid anyone (but the original copyright holder) to fix bugs
>or misfeatures in the font?
Not if they choose a different name.
For a font bug-for-bug compatibility may be very important to preserve
correct rendering of docuements.

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Re: Is this licence debian-free or "normal"-free?

[Don Armstrong]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Carsten Niehaus wrote:
> The important part is 
> 
>  * Sun grants you ("Licensee") a non-exclusive, royalty free, license to use,
>  * modify and redistribute this software in source and binary code form,
>  * provided that i) this copyright notice and license appear on all copies of
>  * the software; and ii) Licensee does not utilize the software in a manner
>  * which is disparaging to Sun.
> 
> I could imagine the "not disparaging SUN" is problematic. Is this licence 
> debian-free or at least "normal"-free?

That pretty much contravenes DFSG §6 about as directly as you can get,
so no, it's not DFSG free.

[I should be allowed to use the covered software to claim that the Day
Star is an abomination, and should hurry up and go nova.]


Don Armstrong

-- 
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 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p251

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

Re: Adobe open source license -- is this licence free?

[Steve Langasek]

On Sat, Jan 28, 2006 at 04:01:30PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> On 28 Jan 2006 11:32:08 -0500, Michael Poole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I submit that, under this logic, fees to execute software or create
> > derivative works are free since they are not mentioned anyhere in the
> > DFSG.  The usual response to this is that Debian would be restricted
> > in doing things like porting software, fixing bugs, and so forth.  The
> > SC and DFSG make no mention of those tasks, either.

> I think that "people who use the software" constitutes a relevant group
> of people for "The license must not discriminate against any person or
> group of persons."

> I think "people who don't use the software" and "people who violate
> the license terms" do not constitute relevant groups of people.

> Furthermore, I don't think the problem with this license is a problem
> with the license at all.  It's that some people have a problem with
> the licensor.

No.  Read the list archives.  Those of us who argue against choice-of-venue
have been doing so for months, on licenses from a wide range of licensors.
It just happens that the argument against choice-of-venue is predicated on
the possibility of a hostile licensor going sue-happy and using this license
clause to get away with harrassment suits *that they otherwise could not
afford to carry out separately and would not withstand the barest scrutiny
if brought against everyone in their home court as a single suit*.

License freeness certainly should be analyzed without regard for the
identity of the copyright holder[1]; it should be *assumed* that the
copyright holder is hostile, because *copyrights can be transferred*.  And
here we have the most perfect example imaginable of a license being offered
by a copyright holder with a known and public history of hostility towards
information freedom, and people still don't acknowledge that there's a risk
here.  It's flabbergasting!

> Since the GPL could just as easily be abused for harassment purposes
> (requiring proof of compliance for every copy delivered, or some nonsense
> like that),

No, what you describe would be a bug in the legal system, not a bug in the
license.  That's a crucial difference.  There is nothing *in the GPL* that
gives the copyright holder unfair leverage to sue a bunch of people at low
per-unit cost to them.

-- 
Steve Langasek   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer   to set it on, and I can move the world.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.debian.org/

[1] as distinct from clarifying statements the copyright holder has *made*
about their intent


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Re: Adobe open source license -- is this licence free?

[Don Armstrong]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Raul Miller wrote:
> Beyond that: if Adobe files in a CA court, even without this clause
> a person is still going to have to deal with that situation somehow.
> And if the action is specious, the person can simply dispute that
> the license is relevant to the action.

The difference is that without this clause, the first step is to claim
that the court in question does not have jurisdiction over the
parties.[1] With this clause, before you can get the court to agree
that California is an improper venue, you have to get the court to
agree that the clause is non-binding.

That in a nutshell is the issue.

I personally would want to know if any software that I am using
contained such a clause so I could avoid using it;[1] I think it
behooves us to do the same for our users.


Don Armstrong

1: I even *live* in California...
-- 
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
 -- Robert Heinlein _Time Enough For Love_ p250

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


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Is this licence debian-free or "normal"-free?

[Carsten Niehaus]

Hi

I would like to use (part of) this code in a KDE-application. The 
licence-terms are in the file.

http://www.le.ac.uk/eg/spg3/lattice/Matrix3D.java

The important part is 

 * Sun grants you ("Licensee") a non-exclusive, royalty free, license to use,
 * modify and redistribute this software in source and binary code form,
 * provided that i) this copyright notice and license appear on all copies of
 * the software; and ii) Licensee does not utilize the software in a manner
 * which is disparaging to Sun.

I could imagine the "not disparaging SUN" is problematic. Is this licence 
debian-free or at least "normal"-free?

Carsten


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