Re: Software patents and Debian
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Still, the DFSG does not addrss patents. This means that there is no point in arguing that patent restrictions violate thit. The DFSG doesn't talk about any particular branch of law. It talks about the rights attached to the program and other such phrases. To the extent that those rights are granted or restricted by holders of patents, the DFSG addresses patents. Still, Debian has a long standing policy of doing the opposite. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Creative Commons 3.0 Public draft -- news and questions
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:47:32 +0100 Matthew Garrett wrote: Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:45:08 +0100 Matthew Garrett wrote: It seems entirely in line with the Chinese Dissident lala. If you disagree with my reasoning, as you seem to, I would like to hear a convincing rebuttal, rather than a sarcastic comment. Please show me where and why I am wrong: I would be happy to be persuaded that this is not a freeness issue. If it's important that Chinese Dissidents be able to release software without putting their name all over it or telling anyone about it, It's important that someone can release software (original or modified) in a completely anonymous way. it would seem logical for them to be able to ensure that they be able to demand people remove any credits that they may have accidently left on a piece of software. That's useless. If the guy has accidentally disclosed his/her real identity in a credit left in a work released under a CC license, anyone can redistribute the unmodified work, thus contributing to spread the disclosed identity. Requiring that the problematic credit be purged from Adaptations and Collections does very little (if not nothing) to cure the identity disclosure in the unmodified Work. I don't think that this clause was designed with such a scenario in mind. I'm pretty sure that its goal is preventing that an ugly Adaptation reflects on the Original Author's reputation. As I already stated elsewhere, clarifying that the Adaptation is not the Original Work, but the result of modifications made by someone else, is IMO sufficient to prevent any negative impacts on the Original Author's reputation. -- But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend. -- from _Coming to America_ . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpZpcS3l0lkZ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Software patents and Debian
On Sat, Aug 19, 2006 at 10:41:29PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Still, the DFSG does not addrss patents. This means that there is no point in arguing that patent restrictions violate thit. The DFSG doesn't talk about any particular branch of law. It talks about the rights attached to the program and other such phrases. To the extent that those rights are granted or restricted by holders of patents, the DFSG addresses patents. Still, Debian has a long standing policy of doing the opposite. Yes, because DFSG can apply only to relations between you and those involved in the given piece of software. Thus, if the creator of the program in question grants us only limited rights, this would be a DFSG issue regardless if it's a matter of copyright, patents, moral rights or the Totem Law of the kingdom of Kbanga. On the other hand, it is infeasible to care about _third parties_. If I write a piece of software and give it to you, we need to care about the laws of Poland and Italy; there is no problem if some random punk in the US has a patent -- and in fact, for any given piece of software a number of such punks exist. One of recent patents covers telnet, ssh and the like -- should we pull them from Debian? The only reason to comply with patent terrorism is when the punk is especially litigious. The whole concept of patent goes completely against the ideas of capitalism and free market. Free market relies on _scalable_ laws and patents don't scale. They work differently for small and big countries, fail when you deal with entities not within the same patent system, break unless you have perfect instantenous communication within the system, and so on. They are government-granted monopolies and thus they fail whenever you look at something smaller or bigger than a country. To the contrary, DFSG are infinitely scalable. They work as well for a castaway on a desert island, a dissident or a world-wide corporation. Copyrights, with all their downsides, are scalable as well so they can be handled by DFSG well. Patents can't. So, I would say that there is no way for a third party to influence the freeness of a given piece of software. Otherwise, Debian would have to exclude anything that's illegal in North Korea, China or the self-described Land of the Free. -- 1KB // Microsoft corollary to Hanlon's razor: // Never attribute to stupidity what can be // adequately explained by malice. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Creative Commons 3.0 Public draft -- news and questions
This one time, at band camp, Francesco Poli said: This still concerns me... I have previously discussed the issue on debian-legal, but I'm not yet convinced that this clause passes the DFSG. What I do not understand basically boils down to: How can a license (allow a licensor to) forbid an accurate credit and meet the DFSG at the same time? This one time, at band camp, Matthew Garrett said: Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:45:08 +0100 Matthew Garrett wrote: It seems entirely in line with the Chinese Dissident lala. If you disagree with my reasoning, as you seem to, I would like to hear a convincing rebuttal, rather than a sarcastic comment. Please show me where and why I am wrong: I would be happy to be persuaded that this is not a freeness issue. If it's important that Chinese Dissidents be able to release software without putting their name all over it or telling anyone about it, it would seem logical for them to be able to ensure that they be able to demand people remove any credits that they may have accidently left on a piece of software. This one time, at band camp, Francesco Poli said: I don't think that this clause was designed with such a scenario in mind. I'm pretty sure that its goal is preventing that an ugly Adaptation reflects on the Original Author's reputation. As I already stated elsewhere, clarifying that the Adaptation is not the Original Work, but the result of modifications made by someone else, is IMO sufficient to prevent any negative impacts on the Original Author's reputation. And why do you think this violates the DFSG? Clause 3, which you are citing, says that the license must allow derived works, and must allow derivates to be licensed under the same terms as the original license. I see nothing in there that even remotely implies the original author can't take their name out of it. Leaving aside practical issues, how are you arguing that a request to remove a name either changes the licensing terms or prohibits derivation? -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Software patents and Debian
This one time, at band camp, Ben Finney said: Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Still, the DFSG does not addrss patents. This means that there is no point in arguing that patent restrictions violate thit. The DFSG doesn't talk about any particular branch of law. It talks about the rights attached to the program and other such phrases. To the extent that those rights are granted or restricted by holders of patents, the DFSG addresses patents. The DFSG is concerned with the rights that the copyright holder extends to us, and by extension, people using software in Debian. This does not, and can not, cover local patent laws. Are you arguing that you would like Debian to remove every piece of software that might potentially be covered by a patent in any jurisdiction Debian distributes software to? If so, please let me know what packages are acceptable for distribution. My bet is that they are countable in single digits. I leave it to you to research this, since it apparently interests you. If not, what are you arguing? -- - | ,''`.Stephen Gran | | : :' :[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `'Debian user, admin, and developer | |`- http://www.debian.org | - signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Software patents and Debian
Stephen Gran [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This one time, at band camp, Ben Finney said: Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Still, the DFSG does not addrss patents. The DFSG doesn't talk about any particular branch of law. It talks about the rights attached to the program and other such phrases. To the extent that those rights are granted or restricted by holders of patents, the DFSG addresses patents. Are you arguing that [...] If not, what are you arguing? Merely that the DFSG addresses anything related to the rights attached to things in Debian. To say the DFSG doesn't address branch X of law is false if that branch of law is concerned with restricting or granting rights to things we distribute in Debian. I made no admonition as to what anyone should do. -- \ It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us in | `\ trouble. It's the things we know that ain't so. -- Artemus | _o__) Ward (1834-67), U.S. journalist | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
