Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Sun, Jan 04, 2004 at 05:08:26AM +, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 11:42:09AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: Can anyone give me an actual example of a project that would like to use the JasPer JPEG-2000 codec in a non-interoperable way? Almighty duh of all duhs, JPEG-2010. Even the original authors probably won't be able to do it, if they accept enough patches in the meanwhile. It's really amazingly stupid to write a license tied to a specification in a non-trivially-avoidable manner. Can, er, someone communicate the above example to Mr. Adams with Mr. Suffield's colorful tone attenuated a bit? :) -- G. Branden Robinson| The noble soul has reverence for Debian GNU/Linux | itself. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Friedrich Nietzsche http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
Dear Ben and Others: I have sent an email to Image Power to see if it would be possible to make a change in the JasPer license. I do not know what will come of this. It has been a week now, and I have yet to receive a response. Hopefully, I will hear something from the company soon. Sincerely, Michael Adams --- Michael Adams, Assistant Professor Dept. of Elec. and Comp. Engineering, University of Victoria P.O. Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, CANADA E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Web: www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:03:47PM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: Dear Branden: On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Branden Robinson wrote: F. This software is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to this Software is granted for products that do not comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. The JPEG-2000 Part 1 standard can be purchased from the ISO. If you are going to quote from the JasPer software license, please quote from the current version of the license (and not an obsolete version). In the last year, the license has been revised so that the above clause only applies to the JPEG-2000 codec in JasPer. In particular, the license now reads: F. The JPEG-2000 codec implementation included in the JasPer software is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to this codec implementation is granted for products that do not comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. Thanks for the clarification. This is one of the reasons why I object when people claim that JasPer is not free software. Only the JPEG-2000 codec module has a usage restriction, not the JasPer library proper. I could have released the JasPer codec modules separately from the JasPer library, but I simply do not have the manpower to do so. (This would require more effort for multiple software distributions.) The JasPer software may be used FREELY (IN YOUR STRICT SENSE OF THE WORD FREE) without the JPEG-2000 support. We would, as you noted, have to omit the JPEG-2000 codec from the packaged version. I believe the above will both signal members of the Free Software and Open Source communities that they will need to look elsewhere for software satisfying their licensing requirements, and place the responsibility for the failure to license the reference implementation for general-purpose use where it belongs. Although I wish that Debian could also benefit from the use of JasPer, I would like to note that many software projects (many of which are open source) have not found the compliance clause to be problematic. Patent licensing as it intersects with Free Software is not terrain that has been as well explored as copyright licensing. This is why I would like to understand better what makes Debian different from other projects. It's worth noting that the Debian Free Software Guidelines were used as the basis of the Open Source Definition, promulgated by the Open Source Initiative. One thing that makes Debian different from other major Linux distributions is that we are not a commercial entity. Is this simply a religious debate (about what constitutes free)? I suspect the answer to this question depends on what your definition of religious is. Perhaps this is not the case, but sometimes, if I may be frank, it feels this way. It may be that we have failed to articulate our principles with sufficient clarity. If even *having* principles other than the freedom to not have to pay any money for it is all the freedom I need is what you would term religious, though, it is possible that you would consider the central principles of the Debian Project to be religious in nature. -- G. Branden Robinson|Sometimes, getting your patch in is Debian GNU/Linux |just a matter of waiting for [EMAIL PROTECTED] |somebody else to reimplement it. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Jonathan Corbet signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 11:42:09AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: Can anyone give me an actual example of a project that would like to use the JasPer JPEG-2000 codec in a non-interoperable way? Almighty duh of all duhs, JPEG-2010. Even the original authors probably won't be able to do it, if they accept enough patches in the meanwhile. It's really amazingly stupid to write a license tied to a specification in a non-trivially-avoidable manner. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
Dear Branden: On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Branden Robinson wrote: F. This software is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to this Software is granted for products that do not comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. The JPEG-2000 Part 1 standard can be purchased from the ISO. If you are going to quote from the JasPer software license, please quote from the current version of the license (and not an obsolete version). In the last year, the license has been revised so that the above clause only applies to the JPEG-2000 codec in JasPer. In particular, the license now reads: F. The JPEG-2000 codec implementation included in the JasPer software is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to this codec implementation is granted for products that do not comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. This is one of the reasons why I object when people claim that JasPer is not free software. Only the JPEG-2000 codec module has a usage restriction, not the JasPer library proper. I could have released the JasPer codec modules separately from the JasPer library, but I simply do not have the manpower to do so. (This would require more effort for multiple software distributions.) The JasPer software may be used FREELY (IN YOUR STRICT SENSE OF THE WORD FREE) without the JPEG-2000 support. I believe the above will both signal members of the Free Software and Open Source communities that they will need to look elsewhere for software satisfying their licensing requirements, and place the responsibility for the failure to license the reference implementation for general-purpose use where it belongs. Although I wish that Debian could also benefit from the use of JasPer, I would like to note that many software projects (many of which are open source) have not found the compliance clause to be problematic. This is why I would like to understand better what makes Debian different from other projects. Is this simply a religious debate (about what constitutes free)? Perhaps this is not the case, but sometimes, if I may be frank, it feels this way. Sincerely, Michael --- Michael Adams, Assistant Professor Dept. of Elec. and Comp. Engineering, University of Victoria P.O. Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, CANADA E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Web: www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:03:47PM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: This is one of the reasons why I object when people claim that JasPer is not free software. Only the JPEG-2000 codec module has a usage restriction, not the JasPer library proper. I could have released the JasPer codec modules separately from the JasPer library, but I simply do not have the manpower to do so. (This would require more effort for multiple software distributions.) The JasPer software may be used FREELY (IN YOUR STRICT SENSE OF THE WORD FREE) without the JPEG-2000 support. Even still it's unclear if the patent reciporicity clause is free or not. I believe the general agreement is that if they void the entire license they aren't. Yours gives you the right to void the entire license. So I think most people on this list would say even without the codec your software isn't free due to clauses D and E. Although I wish that Debian could also benefit from the use of JasPer, I would like to note that many software projects (many of which are open source) have not found the compliance clause to be problematic. This is why I would like to understand better what makes Debian different from other projects. Is this simply a religious debate (about what constitutes free)? Perhaps this is not the case, but sometimes, if I may be frank, it feels this way. I think you're confusing project goals. Debian distributes free software. The projects you have linked off your page are software projects. They produce software and distribute the software that they produce. That software then gets built and linked with other software. Software projects goals are generally to provide software features. The user downloads and builds various libraries to achieve some of these goals, many times these libraries are optional. Outside of license compatability many times these projects don't pay much attention to the license. We've seen on this list many times where software has licenses attached to it that are simply incompatable or problematic with other software they link to. Debian on the other hand as one of their main goals is to distribute free software. To make it clear to everyone what that means the Debian Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines were written. As such it is a primary function of Debian to evaluate software licenses and determine their compliance with these principles. This is the difference in attitudes you're seeing. The developers of many of these projects are leaving it up to their users if they want to agree to your license terms. Take the ayttm project. JasPer is not required. If you don't have it you simply don't get the functionality it provides. To my knowledge the majority of binary packages of ayttm are not linked against JasPer because of the license. In fact the next release will have JasPer support diabled unless you pass a parameter to configure to turn it on. Citing the multiude of projects which have opted to provide support like this in their projects clouds the issue of if the community thinks your license is really acceptable. A better question is how many binary packages of your software are being distributed, how many of these apps (at least that are open source) are shipping binaries linked against JasPer, and how many of the users that are using your library are aware of the license terms it is released under. That's not to say that you have to agree with the interpretation of what is an acceptable and not-acceptable free software license. You're free to license your software anyway you choose. And of course Debian, and other projects are free to reject it on this basis or whatever other considerations are important for their project. -- Ben Reser [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ben.reser.org Conscience is the inner voice which warns us somebody may be looking. - H.L. Mencken
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 11:42:09AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: I am not sure if you are suggesting that JasPer use the GPL. For what it's worth, the GPL license was considered as a potential license for JasPer. The problem with the GPL is that many commercial organizations will not use GPL'd software. For this reason, the GPL was not chosen for JasPer. I think you can achieve your goals (discouraging non-complaint forks and protecting yourself from patent liability) without the usage restrictions that makes your license non-free now. The GPL would do that in my opinion. But I can understand the issue for commercial organizations, so I'm not necessarily advocating a specific license. Rather I was trying to hilight a particular clause (in this case the patent poison pill) as a way of achieving your goals. My interest is simply to find a license that meets the various definitions of free/open source software while still achieving your goals. Speaking as someone who has attended a number of the JPEG Working Group meetings including the most recent one held last month, I can say that it has always been the intention of the Working Group that the JPEG-2000 Part-1 standard be royalty and license-fee free. Unfortunately, some ambiguity still exists as to the patent status of JPEG-2000 Part 1. So, whether the Working Group's objective (of a free-to-use standard) will be achieved remains to be seen. Also, due to this uncertainty, one needs to be particularly sensitive to patent issues. Understood. But I don't think the patent issues here are in particular any worse than any other piece of open source software. It's very difficult to write a piece of software that you're positive doesn't violate any patents. Certainly not without an army of lawyers looking over your shoulder. The problem I see with this license is that it doesn't really protect you against the patent problem. It makes three flawed assumptions in getting your protection: a) That the standard is a free-to-use standard. As you just pointed out this remains to be seen. If this doesn't turn out to be true then your protection from contributory infringement (someone modifying the software to be non-compliant) doesn't get you anywhere. b) That the patent holder will be a user and thus will have waived their right to come after you for such a violation. A patent holder you don't even know could show up, look at the JPEG2000 standard, realize that it must violate their patent and sue you. Without ever even so much as downloading your software. c) It assumes that your software license can require someone to waive their patent rights. Essentially, you're requiring the user to grant you license to their patent. I'm not sure about Canada but in the US, the law only accepts a written and notarized document as prima facia evidence of a such an action. If this was a document that you were actually signing with each licensee then I'd say you could enforce this. But I don't think it'll work. If it did I'd expect to see Microsoft putting clauses like this in their licenses, what company doesn't have a copy of Windows? It would make Microsoft immune to patent claims against them. (see Title 35, Part III, Chapter 26, Section 261 of the US Code [1]). This is of course not to say that other forms of grants aren't permisable. But I think you'd have a hard time getting a judge to accept this particular one. Now consider the GPL patent poison pill. It protects you from these problems as well as what you're trying to achieve. Simply by taking away the right to distribute the software if there is some other legal requirement that prevents you from doing so (e.g. a patent). So I see a couple of situations where such a license wouldn't protect you: a) Your software violates a patent if used unmodified (e.g. the standard isn't free-to-use). As I pointed out above I don't believe your existing license covers you here. However, everyone would immediately no longer have the ability to distribute your software anymore. Your liability would effectively be limited to existing copies. Which I think is also the case under your license. b) Your software is modified by a user in a way that is inconcsistent with the standard, making the software violate the patent (e.g. the standard is free-to-use). The user never distributes the software but only uses it individually. I don't see this as a realistic threat. For someone to come after you for this they'd have to find the person, which I think would be relatively difficult. It does cover you under these situations: a) User modifies software to violate the standard and distributes the software (this is the case where the patent holder is likely to notice). The protection here is the same. The user doesn't have a license to distribute their changes. b) User uses modified or unmodified software and gets sued for patent infringement. The user then tries to sue you for that infringement.
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
Matt Palmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 11:42:09AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: JasPer. The problem with the GPL is that many commercial organizations will not use GPL'd software. For this reason, the GPL was not chosen for JasPer. What about the LGPL? GPL-like, GPL-compatible, but not as viral as the GPL. Or even simpler, dual license Jasper under the current license and the GPL or LGPL. Then companies will use Jasper under the current license, and Debian will use the (L)GPL. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
Arnoud Engelfriet said: 35 US Code 271, section (c). http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/35/271.html Whoever offers to sell or sells within the United States or imports into the United States a component of a patented machine, manufacture, combination or composition, or a material or apparatus for use in practicing a patented process, constituting a material part of the invention, knowing the same to be especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of such patent, and not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use, shall be liable as a contributory infringer. I'd say that a patent license for standards-compliant code is a substantial noninfringing use, so the creator of the standards-compliant code should not be liable as a contributory infringer. Even if another party reuses that standards-compliant code in a non-compliant and patent-infringing way. --Joe
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:42:06PM -0800, Ben Reser wrote: As a member of the ayttm project I'd really just like to see this issue resolved. We need a JPEG2000 implementation in order to interoperate with Yahoo's webcam feature. While we have a functionality implemented against your library, both Debian and Mandrake do not ship it enabled due to their inability to ship your library. Unless you can get the patent licenses for jpeg2000 changed, forget it. There is no way that anything implementing jpeg2000 can ever be a part of Debian at present, and it's unlikely that we can even distribute such things in non-free. I don't have a copy of the jpeg2000 patent license to hand (anybody?), but I examined it a few years ago when the specification was first released, and it's entirely proprietary in nature. This is not a free image format. I don't believe you can even have a free-as-in-beer implementation without usage restrictions, although I'm not so sure about that. That thing makes mpeg look friendly. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 08:22:35PM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote: On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:37:28AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: troublesome issue is this: The JasPer Contributors might be held liable for the patent-infringing use of the JasPer software by *others*. This is a very serious concern. This is, in fact, the I can't agree that this is a critical legal issue, but as IANAL, that's not really my call to make. I *can* say, though, that we have a large amount of software in our archive written by people who have quite a different assessment of this risk. I understand that the usual approach to reconciling this need with the DFSG is to have the license disclaim liability for patent infringement problems and/or include a non-binding clause advising users that it is their responsibility to check for patent licensing problems. That way the license clearly puts responsibility for these things onto the user without actually adding any actual restrictions to the license. IANAL and might be talking rubbish, though. -- You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever.
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:37:28AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: I dislike the notion of software patents just as much as you do, perhaps even more as they have been causing me a lot of grief with respect to JasPer. I am very much in favor of software with no usage restrictions at all. In an ideal world, JasPer would have no usage restrictions imposed by its license. What I ask is that you please appreciate the world is far from ideal. I have received a number of rather unkind e-mail from some members of the open-source community. That is, a number of people have been very critical of me for the compliant-usage clause in the JasPer license. In this regard, I wish that people would make a genuine attempt to understand the issues involved before they attack me for being an unfair/unkind person. Professor Adams, I can speak only for myself, but as a Debian and Free Software developer for over five years, as a participant in the Debian Project's legal discussions forum for a majority of that time, and as a paid developer of both free-licensed and proprietary software for over four years to date, I'd like to say this: 1) I feel I have a fairly well-developed lay understanding of copyright, patent, and trademark licensing issues as they apply to computer software in the U.S.; 2) I feel I understand the tradeoffs and competing interests that must be served when developing free software in a commercial environment; 3) I trust the vast majority of my fellow Debian Developers to not send intemperate mails to authors of software making personal attacks upon them for their licensing decisions. In reviewing this matter for my own interest I noticed the following clause in the JasPer license: F. This software is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to this Software is granted for products that do not comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. The JPEG-2000 Part 1 standard can be purchased from the ISO. The freedom to use computer software for any purpose -- I repeat, *any* purpose, is one of the most fundamental and least controversial premises of the Free Software community. You will not find much internal dissent upon these points. Richard Stallman's seminal article enumerating four essential freedoms may be a useful reference: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html In this article, Mr. Stallman says: Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software: * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). [...] The freedom to use a program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job, and without being required to communicate subsequently with the developer or any other specific entity. This necessarily includes the freedom to run computer programs on platforms that are not conformant with some particular technological standard, for whatever reason (whether it's a matter of 100% compliance with or without waivers from the standards body, or whether the platform makes no effort to be compliant with a particular standard is irrelevant). First of all, I am not the sole owner of the JasPer software. I am only a partial copyright holder along with the other JasPer Contributors. More specifically, JasPer is co-owned by the following parties: 1) Image Power, Inc. 2) University of British Columbia 3) Michael Adams As a result, the terms of the JasPer license cannot be dictated by me alone. The license and any revisions must be made with the approval of all of the above parties. Consequently, I was only able to provide input to the license drafting process, but I could not dictate the terms of the license myself. The Debian Project commonly encounters this situation, and we understand that our point of contact for a given software project is often not solely empowered to make licensing decisions. Second, and more importantly, there is a critical legal issue involved here. In fact, it is for this reason that all of the JasPer Contributors agreed that the compliant-usage clause was necessary. The troublesome issue is this: The JasPer Contributors might be held liable for the patent-infringing use of the JasPer software by *others*. This is a very serious concern. This is, in fact, the primary reason why the license imposes the compliant-usage restriction. That is, this clause in the license serves to protect the JasPer Contributors (e.g., from lawsuits claiming contributory infringement or something similar). As an international volunteer organization dedicated to producing an operating system of 100% Free Software, we completely understand your desire to avoid vexatious litigation. It is a sad fact that in many
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
Dear Martin and Others: I dislike the notion of software patents just as much as you do, perhaps even more as they have been causing me a lot of grief with respect to JasPer. I am very much in favor of software with no usage restrictions at all. In an ideal world, JasPer would have no usage restrictions imposed by its license. What I ask is that you please appreciate the world is far from ideal. I have received a number of rather unkind e-mail from some members of the open-source community. That is, a number of people have been very critical of me for the compliant-usage clause in the JasPer license. In this regard, I wish that people would make a genuine attempt to understand the issues involved before they attack me for being an unfair/unkind person. First of all, I am not the sole owner of the JasPer software. I am only a partial copyright holder along with the other JasPer Contributors. More specifically, JasPer is co-owned by the following parties: 1) Image Power, Inc. 2) University of British Columbia 3) Michael Adams As a result, the terms of the JasPer license cannot be dictated by me alone. The license and any revisions must be made with the approval of all of the above parties. Consequently, I was only able to provide input to the license drafting process, but I could not dictate the terms of the license myself. Second, and more importantly, there is a critical legal issue involved here. In fact, it is for this reason that all of the JasPer Contributors agreed that the compliant-usage clause was necessary. The troublesome issue is this: The JasPer Contributors might be held liable for the patent-infringing use of the JasPer software by *others*. This is a very serious concern. This is, in fact, the primary reason why the license imposes the compliant-usage restriction. That is, this clause in the license serves to protect the JasPer Contributors (e.g., from lawsuits claiming contributory infringement or something similar). Sincerely, Michael Adams --- Michael Adams, Assistant Professor Dept. of Elec. and Comp. Engineering, University of Victoria P.O. Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, CANADA Tel: +1 250 721 6025, Fax: +1 250 721 6052, Office: EOW 403 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Web: www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On 2003-12-16 19:37:28 + Michael Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What I ask is that you please appreciate the world is far from ideal. I can appreciate that, but can you please appreciate that your software licence is far from ideal? I have received a number of rather unkind e-mail from some members of the open-source community. Please name them. I have not been following this very closely and looking at the bug history didn't show any sign of it. Perhaps they are unrelated to Debian? If so, I assume you were just noting it and I'm sorry that you've had problems. Maybe your pseudo-free software licence raises false hopes in some. The JasPer page seems to claim that producing a free software and open source is your aim, so I can understand why that might happen. As a result, the terms of the JasPer license cannot be dictated by me alone. If you are a copyright holder, you seem to have a strong negotiating position. You can stop JasPer being distributed at all if you get undesirable terms, can't you? troublesome issue is this: The JasPer Contributors might be held liable for the patent-infringing use of the JasPer software by *others*. This is a very serious concern. This is, in fact, the primary reason why the license imposes the compliant-usage restriction. Is there case history of this? I mean, I might be held liable for some terrorist attack on London, but it seems unlikely. Few others feel it necessary to go as far as you have with a patent self-defence clause, so it would be interesting to learn more about the reasoning. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On 2003-12-17 00:57:43 + Michael Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have received a number of rather unkind e-mail from some members of the open-source community. Please name them. Please do not take offense. I am not criticizing the members of this forum. I am not taking offence, but I do not really see the point of some people flamed me in an email. If you wish to reprimand someone, please do so. I mean, it is better to have something available than nothing. Many people are using JasPer, in spite of its non-ideal license. If I had prevented JasPer from being publically available at all, what would this have really accomplished? I was referring to it as a negotiating tactic, but maybe it would have increased the demand for a free software implementation. By using a web site to mislead people into believing that JasPer is open-source free software, it could make one heck of a mess to waste the time of free-software developers :-( For the benefit of debian-legal, I quote what I consider misleading on its web site: The JasPer Project is an open-source initiative to provide a free software-based reference implementation of the codec specified in the JPEG-2000 Part-1 standard I am not a lawyer. So I am not going to pretend to be one. Image Power and the University of British Columbia have lawyers who were consulted during in the license drafting process. I trust that these experienced individuals knew what they were doing. Fair enough, but I do not know them and cannot understand their actions. As the saying goes, In God we trust. All others must bring data. They have gone far beyond what many other lawyers have done. Did you retain your own lawyers? Can you ask the lawyers involved why they felt that extra protection is necessary? What parameters did you give these lawyers? Were they aware of your stated aim to release a free software implementation? -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
Michael, On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:37:28AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: I dislike the notion of software patents just as much as you do, perhaps even more as they have been causing me a lot of grief with respect to JasPer. I am very much in favor of software with no usage restrictions at all. In an ideal world, JasPer would have no usage restrictions imposed by its license. What I ask is that you please appreciate the world is far from ideal. I have received a number of rather unkind e-mail from some members of the open-source community. That is, a number of people have been very critical of me for the compliant-usage clause in the JasPer license. In this regard, I wish that people would make a genuine attempt to understand the issues involved before they attack me for being an unfair/unkind person. I hope that no one making such an assertion has claimed to be speaking on behalf of Debian. Naturally, as members of a project dedicated to the creation of a wholly Free operating system, we have a certain preference for software that meets our Free Software Guidelines, but there should be no stigma attached to software that is not free -- and certainly no hostility directed at its authors (at least, not for this reason alone ;). That said, I think my previous analysis of the JasPer license (as found at http://bugs.debian.org/181969, the bug report referenced in the subject line) speaks for itself. You must by all means license your own software under terms that you (with the other copyright holders) find acceptable; and we, the Debian project, must follow our own guidelines when deciding whether a given piece of software can be included in our distribution. Those guidelines hold that usage restrictions are not acceptable, regardless of the integrity and good intentions of the copyright holder. Second, and more importantly, there is a critical legal issue involved here. In fact, it is for this reason that all of the JasPer Contributors agreed that the compliant-usage clause was necessary. The troublesome issue is this: The JasPer Contributors might be held liable for the patent-infringing use of the JasPer software by *others*. This is a very serious concern. This is, in fact, the primary reason why the license imposes the compliant-usage restriction. That is, this clause in the license serves to protect the JasPer Contributors (e.g., from lawsuits claiming contributory infringement or something similar). I can't agree that this is a critical legal issue, but as IANAL, that's not really my call to make. I *can* say, though, that we have a large amount of software in our archive written by people who have quite a different assessment of this risk. Regards, -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer pgpnJuDawdjsT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:37:28AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote: Second, and more importantly, there is a critical legal issue involved here. In fact, it is for this reason that all of the JasPer Contributors agreed that the compliant-usage clause was necessary. The troublesome issue is this: The JasPer Contributors might be held liable for the patent-infringing use of the JasPer software by *others*. This is a very serious concern. This is, in fact, the primary reason why the license imposes the compliant-usage restriction. That is, this clause in the license serves to protect the JasPer Contributors (e.g., from lawsuits claiming contributory infringement or something similar). Does such a thing as contributory infringement exist for patents? I've only heard of that particular evil in relation to copyright. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: [vorlon@netexpress.net: Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]]
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, MJ Ray wrote: I can appreciate that, but can you please appreciate that your software licence is far from ideal? I do acknowledge that. This is why, in an ideal world, I would have prefered to have a license without usage restrictions (because such a license would obviously be less restrictive). I have received a number of rather unkind e-mail from some members of the open-source community. Please name them. Please do not take offense. I am not criticizing the members of this forum. As a result, the terms of the JasPer license cannot be dictated by me alone. If you are a copyright holder, you seem to have a strong negotiating position. You can stop JasPer being distributed at all if you get undesirable terms, can't you? Perhaps, I could have refused to allow part of the JasPer code from being released to the public. This, however, would have been to the detriment of all, however. I mean, it is better to have something available than nothing. Many people are using JasPer, in spite of its non-ideal license. If I had prevented JasPer from being publically available at all, what would this have really accomplished? After all of the time that I spent on JasPer, I would like people to be able to benefit from it. This is only possible if the software is available to the public. Is there case history of this? I mean, I might be held liable for some terrorist attack on London, but it seems unlikely. Few others feel it necessary to go as far as you have with a patent self-defence clause, so it would be interesting to learn more about the reasoning. I am not a lawyer. So I am not going to pretend to be one. Image Power and the University of British Columbia have lawyers who were consulted during in the license drafting process. I trust that these experienced individuals knew what they were doing. Sincerely, Michael --- Michael Adams, Assistant Professor Dept. of Elec. and Comp. Engineering, University of Victoria P.O. Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, CANADA Tel: +1 250 721 6025, Fax: +1 250 721 6052, Office: EOW 403 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Web: www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams
Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]
On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 10:33:46PM -0500, Chris Cheney wrote: I got the following email back from Michael. So with the clarification below that it is not allowed to use the JPEG-2000 part of the code for non-standards based work make it non DFSG free? If so is there anyway to make it DFSG free and still uphold their wishes as stated below? - Forwarded message from Michael Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] - The license has been revised slightly in recent months, but I have not released a new version of the software with this revised license. Clause F reads as follows in the revised version of the license: F. The JPEG-2000 codec implementation included in the JasPer software is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to this codec implementation is granted for products that do not comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. There are two reasons for the above clause: 1) The technology used in the JPEG-2000 standard is covered by patents. The patent holders (for which there are several) are only allowing their patented technology to be used for implementations that are compliant with the standard. For this reason, if anyone uses a hacked non-JPEG-2000-compliant version of JasPer's JPEG-2000 codec in their software, they would be breaking the law. As an extra level of legal protection for the contributors to JasPer, we explicitly disallow ILLEGAL patent-infringing use of the software. [Incidentally, to the best of my knowledge, none of the JasPer contributors hold patents on core JPEG-2000 technologies.] By using copyright law to reinforce software patents (which are a load of hooey to begin with of course), the license becomes non-free. A notice that the software is subject to patents would be free, but making it a binding part of the license is not, because the license will impact users in jurisdictions (present or future) where the patent itself is invalid, and even precludes using this code in non-compliant implementations that have properly licensed the necessary patents. 2) We do not want hacked non-JPEG-2000-compliant versions of JasPer being used, since this would cause major interoperability problems, totally defeating the purpose of having an international image-compression standard in the first place. This is a common desire, but it's irreconcilably non-free. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer pgp0npqqY8dHq.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#181969: [mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]
On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 10:58:02PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote: By using copyright law to reinforce software patents (which are a load of hooey to begin with of course), the license becomes non-free. A notice that the software is subject to patents would be free, but making it a binding part of the license is not, because the license will impact users in jurisdictions (present or future) where the patent itself is invalid, and even precludes using this code in non-compliant implementations that have properly licensed the necessary patents. [...] This is a common desire, but it's irreconcilably non-free. I concur with Steve's analysis. Fair warning, though; Craig Sanders and one or two other people may not, reasoning that because this part of the license claims to apply to patented technology, not software, and as we all know, the Debian Social Contract refers only to software, not patented technology, and since the Debian Free Software Guidelines therefore do not apply, patented technology is perfectly acceptable for inclusion in the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution. However, that's not *my* opinion. :) -- G. Branden Robinson| When I die I want to go peacefully Debian GNU/Linux | in my sleep like my ol' Grand [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Dad...not screaming in terror like http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | his passengers. pgpssemOHqr1h.pgp Description: PGP signature
[mdadams@ece.uvic.ca: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux]
I got the following email back from Michael. So with the clarification below that it is not allowed to use the JPEG-2000 part of the code for non-standards based work make it non DFSG free? If so is there anyway to make it DFSG free and still uphold their wishes as stated below? Thanks, Chris Cheney - Forwarded message from Michael Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Envelope-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivery-date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 20:17:19 -0500 From: Michael Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Chris Cheney [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: JasPer licensing wrt Debian Linux X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-4.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,EMAIL_ATTRIBUTION,IN_REP_TO,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT, REPLY_WITH_QUOTES,USER_AGENT_PINE,X_AUTH_WARNING autolearn=ham version=2.55 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.55 (1.174.2.19-2003-05-19-exp) On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Chris Cheney wrote: I am the maintainer of KDE for Debian Linux and it came to my attention that KDE 3.2 adds support for JasPer. However, it has been previously[0] determined that JasPer does not meet the DFSG guidelines[1] for free software so cannot be included as is in the main part of Debian. The particular part that the -legal people have a problem with is section F. Is it possible for you to strike this section of the license? Dear Chris: The license has been revised slightly in recent months, but I have not released a new version of the software with this revised license. Clause F reads as follows in the revised version of the license: F. The JPEG-2000 codec implementation included in the JasPer software is for use only in hardware or software products that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No license or right to this codec implementation is granted for products that do not comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. There are two reasons for the above clause: 1) The technology used in the JPEG-2000 standard is covered by patents. The patent holders (for which there are several) are only allowing their patented technology to be used for implementations that are compliant with the standard. For this reason, if anyone uses a hacked non-JPEG-2000-compliant version of JasPer's JPEG-2000 codec in their software, they would be breaking the law. As an extra level of legal protection for the contributors to JasPer, we explicitly disallow ILLEGAL patent-infringing use of the software. [Incidentally, to the best of my knowledge, none of the JasPer contributors hold patents on core JPEG-2000 technologies.] 2) We do not want hacked non-JPEG-2000-compliant versions of JasPer being used, since this would cause major interoperability problems, totally defeating the purpose of having an international image-compression standard in the first place. If your lawyers are worried, they really ought not to be. We (i.e., the JasPer contributors) do not have any secret evil motivations behind Clause F in the JasPer license. This clause is only to prevent ILLEGAL non-interoperable use of the JasPer software. The original wording of Clause F did not make clear that JasPer can be used to build non-JPEG-2000 products. For example, you can remove the JPEG-2000 codec support from JasPer and create a product without JPEG-2000 support without violating the terms of the JasPer license. What this clause does say is: IF YOU USE THE JPEG-2000 CODEC IN JASPER, then you must not introduce changes to the codec that would cause it to be NONCOMPLIANT with the JPEG-2000 standard. If you did this, you would be infringing on at least several patents. With the above said, is the JasPer license really not not good enough for your purposes? I mean, why would KDE want to use JasPer's JPEG-2000 support in order to create a mutant non-interoperable JPEG-2000 clone that infringes on at least several patents? Sincerely, Michael --- Michael Adams, Assistant Professor Dept. of Elec. and Comp. Engineering, University of Victoria P.O. Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, CANADA Tel: +1 250 721 6025, Fax: +1 250 721 6052, Office: EOW 403 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Web: www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams - End forwarded message - pgp7XpyVSmRQ6.pgp Description: PGP signature
