Re: Open Software License v2.1
Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > >>>Stop right there. You didn't invent the software I wrote, regardless of >>>what the overloaded US Patent Office might think. >> Sure I did. Well, if you're writing some software to do >> Diffie-Hellman key exchange, that Diffie and Hellman most certainly >> *did* invent that, and have a (now-expired) patent on it. If you're >> using the RSA cryptosystem to provide secrecy and authentication for >> data, then R, S, and A really did invent it, and you're just following >> in their footsteps. > What if I invented it independently? Assume for the sake of argument > that I am a genius. ;-) Then wait until their patent expires. That's no different from the situation with traditional hardware patents. >> You didn't come up with the idea of using >> discrete log as a trapdoor function, or the idea of using trapdoor >> functions for key exchange. You're just writing in accord with the >> algorithm they published. > Or did I? > > Patents are odd that way; they bite independent inventions. But only for a very limited period of time. And they require full disclosure of the patented technique, so it guarantees that you won't *need* an independent invention a while later. >> Rivest et al. could have kept their algorithm secret, and only sold >> sealed boxes for performing in-line encryption. Instead, they >> accepted a bargain with society in which they published their results, >> allowing others to build on them, and received a monopoly on those >> results for a period of time. >> If you reject that bargain for software, that's fine -- but it means >> you should reject both halves, and isolate yourself from hearing about >> patented techniques like LZW compression, public key cryptosystems, >> the tab key, etc. until after their patents have expired. > Hey, I *never* knowingly read about patented techniques. That doesn't > mean I won't accidentally implement one. IF the patent system implemented the ban on obvious patents the way it was originally meant, then you would never accidentally implement one. The part that's broken is not the idea of patents on systems incorporating software, but the part where a company can get a patent's monopoly protection on an obvious technique. To be specific, what I mean by obvious -- and what I think was originally meant by obvious, if you read the notes from the drafters of early patent law -- was that it couldn't be kept a secret in practice. So you (well, Eli Whitney) can get a patent on a method for producing interchangeable rifle parts, because even if I'm staring at the things I can't tell how you made them so precisely. Similarly, with the patent on the technique of using LZW to compress files, the technique of using RSA to protect secrecy, etc: even looking at the inputs and the outputs, it's not obvious what you're doing. So society benefits by trading RSA, Inc. a short monopoly on exploiting RSA as a cryptosystem in exchange for publication of how they did it. One-click shopping, on the other hand, is obvious. As soon as I see a description of the result, it's clear to me how to build something like that. XOR cursors, similarly, are obvious -- five seconds of playing with such a machine is all it takes to understand what it's doing and how to make one. If that criterion in the already-written law is strictly implemented, then patents on systems incidentally including software won't be a problem. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Stop right there. You didn't invent the software I wrote, regardless of what the overloaded US Patent Office might think. Sure I did. Well, if you're writing some software to do Diffie-Hellman key exchange, that Diffie and Hellman most certainly *did* invent that, and have a (now-expired) patent on it. If you're using the RSA cryptosystem to provide secrecy and authentication for data, then R, S, and A really did invent it, and you're just following in their footsteps. What if I invented it independently? Assume for the sake of argument that I am a genius. ;-) You didn't come up with the idea of using discrete log as a trapdoor function, or the idea of using trapdoor functions for key exchange. You're just writing in accord with the algorithm they published. Or did I? Patents are odd that way; they bite independent inventions. Rivest et al. could have kept their algorithm secret, and only sold sealed boxes for performing in-line encryption. Instead, they accepted a bargain with society in which they published their results, allowing others to build on them, and received a monopoly on those results for a period of time. If you reject that bargain for software, that's fine -- but it means you should reject both halves, and isolate yourself from hearing about patented techniques like LZW compression, public key cryptosystems, the tab key, etc. until after their patents have expired. Hey, I *never* knowingly read about patented techniques. That doesn't mean I won't accidentally implement one. and filed for a patent. Some companies file "defensively" on the "everyone else has bogus garbage patents, we need some too" principle. Yup. There are lots of junk patents. They outnumber the good ones, as far as I can tell. The right way to fix that doesn't involve diluting our concept of freedom. The right way to fix that is to fix the patent-granting system. If we proceed in diluting our concept of freedom -- if we say that it's OK to be non-free if it's for a Really Good Social Cause, to prevent and destroy these evil patents which keep software from getting written -- then at some point Microsoft and friends will convince part of the free software community to license software in ways preventing copylefts, because these evil copylefts keep software from getting written. After all, *you* didn't invent my modifications, and shouldn't have any right to control what I do with them. And in fact I don't have any such right, as long as you separate the modifications out from the original.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
> > More generally, actions which would make free software not be > > treated as free software would seem to be acceptable actions to > > discriminate against. On Sun, Sep 26, 2004 at 05:00:05PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > That sounds overbroad. If the license violate other provisions of the DFSG [besides the "discriminate fields of endeavor"] clause, the software wouldn't be free. And, of course, the GPL is my cannonical example of a free license which offers discrimination which we do not recognize as relevant discrimination against a "field of endeavor". [But all licenses include some such irrelevant discrimination -- only public domain doesn't make a distinction between the copyright holder and others.] Within that context, do you still think that this is overbroad? If so, can you provide any clear scenarios where this is too inclusive? Thanks, -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The form of both is "Since performs , shall > be punished by terminating their license". The claim was that this is > somehow acceptable. For some subset of actions, this is acceptable. Suggesting that those acceptable actions are equivilent to unacceptable actions without actually suggesting why is not a useful use of anyone's time. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen writes: > Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > On Sun, Sep 26, 2004 at 07:38:14PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > >> The form of both is "Since performs , shall > >> be punished by terminating their license". The claim was that this is > >> somehow acceptable. > > > > There are cases where this is acceptable. > > > > For example, where involves distributing a GPL licensed program > > without including the copyright notices. > > I disagree. I think the phrasing Andrew should have used is "Since > performs ..." This is not legally accurate. US copyright law, for example, reserves for the original author the right to distribute the work and to create derived works. It does not reserve to him the right to distribute derived works; the GPL limits that by only granting the first two rights if you agree to its terms. Michael Poole
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sun, Sep 26, 2004 at 07:38:14PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: >> The form of both is "Since performs , shall >> be punished by terminating their license". The claim was that this is >> somehow acceptable. > > There are cases where this is acceptable. > > For example, where involves distributing a GPL licensed program > without including the copyright notices. I disagree. I think the phrasing Andrew should have used is "Since performs ..." > More generally, actions which would make free software not be treated as > free software would seem to be acceptable actions to discriminate against. That sounds overbroad. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 26, 2004 at 07:38:14PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > The form of both is "Since performs , shall > be punished by terminating their license". The claim was that this is > somehow acceptable. There are cases where this is acceptable. For example, where involves distributing a GPL licensed program without including the copyright notices. More generally, actions which would make free software not be treated as free software would seem to be acceptable actions to discriminate against. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 12:17:08AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 02:43:48PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > >> On the other hand, lawsuits attempting to enforce "patents" on software > >> *are* intrinsically bad for free software. > > > > This argument says that since it's bad for nuclear power plant > > technicians to enforce patents on software, the software should not be > > permitted to be used in nuclear power plants. Therefore you are a gerbil. The form of both is "Since performs , shall be punished by terminating their license". The claim was that this is somehow acceptable. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 09:26:25AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > You've been tricked by lawyers. This clause says that only the > > copyright holder may file patent lawsuits. > > These licenses tend to include patent licenses. As a result, the > copyright holder /doesn't/ get to sue you (at least, not if they want to > win). Unless you're about to show a license that says "You may use any patents that we hold for any purposes", then that's irrelevant. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 12:02:56PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > > You have yet to establish why this argument applies to the kind of > > > patent lawsuit clause in the Open Software License, since it protects > > > all licensees equally. > > > > You have yet to establish what your argument has got to do with the > > price of tea in China. > > Stop acting like a troll. If you don't want to argue the point, > concede it. I concede that it has absolutely nothing to do with irrelevant topics. (That's definitive, incidentally). -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 07:21:50AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:58:04AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > Licensor brings suit against you alleging massive patent infringement > > on your part. The chances of you successfully defending them all are > > slim. Your choices are effectively settlement, or patent counter-suit > > that kills your license. > > If licensor grants a patent license for all of his patents related to > the work, this scenario is irrelevant; I can simply point to the patent > license. Only if the patents were used in the version released by the licensor. Pick any patent that wasn't used in the original version to invoke this scenario. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Scripsit Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 10:02:10PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > It's not a complete defense, by the way - a smart patent owner would > > just try to sue everybody else *but* the copyright holder who uses the > > code instead. > The OSL 2.1's clause causes termination if you allege patent violation > in the work against any licensee. OK. -- Henning Makholm "It was intended to compile from some approximation to the M-notation, but the M-notation was never fully defined, because representing LISP functions by LISP lists became the dominant programming language when the interpreter later became available."
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 10:02:10PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > It's not a complete defense, by the way - a smart patent owner would > just try to sue everybody else *but* the copyright holder who uses the > code instead. The OSL 2.1's clause causes termination if you allege patent violation in the work against any licensee. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 04:06:18PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > I'm not sure it is, in this example. Well. It's important because > this is all part of a crusade against software patents taken too far > into a crusade against patents which happen to apply to software. I understand what you're saying, but I just don't yet think this is a "crusade taken too far". > Can you find anything in Debian's devotion to its users and free > software, however, which enjoins the project to join in this crusade, > not merely by lobbying governments but also by permitting restrictions > on the behavior of licensees of allegedly free software? This seems obvious to me: these clauses are intended to protect users and free software. If Debian is to reject them, it should be because they're damaging to users or free software, by restricting freedoms that we consider important. I'm ready and willing to be convinced that there's some freedom being restricted here that shouldn't be, but I havn't been pointed to it yet. This is similar to the point of the "desert island" re-debate where people were asking "what freedom does this protect?" The answer was "freedom to make private modifications". From that we could move on with the discussion of whether that was important, and if we disagreed, we could understand where. What freedom does this protect? > It think it's free to terminate a public license completely and > universally as soon as anybody brings and wins any suit against any > party that claims that the work using some patented technology. This is fairly useless: again by my poor understanding, most patent suits are be settled out-of-court, since it's very expensive to do so in court. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 10:27:11AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > Before Debian considers software free, we require proper licenses for > actively enforced patents; any claim of infringement would make the > software non-DFSG, even before a lawsuit is resolved. This isn't established. If Microsoft started patent infringement suits against gcc, which it knew it would lose but started anyway for, say, weird PR reasons, we wouldn't consider gcc non-free. We'd only do that if they actually won the suit, and then only extend it to other software that would infringe the same patent if they actually won it on the grounds of the patent (eg. not in the odd case of the FSF throwing a no-contest, which wouldn't actually confirm the patent, I assume). We don't have much prior practice on this, but I don't think we'd be doing anyone any good to pull out large chunks of the archive because a company started a bogus patent campaign against major free software projects. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 05:22:21PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > However, if he distributed under a non-patent-defense license, it would > *still* be non-free. So I'm not clear on how the so-called patent-defence > clause makes any difference here. It wouldn't be: > Right but if the patent-defence clause is absent, then either: > (1) GIFEnc is still free, because GIFCorp's patents will be defeated > (In which case what's the need for the countersuit?) > > Or (2) GIFEnc isn't free We're back at "do held patents make software non-free?" issue again: we don't consider a work non-free simply because patents which can be enforced against it exist, unless they're actually being enforced. This fact does make the issue murky and much harder to figure out. > So what difference does the patent-defence clause make? It's essentially applying the "don't allege patent violation for use of this software" part of the anti-patent clause to the copyright holder, as well, by a different means (a license grant). It's usually much cheaper, by my understanding, to countersue and settle a patent suit than to defend against the patent in court--even if you know you'll win because the patent is bogus. I don't think it's free to require that others give up their ability to countersue (eg. to take the above course of action) unless you guarantee that you won't make it necessary--this is true even if you don't hold any relevant patents, or if your patents wouldn't actually stand up in court. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:36:54PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 07:09:21AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:44:13AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > > Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work > > > > and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding. > > > > > > > > Joe derives XEmacs from that work. This inherits, among many other > > > > things, GIF decoding. > > > > > > > > Bill sues Joe, claiming that XEmacs infringes his GIF patent. > > > > > > > > Does and should Bill lose his license to Emacs, in addition to XEmacs? > > > > I think the answer to both is yes. > > > > > > The copyright and patent holder has no need for a license. > > > > Bill is not a copyright holder at all in this scenario. > > Not a very interesting scenario, then. You can construct a scenario > where any license seems "reasonable", including a proprietary one. The > mark of free licenses is that you can't construct any where it's > unreasonable. This scenario is constructed to respond to a specific message of Nathanael's, to argue that 1: for patent defense clauses to be useful, this type of license loss must occur, and 2: that this behavior is very similar to things we consider free. It is not a standalone example to argue that patent defense clauses are free. Please review the thread. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 07:09:21AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:44:13AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work > > > and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding. > > > > > > Joe derives XEmacs from that work. This inherits, among many other > > > things, GIF decoding. > > > > > > Bill sues Joe, claiming that XEmacs infringes his GIF patent. > > > > > > Does and should Bill lose his license to Emacs, in addition to XEmacs? > > > I think the answer to both is yes. > > > > The copyright and patent holder has no need for a license. > > Bill is not a copyright holder at all in this scenario. Not a very interesting scenario, then. You can construct a scenario where any license seems "reasonable", including a proprietary one. The mark of free licenses is that you can't construct any where it's unreasonable. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Glenn Maynard wrote: > (Unrequested CC sent; it just seems like a good idea when sending mails > concerning possible MUA problems ...) > > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 01:16:51PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: >> You haven't been reading my postings? > > I doubt anyone is reading all of your postings, due to your well-known > bad habit of spamming the list with a page of replies to old posts at a > time. I wouldn't be surprised if some people had you killfiled for it. > > This is the fourth post I see from you on this list this month, followed > by about twenty more. In this case, I am catching up on a month of postings. And I (a) haven't said anything redundant (b) have stuck to a strict rule of no more than one message per topic > (I wouldn't bother asking this, since every time I have you've blown me > off or ignored me, as I recall; except that this response seems to > indicate that you think you've been posting My opinions on the software-patent retaliation clauses were made clear months ago during the discussion of the Apache License 2.0; I doubt that Andrew Suffield was killfiling me at that time. > even though I see almost all > of your posts *after* this one ...) -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Glenn Maynard wrote: > Ick. A, B, C, X, VD, MSC, π. I find these hypotheticals to be a lot > easier to parse and process if I give these people names and use actual > projects to put things in perspective with one another ... > > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:08:04PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: >> (Essentially, by buying the copyright, they would have gotten themselves >> a special license to avoid the patent-termination clause, and that's >> all.) > > However, the question is if the patent grant is intrinsic to these patent > defense clauses being free. > > Without a patent license grant, if John writes GIFEnc, and holds a GIF > patent, he can distribute GIFEnc under a patent-defense license, and then > sue users of > it for violating his GIF patent. Those users can't as easily countersue > by claiming that GIFEnc also violates their own GIF patent, because > they'll lose their license to it. > > With the patent grant, John can't sue for that patent violation--or if he > does, users have a trivial defense (he granted them a license). > > Is the first case free? If you think so, the copyright-transfer case is > irrelevant. Hmm. No, the first case is non-free. However, if he distributed under a non-patent-defense license, it would *still* be non-free. So I'm not clear on how the so-called patent-defence clause makes any difference here. > I'm inclined to say it's not. I'll agree not to sue you for patent > violation for a license to this software, but only if it's mutual--don't > give me a copyright license and then turn around and sue me for patent > violation. I'm not going to give up my ability to countersue unless you > agree to make it unnecessary. > > Now, I can still be sued by GIFCorp for patent violation. They'll lose > their license to GIFEnc, but they may not care. In that case, I won't be > able to sue them for violations due to their use of GIFEnc--they don't > even use GIFEnc. > > So the case in question is: GIFCorp has bought GIFEnc and uses it heavily, > and sues me for violating their own GIF patents (which the origial patent > grant didn't include). They do use GIFEnc, but I can't countersue for > their violations in that use--I'll lose my license. We're back to the > above "without a patent license grant" case. Right but if the patent-defence clause is absent, then either: (1) GIFEnc is still free, because GIFCorp's patents will be defeated (In which case what's the need for the countersuit?) Or (2) GIFEnc isn't free So what difference does the patent-defence clause make? You are convincing me that patent license grants are a necessary component of *all* licenses, not just patent-defence licenses. :-) -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Scripsit Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > It think it's free to terminate a public license completely and > universally as soon as anybody brings and wins any suit against any > party that claims that the work using some patented technology. Still fails the Tentacles of Evil test, this time very spectacularly. Imagine that, say, Emacs was under such a license. Microsoft Denmark Aps then starts selling media with the source code for Emacs on them. Microsoft Germany GmbH files suit against MS Denmark, alleging that Emacs uses Microsoft's patented two's-complement technology for representing negative numbers, and demanding royalties payments. The defendant agrees that the technology is, in fact, used, but refuses to pay royalty on grounds that half of the profits is being donated to a charity. The judge, correctly, dismisses this defense as rubbish and has to rule in favor of the plaintiff. Poof. Suddenly everybody, has lost their license for Emacs, completely and universally. (This will have the most practical importance if Microsoft has previously acquired the FSF, or RMS has gone mad and started working for Redmond. But that's exactly the kind of things a license has to survive in order to be free). -- Henning Makholm (Og det er vasketøjet tit.)
Re: Open Software License v2.1
MJ Ray wrote: > On 2004-09-21 23:16:47 +0100 Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > >> For what it's worth, I agree entirely. No software patent is >> legitimate, and clauses stating that you can't continue to use a piece >> of Free Software while claiming that software infringes your patent >> are >> both Free and desirable. > > That is a bug with some jurisdictions, not a problem in copyright law. Yes, this is true. Fixing the jurisdictions ranges from impossible to a 20-year project, however. > Attempting to use copyright law to fix all the world's ills is a short > road to madness. Good thing we're not doing that then. > If you are in a swpat-afflicted place, then losing > your patent licence is sufficient to forbid use, as I understand it. > There seems little need to confuse copyright and patent laws. The purpose, as I see it, is specifically to prevent a method of taking a program proprietary. > Do these terms try to change the usual presumption that no-one has > wronged anyone? Bogus copyright accusations are also illegitimate, yet > the GPL does not state that you can't continue to use a piece of free > software while merely *claiming* that it infringes your copyright. Claiming *in court*. > Does any free software copyright licence contain a "copyright defence" > clause similar to these "patent defence" clauses? No. I do not see it as a substantially different situation, though. Suppose B alleges that the distribution of work X by "copyright holder" A under the GPL is illegitimate because, according to B, B, not A, holds copyright in work X. In that case nobody has permission to distribute X, because the copyright holder (B) has not given permission. Now, if B alleges that both A and B hold copyrights in X, then the interesting result is that B has permission to use A's work, but nobody else does. This seems unreasonable and unfair. Terminating B's license evens things out again. The situation where this might be undesirable, and a retaliation clause bad, is if B is already issuing B's work under a free license to everyone. In this case B should perhaps be free to sue A for violation of the free license's terms, without losing his license to A's work. OK, I've convinced myself that copyright defence clauses are bad because of this situation. In the analogous case for patents, I'm wavering. The difference is that I'm not sure there's such a thing as a fair free license for a software patent which has *any* restrictions at *all*. Possibly an attribution requirement -- but perhaps not, given that a patent can control totally independent invention of the same thing, and in that case attribution is not warranted. > Are there copyright > clauses which forbid even participating in copyright cases about that > work? Obviously not. The patent clauses don't do that either, so this is quite irrelevant. > Have they been or would they be regarded as following DFSG? -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 01:55:28PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: >> > Consider a copyright-only case: Alice and Bob each release some >> > software under a copyleft, with a clause mentioning that any lawsuit >> > claiming copyright infringement on the work or any derivative forfeits > >> The clause we are discussing only applies if you allege that the >> *Original Work* consitutes patent infringment. > > I don't think this is well-defined or well-understood just yet. > > Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work > and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding. > > Joe derives XEmacs from that work. This inherits, among many other > things, GIF decoding. > > Bill sues Joe, claiming that XEmacs infringes his GIF patent. > > Does and should Bill lose his license to Emacs, in addition to XEmacs? > I think the answer to both is yes. > > This is analogous to what happens if you violate the GPL and lose your > license to a forked project: you lose your license to the original > project, too, since you violated that as well. (Or at least, that's > what I think happens.) Similarly, if you violate the original work, > you can no longer use any forks, either. If these things didn't happen, > the GPL would be a lot weaker, and probably have loopholes. > > (It might be that your "license" to the code shared in both projects > is one and the same, but I don't know.) Yes, it is. Under the system used for nearly all free software licenses, the "license" to the code shared in both projects is a single license direct to you from Bob (the copyright holder). When you receive Linux, you receive a gobsmacking pile of individual licenses, one from each copyright holder. There are certain licenses which use sublicensing instead (mostly those drafted in England) and they would have different rules. -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Scripsit Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Scripsit Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> PS You know, I just thought of something. If these clauses cancelled > >> the copyright license to *everybody* as soon as *anybody* *wins* a > >> patent lawsuit over the software, I wouldn't mind them so much. > > If the author, Foobar Ltd. happens to be acquired by Evil Megacorp, > > E.M. could have one of their other subsidiaries sue Foobar for with a > > claim that their xor-cursor patent is violated, and deliberately let > > Foobar put up no competent defense at all in court. Poof, everybody's > > copyright license is gone. > But as Poole and others have argued here, if something is less than > perfectly free for any reason, non-freeness of any other sort matters > not. Applied here, that means your example doesn't matter because > they could do it anyway, by simply buying the patent and threatening > suit. I don't see what you're getting at here? Could you spell out what it is that who could do anyway in the absense of your proposed clause? > > The situation the clause aims at is one where a patent owner seeks to > > gain a monopoly on the original author's work by preventing everybody > > else - including the original author himself - from using it. > Your use of the term "original author" is misapplied. No. The original author means whoever wrote the code in question. That it completely orthogonal to whom the patent system considers to have "invented" the "patentable" technique in question. > Either the copyright owner is not the original author, because the > patent predates his work, or he is the original author and can win > the suit easily. You seem to have a quite wrong idea about what patents are an what they can do. Patents say that if Mark gets an idea Monday and files for a patent Tuesday, then Mark can *succesfully* demand royalies from Luke who *independently*, not knowing about Mark's work, got the same idea on Wednesday. > Similarly, I think it's fair to say that Free Software licenses > should not attempt to circumvent the courts, and that penalties for > bringing law cases belong only in negotiated contracts. It's not about a penalty for bringing law case. It's about preventing patent owners from gaining a monopoly on code that somebody else wrote with the purpose of it being free. It's not a complete defense, by the way - a smart patent owner would just try to sue everybody else *but* the copyright holder who uses the code instead. -- Henning Makholm "Jeg forstår mig på at anvende sådanne midler på folks legemer, at jeg kan varme eller afkøle dem, som jeg vil, og få dem til at kaste op, hvis det er det, jeg vil, eller give afføring og meget andet af den slags."
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen writes: > Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > The situation the clause aims at is one where a patent owner seeks to > > gain a monopoly on the original author's work by preventing everybody > > else - including the original author himself - from using it. > > Your use of the term "original author" is misapplied. Either the > copyright owner is not the original author, because the patent > predates his work, or he is the original author and can win the suit > easily. His use of the term is correct. The software was written by the "original author." Software can infringe a patent that was issued before, after or concurrently with the software being published. The odds are that, even for a patent with a filing date after the software was first published, the defendant in a patent suit would have trouble winning on that basis. Among other reasons, many countries have a "grace period" that allows publication of an invention before filing a patent for it; the USA allows such publication by third parties. > > I don't think "justice", impartial or not, has anything to do with > > that. My intuition is that it is fair for free software to say, "if > > you want to have a monopoly on implementations of your patented > > gadget, you have to write the code yourself". > > Similarly, I think it's fair to say that Free Software licenses > should not attempt to circumvent the courts, and that penalties for > bringing law cases belong only in negotiated contracts. Can you relate this limitation on licenses to the DFSG? Michael Poole
Re: Open Software License v2.1
> >> > If the software is not free, regardless of the copyright license, > >> > then the reason it's not free is not the copyright license. Thus, > >> > this scenario has no bearing on the freeness of the license. > >> I don't think that's true. Certainly, I see no reason it should be > >> accepted as obviously true. Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Where, specifically, do you disagree? [Let's take it for granted that > > if you disagree with an antecedent that you feel that the consequent > > is illogical.] On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 03:58:11PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Something can be non-free for many reasons. If it is non-free > regardless of the copyright license, and under a non-free copyright > license, then it is nonsensical to speak of a single reason that it is > non-free. Sure. But you seem to have claimed that "this scenario has no bearing on the freeness of the license" might not be correct. Ok, there might be more than one reason for a license to be free or non-free -- but the possibility that more than one reason exists doesn't seem to make an irrelevant scenario relevant. > I think I see what conclusion you'd like me to reach, though -- that a > copyright license which is sometimes free and sometimes non-free, but > only non-free in cases where the software in question is already > non-free anyway, is a free license. Huh? I'm not asking you to draw any such conclusion. For all I know, you might be right about the osl-2.1 license being non-free. I just want to see a convincing argument that this is the case before I agree to any such thing. [And, I don't consider "an irrelevant argument" to be "a convincing argument".] > Is that the basic idea? No. I'm claiming that your argument -- which makes all instances of the program in question non-free, regardless of the license -- has no bearing on the freeness of the license. If "X is irrelevant to Y", then X does not prove Y, and X does not disprove Y. > If so, I almost believe it. Almost, but not quite. By way of > comparison, consider a GPL-like license which additionally prohibited > private modification to include non-GPL-compatible works written by > others -- that is, to prohibit making any thing you could not distribute > under the GPL out of parts you have only under the GPL. > > That's non-free, and this is non-free for the same reason. I'm not convinced that this example is related in any relevant sense. You've not identified the reason that this example is non-free, so I'm reserving judgement on whether that reason applies to the patent case. > > That's not "my patent scenario", that's "my paraphrase of your patent > > scenario". I'm claiming that the scenario is invalid, your rephrasing > > of it didn't make it valid. > What's invalid about that scenario? I understand that you object to > the conclusions drawn from it, but now you claim that the hypothetical > itself is invalid. What does this mean? I identified several scenarios, and you ask about "that scenario"... I'm going to guess and go for this one: > >> >> > A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims > >> >> > that the software is patent restricted, and sues A. > >> >> > B wins, and now only B can distribute the software > >> >> > -- A can't [and no one else can] without buying a > >> >> > license from B. As stated, the scenario is misleading: B can't satisfy the GPL while distributing the program without granting transitive rights to the patent. In other words, there's two potential cases: the software is not distributed at all [the typical case], or it's distributed under the original terms [with B not benefiting from the lawsuit]. Let's try this -- YOU present a scenario which illustrates the non-free nature of osl-2.1. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Scripsit Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> PS You know, I just thought of something. If these clauses cancelled >> the copyright license to *everybody* as soon as *anybody* *wins* a >> patent lawsuit over the software, I wouldn't mind them so much. > > That would spectacularly fail the tentacles-of-evil test. > > If the author, Foobar Ltd. happens to be acquired by Evil Megacorp, > E.M. could have one of their other subsidiaries sue Foobar for with a > claim that their xor-cursor patent is violated, and deliberately let > Foobar put up no competent defense at all in court. Poof, everybody's > copyright license is gone. But as Poole and others have argued here, if something is less than perfectly free for any reason, non-freeness of any other sort matters not. Applied here, that means your example doesn't matter because they could do it anyway, by simply buying the patent and threatening suit. >> It's the cancellation of the license for even seeking impartial >> justice that bothers me. > > The situation the clause aims at is one where a patent owner seeks to > gain a monopoly on the original author's work by preventing everybody > else - including the original author himself - from using it. Your use of the term "original author" is misapplied. Either the copyright owner is not the original author, because the patent predates his work, or he is the original author and can win the suit easily. > I don't think "justice", impartial or not, has anything to do with > that. My intuition is that it is fair for free software to say, "if > you want to have a monopoly on implementations of your patented > gadget, you have to write the code yourself". Similarly, I think it's fair to say that Free Software licenses should not attempt to circumvent the courts, and that penalties for bringing law cases belong only in negotiated contracts. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Michael Poole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Thomas Sniffen writes: > >> Can you find anything in Debian's devotion to its users and free >> software, however, which enjoins the project to join in this crusade, >> not merely by lobbying governments but also by permitting restrictions >> on the behavior of licensees of allegedly free software? > > I think the benefit to free software is obvious: Someone who uses free > software with the kind of termination clause in OSLv2.1 cannot restrict > its use to himself by making patent infringement claims over it. ... not even if he owns a valid patent to it. >> PS You know, I just thought of something. If these clauses cancelled >> the copyright license to *everybody* as soon as *anybody* *wins* a >> patent lawsuit over the software, I wouldn't mind them so much. It's >> the cancellation of the license for even seeking impartial justice >> that bothers me. > > Why is the type of the withheld license important? I'm not sure it is, in this example. Well. It's important because this is all part of a crusade against software patents taken too far into a crusade against patents which happen to apply to software. But it's not important for what I want to express. The starred bits are important, and should probably be phrased like this: It think it's free to terminate a public license completely and universally as soon as anybody brings and wins any suit against any party that claims that the work using some patented technology. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > If the software is not free, regardless of the copyright license, >> > then the reason it's not free is not the copyright license. Thus, >> > this scenario has no bearing on the freeness of the license. >> >> I don't think that's true. Certainly, I see no reason it should be >> accepted as obviously true. > > Where, specifically, do you disagree? [Let's take it for granted that > if you disagree with an antecedent that you feel that the consequent > is illogical.] Something can be non-free for many reasons. If it is non-free regardless of the copyright license, and under a non-free copyright license, then it is nonsensical to speak of a single reason that it is non-free. I think I see what conclusion you'd like me to reach, though -- that a copyright license which is sometimes free and sometimes non-free, but only non-free in cases where the software in question is already non-free anyway, is a free license. Is that the basic idea? If so, I almost believe it. Almost, but not quite. By way of comparison, consider a GPL-like license which additionally prohibited private modification to include non-GPL-compatible works written by others -- that is, to prohibit making any thing you could not distribute under the GPL out of parts you have only under the GPL. That's non-free, and this is non-free for the same reason. >> >> > A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims >> >> > that the software is patent restricted, and sues A. >> >> > B wins, and now only B can distribute the software >> >> > -- A can't [and no one else can] without buying a >> >> > license from B. >> >> > >> >> > You seem to be claiming that a license which prevents >> >> > this scenario is not good, and that the reason it's >> >> > not good is that it prevents this scenario. > >> >> It might be good. It isn't free. If it is free, >> >> why isn't the following free: >> >> >> >> : A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that >> >> : the software is on his hard drive, and sues A for >> >> : that drive. B wins, and now only B can distribute >> >> : the software -- A can't [and no one else can] >> >> : without getting a license from B. >> > >> > This scenario of yours has nothing to do with the freeness of the >> > license. >> >> It's just your patent scenario from above, rephrased to deal with >> physical property. > > That's not "my patent scenario", that's "my paraphrase of your patent > scenario". I'm claiming that the scenario is invalid, your rephrasing > of it didn't make it valid. What's invalid about that scenario? I understand that you object to the conclusions drawn from it, but now you claim that the hypothetical itself is invalid. What does this mean? -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 09:44:47PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >>>: A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that the software is >>>: on his hard drive, and sues A for that drive. B wins, and now only >>>: B can distribute the software -- A can't [and no one else can] >>>: without getting a license from B. >> >>This scenario of yours has nothing to do with the freeness of the license. > > It's just your patent scenario from above, rephrased to deal with > physical property. Are you claiming that a license which prevents > this scenario, by terminating the copyright license to anyone who > sues regarding physical media containing the software, is free? Patents are not property. Patents do not behave like property, despite the unfortunate terms used to refer to a broad class of law that includes patents. Claiming that someone stole your property in no way approximates a patent lawsuit. Using your analogical situation, the comparable case with a patent lawsuit would be B claiming that A's hard drive is similar to B's hard drive, and that B thinks he should control all hard drives similar to his. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
> > GPL 7 isn't relevant here. GPL 7 is for cases where someone else holds > > the patent. [Note the uses of the phrase "imposed on you" and the phrase > > "do not excuse you".] > > > > Try GPL 5 and 6, instead. On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 10:39:38AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Right. So I set up a little corporation whose purpose is to hold the > patents, and I deal in the copyrights. Now we're back in GPL 7 land. Only if you've given up control of the corporation, to the degree you have no influence over the corporation. Even there, if it can be shown that you set up the corporation for the purpose of making this happen, it's not likely that any superficial or temporary lack of control would be relevant. That said, if this tactic worked for the GPL, it would work just as well for the OSL -- for all I know, your tactic might even work better in the context of the OSL. Oh, look, it's not me that's lost rights to distribute your program that I'm claiming is illegal -- it's this corporation that owns my patents that's suing you. > >> I'm sure I only have to grant a license to that patent to all parties > >> who receive a copy of the work. > > > > You can't restrict that grant to only those parties -- they must be able > > to further distribute the program without any further restrictions. > > Why must they be able to do that? I can distribute in compliance with > GPL 6, and then they get stopped by GPL 7 through no fault of mine. It's not "through no fault of yours" if it's your restriction that causes them to get stopped by GPL 7. And, if it's not your restriction that causes them to get stopped by GPL section 7, how could you possibly sue the copyright holder for patent violations if the license were osl-2.1 instead of the gpl? > >> > The scenario you seem to propose looks to me like this: > >> > >> First, B files for a patent and publishes an invention. For the sake > >> of argument, say it's something legitimately innovative. > > > > If the software is not free, regardless of the copyright license, > > then the reason it's not free is not the copyright license. Thus, > > this scenario has no bearing on the freeness of the license. > > I don't think that's true. Certainly, I see no reason it should be > accepted as obviously true. Where, specifically, do you disagree? [Let's take it for granted that if you disagree with an antecedent that you feel that the consequent is illogical.] > >> > A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims > >> > that the software is patent restricted, and sues A. > >> > B wins, and now only B can distribute the software > >> > -- A can't [and no one else can] without buying a > >> > license from B. > >> > > >> > You seem to be claiming that a license which prevents > >> > this scenario is not good, and that the reason it's > >> > not good is that it prevents this scenario. > >> It might be good. It isn't free. If it is free, > >> why isn't the following free: > >> > >> : A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that > >> : the software is on his hard drive, and sues A for > >> : that drive. B wins, and now only B can distribute > >> : the software -- A can't [and no one else can] > >> : without getting a license from B. > > > > This scenario of yours has nothing to do with the freeness of the > > license. > > It's just your patent scenario from above, rephrased to deal with > physical property. That's not "my patent scenario", that's "my paraphrase of your patent scenario". I'm claiming that the scenario is invalid, your rephrasing of it didn't make it valid. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Scripsit Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > PS You know, I just thought of something. If these clauses cancelled > the copyright license to *everybody* as soon as *anybody* *wins* a > patent lawsuit over the software, I wouldn't mind them so much. That would spectacularly fail the tentacles-of-evil test. If the author, Foobar Ltd. happens to be acquired by Evil Megacorp, E.M. could have one of their other subsidiaries sue Foobar for with a claim that their xor-cursor patent is violated, and deliberately let Foobar put up no competent defense at all in court. Poof, everybody's copyright license is gone. > It's the cancellation of the license for even seeking impartial > justice that bothers me. The situation the clause aims at is one where a patent owner seeks to gain a monopoly on the original author's work by preventing everybody else - including the original author himself - from using it. I don't think "justice", impartial or not, has anything to do with that. My intuition is that it is fair for free software to say, "if you want to have a monopoly on implementations of your patented gadget, you have to write the code yourself". -- Henning Makholm "In my opinion, this child don't need to have his head shrunk at all."
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > The claim that copyleft software isn't free is nonsense. > > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 09:44:47PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >> Yes, but only you've made that claim. I certainly haven't, and I >> invite you to quote where you think I've done so. > > That isn't my claim. > > Instead, I said that, as phrased, the following seemed to include that > claim, and I asked for a phrasing which was not so inclusive: > >On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:35:16PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >> Because it's a copyright license. If I give away all these freedoms >> with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away. If >> I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work >> giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back >> room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free. > >> > If you have a patent which applies to the program, and you want to >> > distribute, you have to grant a license to that patent to all third >> > parties. >> >> Having just read GPL 7 again, to make sure I'm doing this right, I >> think I can just issue a license to use the patent for a given >> purpose, and that's enough. I'm not completely certain of that. > > GPL 7 isn't relevant here. GPL 7 is for cases where someone else holds > the patent. [Note the uses of the phrase "imposed on you" and the phrase > "do not excuse you".] > > Try GPL 5 and 6, instead. Right. So I set up a little corporation whose purpose is to hold the patents, and I deal in the copyrights. Now we're back in GPL 7 land. >> I'm sure I only have to grant a license to that patent to all parties >> who receive a copy of the work. > > You can't restrict that grant to only those parties -- they must be able > to further distribute the program without any further restrictions. Why must they be able to do that? I can distribute in compliance with GPL 6, and then they get stopped by GPL 7 through no fault of mine. >> > The scenario you seem to propose looks to me like this: >> >> First, B files for a patent and publishes an invention. For the sake >> of argument, say it's something legitimately innovative. > > If the software is not free, regardless of the copyright license, > then the reason it's not free is not the copyright license. Thus, > this scenario has no bearing on the freeness of the license. I don't think that's true. Certainly, I see no reason it should be accepted as obviously true. >> > A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that the software is >> > patent restricted, and sues A. B wins, and now only B can distribute the >> > software -- A can't [and no one else can] without buying a license from B. >> > >> > You seem to be claiming that a license which prevents this scenario is not >> > good, and that the reason it's not good is that it prevents this scenario. >> >> It might be good. It isn't free. If it is free, why isn't the >> following free: >> >> : A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that the software is >> : on his hard drive, and sues A for that drive. B wins, and now only >> : B can distribute the software -- A can't [and no one else can] >> : without getting a license from B. > > This scenario of yours has nothing to do with the freeness of the license. It's just your patent scenario from above, rephrased to deal with physical property. Are you claiming that a license which prevents this scenario, by terminating the copyright license to anyone who sues regarding physical media containing the software, is free? -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen writes: > Can you find anything in Debian's devotion to its users and free > software, however, which enjoins the project to join in this crusade, > not merely by lobbying governments but also by permitting restrictions > on the behavior of licensees of allegedly free software? I think the benefit to free software is obvious: Someone who uses free software with the kind of termination clause in OSLv2.1 cannot restrict its use to himself by making patent infringement claims over it. > PS You know, I just thought of something. If these clauses cancelled > the copyright license to *everybody* as soon as *anybody* *wins* a > patent lawsuit over the software, I wouldn't mind them so much. It's > the cancellation of the license for even seeking impartial justice > that bothers me. Why is the type of the withheld license important? If you are the patent holder, you would not have a copyright license on the software that infringes your patent. If you are anyone else, you would not have a patent license on the software. It would not be legal for anyone to distribute (or use, except perhaps for the patent holder) the software after a successful patent claim -- unless the patent holder granted a free license. Before Debian considers software free, we require proper licenses for actively enforced patents; any claim of infringement would make the software non-DFSG, even before a lawsuit is resolved. Michael Poole
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 01:33:17PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >> real invention, whether implemented in software or hardware. The RSA >> cryptosystem is a decent example of this. >> >> So there are some legitimate patents, though they're probably a >> minority. But that means that those people do have a legitimate > > I don't believe any patent enforcement against software is legitimate; I > believe that enforcement of a patent against RSA code is just as destructive > and abusive as enforcement against XOR mouse cursor code. (I also concur > with Michael's response.) > > (This may be something close to the core of where we disagree.) I disagree with you, but I suspect that your version of patent law would be better than what we've got right now. So by all means, go forth and lobby the various world governments to change patent law. Can you find anything in Debian's devotion to its users and free software, however, which enjoins the project to join in this crusade, not merely by lobbying governments but also by permitting restrictions on the behavior of licensees of allegedly free software? -Brian PS You know, I just thought of something. If these clauses cancelled the copyright license to *everybody* as soon as *anybody* *wins* a patent lawsuit over the software, I wouldn't mind them so much. It's the cancellation of the license for even seeking impartial justice that bothers me. -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Nathanael Nerode wrote: Consider the Malicious Software Corporation (MSC). Consider work X by author Joe. MSC holds patent A covering X and patent B covering something else. Valiant Defender (VD) holds patent C covering X. Normally, MSC can sue any user of X for infringing patent A. With the narrow patent-lawsuit-termination clause, doing so will cause MSC to lose its copyright license for X. If MSC doesn't copy/distribute/modify X, it won't care. If MSC does, then this might hurt it a bit. Suppose MSC sues VD. VD could try to "fight back" with patent C; this would only work if MSC uses X, of course. With the narrow patent-lawsuit-termination clause, this "fighting back" would cause VD to lose its copyright license for X as well. Would a counterclaim regarding patent C be a compulsory counterclaim in that case? That is, if VD does not bring patent C into the lawsuit, would VD be barred from bringing a future suit against MSC regarding patent C? If so, then VD has two options: give up their copyright license for X, or essentially grant MSC a free license for patent C. (Of course, Joe could forgive the copyright license violation and allow VD to continue working with X) I suppose some people might consider that to be bad for free software. (I don't.) Now consider the case where MSC buys Joe's copyright. What changes? With the narrow patent-lawsuit-termination clause, MSC will retain its ability to copy/distribute/modify X. This will not change its ability to sue anyone over patents A or B. This will not change VD's ability to "fight back" with patent C (or not), which depends on whether MSC uses X. This will not change whether VD's copyright license for X is terminated or not. (Essentially, by buying the copyright, they would have gotten themselves a special license to avoid the patent-termination clause, and that's all.) Here, If a counterclaim regarding patent C is compulsory, VD can not expect the copyright holder (Joe in the above example, now MSC) to forgive the copyright license violation, so that violation means no more X (ever). Or VD could leave patent C out of the suit, which essentially grants MSC a free license to C. --Joe
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 12:02:49PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > Word games. "If you license something then you lose the ability to sue > people for acting in the manner you licensed them to do". Don't waste > my time; you know full well that's irrelevant. How is that irrelevant? If "agreement not to sue" represents a subset of the consequences of "granting a license", how can "agreement not to sue" be non-free when "granting a license" is free? [I'll grant that there might be some reason why "agreement not to sue" is non-free, but I've not seen those reasons described yet, and I see nothing to make me believe that what you're claiming is word games is at all irrelevant.] By the way, "word games" which are misleading can be dealt with by pointing out how they're misleading. And, "word games" which are illogical can be dealt with by pointing out how they are illogical. That leaves "word games" which are neither misleading nor ilogical... but... Claiming that a relevant point is irrelevant is an example of "misleading". Indicating that a relevant point is a waste of your time seems illogical -- it would be better to just drop out of the discussion if that were really the case. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield writes: > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 07:29:10PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > If you distribute a program under the GPL, you lose most or all of > > your ground to claim damages in court on the basis that the program > > infringes your patent or copy rights. (GPL sections 5, 6, et al.) > > Word games. "If you license something then you lose the ability to sue > people for acting in the manner you licensed them to do". Don't waste > my time; you know full well that's irrelevant. You want to protect someone's right to privately use and modify software (that someone else wrote and tried to release for the world) after they file a lawsuit that -- if successful -- prohibits everyone else in the world from using that software? On the basis that to do otherwise is not free? Even if your answer to both is "yes" (my answer to the first is "no"), I am still not sure how you distinguish a patent lawsuit that claims the software infringes a patent from sublicensing "except as expressly provided under this [General Public] License." Michael Poole
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:58:04AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > Licensor brings suit against you alleging massive patent infringement > on your part. The chances of you successfully defending them all are > slim. Your choices are effectively settlement, or patent counter-suit > that kills your license. If licensor grants a patent license for all of his patents related to the work, this scenario is irrelevant; I can simply point to the patent license. The topic of whether patent grants are a necessary component for patent defense clauses (my opinion: yes), and whether those grants have unfixable holes that render them insufficient (my opinion: maybe) is being actively discussed in another subthread. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:44:13AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work > > and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding. > > > > Joe derives XEmacs from that work. This inherits, among many other > > things, GIF decoding. > > > > Bill sues Joe, claiming that XEmacs infringes his GIF patent. > > > > Does and should Bill lose his license to Emacs, in addition to XEmacs? > > I think the answer to both is yes. > > The copyright and patent holder has no need for a license. Bill is not a copyright holder at all in this scenario. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 07:29:10PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > If you distribute a program under the GPL, you lose most or all of > your ground to claim damages in court on the basis that the program > infringes your patent or copy rights. (GPL sections 5, 6, et al.) Word games. "If you license something then you lose the ability to sue people for acting in the manner you licensed them to do". Don't waste my time; you know full well that's irrelevant. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 09:41:01PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 12:06:12AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 02:43:13PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > > Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > > > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 04:03:18PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > > >> > Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. Prohibiting > > > >> > lawsuits is significantly limiting and imposes real, significant > > > >> > costs. > > > >> > > > >> It's fairly obvious that a requirement that you not sue the licensor > > > >> doesn't impose any costs on you. > > > > > > > > This is fairly obviously wrong. It grants the licensor a carte blanche > > > > license to do anything they like > > > ^ > > > No, to infringe your bogus software patent. > > > > Which can trivially be twisted to smite any lawsuit you care to bring, > > thereby granting them a de facto carte blanche license to do anything > > they like. We've been over this already. > > No, we havn't been over this at all. You keep making this claim, but > you consistently fail to defend it. Please explain how these anti- > patent clauses can be used to "smite" my lawsuit claiming that you > owe me $3000 in rent, or that your software infringes upon my copyright > because you removed my name from the code. Licensor brings suit against you alleging massive patent infringement on your part. The chances of you successfully defending them all are slim. Your choices are effectively settlement, or patent counter-suit that kills your license. Corporations amass defensive patents to block precisely this scenario, and they use anti-patent clauses to defuse the defensive patents of their opponents. It lets them stand over you with a big club and dictate terms. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 09:13:04PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 01:55:28PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > > Consider a copyright-only case: Alice and Bob each release some > > > software under a copyleft, with a clause mentioning that any lawsuit > > > claiming copyright infringement on the work or any derivative forfeits > > > The clause we are discussing only applies if you allege that the *Original > > Work* consitutes patent infringment. > > I don't think this is well-defined or well-understood just yet. > > Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work > and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding. > > Joe derives XEmacs from that work. This inherits, among many other > things, GIF decoding. > > Bill sues Joe, claiming that XEmacs infringes his GIF patent. > > Does and should Bill lose his license to Emacs, in addition to XEmacs? > I think the answer to both is yes. The copyright and patent holder has no need for a license. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 09:04:29AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: > >Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work > >and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding. > > Lose your patent licence or all licence? Both patent and copyright. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On 2004-09-21 23:16:47 +0100 Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: For what it's worth, I agree entirely. No software patent is legitimate, and clauses stating that you can't continue to use a piece of Free Software while claiming that software infringes your patent are both Free and desirable. That is a bug with some jurisdictions, not a problem in copyright law. Attempting to use copyright law to fix all the world's ills is a short road to madness. If you are in a swpat-afflicted place, then losing your patent licence is sufficient to forbid use, as I understand it. There seems little need to confuse copyright and patent laws. Do these terms try to change the usual presumption that no-one has wronged anyone? Bogus copyright accusations are also illegitimate, yet the GPL does not state that you can't continue to use a piece of free software while merely *claiming* that it infringes your copyright. Does any free software copyright licence contain a "copyright defence" clause similar to these "patent defence" clauses? Are there copyright clauses which forbid even participating in copyright cases about that work? Have they been or would they be regarded as following DFSG? -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know Creative copyleft computing - http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://www.thewalks.co.uk stand 13,Lynn Carnival,12 Sep
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On 2004-09-22 02:13:04 +0100 Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding. Lose your patent licence or all licence? -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > The claim that copyleft software isn't free is nonsense. On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 09:44:47PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Yes, but only you've made that claim. I certainly haven't, and I > invite you to quote where you think I've done so. That isn't my claim. Instead, I said that, as phrased, the following seemed to include that claim, and I asked for a phrasing which was not so inclusive: On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:35:16PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Because it's a copyright license. If I give away all these freedoms > with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away. If > I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work > giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back > room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free. > > If you have a patent which applies to the program, and you want to > > distribute, you have to grant a license to that patent to all third > > parties. > > Having just read GPL 7 again, to make sure I'm doing this right, I > think I can just issue a license to use the patent for a given > purpose, and that's enough. I'm not completely certain of that. GPL 7 isn't relevant here. GPL 7 is for cases where someone else holds the patent. [Note the uses of the phrase "imposed on you" and the phrase "do not excuse you".] Try GPL 5 and 6, instead. > I'm sure I only have to grant a license to that patent to all parties > who receive a copy of the work. You can't restrict that grant to only those parties -- they must be able to further distribute the program without any further restrictions. > I'm further pretty sure that I only have to grant a license to that > patent to all parties who receive a copy *from me*. The fact that > nobody else can distribute isn't my problem; GPL 7 only applies to me, > I don't have to ensure they can meet it too. That would constitute a restriction on those parties which is not included in the terms of the license. > > What's not good? > > > > The scenario you seem to propose looks to me like this: > > First, B files for a patent and publishes an invention. For the sake > of argument, say it's something legitimately innovative. If the software is not free, regardless of the copyright license, then the reason it's not free is not the copyright license. Thus, this scenario has no bearing on the freeness of the license. > > A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that the software is > > patent restricted, and sues A. B wins, and now only B can distribute the > > software -- A can't [and no one else can] without buying a license from B. > > > > You seem to be claiming that a license which prevents this scenario is not > > good, and that the reason it's not good is that it prevents this scenario. > > It might be good. It isn't free. If it is free, why isn't the > following free: > > : A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that the software is > : on his hard drive, and sues A for that drive. B wins, and now only > : B can distribute the software -- A can't [and no one else can] > : without getting a license from B. This scenario of yours has nothing to do with the freeness of the license. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
(Unrequested CC sent; it just seems like a good idea when sending mails concerning possible MUA problems ...) On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 01:16:51PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > You haven't been reading my postings? I doubt anyone is reading all of your postings, due to your well-known bad habit of spamming the list with a page of replies to old posts at a time. I wouldn't be surprised if some people had you killfiled for it. This is the fourth post I see from you on this list this month, followed by about twenty more. Is your mailer broken and queuing messages for days at a time, or are you using an offline queue and forgetting to flush it? (I seriously doubt it, since I've asked you this several times during previous Nath-spams, and you've never replied with anything like a confirmation, but in the interests of benefit-of-the-doubt ...) (I wouldn't bother asking this, since every time I have you've blown me off or ignored me, as I recall; except that this response seems to indicate that you think you've been posting even though I see almost all of your posts *after* this one ...) -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 12:06:12AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 02:43:13PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 04:03:18PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > >> > Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. Prohibiting > > >> > lawsuits is significantly limiting and imposes real, significant > > >> > costs. > > >> > > >> It's fairly obvious that a requirement that you not sue the licensor > > >> doesn't impose any costs on you. > > > > > > This is fairly obviously wrong. It grants the licensor a carte blanche > > > license to do anything they like > > ^ > > No, to infringe your bogus software patent. > > Which can trivially be twisted to smite any lawsuit you care to bring, > thereby granting them a de facto carte blanche license to do anything > they like. We've been over this already. No, we havn't been over this at all. You keep making this claim, but you consistently fail to defend it. Please explain how these anti- patent clauses can be used to "smite" my lawsuit claiming that you owe me $3000 in rent, or that your software infringes upon my copyright because you removed my name from the code. If one or both of these are beyond what you intended by "Prohibiting lawsuits", "do anything they like" and "any lawsuit you care to bring", you have an open invitation to be more specific and actually defend your arguments instead of merely repeating assertions. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Ick. A, B, C, X, VD, MSC, π. I find these hypotheticals to be a lot easier to parse and process if I give these people names and use actual projects to put things in perspective with one another ... On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:08:04PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > (Essentially, by buying the copyright, they would have gotten themselves a > special license to avoid the patent-termination clause, and that's all.) However, the question is if the patent grant is intrinsic to these patent defense clauses being free. Without a patent license grant, if John writes GIFEnc, and holds a GIF patent, he can distribute GIFEnc under a patent-defense license, and then sue users of it for violating his GIF patent. Those users can't as easily countersue by claiming that GIFEnc also violates their own GIF patent, because they'll lose their license to it. With the patent grant, John can't sue for that patent violation--or if he does, users have a trivial defense (he granted them a license). Is the first case free? If you think so, the copyright-transfer case is irrelevant. I'm inclined to say it's not. I'll agree not to sue you for patent violation for a license to this software, but only if it's mutual--don't give me a copyright license and then turn around and sue me for patent violation. I'm not going to give up my ability to countersue unless you agree to make it unnecessary. Now, I can still be sued by GIFCorp for patent violation. They'll lose their license to GIFEnc, but they may not care. In that case, I won't be able to sue them for violations due to their use of GIFEnc--they don't even use GIFEnc. So the case in question is: GIFCorp has bought GIFEnc and uses it heavily, and sues me for violating their own GIF patents (which the origial patent grant didn't include). They do use GIFEnc, but I can't countersue for their violations in that use--I'll lose my license. We're back to the above "without a patent license grant" case. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:35:16PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >> >> Because it's a copyright license. If I give away all these freedoms >> >> with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away. If >> >> I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work >> >> giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back >> >> room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free. > >> Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> > You seem to be describing the difference between a public domain work >> > and a copyleft work, with the claim that copyleft software isn't free. >> > >> > Can you express your concept differently, in a way which doesn't include >> > this kind of nonsense? > > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 08:46:58PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >> This isn't nonsense. > > The claim that copyleft software isn't free is nonsense. Yes, but only you've made that claim. I certainly haven't, and I invite you to quote where you think I've done so. >> A copyleft license unambiguously releases rights for me to modify >> and distribute. > > Sure. > >> I don't have to sacrifice *anything at all* which I had otherwise. > > If you have a patent which applies to the program, and you want to > distribute, you have to grant a license to that patent to all third > parties. Having just read GPL 7 again, to make sure I'm doing this right, I think I can just issue a license to use the patent for a given purpose, and that's enough. I'm not completely certain of that. I'm sure I only have to grant a license to that patent to all parties who receive a copy of the work. I'm further pretty sure that I only have to grant a license to that patent to all parties who receive a copy *from me*. The fact that nobody else can distribute isn't my problem; GPL 7 only applies to me, I don't have to ensure they can meet it too. > Ok, if you don't want to modify and distribute, then this doesn't apply > to you, but that's another issue. > >> This copy-to-patentleft sort of licence says I have to refrain from >> enforcing the patent rights which I had independent of the work, >> or I don't get a copyright license. > > I'll grant that not enforcing patent rights in the context of that > specific work against a few specific parties is not as comprehensive > as granting unlimited rights to the patent to all third parties. > >> That's no good. > > What's not good? > > The scenario you seem to propose looks to me like this: First, B files for a patent and publishes an invention. For the sake of argument, say it's something legitimately innovative. > A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that the software is > patent restricted, and sues A. B wins, and now only B can distribute the > software -- A can't [and no one else can] without buying a license from B. > > You seem to be claiming that a license which prevents this scenario is not > good, and that the reason it's not good is that it prevents this scenario. It might be good. It isn't free. If it is free, why isn't the following free: : A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that the software is : on his hard drive, and sues A for that drive. B wins, and now only : B can distribute the software -- A can't [and no one else can] : without getting a license from B. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 01:55:28PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > Consider a copyright-only case: Alice and Bob each release some > > software under a copyleft, with a clause mentioning that any lawsuit > > claiming copyright infringement on the work or any derivative forfeits > The clause we are discussing only applies if you allege that the *Original > Work* consitutes patent infringment. I don't think this is well-defined or well-understood just yet. Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding. Joe derives XEmacs from that work. This inherits, among many other things, GIF decoding. Bill sues Joe, claiming that XEmacs infringes his GIF patent. Does and should Bill lose his license to Emacs, in addition to XEmacs? I think the answer to both is yes. This is analogous to what happens if you violate the GPL and lose your license to a forked project: you lose your license to the original project, too, since you violated that as well. (Or at least, that's what I think happens.) Similarly, if you violate the original work, you can no longer use any forks, either. If these things didn't happen, the GPL would be a lot weaker, and probably have loopholes. (It might be that your "license" to the code shared in both projects is one and the same, but I don't know.) I think that for these defense clauses to be remotely useful, this must happen. Otherwise, patent holders can go after every little fork of a work, without any worry of losing his license to the "real" version. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:44:04PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > >> That's fine, but if you haven't *really* freely licensed it to me > >> unless I refrain from suing you, then it's not a free license. > Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > That's the assertion in question, but it seems almost like we're arguing > > about schrodinger's cat. > > > > If you win the lawsuit, then you're right, it's not a free license, and no > > one should be distributing the software because it's illegal software. > > [Though it might be possible to distribute the software under some > > proprietary license if the patent holder(s) and the copyright holder(s) > > cooperate.] On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 08:48:13PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > And if I don't have a license to those copyrights after that lawsuit, > then I never had a free license in the first place. And this is true regardless of the license. No license should be considered non-free for an issue which makes the software non-free regardless of the license. > > If you don't win the lawsuit, then the suit was bogus, and you've > > inflicted bogus costs on me. I don't see any argument that the license > > is not free in this case. > > That's certainly true. But it should be left to the courts and > evolving intellectual capital law. Which costs money. [Unless you are your own lawyer -- but then it still costs time, and probably still costs you money, just not as much.] If this specific basis [legal matter foo should be left to the courts] makes a license non-free, you could just as well claim that no warranty clauses make a license non-free, and that no warranty clauses make a license non free. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
> > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:35:16PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > >> Because it's a copyright license. If I give away all these freedoms > >> with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away. If > >> I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work > >> giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back > >> room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free. > Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > You seem to be describing the difference between a public domain work > > and a copyleft work, with the claim that copyleft software isn't free. > > > > Can you express your concept differently, in a way which doesn't include > > this kind of nonsense? On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 08:46:58PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > This isn't nonsense. The claim that copyleft software isn't free is nonsense. > A copyleft license unambiguously releases rights for me to modify > and distribute. Sure. > I don't have to sacrifice *anything at all* which I had otherwise. If you have a patent which applies to the program, and you want to distribute, you have to grant a license to that patent to all third parties. Ok, if you don't want to modify and distribute, then this doesn't apply to you, but that's another issue. > This copy-to-patentleft sort of licence says I have to refrain from > enforcing the patent rights which I had independent of the work, > or I don't get a copyright license. I'll grant that not enforcing patent rights in the context of that specific work against a few specific parties is not as comprehensive as granting unlimited rights to the patent to all third parties. > That's no good. What's not good? The scenario you seem to propose looks to me like this: A writes some software, and GPLs it. B claims that the software is patent restricted, and sues A. B wins, and now only B can distribute the software -- A can't [and no one else can] without buying a license from B. You seem to be claiming that a license which prevents this scenario is not good, and that the reason it's not good is that it prevents this scenario. So far, I'm not convinced. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:44:04PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >> That's fine, but if you haven't *really* freely licensed it to me >> unless I refrain from suing you, then it's not a free license. > > That's the assertion in question, but it seems almost like we're arguing > about schrodinger's cat. > > If you win the lawsuit, then you're right, it's not a free license, and no > one should be distributing the software because it's illegal software. > [Though it might be possible to distribute the software under some > proprietary license if the patent holder(s) and the copyright holder(s) > cooperate.] And if I don't have a license to those copyrights after that lawsuit, then I never had a free license in the first place. > If you don't win the lawsuit, then the suit was bogus, and you've > inflicted bogus costs on me. I don't see any argument that the license > is not free in this case. That's certainly true. But it should be left to the courts and evolving intellectual capital law. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:35:16PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >> Because it's a copyright license. If I give away all these freedoms >> with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away. If >> I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work >> giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back >> room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free. > > You seem to be describing the difference between a public domain work > and a copyleft work, with the claim that copyleft software isn't free. > > Can you express your concept differently, in a way which doesn't include > this kind of nonsense? This isn't nonsense. A copyleft license unambiguously releases rights for me to modify and distribute. I don't have to sacrifice *anything at all* which I had otherwise. This copy-to-patentleft sort of licence says I have to refrain from enforcing the patent rights which I had independent of the work, or I don't get a copyright license. That's no good. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 12:06:12AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > Which can trivially be twisted to smite any lawsuit you care to bring, > thereby granting them a de facto carte blanche license to do anything > they like. We've been over this already. I'd agree with you if I could find the clause in osl-2.1 which states this. The closest I can find are 10) and 11). 10) is clearly limited to patent suits that claim that the software in question is illegal. I don't see that losing the right to distribute illegal software is anything like a de facto carte blanche license to do anything they like. 11) Says that you can't sue someone in a location where they're not active. I don't see that this requirement is anything like a de facto carte blanche license to do anything they like, either. Maybe you can point me at the clause or section that I'm missing? If this is covered some previous post, just identify that post so I can unambiguously find it. Thanks, -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 02:43:48PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: >> On the other hand, lawsuits attempting to enforce "patents" on software >> *are* intrinsically bad for free software. > > This argument says that since it's bad for nuclear power plant > technicians to enforce patents on software, the software should not be > permitted to be used in nuclear power plants. Therefore you are a gerbil. Argument A: Since software patents are bad, people who enforce patents against a piece of software should not be allowed to use that piece of software. Argument B: Since enforcement of software patents by nuclear power plant technicians is bad, nuclear power plants should not be allowed to use a given piece of software. Please demonstrate the equivilence of these arguments. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield writes: > This is a very different scenario, where you could perform certain > actions until you accepted the license. Your freedom has been reduced > in a fundamental manner by this license. A copyleft license in no > manner reduces your freedom; after accepting the license, you can do > everything that you could do before you accepted the license (and you > can also do some things that you couldn't). "This is not true, and it does not approximate anything that is true." -- Andrew Suffield If you distribute a program under the GPL, you lose most or all of your ground to claim damages in court on the basis that the program infringes your patent or copy rights. (GPL sections 5, 6, et al.) This is the same situation as for OSLv2.1's patent lawsuit clause. Michael Poole
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 02:43:01PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > It's > > critically different from a copyleft, because there there isn't a > > pre-existing property right. > Actually, yes there is: it's called copyright. The default in copyright law > is that a derivative work can only be published with the argreement of the > work's actual author *and* the authors of all works of which it is a > derivative work. And that you have neither by default. Unless you accept this license, you may not release a derivative work. This is a very different scenario, where you could perform certain actions until you accepted the license. Your freedom has been reduced in a fundamental manner by this license. A copyleft license in no manner reduces your freedom; after accepting the license, you can do everything that you could do before you accepted the license (and you can also do some things that you couldn't). -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 02:43:48PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > Andrew Suffield wrote: > > Distribution of binaries without source is intrinsically bad for free > > software. Distributing source with binaries is not appreciably > > difficult or limiting; this requirement is trivially accomplished > > without any real cost. > > > > Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. > On the other hand, lawsuits attempting to enforce "patents" on software > *are* intrinsically bad for free software. This argument says that since it's bad for nuclear power plant technicians to enforce patents on software, the software should not be permitted to be used in nuclear power plants. Therefore you are a gerbil. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 02:43:13PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 04:03:18PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > >> > Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. Prohibiting > >> > lawsuits is significantly limiting and imposes real, significant > >> > costs. > >> > >> It's fairly obvious that a requirement that you not sue the licensor > >> doesn't impose any costs on you. > > > > This is fairly obviously wrong. It grants the licensor a carte blanche > > license to do anything they like > ^ > No, to infringe your bogus software patent. Which can trivially be twisted to smite any lawsuit you care to bring, thereby granting them a de facto carte blanche license to do anything they like. We've been over this already. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>>This idea is a variation on "You may not use this software for >>>military applications" and goes against DFSG#5/#6. They're both >>>intrinsically non-free, no matter how laudable you may consider them >>>to be. >> >>Why is discrimination against people who want to sue you significantly >>different to discrimination against people who want to distribute >>binaries without source? Neither prevents or restricts use, modification >>or distribution of modified works. > > Er, yes, discrimination against distribution without source is all > about protecting the ability to modify the code. > > But in any case, the difference in my mind is about causality -- where > did each party get the property right in question? In a copyright > case, it's clear that the modified work comes from the original work, > so it's OK for the original author to control the modified work > somewhat. In a patent case, the property right to the patent existed > before the "original" software was ever written. For the person who > wrote the software *after* the invention was patented to try to > blackmail the inventor is horrible[1]. No "property rights" exist at all in these cases. "Intellectual property" is a misleading and incorrect term that presupposes such things should be treated as property. >>>You cannot use a license to enforce your political position. >> >>Why is copyleft other than the use of copyright to enforce a political >>position (ie, that the source should always be available to people with >>binaries)? > > Copyleft is very narrowly targeted -- if I don't like your copyleft, I > can always reimplement the code. I can't reimplement around a patent > problem, because it's the method or technique that's patented. This sounds to me like an argument *for* limitation of patent rights, not an argument against patent "retaliation" clauses. > 1: Acknowledged, software patents are foolishly and incorrectly > granted all the time. So fix that system, don't introduce a new > brokenness in the DFSG. The software-patent system (or more generally the patent system, but let's not get into that argument since we only care about the software case here) is fundamentally broken. The only fix is to remove it entirely. Software patents, when granted, are *always* "foolishly and incorrectly granted". There are no legitimate software patents. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Nathanael Nerode wrote: > (Wait. I thought of a case: suppose the patent license requires > a statement of credit -- and that's considered free -- and joe-rsa doesn't > contain the credit statement. Then the RSA patent holders would sue to > enforce their free patent license, and lose their free copyright > license hmm, that could actually be a problem). That's merely a statement that licenses can be incompatible; the same issue arises when attempting to combine code under different copyleft licenses. In any case, you are attempting to force a piece of Free Software to include an additional restriction; therefore, you should not be able to distribute the software. The GPL would have basically the same effect as well: even if suing did not remove your permission to distribute, you could not distribute the software with a requirement to include the credit clause added to the license. > Suppose instead that the RSA patent holders hold only illegitimate patents. > Then the patent-retaliation clause is very clearly in the best interests of > free software, and the license is Free. Agreed. > In other words, the patent-retaliation clause only imposes a burden in the > cases where > (a) the work is already non-free for other reasons > or > (b) the people being burdened are being abusive > (Barring the case I just thought of above, which might be an actual > problem.) > > Accordingly, it is acceptable in a free license, no? I agree with this analysis. (I also believe that your case of software covered by "a legitimate patent" is the empty set, assuming a distinction between legitimate and legal, but nevertheless, the analysis holds.) - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 01:33:17PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > >>real invention, whether implemented in software or hardware. The RSA >>cryptosystem is a decent example of this. >> >>So there are some legitimate patents, though they're probably a >>minority. But that means that those people do have a legitimate > > I don't believe any patent enforcement against software is legitimate; I > believe that enforcement of a patent against RSA code is just as destructive > and abusive as enforcement against XOR mouse cursor code. (I also concur > with Michael's response.) For what it's worth, I agree entirely. No software patent is legitimate, and clauses stating that you can't continue to use a piece of Free Software while claiming that software infringes your patent are both Free and desirable. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:44:04PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > That's fine, but if you haven't *really* freely licensed it to me > unless I refrain from suing you, then it's not a free license. That's the assertion in question, but it seems almost like we're arguing about schrodinger's cat. If you win the lawsuit, then you're right, it's not a free license, and no one should be distributing the software because it's illegal software. [Though it might be possible to distribute the software under some proprietary license if the patent holder(s) and the copyright holder(s) cooperate.] If you don't win the lawsuit, then the suit was bogus, and you've inflicted bogus costs on me. I don't see any argument that the license is not free in this case. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > >> Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >>> Furthermore, if you *sue claiming that the work infringes your patent*, >>> I see absolutely no reason why you should have any rights to the work, >>> since you are trying to eliminate the rights of others to the work. I >>> can understand the objection to terminating the license over unrelated >>> lawsuits, but not the objection to termination when you actually sue >>> over the software in question. The alternative would be that *no one >>> except you* would have rights to the software, which means you have now >>> essentially made it your own proprietary software. > >> No, you did that when you invented it > Stop right there. You didn't invent the software I wrote, regardless of > what the overloaded US Patent Office might think. Sure I did. Well, if you're writing some software to do Diffie-Hellman key exchange, that Diffie and Hellman most certainly *did* invent that, and have a (now-expired) patent on it. If you're using the RSA cryptosystem to provide secrecy and authentication for data, then R, S, and A really did invent it, and you're just following in their footsteps. You didn't come up with the idea of using discrete log as a trapdoor function, or the idea of using trapdoor functions for key exchange. You're just writing in accord with the algorithm they published. Rivest et al. could have kept their algorithm secret, and only sold sealed boxes for performing in-line encryption. Instead, they accepted a bargain with society in which they published their results, allowing others to build on them, and received a monopoly on those results for a period of time. If you reject that bargain for software, that's fine -- but it means you should reject both halves, and isolate yourself from hearing about patented techniques like LZW compression, public key cryptosystems, the tab key, etc. until after their patents have expired. >> and filed for a patent. > Some companies file "defensively" on the "everyone else has bogus garbage > patents, we need some too" principle. Yup. There are lots of junk patents. They outnumber the good ones, as far as I can tell. The right way to fix that doesn't involve diluting our concept of freedom. The right way to fix that is to fix the patent-granting system. If we proceed in diluting our concept of freedom -- if we say that it's OK to be non-free if it's for a Really Good Social Cause, to prevent and destroy these evil patents which keep software from getting written -- then at some point Microsoft and friends will convince part of the free software community to license software in ways preventing copylefts, because these evil copylefts keep software from getting written. After all, *you* didn't invent my modifications, and shouldn't have any right to control what I do with them. >> It's >> *already* your own proprietary software, and you're going to the >> courts to get that enforced. > But what about my copyright? I wrote the software. I am happy to license > it freely. I am *not* happy to make it into your proprietary software. If > your patent is really valid, write your own software. That's fine, but if you haven't *really* freely licensed it to me unless I refrain from suing you, then it's not a free license. >> Consider a copyright-only case: Alice and Bob each release some >> software under a copyleft, with a clause mentioning that any lawsuit >> claiming copyright infringement on the work or any derivative forfeits > ^ >> all right to the original work and any derivative. Alice and Bob each >> use each other's software extensively, though they don't actually like >> each other much at all. >> >> Now Charlie comes along and derives a new work from Alice's and Bob's >> software. He violates the copyleft. They'd each like to sue him for >> copyright infringement, but if either one sues to defend his property >> rights, he loses his rights to the other's software. Is this free? > > Actually, this is *not* analagous to the case at hand. > > The clause we are discussing only applies if you allege that the *Original > Work* consitutes patent infringment. > > Delete the "or any derivative" phrase from your example, and you see that > neither one loses the rights to the other's software. (On the other hand, > if Bob claims that Alice's software contains work stolen from Bob, then Bob > *does* lose the right to use Alice's software. And Charlie's. Is that > free?) I believe the clause we're discussing involves a suit against the licensor or any licensee, and so covers licensees who are using the original work as a component of a larger work. Think bigger. And in that light, consider again the following: >> I don't think it is, though I'm not so sure of myself to think that >> reasonable people can't disagree. >> >> But the patent case seems very
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:35:16PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Because it's a copyright license. If I give away all these freedoms > with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away. If > I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work > giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back > room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free. You seem to be describing the difference between a public domain work and a copyleft work, with the claim that copyleft software isn't free. Can you express your concept differently, in a way which doesn't include this kind of nonsense? -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Andrew Suffield wrote: > >> Terminating licenses (copyright, patent, trademark, dog-humping, or >> whatever else might interfere with distribution/modification/use) for >> any reason other than non-compliance is a bit of legal insanity to get >> contract-like provisions into a license. These provisions have to be >> considered like any other restriction (invert the sense of the >> conditional to get the restriction). > > In this case, however, I would make the case that by suing claiming that the > Work is infringing a patent, the person suing is not complying with the > spirit of the license. The person suing is certainly attempting to claim > that the license is not really valid for anyone *else*, and if it's not > valid for anyone else, why should it be valid for the lawsuit initiator? Because it's a copyright license. If I give away all these freedoms with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away. If I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free. >> Anything that requires a contract-like construct, rather than a simple >> license, is probably non-free. > "Probably" is a key word here. I understand your position though; it has > sense to it too. > > I do think this sort of clause is unnecessary in a copyleft license with > explicit patent grants, like the OSL, because that already prevents the > "patent holder steals the work" scenario. Only if the patent holder remains the copyright holder. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Anthony DeRobertis wrote: >> 3) Grant of Source Code License. The term "Source Code" means the >> preferred form of the Original Work for making modifications to it and >> all available documentation describing how to modify the Original >> Work. > non-free: "all available documentation" seems to contaminate other > software. It seems I'm compelled to distribute, e.g., copies of my > references on C++ if the work is in C++. > > Also, I should certainly be able to write documents describing how to > modify something, and keep those private; those are separate works. Ow, ow, ow. How did I miss that one? Yeah, that's absolutely non-free. >> (4, continued) >> No patent license is granted to make, use, sell or offer to sell >> embodiments of any patent claims other than the licensed claims >> defined in Section 2. No right is granted to the trademarks of >> Licensor even if such marks are included in the Original Work. > > caution: this means that you may have to scrub trademarks before > actually having free (or even distributable) software. Yep. Same as Mozilla. :-P >> 7) Warranty of Provenance and Disclaimer of Warranty. Licensor >> warrants that the copyright in and to the Original Work and the patent >> rights granted herein by Licensor are owned by the Licensor or are >> sublicensed to You under the terms of this License with the permission >> of the contributor(s) of those copyrights and patent rights. > > Hmmm, this is iffy... It appears I have to warrant that the patent > grants that I received when I got the work are true. Consider: > > a) I receive an OSL work, FooBar, from FooCorp. > b) I make a derivative work of FooBar, and distribute it. > c) BarCorp receives my modified FooBar from me. > > Now, if FooCorp actually didn't properly obtain patents rights to > FooBar, BarCorp appears to be able to sue *me* for that. This becomes > very relevant if FooCorp has gone out of business, for example. > > I don't think this is free. I'm pretty sure this doesn't actually do that. "warrants that the copyright in and to the Original Work and the patent rights granted herein by Licensor" ^^ This does not include the patent rights granted by licensors of earlier works of which this is a derivative. See clause 2. The only patent rights being granted *herein* are those "under patent claims owned or controlled by the Licensor". FooCorp's patent rights covering FooBar are granted by a copy of the OSL with FooCorp as Licensor. Your patent rights covering FooBar (none) are granted by a copy of the OSL with you as Licensor. Your warranty only applies to the patent claims "owned or controlled" by you. Remember that this is a standard American-style copyleft, under which all licenses come directly from the copyright/patent holders individually, rather than via sublicenses. >> (7, continued) >> Except as expressly stated in the immediately proceeding sentence, the >> Original Work is provided under this License on an "AS IS" BASIS and >> WITHOUT WARRANTY, either express or implied, including, without >> limitation, the warranties of NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY or >> FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY OF >> THE ORIGINAL WORK IS WITH YOU. This DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY constitutes >> an essential part of this License. No license to Original Work is >> granted hereunder except under this disclaimer. > > Does this prohibit distributing the work into jurisdictions which place > limitations on warranty disclaimers? If so, even if this is free, it > would make it impossible for Debian to distribute. Usually that's not how it works; the excess disclaimers are simply considered to be invalid and the license is read as if they said "to the extent permissable by law". However, this extra sentence worries me: "No license to Original Work is granted hereunder except under this disclaimer." We *really* would need a lawyer to answer that question, and IANAL. It would be much, much, better if it included the clause "...except to the extent such warranties cannot legally be disclaimed." or some such. >> 9) Acceptance and Termination. If You distribute copies of the >> Original Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort >> under the circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to >> the terms of this License. > > Restriction on modification & on distribution. Not free. Yeah, the clickwrap clause. >> (9, continued) >> Nothing else but this License (or another written agreement between >> Licensor and You) grants You permission to create Derivative Works >> based upon the Original Work or to exercise any of the rights granted >> in Section 1 herein, and any attempt to do so except under the terms >> of this License (or another written agreement between Licensor and >> You) is expressly prohibited by U.S. copyright law, the equivalent >> laws of other countries, and by international treaty. > > Pure BS. Fair use d
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 02:43:13PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > No, to infringe your bogus software patent. I agree here. If I'm suing someone on the grounds that the software they wrote is illegal, it's probably a bad idea for me to be distributing their software. -- Raul
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Glenn Maynard wrote: > Now, there's a practical issue: the copyright holder may change, so > the copyright holder isn't the original licensor--if I buy the copyright > for the work, the existing licensees aren't going to suddenly get a > license to *my* patents, as well. (I don't presently agree with the > arguments that these clauses are fundamentally non-free in principle, > but I'm tending to think that this practical issue--which I've mentioned > before[1]--may be fatal.) > > [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/09/msg00260.html I don't think the nature of the copyright holder really makes any difference. It does expose the fact that this sort of clause can be worked around. Consider the Malicious Software Corporation (MSC). Consider work X by author Joe. MSC holds patent A covering X and patent B covering something else. Valiant Defender (VD) holds patent C covering X. Normally, MSC can sue any user of X for infringing patent A. With the narrow patent-lawsuit-termination clause, doing so will cause MSC to lose its copyright license for X. If MSC doesn't copy/distribute/modify X, it won't care. If MSC does, then this might hurt it a bit. Suppose MSC sues VD. VD could try to "fight back" with patent C; this would only work if MSC uses X, of course. With the narrow patent-lawsuit-termination clause, this "fighting back" would cause VD to lose its copyright license for X as well. I suppose some people might consider that to be bad for free software. (I don't.) Now consider the case where MSC buys Joe's copyright. What changes? With the narrow patent-lawsuit-termination clause, MSC will retain its ability to copy/distribute/modify X. This will not change its ability to sue anyone over patents A or B. This will not change VD's ability to "fight back" with patent C (or not), which depends on whether MSC uses X. This will not change whether VD's copyright license for X is terminated or not. (Essentially, by buying the copyright, they would have gotten themselves a special license to avoid the patent-termination clause, and that's all.) -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 04:03:18PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: >> > Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. Prohibiting >> > lawsuits is significantly limiting and imposes real, significant >> > costs. >> >> It's fairly obvious that a requirement that you not sue the licensor >> doesn't impose any costs on you. > > This is fairly obviously wrong. It grants the licensor a carte blanche > license to do anything they like ^ No, to infringe your bogus software patent. > and you have no legal recourse > against them. Yes, you do; give up using their patent-violating software, then sue. Just like SCO *really* should have stopped distributing under the GPL *before* it initiated its lawsuit. (That they didn't indicates their incompetence.) > That's clearly a significant cost; you have signed over > all legally protected rights to them. All legally protected rights to *enforce your patent against my software program*. If my license required you to give up your "legally protected rights" to claim falsely that my program was written by you in order to use my program, that would be free as well. Luckily that isn't a "legally protected right", unlike the "right" to control any program implementing overlapping windows. >> It blocks various revenue streams, but >> so does the GPL. > > Geez, what is with this SCOish attitude that lawsuits are revenue > streams? That's *abuse* of the legal system. That's what software patent lawsuits are, yes. > Only if you define "free software authors" to not include anybody who > deserves to be sued. ...for infringement of "software patents". Nobody deserves to be sued for infrignment of bogus patents which shouldn't exist, right? -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield wrote: > Distribution of binaries without source is intrinsically bad for free > software. Distributing source with binaries is not appreciably > difficult or limiting; this requirement is trivially accomplished > without any real cost. > > Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. On the other hand, lawsuits attempting to enforce "patents" on software *are* intrinsically bad for free software. > Prohibiting > lawsuits is significantly limiting Prohibiting lawsuits which apply software patents to the specific licensed work, on the other hand, is not significantly limiting > and imposes real, significant > costs. ...and doesn't impose real, significant costs. If you disagree please name the real, specific costs. Also specify: are you assuming that there exist valid patents on abstract mathematical algorithms (a.k.a. software patents)? 'Cause I don't think they exist; mathematics is not supposed to be patentable. -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> For example, imagine a license which said any attempt to sue over > > Oops, left part out. This should say something like: > > Imagine a license which is just like the patent-terminating-copyright > license in question, but terminates on any lawsuit over physical > property. So if you're using my software which is written under this > license, and you sue to get me out of your house or to give back your > car, you lose the rights to the software. You're going irrelevant again. In this case, the suit absolutely must be regarding the software. We all agree that license termination over *irrelevant* suits is non-free. Perhaps you want "you sue me to get me to give back the disk containing the software I wrote, which disk I stole from you?" > > Surely that's not free, no matter how badly I believe property rights > are a great evil -- but I can imagine a world where the > rented-hardware model continued to dominate the industry, and some > here might argue that rejection of that model is necessary for free > software. The physical-property-entangling license is only obviously > not-free because it's not our crusade, it's from an alternate > universe. > > So how is this patent-license business different from a license to use > physical property? This is still just an attempt to blackmail > pre-existing property rights away from users of your software. No, it's not. It says "If you try to enforce your 'property rights' against this work, then you don't get to use my 'property rights' in this work." Very specific, very focused on the particular work. I could phrase a more general version as "I grant you a license to use this work under the (copyright) rights I have in it, provided you also grant a license to use this work under the (patent) rights *you* happen to have in it." Actually, this might be a better way to put it: "You may copy, distribute, etc. this work... provided that you grant a royalty-free license to all members of the public to use, in this original program and its derivative works, any patents you have which are necessarily infringed by using this original program. This is the only thing which grants you rights to copy, distribute, etc. this work, so by doing to you are assumed to be granting this patent license." (What you were describing is the "terminate on unrelated lawsuit" version, which we all agree is non-free.) > It's > critically different from a copyleft, because there there isn't a > pre-existing property right. Actually, yes there is: it's called copyright. The default in copyright law is that a derivative work can only be published with the argreement of the work's actual author *and* the authors of all works of which it is a derivative work. Copyleft does have a similarity. I could phrase it as "I grant you a license to use this work under all the rights I have in it, provided you also grant an identical license to use your *distributed derivative works* under all the rights you have in them." It's actually a stronger exchange. -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > So there are some legitimate patents, though they're probably a > minority. But that means that those people do have a legitimate > recourse to the courts to enforce their intellectual capital grants. > And a license which compels them to surrender that recourse is no more > free than a license which compels them to surrender any other recourse > to the courts. OK. Suppose there exists a patent on a mathematical algorithm (call it "RSA"). Suppose that RSA is implemented by Joe in the program joe-rsa, and he licenses his copyright under a free software license. Suppose then that the RSA patent holders hold a legitimate patent (not freely licensed). Then joe-rsa was never free, regardless of what license Joe issued it under, so the license contents are irrelevant. Suppose instead that the RSA patent holders hold a legitimate patent, freely licensed. Then Joe will have permission to implement RSA (this is pretty much required for a free patent license), so the RSA patent holders will not sue. (Wait. I thought of a case: suppose the patent license requires a statement of credit -- and that's considered free -- and joe-rsa doesn't contain the credit statement. Then the RSA patent holders would sue to enforce their free patent license, and lose their free copyright license hmm, that could actually be a problem). Suppose instead that the RSA patent holders hold only illegitimate patents. Then the patent-retaliation clause is very clearly in the best interests of free software, and the license is Free. In other words, the patent-retaliation clause only imposes a burden in the cases where (a) the work is already non-free for other reasons or (b) the people being burdened are being abusive (Barring the case I just thought of above, which might be an actual problem.) Accordingly, it is acceptable in a free license, no? -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Furthermore, if you *sue claiming that the work infringes your patent*, >> I see absolutely no reason why you should have any rights to the work, >> since you are trying to eliminate the rights of others to the work. I >> can understand the objection to terminating the license over unrelated >> lawsuits, but not the objection to termination when you actually sue >> over the software in question. The alternative would be that *no one >> except you* would have rights to the software, which means you have now >> essentially made it your own proprietary software. > No, you did that when you invented it Stop right there. You didn't invent the software I wrote, regardless of what the overloaded US Patent Office might think. > and filed for a patent. Some companies file "defensively" on the "everyone else has bogus garbage patents, we need some too" principle. > It's > *already* your own proprietary software, and you're going to the > courts to get that enforced. But what about my copyright? I wrote the software. I am happy to license it freely. I am *not* happy to make it into your proprietary software. If your patent is really valid, write your own software. > Consider a copyright-only case: Alice and Bob each release some > software under a copyleft, with a clause mentioning that any lawsuit > claiming copyright infringement on the work or any derivative forfeits ^ > all right to the original work and any derivative. Alice and Bob each > use each other's software extensively, though they don't actually like > each other much at all. > > Now Charlie comes along and derives a new work from Alice's and Bob's > software. He violates the copyleft. They'd each like to sue him for > copyright infringement, but if either one sues to defend his property > rights, he loses his rights to the other's software. Is this free? Actually, this is *not* analagous to the case at hand. The clause we are discussing only applies if you allege that the *Original Work* consitutes patent infringment. Delete the "or any derivative" phrase from your example, and you see that neither one loses the rights to the other's software. (On the other hand, if Bob claims that Alice's software contains work stolen from Bob, then Bob *does* lose the right to use Alice's software. And Charlie's. Is that free?) > I don't think it is, though I'm not so sure of myself to think that > reasonable people can't disagree. > > But the patent case seems very similar: A and B each develop some > software and distribute it under a copyleft with an attached patent > license with a termination clause for any suit against the licensor or > any licensee claiming patent infringement in the associated code. > They each use the other's software and patented techniques. > > C then distributes an illicit derived work, in such a way that he does > not violate the copyright license but does violate the patent > license. Neither A nor B can sue him without losing their rights to > the other's software. So if the copyright version is non-free, this > is non-free, right? But that's not the case we're looking at -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Michael Poole wrote: > I think we all agree that "If you sue the Original Author for any > patent violation, you lose rights granted by this license" (e.g. RPSL > 1.0) is not free, but that's different from either of the above. Yes, we all agree on that. (Just to make it clear.) -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Ken Arromdee wrote: > On Wed, 15 Sep 2004, Matthew Garrett wrote: >> > An elementary point of Free Software is to protect the rights of the >> > users, not excluding "bad" ones. (Or will GPL3 have a section >> > termination the licence if you breach any FSF copyright?) >> >> forfeits the right to distribute the code at all", which implies that >> the GPL doesn't protect the rights of people who have violated it in the >> past. > > I know that something like this is in the GPL, but I wonder how he > reconciles it with this: > > # Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the > # Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the > # original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to > # these terms and conditions. > > That suggests that although violating the GPL causes the license on the > copy you have to be revoked, when someone distributes another copy to you, > you gain another license for the new copy. Perhaps he assumes that, if you were caught violating the license, nobody will distribute another copy to you? ;-) -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > No. The GPL terminates only for non-compliance, and places no > restrictions beyond those imposed by law. That's free. Attempts to > bargain in a license, to say "I'll give you a license to this stuff, > but only if you give me a license to stuff you already own" are > non-free. All this messing about with termination clauses is just an > attempt to strike that bargain. It's a pretty fair bargain, too -- > it's just not free. Not quite. Remember that he premise of the narrow termination-on-patent-lawsuit clause is that patents on software are invalid garbage. So the bargain is more like "I'll give you a license to this stuff, but only if you don't pretend that you have some sort of rights over it, which you don't." Oddly akin to prohibiting stripping copyright notices when you think about it that way. -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield wrote: > Terminating licenses (copyright, patent, trademark, dog-humping, or > whatever else might interfere with distribution/modification/use) for > any reason other than non-compliance is a bit of legal insanity to get > contract-like provisions into a license. These provisions have to be > considered like any other restriction (invert the sense of the > conditional to get the restriction). In this case, however, I would make the case that by suing claiming that the Work is infringing a patent, the person suing is not complying with the spirit of the license. The person suing is certainly attempting to claim that the license is not really valid for anyone *else*, and if it's not valid for anyone else, why should it be valid for the lawsuit initiator? > Anything that requires a contract-like construct, rather than a simple > license, is probably non-free. "Probably" is a key word here. I understand your position though; it has sense to it too. I do think this sort of clause is unnecessary in a copyleft license with explicit patent grants, like the OSL, because that already prevents the "patent holder steals the work" scenario. -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 01:48:31PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: >> On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 05:25:52PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: >> > On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 02:46:17PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote: >> > > I believe the change to section 10 of the licence is sufficient to >> > > address >> > > the objection to that section in the original summary. Is there >> > > consensus on this? >> > >> > No, the clause hasn't really changed. It's still non-free for all the >> > same reasons. >> >> No, it has changed. > > Old clause: > > Any lawsuit claiming patent infringement revokes your license. > > New clause: > > Any lawsuit claiming patent infringement revokes your license. > > > Nothing's changed here. Wrong. Please look more carefully. Old clause: If you file any lawsuit claiming *anything* infringes any patent, you lose your license to this work. New clause: If you file any lawsuit claiming *this work* infringes any patent, you lose your license to this work. Notice the difference. :-) -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 04:15:59PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: >> On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 12:24:31PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: >> > On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 10:39:39PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: >> > > I'm not sure that this clause necessarily passes the DFSG, but it's >> > > clear that the OSI has made a good and, in my opinion, successful >> > > effort to clean >> > > it up. It's neither fair nor correct to say that nothing has >> > > changed. >> > >> > It's still non-free for the same reasons, so nothing relevant has >> > changed. >> >> You mean that you still believe it's non-free because nothing relevant >> to your reasons has changed, and you're pretending that other >> perspectives don't exist. > > Irrelevant by the law of limiting factors. But I haven't seen anybody > seriously advance any other positions. You haven't been reading my postings? -- This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Matthew Wilcox wrote:
>
> I'd like to start by thanking Jeremy Hankins for his summary of
> debian-legal's objections to the Open Software License v2.0 in
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00118.html
>
> Version 2.1 is upon us. It can be found at
> http://www.opensource.org/licenses/osl-2.1.php
> They do not provide a diff between v2.0 and v2.1, unfortunately, so
> here it is. I omitted some minor reformatting differences; no textual
> changes have been omitted.
>
> @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
> -Open Software License v. 2.0
> +Open Software License v. 2.1
>
> 1) Grant of Copyright License.
> Licensor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive,
> @@ -119,10 +119,10 @@
> This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer
> exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the
> date You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim,
> - for patent infringement (i) against Licensor with respect to a patent
> - applicable to software or (ii) against any entity with respect to a
> - patent applicable to the Original Work (but excluding combinations
> - of the Original Work with other software or hardware).
> + against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work
> + infringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for an
> + action alleging patent infringement by combinations of the Original
> + Work with other software or hardware.
I believe that this is an acceptable, free patent termination clause. :-)
But then you could have guessed that by reading my previous statements.
> I believe the change to section 10 of the licence is sufficient to address
> the objection to that section in the original summary. Is there consensus
> on this?
Probably not *consensus*, this early, given how contentious all of this is!
> I further believe the objection to item #5 in the original summary
> is spurious. As admitted in the summary, the DFSG does not prohibit this.
That's not how the DFSG work.
This is a curious form of use restriction ("If you let anyone else at all
use your derivative work, you agree that you've distributed it"), and
there's quite an argument over whether it's an acceptable form.
I currently lean towards "no". If I write a temporary modified version for
private use, and then let my girlfriend run the program while I look over
her shoulder, poof, I've "distributed" it according to this license. But
not according to any normal interpretation. Basically, this section denies
any right to private modification, and I'm uncomfortable with its
broadness. But maybe others think that is free.
> The Dissident test is under question and does not appear to have broad
> support within Debian as an additional DFSG guideline, so the objection
> to item #9 is irrelevant.
That's not how the DFSG work.
Let me analyze section 9 again.
This is the part where he's trying to make the license into a contract, and
it's quite a mistake.
"If You distribute copies of the Original
Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under
the circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the
terms of this License. "
What is "a reasonable effort under the circumstances"? Does this really
allow putting the Work on an anonymous FTP site and allowing anyone to just
download it? It doesn't appear to.
This needs to be resolved. Maybe it doesn't mean what it appears to?
The rest of section 9, apart from that one sentence, is the standard
GPL-style "You accept this license by exercising the rights granted under
it", and is of course just fine.
> I therefore believe the only remaining objection to the OSL v2.1 is
> item #6. It seems the objections could be resolved by clarifications
> to the wording rather than being against the philosophy of the item.
I believe that that is probably correct. :-) That's one which is just
misdrafted, rather than wrong-in-principle -- so common.
> If there is broad agreement upon this point, I'll contact Larry Rosen
> and ask him to clarify the wording in this section.
--
This space intentionally left blank.
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You've been tricked by lawyers. This clause says that only the > copyright holder may file patent lawsuits. These licenses tend to include patent licenses. As a result, the copyright holder /doesn't/ get to sue you (at least, not if they want to win). They don't lose their copyright license in the process, but then the GPL allows the copyright holder to distribute binaries without source without losing their copyright license as well. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 09:04:26AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > > >... commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim,
> > > >against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work
> > > >infringes a patent.
> > > >
> > > > Please not "or any licensee". This clause is not giving the licensee
> > > > special treatment.
> > >
> > > Right, it's giving the copyright holder special treatment. That's my
> > > point.
> >
> > Thinko due to neighboring words; s/licensee/licensor/. (I suppose I
> > should just use "copyright holder" and "user".) It's not giving the
> > copyright holder special treatment at all; it very explicitly and
> > deliberately treats the copyright holder and users equally.
>
> You've been tricked by lawyers. This clause says that only the
> copyright holder may file patent lawsuits.
... alleging that the Original Work infringes a patent, you mean.
The original copyright holder will have a hard time making such a
claim, since the license itself grants a patent license for his patents
("Grant of Patent License").
Now, there's a practical issue: the copyright holder may change, so
the copyright holder isn't the original licensor--if I buy the copyright
for the work, the existing licensees aren't going to suddenly get a
license to *my* patents, as well. (I don't presently agree with the
arguments that these clauses are fundamentally non-free in principle,
but I'm tending to think that this practical issue--which I've mentioned
before[1]--may be fatal.)
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/09/msg00260.html
--
Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 06:37:43PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 01:07:33PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 05:36:12PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 03:00:53PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > > I am not sure why some people think the latter is acceptable, since it > > > > is similar in spirit and effect to the MS EULA (which says that you > > > > can't do anything the copyright holder doesn't like). > > > > > > If so, then the GPL is, too--the copyright holder "doesn't like" you > > > distributing binaries without source. Stop making ludicrous comparisons. > > > > No, that's entirely different. The MS EULA allows them to crush > > anything that they don't like. The GPL does no such thing. > > Nor does "don't enforce patents against this software", so I'm not sure > what you're arguing here. It does. > > > > Free software licenses give things to the licensee. Not the copyright > > > > holder. > > > > > >... commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, > > >against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work > > >infringes a patent. > > > > > > Please not "or any licensee". This clause is not giving the licensee > > > special treatment. > > > > Right, it's giving the copyright holder special treatment. That's my point. > > Thinko due to neighboring words; s/licensee/licensor/. (I suppose I > should just use "copyright holder" and "user".) It's not giving the > copyright holder special treatment at all; it very explicitly and > deliberately treats the copyright holder and users equally. You've been tricked by lawyers. This clause says that only the copyright holder may file patent lawsuits. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 01:33:17PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > real invention, whether implemented in software or hardware. The RSA > cryptosystem is a decent example of this. > > So there are some legitimate patents, though they're probably a > minority. But that means that those people do have a legitimate I don't believe any patent enforcement against software is legitimate; I believe that enforcement of a patent against RSA code is just as destructive and abusive as enforcement against XOR mouse cursor code. (I also concur with Michael's response.) (This may be something close to the core of where we disagree.) > But it still seems like you bought the freedom for some of this code > by giving up the copyleft. You got more code into StepMania by > sacrificing freedom for those who receive In The Groove. That helped > there be more software, but it certainly didn't help there be more > freedom. Sure, but it didn't cause there to be less freedom, either, in any way that I can perceive. More free software existing may mean more freedom, but more non-free software existing (that isn't in lieu of free software that would have otherwise existed) doesn't mean less freedom. I just havn't seen any negative effects from this, and I don't foresee any. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 01:07:33PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 05:36:12PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 03:00:53PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > I am not sure why some people think the latter is acceptable, since it > > > is similar in spirit and effect to the MS EULA (which says that you > > > can't do anything the copyright holder doesn't like). > > > > If so, then the GPL is, too--the copyright holder "doesn't like" you > > distributing binaries without source. Stop making ludicrous comparisons. > > No, that's entirely different. The MS EULA allows them to crush > anything that they don't like. The GPL does no such thing. Nor does "don't enforce patents against this software", so I'm not sure what you're arguing here. > > > Free software licenses give things to the licensee. Not the copyright > > > holder. > > > >... commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, > >against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work > >infringes a patent. > > > > Please not "or any licensee". This clause is not giving the licensee > > special treatment. > > Right, it's giving the copyright holder special treatment. That's my point. Thinko due to neighboring words; s/licensee/licensor/. (I suppose I should just use "copyright holder" and "user".) It's not giving the copyright holder special treatment at all; it very explicitly and deliberately treats the copyright holder and users equally. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Brian Thomas Sniffen writes: > I think you're taking this to a further extreme than necessary, and in > so doing passing straight through the truth out on to the other side. > That is, you're right about the situation you describe, but it's not the > interesting situation. The interesting way to look at this is that > most software patents are invalid, and would trivially be thrown out > by a court. But not all -- there are some patents which describe a > real invention, whether implemented in software or hardware. The RSA > cryptosystem is a decent example of this. > > So there are some legitimate patents, though they're probably a > minority. But that means that those people do have a legitimate > recourse to the courts to enforce their intellectual capital grants. > And a license which compels them to surrender that recourse is no more > free than a license which compels them to surrender any other recourse > to the courts. The problem with assuming most patents are invalid is that patent lawsuits are incredibly expensive, even by the standards of the US legal system, and are not a practical recourse for demonstrating a patent's invalidity. Other mechanisms for overturning patents are not reliable. You also pretend something happens that does not. No one is compelled to give up their recourse in the courts. One must (under OSLv2.1 and others) merely choose between prosecuting free software versus keeping a license for that software. Under the GPL, one must similarly choose between keeping source for distributed software versus keeping a license for that software. Michael Poole
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 08:12:25PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: >> >> Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. >> > >> > Software patent lawsuits attempting to prevent the use and distribution >> > of free software certainly is intrinsically bad for free software. >> >> But the problem is that that software isn't free to begin with -- it >> could be, if the patent owner issued a free license, but it isn't >> without the court case either. Somebody else owns the monopoly on >> that invention. > > But, as we all know, this is the case with all software, due to the vast > numbers of software patents. If we take the mere existance of a patent to > mean that the software isn't free, then there is probably no free software. I think you're taking this to a further extreme than necessary, and in so doing passing straight through the truth out on to the other side. That is, you're right about the situation you describe, but it's not the interesting situation. The interesting way to look at this is that most software patents are invalid, and would trivially be thrown out by a court. But not all -- there are some patents which describe a real invention, whether implemented in software or hardware. The RSA cryptosystem is a decent example of this. So there are some legitimate patents, though they're probably a minority. But that means that those people do have a legitimate recourse to the courts to enforce their intellectual capital grants. And a license which compels them to surrender that recourse is no more free than a license which compels them to surrender any other recourse to the courts. >> >> It is unarguably superior that source should always be available for a >> >> free software project. You cannot say the same for prohibiting >> >> lawsuits. >> > >> > It is not unarguably the case that source requirements are always >> > beneficial to free software. I could easily give an example where >> > they were detrimental, and the development of a free software project >> > was furthered by dropping them. (I'm not interested in debating whether >> > this was actually so or not; it was, and I'll leave it at that for the >> > sake of avoiding pointless tangents.) >> >> You're claiming an existence proof but failing to show the example. I >> don't believe you -- nothing personal, but how can that be allowed as >> a successful argument? I suspect you're looking at a case where you >> *bought* effort towards a software project by permitting >> source-disclosure requirements to be cancelled. > > I didn't provide the example because I believed the fact that they exist > is self-evident, and providing unnecessary detail is something I was hoping > to not spend my (finite) time on. > > I'm a programmer for StepMania[1], and for In The Groove[2], a commercial > project based on it. Source requirements would have rendered the ITG project > unfeasible, for various, typical marketplace reasons. If the ITG project > didn't exist, I wouldn't be working on StepMania very much today[3]; the > fact that my ITG work and SM work overlap is what allows it. (Almost all > of my work for ITG is merged into SM.) Hey, that's a neat project. Thanks! But it still seems like you bought the freedom for some of this code by giving up the copyleft. You got more code into StepMania by sacrificing freedom for those who receive In The Groove. That helped there be more software, but it certainly didn't help there be more freedom. It may have helped there be more free software, but I sure can't say that for sure. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield writes: > On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 08:20:58AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > Andrew Suffield writes: > > > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 10:38:51AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > > > Andrew Suffield writes: > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 09:41:05AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > > > > > The former is objectionable -- and I think not free -- because the > > > > > > author's alleged patent infringement need not be related to the > > > > > > software. I am not sure why some people think the latter is > > > > > > objectionable, since it is similar in spirit and effect to the GPL's > > > > > > termination case > > > > > > > > > > I am not sure why some people think the latter is acceptable, since it > > > > > is similar in spirit and effect to the MS EULA (which says that you > > > > > can't do anything the copyright holder doesn't like). > > > > > > > > This is not true, and it does not approximate anything that is true. > > > > > > False. Go and read the MS EULA. > > > > You write as if there were only one. > > They're all mostly the same. [1] enumerates what you may and may not do with the covered material, and provides no lever for Microsoft to unilaterally terminate your license. Same for [2] and [3]. These are, roughly, the first three distinct Google hits for "Microsoft end user license agreement." [1]- http://www.microsoft.com/products/msagent/licensing/eula.asp [2]- http://www.msdnaa.net/EULA/NA/English.aspx#eula [3]- http://www.rtr.com/fpsupport/fp2002eula.htm Since one cannot prove a negative, I hope you will substantiate your claim that some Microsoft EULA lets them terminate your license on whim. (The alternative reading of "anything the copyright holder doesn't like" would make copyleft licenses non-free, so I assume you meant the copyright holder may define license violations at any time.) > > > Also wrong, despite attempts at word games. The GPL gives all > > > licensees access to the source, and nothing to the copyright holder > > > (unless they coincidentally happen to be a licensee of a modified > > > version). This is a necessary condition for it to be free; if it > > > actually gave access to the source to the copyright holder then it > > > would not be free. An example of a non-free license along these lines > > > is the old NPL. > > > > You have yet to establish why this argument applies to the kind of > > patent lawsuit clause in the Open Software License, since it protects > > all licensees equally. > > You have yet to establish what your argument has got to do with the > price of tea in China. Stop acting like a troll. If you don't want to argue the point, concede it. Michael Poole
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 08:20:58AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > Andrew Suffield writes: > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 10:38:51AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > > Andrew Suffield writes: > > > > > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 09:41:05AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > > > > The former is objectionable -- and I think not free -- because the > > > > > author's alleged patent infringement need not be related to the > > > > > software. I am not sure why some people think the latter is > > > > > objectionable, since it is similar in spirit and effect to the GPL's > > > > > termination case > > > > > > > > I am not sure why some people think the latter is acceptable, since it > > > > is similar in spirit and effect to the MS EULA (which says that you > > > > can't do anything the copyright holder doesn't like). > > > > > > This is not true, and it does not approximate anything that is true. > > > > False. Go and read the MS EULA. > > You write as if there were only one. They're all mostly the same. > > > > Free software licenses give things to the licensee. Not the copyright > > > > holder. > > > > > > Under this line of argument, the GPL is non-free because it gives the > > > copyright holder a promise that the licensee will redistribute the > > > work (in original or modified form) in source code to anyone the > > > licensee gives a copy to. > > > > Also wrong, despite attempts at word games. The GPL gives all > > licensees access to the source, and nothing to the copyright holder > > (unless they coincidentally happen to be a licensee of a modified > > version). This is a necessary condition for it to be free; if it > > actually gave access to the source to the copyright holder then it > > would not be free. An example of a non-free license along these lines > > is the old NPL. > > You have yet to establish why this argument applies to the kind of > patent lawsuit clause in the Open Software License, since it protects > all licensees equally. You have yet to establish what your argument has got to do with the price of tea in China. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Andrew Suffield writes: > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 10:38:51AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > Andrew Suffield writes: > > > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 09:41:05AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > > > The former is objectionable -- and I think not free -- because the > > > > author's alleged patent infringement need not be related to the > > > > software. I am not sure why some people think the latter is > > > > objectionable, since it is similar in spirit and effect to the GPL's > > > > termination case > > > > > > I am not sure why some people think the latter is acceptable, since it > > > is similar in spirit and effect to the MS EULA (which says that you > > > can't do anything the copyright holder doesn't like). > > > > This is not true, and it does not approximate anything that is true. > > False. Go and read the MS EULA. You write as if there were only one. > > > Free software licenses give things to the licensee. Not the copyright > > > holder. > > > > Under this line of argument, the GPL is non-free because it gives the > > copyright holder a promise that the licensee will redistribute the > > work (in original or modified form) in source code to anyone the > > licensee gives a copy to. > > Also wrong, despite attempts at word games. The GPL gives all > licensees access to the source, and nothing to the copyright holder > (unless they coincidentally happen to be a licensee of a modified > version). This is a necessary condition for it to be free; if it > actually gave access to the source to the copyright holder then it > would not be free. An example of a non-free license along these lines > is the old NPL. You have yet to establish why this argument applies to the kind of patent lawsuit clause in the Open Software License, since it protects all licensees equally. Michael Poole
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 04:03:18PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. Prohibiting > > lawsuits is significantly limiting and imposes real, significant > > costs. > > It's fairly obvious that a requirement that you not sue the licensor > doesn't impose any costs on you. This is fairly obviously wrong. It grants the licensor a carte blanche license to do anything they like and you have no legal recourse against them. That's clearly a significant cost; you have signed over all legally protected rights to them. > It blocks various revenue streams, but > so does the GPL. Geez, what is with this SCOish attitude that lawsuits are revenue streams? That's *abuse* of the legal system. > >> > You cannot use a license to enforce your political position. > >>=20 > >> Why is copyleft other than the use of copyright to enforce a political > >> position (ie, that the source should always be available to people with > >> binaries)? > > > > It's the use of copyright to enforce a technical goal. It is vaguely > > similar to the political position of the FSF but does not actually > > enforce it. > > I think it's difficult to read the preamble to the GPL and gain any > impression other than that it's attempting to enforce a political > position. The preamble is not normative; it should be ignored. Anyway, "attempt" doesn't matter, only what actually happens matters. > > It is unarguably superior that source should always be available for a > > free software project. You cannot say the same for prohibiting > > lawsuits. > > I think it's fairly unarguable that a situation in which free software > authors are less likely to be sued for patent infringement is a better > situation than the alternative. Only if you define "free software authors" to not include anybody who deserves to be sued. If you define it to mean "any corporation" then no, it's not a better situation. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 05:36:12PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 03:00:53PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > I am not sure why some people think the latter is acceptable, since it > > is similar in spirit and effect to the MS EULA (which says that you > > can't do anything the copyright holder doesn't like). > > If so, then the GPL is, too--the copyright holder "doesn't like" you > distributing binaries without source. Stop making ludicrous comparisons. No, that's entirely different. The MS EULA allows them to crush anything that they don't like. The GPL does no such thing. > > Free software licenses give things to the licensee. Not the copyright > > holder. > >... commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, >against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work >infringes a patent. > > Please not "or any licensee". This clause is not giving the licensee > special treatment. Right, it's giving the copyright holder special treatment. That's my point. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 10:38:51AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > Andrew Suffield writes: > > > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 09:41:05AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > > > The former is objectionable -- and I think not free -- because the > > > author's alleged patent infringement need not be related to the > > > software. I am not sure why some people think the latter is > > > objectionable, since it is similar in spirit and effect to the GPL's > > > termination case > > > > I am not sure why some people think the latter is acceptable, since it > > is similar in spirit and effect to the MS EULA (which says that you > > can't do anything the copyright holder doesn't like). > > This is not true, and it does not approximate anything that is true. False. Go and read the MS EULA. > > Free software licenses give things to the licensee. Not the copyright > > holder. > > Under this line of argument, the GPL is non-free because it gives the > copyright holder a promise that the licensee will redistribute the > work (in original or modified form) in source code to anyone the > licensee gives a copy to. Also wrong, despite attempts at word games. The GPL gives all licensees access to the source, and nothing to the copyright holder (unless they coincidentally happen to be a licensee of a modified version). This is a necessary condition for it to be free; if it actually gave access to the source to the copyright holder then it would not be free. An example of a non-free license along these lines is the old NPL. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 08:12:25PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > >> Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. > > > > Software patent lawsuits attempting to prevent the use and distribution > > of free software certainly is intrinsically bad for free software. > > But the problem is that that software isn't free to begin with -- it > could be, if the patent owner issued a free license, but it isn't > without the court case either. Somebody else owns the monopoly on > that invention. But, as we all know, this is the case with all software, due to the vast numbers of software patents. If we take the mere existance of a patent to mean that the software isn't free, then there is probably no free software. > >> It is unarguably superior that source should always be available for a > >> free software project. You cannot say the same for prohibiting > >> lawsuits. > > > > It is not unarguably the case that source requirements are always > > beneficial to free software. I could easily give an example where > > they were detrimental, and the development of a free software project > > was furthered by dropping them. (I'm not interested in debating whether > > this was actually so or not; it was, and I'll leave it at that for the > > sake of avoiding pointless tangents.) > > You're claiming an existence proof but failing to show the example. I > don't believe you -- nothing personal, but how can that be allowed as > a successful argument? I suspect you're looking at a case where you > *bought* effort towards a software project by permitting > source-disclosure requirements to be cancelled. I didn't provide the example because I believed the fact that they exist is self-evident, and providing unnecessary detail is something I was hoping to not spend my (finite) time on. I'm a programmer for StepMania[1], and for In The Groove[2], a commercial project based on it. Source requirements would have rendered the ITG project unfeasible, for various, typical marketplace reasons. If the ITG project didn't exist, I wouldn't be working on StepMania very much today[3]; the fact that my ITG work and SM work overlap is what allows it. (Almost all of my work for ITG is merged into SM.) In this case, the GPL's requirements placed on StepMania would have had a negative impact on its development. The switch to the X11 license has had no discernable negative impact at all (other than the time required to confirm the switch). StepMania's source is still available[4], and it's receiving much more development than it would have had the switch not been made. This is simply a case of proprietary development that is compatible with, and beneficial to, free software development. Of course, this is an exceptional case: in the far majority of cases, source distribution requirements both benefit the work and have no major detrimental effects. That's why people use them, and why they're not considered to violate DFSG#5/#6. I'm simply showing that exceptions exist. (Going back to the original quotes, I suppose that "source should always be available" and "requiring that source always be available" aren't really the same thing--with X11-licensed software, source is available; it's just not required to be. I do agree that source being available is always beneficial to free software. I just don't believe that *requiring* it is always beneficial, as in this case, because in some cases it prevents things which are, for the specific case, even more beneficial. In context, I think Andrew did mean "requiring".) [1] http://www.stepmania.com [2] http://www.roxorgames.com/itg/index.html [3] http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=11516 [4] In fact, StepMania's source must remain available, since it uses MAD for MP3 decoding. (ITG doesn't use MAD or MP3.) -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Open Software License v2.1
Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 02:59:20PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: >> Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. > > Software patent lawsuits attempting to prevent the use and distribution > of free software certainly is intrinsically bad for free software. But the problem is that that software isn't free to begin with -- it could be, if the patent owner issued a free license, but it isn't without the court case either. Somebody else owns the monopoly on that invention. >> It is unarguably superior that source should always be available for a >> free software project. You cannot say the same for prohibiting >> lawsuits. > > It is not unarguably the case that source requirements are always > beneficial to free software. I could easily give an example where > they were detrimental, and the development of a free software project > was furthered by dropping them. (I'm not interested in debating whether > this was actually so or not; it was, and I'll leave it at that for the > sake of avoiding pointless tangents.) You're claiming an existence proof but failing to show the example. I don't believe you -- nothing personal, but how can that be allowed as a successful argument? I suspect you're looking at a case where you *bought* effort towards a software project by permitting source-disclosure requirements to be cancelled. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 02:59:20PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software. Software patent lawsuits attempting to prevent the use and distribution of free software certainly is intrinsically bad for free software. > It is unarguably superior that source should always be available for a > free software project. You cannot say the same for prohibiting > lawsuits. It is not unarguably the case that source requirements are always beneficial to free software. I could easily give an example where they were detrimental, and the development of a free software project was furthered by dropping them. (I'm not interested in debating whether this was actually so or not; it was, and I'll leave it at that for the sake of avoiding pointless tangents.) (I doubt that any copyright-enforced requirement made in the interests of benefitting free software will result, in every single case, in being beneficial and not detrimental. There are almost always exceptions.) > In short, all the usual things that distinguish valid applications of > DFSG#5/#6 from invalid ones (even if they are fiendishly difficult to > understand). I believe, at least in principle, patent defense clauses readily pass DFSG#5/#6. (I'm not yet sure they can be implemented without introducing possibility for abuse, but that's a separate issue.) -- Glenn Maynard
