Re: licenses with name changing clauses
MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: =?iso-8859-1?q?Frank_K=FCster?= [EMAIL PROTECTED] While we're at it, there's a different issue in teTeX and TeXLive for which I'd like to have some advice from -legal. ukhyphen.tex has now a supposedly free license, but it has a broader renaming clause: Wow, that's arrogant, not only reserving the package's filename (arguably acceptable to ensure integrity) but the names of many possible derivatives/competitors. Amusingly, it's only the filename and you can probably make an symlink or some other alias while complying with this, so it's more comedy than a bug. Yes, it's as simple as mv ukhyphen.tex britpat.tex $EDITOR britpat.tex echo britpat.tex ukhypen.tex /usr/share/texmf-tetex/aliases Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
Re: PHP license style [was: Re: licenses with name changing clauses]
Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Fri, 26 May 2006 13:41:16 +0100 MJ Ray wrote: Wow, that's arrogant, not only reserving the package's filename (arguably acceptable to ensure integrity) but the names of many possible derivatives/competitors. Does this mean that you agree with me that the super-name-change clause of PHP License version 3.01 fails to comply with the DFSG? Please don't cut my messages unmarked. The cut part should have made it clear that I view these restrictions as more comedy than problems. Also, this one was about filenames, not package names. Finally, please don't send personal messages to me to mailing lists. Thanks, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
licenses with name changing clauses (was: license of cstex / cslatex)
Thomas Esser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I had done modifications of three files of that package and distributed the changed files using the original filename. The author told me that this violates his license. Actually, this only happened, because when reading his license the first time, I stopped as soon as I saw a reference to the GPL (and did not read the appendix). I've seen you've fixed that by uploading a new tetex-texmf tarball with the buggy, unchanged versions in them. I think an alternative would have been to rename the macro package to something like csplainfixed, install it into a different directory (adapting the necessary kpathsea variables) and keep the filenames. This would make a drop-in replacement that works... Questions: - is it valid to refer to GPL and add such severe restrictions in an appendix? I think he can use whichever license he wants, so GPL with additional restrictions are legal, too. He may have a hard time sueing you, but I guess he didn't try that. - is this a free software license in the FSF definition? No idea, but I'd assume yes. - is this license free enough to allow an inclusion of the software into debian? Yes, DFSG #4 says: , | The license may require derived works to carry a different name or | version number from the original software. (This is a compromise. The | Debian group encourages all authors not to restrict any files, source | or binary, from being modified. ` While we're at it, there's a different issue in teTeX and TeXLive for which I'd like to have some advice from -legal. ukhyphen.tex has now a supposedly free license, but it has a broader renaming clause: % if % such modifications are re-distributed, the modified % file must not be capable of being confused with the % original. In particular, this means % %(a) the filename (the portion before the extension, if any) %must not match any of : % %UKHYPH UK-HYPH %UKHYPHENUK-HYPHEN %UKHYPHENS UK-HYPHENS %UKHYPHENATION UK-HYPHENATION %UKHYPHENISATION UK-HYPHENISATION %UKHYPHENIZATION UK-HYPHENIZATION % % regardless of case, The first question is whether match is to be read as strings are equal or like in grep gave N matches. In the latter case, this is probably analogous to the PHP license forbidding this string in any name, even graphplot. I didn't follow the PHP threads, but I guess this would be non-free. However, I read it as the strings match, then I may call a derivative ukhyph1.tex or ukhyphnew.tex, and I would tend to accept this under the compromise clause of the DFSG. By the way, the other question which has been raised in the upstream mailing list is whether the person who settled this restrictive license actually has the right to do so - while he's the current maintainer, he is said to not have contributed much, the former maintainer agreed on LPPL, and originally the data were in the public domain... Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)
Re: licenses with name changing clauses (was: license of cstex / cslatex)
=?iso-8859-1?q?Frank_K=FCster?= [EMAIL PROTECTED] While we're at it, there's a different issue in teTeX and TeXLive for which I'd like to have some advice from -legal. ukhyphen.tex has now a supposedly free license, but it has a broader renaming clause: Wow, that's arrogant, not only reserving the package's filename (arguably acceptable to ensure integrity) but the names of many possible derivatives/competitors. Amusingly, it's only the filename and you can probably make an symlink or some other alias while complying with this, so it's more comedy than a bug. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PHP license style [was: Re: licenses with name changing clauses]
On Fri, 26 May 2006 13:41:16 +0100 MJ Ray wrote: =?iso-8859-1?q?Frank_K=FCster?= [EMAIL PROTECTED] While we're at it, there's a different issue in teTeX and TeXLive for which I'd like to have some advice from -legal. ukhyphen.tex has now a supposedly free license, but it has a broader renaming clause: Wow, that's arrogant, not only reserving the package's filename (arguably acceptable to ensure integrity) but the names of many possible derivatives/competitors. Does this mean that you agree with me that the super-name-change clause of PHP License version 3.01 fails to comply with the DFSG? Remember that this clause (which is #4) reserves an infinite class of work names: namely, the class of names that include PHP as a substring. The latest thread on this topic started here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/04/msg00112.html -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpViacSMifnO.pgp Description: PGP signature
