Re: Fwd: A Weird Interpretation of the GPL
Hi Mikhael, On Sunday 17 Apr 2011 16:11:24 Mikhael Goikhman wrote: Dear Shlomi, You are very confused here, because it seems you miss the juridical background. I strongly suggest you to start to learn the topic in depth for several years before making any further comments on it. You are right that I may be confused about it. I can try studying it to an extent, until I know enough, but I cannot halt production for the time being. I'd rather become a better software developer, essayist and writer (as well as in other kinds of digital arts) than a better legal expert. That is because I know well enough that I should avoid licensing all my original software under the GPL or LGPL (and in case I contribute to a third-party software under a non-permissive licence, then I almost always disclaim any rights and place myc contributions under the Public Domain / CC0 / MIT/X11-license). The definition of derived work can not be a part of a license, because this is a legal term discussed in Copyright Law. All licenses stop to work if this Copyright Law stops to work. Only the court can decide whether some piece of code or as a whole is a derived work of an other piece of code (in which case it should be bound by the license terms of the used code. if they allow derived works at all). This is all license agnostic. I.e. the court's decision on whether something is a derived work or wholly original work will be the same regardless of the license used (BSDL, GPL or proprietary). Fair enough, in that case, why did the GPL use the term derived work, instead of something less ambiguous and more commonly agreed upon? If I were to use a GPLed program or library, then I agree that whatever derived work I make from it is also GPLed. However, what is this elusive derived work according to the law? Does including code constitutes derived work? Does static linking constitutes a derived work? Does dynamic linking constitutes a derived work? Are Linux system calls to the Linux kernel constitute derived works? Are programs I execute using fork()+execve and then do something based on their output considered derived works? If I write a networked GPLed server, will my queries to it need to be GPLed as well? According to my understanding of how derived works in respect to the GPL is interpreted by most people, the derived works constitute of either including code in a larger source file, or alternatively static or dynamic linking (or similar mechanisms in other languages). But, obviously the NMAP people have interepreted derived work in consideration to the GPLv2 much more radically, and if the courts accept their interpretation, then all hell will break loose because every program generated by a C compiler, every data file output by any GPLed interpreters, and every program that makes a system call to the Linux kernel will need to be distributed under a GPL-compatible licence. If the GPL was a less ambiguous licence, it would spell exactly what can and cannot be done with it, rather than use the uncertain derived work term. The developers can have their vision of how the court will act in each case (and document it in FAQ or other documents), but they are not the authority here, and the license can't really help here. This question is out of the license scope. So you mean the text at the beginning of the NMAP licence does not hold water in court. It is wrong thus to call this vision as interpetation of a license. Your whole argument is wrongly based and void. It is astonishing that you still continue with it, even after several years. Well, it may be an interpretation of copyright law. But since the GPL uses the term derived work instead of a term, which, in the context of software, is mroe commonly understood - it is an interpretation of the GPL, and may be considered valid by some courts. Please don't use the screwed logic. The GPL is Free Software. The NMAP developers interpret the Copyright Law, not the license. I didn't say the GPLed was not a FOSS licence. However, I said that the NMAP people can interpret copyright so their GPLed software will no longer match the Free Software definition. Your phrases like violates the Free Software Definition or GPL allows such blatant misinterpretations of it or GPL licences are so vague are more than misplaced. Please reword them to: GPL being explicit is one of the most non-vague licenses. Developers knowingly using GPL do not misinterpret it. Copyright Law is vague regarding some software issues (linking?). Developers have slightly different visions on Copyright Law. If the GPL is using vague copyright law terms, then it is also, by implication, vague. Happy Passover! Regards, Shlomi Fish P.S: for a fun link see: http://www.gplv4.org/ . -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Original Riddles -
Re: Fwd: A Weird Interpretation of the GPL
On 17 Apr 2011 21:15:39 +0300, Shlomi Fish wrote: I know well enough that I should avoid licensing all my original software under the GPL or LGPL This would be fine, but this is not quite what you do. You lead a long-time campaign against developers knowingly using GPL. Fair enough, in that case, why did the GPL use the term derived work, instead of something less ambiguous and more commonly agreed upon? Every license uses this concept of derived work. Redistribution with modification in BSDL is nothing else than derived work. The term modification is not any less or more vague than derived work. Only a court can decide whether my software X is a modification (or derived work in legal words) of your software Y. Judges can do this by comparing code and applying common sense. However, what is this elusive derived work according to the law? Does including code constitutes derived work? Does static linking constitutes a derived work? Does dynamic linking constitutes a derived work? Are Linux system calls to the Linux kernel constitute derived works? Are programs I execute using fork()+execve and then do something based on their output considered derived works? If I write a networked GPLed server, will my queries to it need to be GPLed as well? Copyright Law defines derivative works and pretty much forbids them by default (without an explicit permission from the original author). There are some minimal fair use cases that are allowed, you should just go and read Copyright Law and this article if you want details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derived_work The FOSS licenses permit derived works by adding explicit permissions on re/distribution. If the GPL was a less ambiguous licence, it would spell exactly what can and cannot be done with it, rather than use the uncertain derived work term. Wrong unbased claim. Please don't use it anywhere. So you mean the text at the beginning of the NMAP licence does not hold water in court. Judges will decide whether definition of derived work by NMAP does not conflict with the same definition in the law document. So neither me nor you can know whether it does hold water or not. I didn't say the GPLed was not a FOSS licence. However, I said that the NMAP people can interpret copyright so their GPLed software will no longer match the Free Software definition. What you said is not certainly true. It is also possible that your understanding of what the 4 freedoms include is not fully correct. For example, do you have a right to run a program that generates the GPL'd code? Yes, you have (running a program is freedom #1, many believe that it is allowed as fair use, even by Copyright Law alone, without a need in FOSS licenses that add the remaining 3 freedoms). But do you have the right to use this output however as you want, ignoring the fact that this is actually a GPL'd code? I don't think so. The NMAP people similarly don't think that some complex cases are included in freedom 1, and they are even certain that Copyright Law agrees with them. And surely (regardless of whether the NMAP position will be found correct or not in the court) this does not affect GPL or any other license in any way. If the GPL is using vague copyright law terms, then it is also, by implication, vague. Not any more vague than other licenses. So can I hope you stop your anti-GPL campaign now? P.S. If you really want to know how vague are the software licenses, you should ask the lawer. The FOSS licenses are relatively old and were inspected by thousands of lawers. Let me know if you find a single respectful lawer that does not understand GPL and/or who thinks that BSDL is less vague in all real-life cases. Happy Passover. Regards, Mikhael. ___ Discussions mailing list Discussions@hamakor.org.il http://hamakor.org.il/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discussions
Re: A Weird Interpretation of the GPL
Hi!
Sorry for the latish response.
On Friday 11 Dec 2009 14:38:50 Shai Berger wrote:
On Friday 11 December 2009, Shlomi Fish wrote:
On Friday 11 Dec 2009 14:01:11 Shai Berger wrote:
Shlomi,
Why do you bother those of us who are not subscribed to Linux-IL with
an argument for which you have received (what appears to be) a
satisfactory answer in the original forum --
http://www.mail-archive.com/linux...@cs.huji.ac.il/msg57007.html ?
1. It's more on-topic here.
Granted.
OK.
2. I didn't find the answer satisfactory - essentially Tzafrir said
everyone can interpret the GPL as he sees fits and there will be Chaos
across the land.
No, he said that earlier. What he said this time was that everyone can
interpret *any* license as they see fit. The intelligent reader may be
expected to infer the missing and be laughed out of court. Actually,
there's no need for that.
OK.
For the actual matter at stake, it is my (non-lawyer) opinion that their
interpretation is no more valid than an interpretation of the 3-clause BSD
license that says the copyright holder is owed money for use of the
program.
Thanks for the support.
One more point about your argument there: You present it as if it were an
attack on the {L,}GPL for invoking the undefined, vague notion of derived
work. But what you end up with -- just use a permissive license -- is an
attack on copyleft itself. That is you do not attack the instrument at
hand, but the intention in its use. That is fine, if you're upfront about
it.
Where do you see that I ended up with just use a permissive licence?
Naturally, I prefer to use the X11 Licence for my software, but I can accept
the fact that some people would prefer to use strong copyleft or weak copyleft
licences instead. However, I think their most common manifestations as the GPL
and the LGPL are too political, complicated, hard-to-understand, etc. that I
think they do a dis-service to the concept of copyleft. In my essay, I thought
that the Sleepy Cat Licence is a good substitute to the GPL, but Migo said the
wording there was disputable and had too little legal teeth for serious uses,
and I couldn't find any GPLv2/GPLv3-compatible licence that is weak copyleft.
Migo did point me to:
http://snk.tuxfamily.org/web/2007-05-02-copyleft-variation-of-mit-license.html
Which is a weak copyleft licence that aims to be simple, but I'm not sure if
it was accepted yet.
So it's an unresolved problem.
One thing contributing to the strength of Tzafrir's comments there is
that in three weeks, you never bothered to refute them. Instead, you
chose to simply repeat your claims to a different forum. Why?
See above.
The above answers why you repeated your claims to a different forum, not
why did you fail to refute the counter argument -- except, perhaps, that
part of that message somehow escaped your attention.
OK.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
Thanks (not!) for top-posting.
I stand corrected. I should have indeed removed the part of your message I
was not responding directly to. Thanks for fixing that for me.
- Shai.
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Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/
Why I Love Perl - http://shlom.in/joy-of-perl
Bzr is slower than Subversion in combination with Sourceforge.
( By: http://dazjorz.com/ )
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A Weird Interpretation of the GPL
Hi Mikhael and all! In the previous discussion about the FOSS Licences Wars, Migo has protected the GPL and the LGPL claiming they were the best strong copyleft and weak copyleft (respectively) licences , and that there was no point in phrasing shorter, easier to understand and shorter ones. However, as I discovered based on this Linux-IL discussion: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux...@cs.huji.ac.il/msg56993.html NMAP added the following clauses of interpretation to the GPL (possibly mis- interpretation) at the top here: http://www.mail-archive.com/linux...@cs.huji.ac.il/msg57004.html * Note that the GPL places important restrictions on derived works, yet * * it does not provide a detailed definition of that term. To avoid * * misunderstandings, we consider an application to constitute a * * derivative work for the purpose of this license if it does any of the * * following: * * o Integrates source code from Nmap * * o Reads or includes Nmap copyrighted data files, such as* * nmap-os-db or nmap-service-probes.* * o Executes Nmap and parses the results (as opposed to typical shell or * * execution-menu apps, which simply display raw Nmap output and so are * * not derivative works.)* * o Integrates/includes/aggregates Nmap into a proprietary executable * * installer, such as those produced by InstallShield. * * o Links to a library or executes a program that does any of the above * * Now this is not only not according to the commonly accepted interpretation of the GPL (which allows one to execute GPLed programs from other programs, and to re-use their output without restrictions), it also violates the Free Software Definition that reads: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). To his defence, Fyodor (the nmap developer) said that: Software can be considered free software without being straight GPL. The BSD licenses are one example of this. Also, we don't claim that Nmap is plain GPLv2. And to reduce confusion even further, we're planning to change to a license like this somday: http://nmap.org/npsl/npsl-annotated.html But we've been too busy coding to get it reviewed by an open source lawyer, and I believe that step is important as I'm a programmer and I don't pretend to be an expert in copyright law. So my question is, if the GPL allows such blatant misinterpretations of it, just so projects can wear the free software fig-leaf, what good is it? I download a GPLed program, use it in proprietary contexts, and then someone say Wait! I've interpreted it just like the nmap people, and then I'm screwed. There's also: http://zgp.org/pipermail/linux-elitists/2009-February/012786.html Can anyone really trust the GPL licences if they are so vague? Regards, Shlomi Fish -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ My Aphorisms - http://www.shlomifish.org/humour.html Bzr is slower than Subversion in combination with Sourceforge. ( By: http://dazjorz.com/ ) ___ Discussions mailing list Discussions@hamakor.org.il http://hamakor.org.il/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discussions
Re: A Weird Interpretation of the GPL
On Friday 11 December 2009, Shlomi Fish wrote:
On Friday 11 Dec 2009 14:01:11 Shai Berger wrote:
Shlomi,
Why do you bother those of us who are not subscribed to Linux-IL with an
argument for which you have received (what appears to be) a satisfactory
answer in the original forum --
http://www.mail-archive.com/linux...@cs.huji.ac.il/msg57007.html ?
1. It's more on-topic here.
Granted.
2. I didn't find the answer satisfactory - essentially Tzafrir said
everyone can interpret the GPL as he sees fits and there will be Chaos
across the land.
No, he said that earlier. What he said this time was that everyone can
interpret *any* license as they see fit. The intelligent reader may be
expected to infer the missing and be laughed out of court. Actually, there's
no need for that.
For the actual matter at stake, it is my (non-lawyer) opinion that their
interpretation is no more valid than an interpretation of the 3-clause BSD
license that says the copyright holder is owed money for use of the program.
One more point about your argument there: You present it as if it were an
attack on the {L,}GPL for invoking the undefined, vague notion of derived
work. But what you end up with -- just use a permissive license -- is an
attack on copyleft itself. That is you do not attack the instrument at hand,
but the intention in its use. That is fine, if you're upfront about it.
One thing contributing to the strength of Tzafrir's comments there is
that in three weeks, you never bothered to refute them. Instead, you
chose to simply repeat your claims to a different forum. Why?
See above.
The above answers why you repeated your claims to a different forum, not
why did you fail to refute the counter argument -- except, perhaps, that
part of that message somehow escaped your attention.
Thanks (not!) for top-posting.
I stand corrected. I should have indeed removed the part of your message I was
not responding directly to. Thanks for fixing that for me.
- Shai.
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