Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

This email puts forth for your consideration a proposal to change our
current licensing policy to accommodate three more licenses that cover the
new photographic selection of wallpapers in
https://phabricator.kde.org/D18078.

The licenses are:
- the Pexels license: https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/
- the Unsplash license: https://unsplash.com/license,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsplash#License
- the Creative Commons Zero License: https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.htm
l

(Resent, this time as a member)

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Nicolás Alvarez]

> On 27 Jan 2019, at 15:04, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> 
> This email puts forth for your consideration a proposal to change our current 
> licensing policy to accommodate three more licenses that cover the new 
> photographic selection of wallpapers in https://phabricator.kde.org/D18078.
> 
> The licenses are:
> - the Pexels license: https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/

While I *personally* agree with this license, it will be probably considered 
non-free (because you can't resell the photo alone), in particular by Linux 
distributions.

> - the Unsplash license: https://unsplash.com/license, 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsplash#License

Looks good to me. "The right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a 
similar or competing service" doesn't really affect us when we're using 
individual photos. I think it doesn't even concern copyright but "database 
rights". And everything else is basically CC0.

> - the Creative Commons Zero License: https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html

CC0 should be uncontroversial, it should be definitely allowed by our license 
policy.

IANAL etc.

-- 
Nicolás

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Ivan Čukić]

Since all of these mostly boil down to CC0, I'll only comment on it.

> > https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html
> 
> CC0 should be uncontroversial, it should be definitely allowed by our
> license policy.

If I'm not mistaken, none of the licenses we allow at the moment is a "public 
domain"-like license - in the sense that the author information is not 
preserved.

I'm generally leaning against licenses like these - even if authors (of code, 
of art, etc.) allow us to forget them, I like giving credit where credit's 
due.

Cheers,
Ivan


-- 
dr Ivan Čukić
KDE, ivan.cu...@kde.org, https://cukic.co/
gpg key fingerprint: 8FE4 D32F 7061 EA9C 8232  07AE 01C6 CE2B FF04 1C12

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Nate Graham]

On 1/27/19 11:39 AM, Ivan Čukić wrote:

I'm generally leaning against licenses like these - even if authors (of code,
of art, etc.) allow us to forget them, I like giving credit where credit's
due.


Just because the license *allows* non-attribution, that doesn't mean we 
have to not attribute them, right? In the patch in question [1] we are
preserving authorship information. Seems like the nice thing to do even 
if the license doesn't require it.


Nate


[1] https://phabricator.kde.org/D18078.

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Sune Vuorela]

On 2019-01-27, Nicolás Alvarez  wrote:
>
>> On 27 Jan 2019, at 15:04, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
>> 
>> This email puts forth for your consideration a proposal to change our 
>> current licensing policy to accommodate three more licenses that cover the 
>> new photographic selection of wallpapers in 
>> https://phabricator.kde.org/D18078.
>> 
>> The licenses are:
>> - the Pexels license: https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/
>
> While I *personally* agree with this license, it will be probably considered 
> non-free (because you can't resell the photo alone), in particular by Linux 
> distributions.

I think I agree taht linux distros will want to remove it.

Discriminates against field of endavour

>
>> - the Unsplash license: https://unsplash.com/license, 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsplash#License
>
> Looks good to me. "The right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a 
> similar or competing service" doesn't really affect us when we're using 
> individual photos. I think it doesn't even concern copyright but "database 
> rights". And everything else is basically CC0.

I still need to fully understand what that means.

If I get 5 images from KDE that are under unsplash license, 5 images
from Gnome that are under unsplash license, can I use those in my public
image gallery ?  Depending on this, I think it might fall under the same
non-free category as the Pexels license.

But it feels that this clause should not be a license clause for the
image, but part of the ToS for unsplash API or unsplash site. I guess
someone needs to talk to either the photographers or with unsplash to
figure out what it actually means. Else, I think we should default to
"no".

>> - the Creative Commons Zero License: https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html
>
> CC0 should be uncontroversial, it should be definitely allowed by our license 
> policy.

yeah. at least implicitly.

I don't think we are listing all the possible licenses, just the main
ones. Everything that is one-way compatible with what we request, should
be allowed as such.  


Also note that most distros won't ship these images if there isn't
clarification of the license.

/Sune

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Mirko Boehm]

Hello,

> On 27. Jan 2019, at 19:39, Ivan Čukić  wrote:
> 
> Since all of these mostly boil down to CC0, I'll only comment on it.
> 
>>> https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html 
>>> 
>> 
>> CC0 should be uncontroversial, it should be definitely allowed by our
>> license policy.
> 
> If I'm not mistaken, none of the licenses we allow at the moment is a "public 
> domain"-like license - in the sense that the author information is not 
> preserved.
> 
> I'm generally leaning against licenses like these - even if authors (of code, 
> of art, etc.) allow us to forget them, I like giving credit where credit's 
> due.


I need to point out that CC0 licenses are problematic in many jurisdictions, as 
there is no simple way to dedicate a work to the public domain. The correct way 
in for example France or Germany would be to use a permissive FOSS license. Let 
us avoid the mine field of public domain.

Best,

Mirko.
-- 
Mirko Boehm | mi...@kde.org | KDE e.V.
FSFE Team Germany
Qt Certified Specialist and Trainer
Request a meeting: https://doodle.com/mirkoboehm

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Jonathan Riddell]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2019 at 18:04, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> The licenses are:
> - the Pexels license: https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/
> - the Unsplash license: https://unsplash.com/license, 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsplash#License

These are both non-free licences and we can not ship files which can
only be copied with their restrictions.

> - the Creative Commons Zero License: https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html

We can of course ship files which are in the public domain as they are
unrestricted, it doesn't need a change to our licence policy.

Jonathan

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

I don't think there are any problems with using public domain images, and
even if there were I'd rather view them as challenges to overcome than
obstacles to avoid.

> These are both non-free licences and we can not ship files which can
only be copied with their restrictions.

Why not? As far as Unsplash goes, their only restriction is not to start a
competing service, which is not even remotely what we are trying to do.
Surely that is a reasonable and acceptable restriction. It's not unlike the
copyleft restrictions ("freedoms") of the GPL.

I don't know about the Pexels license though. It purports to be free, but
the wording is very vague and it's hard to gauge how equivalent it is to
CC0. But I think that just means it bears a closer look, not that it should
be rejected outright.

On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 10:24 AM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:

> On Sun, 27 Jan 2019 at 18:04, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> > The licenses are:
> > - the Pexels license: https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/
> > - the Unsplash license: https://unsplash.com/license,
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsplash#License
>
> These are both non-free licences and we can not ship files which can
> only be copied with their restrictions.
>
> > - the Creative Commons Zero License:
> https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html
>
> We can of course ship files which are in the public domain as they are
> unrestricted, it doesn't need a change to our licence policy.
>
> Jonathan
>

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Mirko Boehm]

Hi,

> On 28. Jan 2019, at 13:23, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> 
> I don't think there are any problems with using public domain images, and 
> even if there were I'd rather view them as challenges to overcome than 
> obstacles to avoid.

There is. We cannot prove that we have explicit permission from the author to 
use or distribute the work. We also have no way of tracking that who submits 
the work to our channels has the right to do so. The idea of “public domain” 
only really works for works where copyright has expired.

> > These are both non-free licences and we can not ship files which can
> only be copied with their restrictions.
> 
> Why not? As far as Unsplash goes, their only restriction is not to start a 
> competing service, which is not even remotely what we are trying to do. 
> Surely that is a reasonable and acceptable restriction. It's not unlike the 
> copyleft restrictions ("freedoms") of the GPL.

It violates the Open Source definition, especially the rule against 
discrimination against use or user. This has been a long-time yardstick for the 
KDE community.

Best,

Mirko.
-- 
Mirko Boehm | mi...@kde.org | KDE e.V.
FSFE Team Germany
Qt Certified Specialist and Trainer
Request a meeting: https://doodle.com/mirkoboehm

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Adriaan de Groot]

On Monday, 28 January 2019 13:23:36 CET Krešimir Čohar wrote:
> Why not? As far as Unsplash goes, their only restriction is not to start a
> competing service, which is not even remotely what we are trying to do.
> Surely that is a reasonable and acceptable restriction. It's not unlike the
> copyleft restrictions ("freedoms") of the GPL.

Here's the thing: we ship Free Software. More-or-less-equivalently, we ship 
things licensed under an Open Source license. And *that* in turn basically 
means "is it OSI listed".

That's a short-and-bureaucratic kind of answer, which I don't particularly 
like.

A related thing: if we ship something, and *downstream* doesn't like it, then 
either they patch it out, or they don't ship our stuff. It's important to ask 
downstreams specifically what they think, when we're re-shipping something from 
upstream under an unexpected license. Debian is one of the most particular of 
our downstreams, so we'd definitely want to check with them.

A related thing: FOSDEM is this weekend, when we have the KDE licensing 
people, Debian, and a room full of lawyers all in one place (-ish). That's 
probably a good moment to inquire.

[ade]

PS. The license seems a bit inconsistent to me: first it grants a very broad 
license and then carves out a specific exception (field of endeavour). It would 
be more tidy if it started with "EXCEPT AS LISTED BELOW (field of endeavour), 
Unsplash grants you ..". It may be feasible to get a specific (i.e. CC-0) 
license applied by Unsplash to these specific (how many, six?) photos, since 
it's unlikely that you can start a competing service with just six photos.

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

>It violates the Open Source definition, especially the rule against
discrimination against use or user. This has been a long-time yardstick for
the KDE community.
There isn't any discrimination? As long as the operators of the website are
being truthful, no one's rights have been violated without consent seeing
as they were waived voluntarily. Also, if I'm not mistaken, open source =/=
free and open source.

>There is. We cannot prove that we have explicit permission from the author
to use or distribute the work. We also have no way of tracking that who
submits the work to our channels has the right to do so. The idea of
“public domain” only really works for works where copyright has expired.

Several specious arguments here.
First, while it is hardly impossible to acquire proof that the authors'
rights have been waived, I would surmise that it is rarely done. In
addition, if the operators of the website are, again, being truthful, they
are the copyright holders and there is simply no need to ask anything of
the original authors.
Second, no way of tracking if the person submitting the work has the right
to do so? Isn't that covered in the license itself? Or are you just saying
that we simply don't know if they're lying?
Third, I wholeheartedly disagree. Not only does the public domain cover
intellectual properties the rights to which have been waived (in addition
to property whose copyright has expired), it also covers a variety of other
situations, see more here: https://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/unprotected.html

A great example of this are movies, television series, books with the same
name because titles, names etc. don't receive copyright protection (and are
hence public domain).

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

I know... I agree they should have done a better job with the wording, but
I think we can get them to be more specific about it. And no, we wouldn't
be violating their license in any circumstance so I think they'd be OK with
granting CC-0 in these select cases.

P.S. Debian just ditches all our wallpapers and our sddm theme and puts in
its own. And thanks for the suggestion - I agree that we should bring in
someone that speaks legalese on this, they'll know how to proceed.

On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 2:25 PM Adriaan de Groot  wrote:

> On Monday, 28 January 2019 13:23:36 CET Krešimir Čohar wrote:
> > Why not? As far as Unsplash goes, their only restriction is not to start
> a
> > competing service, which is not even remotely what we are trying to do.
> > Surely that is a reasonable and acceptable restriction. It's not unlike
> the
> > copyleft restrictions ("freedoms") of the GPL.
>
> Here's the thing: we ship Free Software. More-or-less-equivalently, we
> ship
> things licensed under an Open Source license. And *that* in turn basically
> means "is it OSI listed".
>
> That's a short-and-bureaucratic kind of answer, which I don't particularly
> like.
>
> A related thing: if we ship something, and *downstream* doesn't like it,
> then
> either they patch it out, or they don't ship our stuff. It's important to
> ask
> downstreams specifically what they think, when we're re-shipping something
> from
> upstream under an unexpected license. Debian is one of the most particular
> of
> our downstreams, so we'd definitely want to check with them.
>
> A related thing: FOSDEM is this weekend, when we have the KDE licensing
> people, Debian, and a room full of lawyers all in one place (-ish). That's
> probably a good moment to inquire.
>
> [ade]
>
> PS. The license seems a bit inconsistent to me: first it grants a very
> broad
> license and then carves out a specific exception (field of endeavour). It
> would
> be more tidy if it started with "EXCEPT AS LISTED BELOW (field of
> endeavour),
> Unsplash grants you ..". It may be feasible to get a specific (i.e. CC-0)
> license applied by Unsplash to these specific (how many, six?) photos,
> since
> it's unlikely that you can start a competing service with just six photos.

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

That last email (the legalese thing) was in response to Adriaan's email :D
Sorry Adriaan I've never posted to a mailing list before I still don't know
how to reply properly hahaha

On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 2:30 PM Krešimir Čohar  wrote:

> I know... I agree they should have done a better job with the wording, but
> I think we can get them to be more specific about it. And no, we wouldn't
> be violating their license in any circumstance so I think they'd be OK with
> granting CC-0 in these select cases.
>
> P.S. Debian just ditches all our wallpapers and our sddm theme and puts in
> its own. And thanks for the suggestion - I agree that we should bring in
> someone that speaks legalese on this, they'll know how to proceed.
>
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 2:25 PM Adriaan de Groot  wrote:
>
>> On Monday, 28 January 2019 13:23:36 CET Krešimir Čohar wrote:
>> > Why not? As far as Unsplash goes, their only restriction is not to
>> start a
>> > competing service, which is not even remotely what we are trying to do.
>> > Surely that is a reasonable and acceptable restriction. It's not unlike
>> the
>> > copyleft restrictions ("freedoms") of the GPL.
>>
>> Here's the thing: we ship Free Software. More-or-less-equivalently, we
>> ship
>> things licensed under an Open Source license. And *that* in turn
>> basically
>> means "is it OSI listed".
>>
>> That's a short-and-bureaucratic kind of answer, which I don't
>> particularly
>> like.
>>
>> A related thing: if we ship something, and *downstream* doesn't like it,
>> then
>> either they patch it out, or they don't ship our stuff. It's important to
>> ask
>> downstreams specifically what they think, when we're re-shipping
>> something from
>> upstream under an unexpected license. Debian is one of the most
>> particular of
>> our downstreams, so we'd definitely want to check with them.
>>
>> A related thing: FOSDEM is this weekend, when we have the KDE licensing
>> people, Debian, and a room full of lawyers all in one place (-ish).
>> That's
>> probably a good moment to inquire.
>>
>> [ade]
>>
>> PS. The license seems a bit inconsistent to me: first it grants a very
>> broad
>> license and then carves out a specific exception (field of endeavour). It
>> would
>> be more tidy if it started with "EXCEPT AS LISTED BELOW (field of
>> endeavour),
>> Unsplash grants you ..". It may be feasible to get a specific (i.e. CC-0)
>> license applied by Unsplash to these specific (how many, six?) photos,
>> since
>> it's unlikely that you can start a competing service with just six photos.
>
>

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Cornelius Schumacher]

On Sonntag, 27. Januar 2019 21:14:10 CET Mirko Boehm wrote:
> 
> I need to point out that CC0 licenses are problematic in many jurisdictions,
> as there is no simple way to dedicate a work to the public domain. The
> correct way in for example France or Germany would be to use a permissive
> FOSS license. Let us avoid the mine field of public domain.

Isn't the CC0 license the attempt to solve the issues of the term "public 
domain" across jurisdictions and provide a license which works as what people 
expect from public domain?

What are the issues of public domain that CC0 doesn't solve?

-- 
Cornelius Schumacher 

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

I think they're one and the same. All intellectual property the rights to
which have been waived = CC0 = public domain. There are a few European
exceptions to copyright expiration, such as
https://creativecommons.org/2016/04/26/long-arm-copyright-millions-blocked-reading-original-versions-diary-anne-frank/
that I don't think concern CC0.

On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 3:51 PM Cornelius Schumacher 
wrote:

> On Sonntag, 27. Januar 2019 21:14:10 CET Mirko Boehm wrote:
> >
> > I need to point out that CC0 licenses are problematic in many
> jurisdictions,
> > as there is no simple way to dedicate a work to the public domain. The
> > correct way in for example France or Germany would be to use a permissive
> > FOSS license. Let us avoid the mine field of public domain.
>
> Isn't the CC0 license the attempt to solve the issues of the term "public
> domain" across jurisdictions and provide a license which works as what
> people
> expect from public domain?
>
> What are the issues of public domain that CC0 doesn't solve?
>
> --
> Cornelius Schumacher 
>
>
>

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Mirko Boehm (KDE)]

Hello,

> On 28. Jan 2019, at 13:23, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> 
> I don't think there are any problems with using public domain images, and 
> even if there were I'd rather view them as challenges to overcome than 
> obstacles to avoid.

This is not necessarily a question of what we think. This is a question of what 
we as a community can and should distribute. For that, we need at least 
explicit permission from the author, as in a FOSS license. There has been a 
very long debate on the use of public domain works in FOSS, and the summary 
AFAIK is “it is complicated” and “it depends on the jurisdiction”. A great 
summary can be found here: https://opensource.org/node/878: 
 "an open source user or developer cannot 
safely include public domain source code in a project."  

> 
> > These are both non-free licences and we can not ship files which can
> only be copied with their restrictions.
> 
> Why not? As far as Unsplash goes, their only restriction is not to start a 
> competing service, which is not even remotely what we are trying to do. 
> Surely that is a reasonable and acceptable restriction. It's not unlike the 
> copyleft restrictions ("freedoms") of the GPL.

Because we are a free software community.

I think we need to untangle the discussion:

The Unsplash license looks like a FOSS license to me.
The Pexel license is clearly not a free software license as it comes with other 
restrictions.
The CC0 and other public domain licenses bring in complexity without a clear 
benefit.

Cheers,

Mirko.
-- 
Mirko Boehm | mi...@kde.org | KDE e.V.
FSFE Team Germany
Qt Certified Specialist and Trainer
Request a meeting: https://doodle.com/mirkoboehm

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Mirko Boehm (KDE)]

Hi,

sorry, but this email contains a lot of assertions that cannot stand.

> On 28. Jan 2019, at 14:28, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> 
> >It violates the Open Source definition, especially the rule against 
> >discrimination against use or user. This has been a long-time yardstick for 
> >the KDE community.
> There isn't any discrimination? As long as the operators of the website are 
> being truthful, no one's rights have been violated without consent seeing as 
> they were waived voluntarily. Also, if I'm not mistaken, open source =/= free 
> and open source.

FOSS licenses need to work transitively. We as a community distribute so that 
other can freely use and redistribute. Any restrictions against certain types 
of use undermine that. That is why the Open Source Definition disapproves any 
such restrictions.

> >There is. We cannot prove that we have explicit permission from the author 
> >to use or distribute the work. We also have no way of tracking that who 
> >submits the work to our channels has the right to do so. The idea of “public 
> >domain” only really works for works where copyright has expired.
> 
> Several specious arguments here.
> First, while it is hardly impossible to acquire proof that the authors' 
> rights have been waived, I would surmise that it is rarely done.

Not the point. That is like arguing you can speed if you don't get caught.

> In addition, if the operators of the website are, again, being truthful, they 
> are the copyright holders and there is simply no need to ask anything of the 
> original authors.

The creators of the work are the authors and give the license, not the web site 
operators. Unless that is the same person. You get the idea. 

> Second, no way of tracking if the person submitting the work has the right to 
> do so? Isn't that covered in the license itself? Or are you just saying that 
> we simply don't know if they're lying?

That argument was specifically for public domain works. If a work comes without 
information about the copyright holder, how can we know if we can use it? Who 
gives the public domain dedication? How can you prove it? What if the author 
changes their mind? …

> Third, I wholeheartedly disagree. Not only does the public domain cover 
> intellectual properties the rights to which have been waived (in addition to 
> property whose copyright has expired), it also covers a variety of other 
> situations, see more here: https://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/unprotected.html 
> 
So much confusion. This web site speaks about US copyright law, where public 
domain dedications exist. Our responsible legal body is in Germany.

> A great example of this are movies, television series, books with the same 
> name because titles, names etc. don't receive copyright protection (and are 
> hence public domain).

There is a difference between something not being creative enough to be 
separately copyrighted and something being public domain. From one does not 
follow the other. If we need to discuss this, there are a couple of 
knowledgeable people on this list. However I think it gets us nowhere and we 
are not the right forum for it.

Best,

Mirko.
-- 
Mirko Boehm | mi...@kde.org | KDE e.V.
FSFE Team Germany
Qt Certified Specialist and Trainer
Request a meeting: https://doodle.com/mirkoboehm

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Luigi Toscano]

Mirko Boehm (KDE) ha scritto:

Hello,

On 28. Jan 2019, at 13:23, Krešimir Čohar > wrote:


I don't think there are any problems with using public domain images, and 
even if there were I'd rather view them as challenges to overcome than 
obstacles to avoid.


This is not necessarily a question of what we think. This is a question of 
what we as a community can and should distribute. For that, we need at least 
explicit permission from the author, as in a FOSS license. There has been a 
very long debate on the use of public domain works in FOSS, and the summary 
AFAIK is “it is complicated” and “it depends on the jurisdiction”. A great 
summary can be found here: https://opensource.org/node/878: "an open source 
user or developer cannot safely include public domain source code in a project."


But the same article says that CC0 was born to overcome the complexity of the 
definition of the public domain in different jurisdiction. It also says that 
CC0 was not OSI-approved, thought.


Ciao
--
Luigi

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Ken Vermette]

As an author and contributor I'm giving my thumbs-down on CC0 and
friends. The main crux I have is that, already, many of us have
artwork (including wallpapers, glyphs, icons, designs, and many other
visual assets) which are used unaccredited with extreme regularity.
Legally speaking, I need to go after every website I find using the
artwork and heckle them to post the appropriate license/attributions.
In practice if a company is abusing our visual work in some way (such
as claiming ownership, authorship, or excessive rights) I need to be
able to claim that the appropriate license was posted for the work,
and that I have enforced said license. I have also seen instances
where we have distributed assets without any license information at
all. In these cases, I at least have our license policy to fall back
on should a license abuser come to light.

The danger in accepting CC0 is that, if the KDE community were to
start publicly validating non-accrediting public domain licenses, then
it throws into someone like me *not* actively heckling people to
properly post licenses into a legal problem. If someone were to ever
abuse our work, it essentially removes my ability to claim that it is
not our policy to publish public domain work. I can claim I don't do a
great job at enforcement, but in tandem with that a license abuser
could claim that KDE community distributes public domain artwork, that
licenses haven't been enforced, and that there was reason to believe
the work may have been published in a public domain.

To add fuel to the fire, when we distribute assets, sometimes we get
the license wrong. If ever we maintained a body of work and a license
like the CC0 was mistakenly attached to it, it would be a very bad
situation for every author involved. It gets worse here because we're
talking about using public-domain licenses specifically to make
bundling several works of disparate authors together; everyone would
need to be vary careful about appropriately licensing every. single.
image.  in such a bundle. At least with what we have now, the licenses
aren't so dissimilar that significant problems could arise because of
this.

TLDR; Authors who don't enforce license compliance with a heavy-hand
are put at a higher risk of losing rights when public-domain licenses
add potential confusion to what our work may be represented as. It
could, very easily, become ammunition against authors and artists to
be used by license abusers.


On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 10:43 AM Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
>
> I think they're one and the same. All intellectual property the rights to 
> which have been waived = CC0 = public domain. There are a few European 
> exceptions to copyright expiration, such as 
> https://creativecommons.org/2016/04/26/long-arm-copyright-millions-blocked-reading-original-versions-diary-anne-frank/
>  that I don't think concern CC0.
>
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 3:51 PM Cornelius Schumacher  
> wrote:
>>
>> On Sonntag, 27. Januar 2019 21:14:10 CET Mirko Boehm wrote:
>> >
>> > I need to point out that CC0 licenses are problematic in many 
>> > jurisdictions,
>> > as there is no simple way to dedicate a work to the public domain. The
>> > correct way in for example France or Germany would be to use a permissive
>> > FOSS license. Let us avoid the mine field of public domain.
>>
>> Isn't the CC0 license the attempt to solve the issues of the term "public
>> domain" across jurisdictions and provide a license which works as what people
>> expect from public domain?
>>
>> What are the issues of public domain that CC0 doesn't solve?
>>
>> --
>> Cornelius Schumacher 
>>
>>

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

First of all, I'd like to mention that I've been snooping around the Pexels
website and it turns out that they misappropriate images from Pixabay while
claiming that the license for those images is CC0. The actual license for
those images is the Pixabay license, which is the same as the Unsplash
license (forbidding anyone else to create a competing service, which Pexels
is in direct violation of).

So, Pexels is out.

I wouldn't necessarily characterize the Unsplash license as FOSS, but
rather public domain with restrictions (not entirely public domain). I also
think that in order to verify that the photographers have indeed waived
their rights, we might have to contact them (it's easy enough to do so
though, their contact information is right there on the website).

*In response to Ken's email*, while I sympathize with what you've written,
public domain doesn't entail accreditation from what I understand
(otherwise it wouldn't be *public* domain), and the idea that we can avoid
using public domain in KDE is somehow *unrealistic* to me, because *we do
it all the time*. The very GUI itself (or WIMP) is a great example of that,
see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corp.#Background
and the second paragraph of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea–expression_divide
sorta boring legal text that covers this problem in the EU
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1446134154470&uri=CELEX:62010CJ0406

Namely, an overwhelming number of our UI elements already are in the public
domain simply because they're non-copyrightable. We ourselves can give
credit / enforce accreditation, but we can't deny that we've long reaped
the benefits of public domain and shall continue to do so, without giving
any credit to the authors whose public domain elements we use on a daily
basis (mostly because we don't know who they are).

And I don't think the goal here is to shy away from the possibility of
abuse considering that any license can be subject to abuse; I think the
ultimate goal here is to make sure it isn't abused (rather than avoid it
altogether because it's hard to enforce).

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 12:01 AM Ken Vermette  wrote:

> As an author and contributor I'm giving my thumbs-down on CC0 and
> friends. The main crux I have is that, already, many of us have
> artwork (including wallpapers, glyphs, icons, designs, and many other
> visual assets) which are used unaccredited with extreme regularity.
> Legally speaking, I need to go after every website I find using the
> artwork and heckle them to post the appropriate license/attributions.
> In practice if a company is abusing our visual work in some way (such
> as claiming ownership, authorship, or excessive rights) I need to be
> able to claim that the appropriate license was posted for the work,
> and that I have enforced said license. I have also seen instances
> where we have distributed assets without any license information at
> all. In these cases, I at least have our license policy to fall back
> on should a license abuser come to light.
>
> The danger in accepting CC0 is that, if the KDE community were to
> start publicly validating non-accrediting public domain licenses, then
> it throws into someone like me *not* actively heckling people to
> properly post licenses into a legal problem. If someone were to ever
> abuse our work, it essentially removes my ability to claim that it is
> not our policy to publish public domain work. I can claim I don't do a
> great job at enforcement, but in tandem with that a license abuser
> could claim that KDE community distributes public domain artwork, that
> licenses haven't been enforced, and that there was reason to believe
> the work may have been published in a public domain.
>
> To add fuel to the fire, when we distribute assets, sometimes we get
> the license wrong. If ever we maintained a body of work and a license
> like the CC0 was mistakenly attached to it, it would be a very bad
> situation for every author involved. It gets worse here because we're
> talking about using public-domain licenses specifically to make
> bundling several works of disparate authors together; everyone would
> need to be vary careful about appropriately licensing every. single.
> image.  in such a bundle. At least with what we have now, the licenses
> aren't so dissimilar that significant problems could arise because of
> this.
>
> TLDR; Authors who don't enforce license compliance with a heavy-hand
> are put at a higher risk of losing rights when public-domain licenses
> add potential confusion to what our work may be represented as. It
> could, very easily, become ammunition against authors and artists to
> be used by license abusers.
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 10:43 AM Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> >
> > I think they're one and the same. All intellectual property the rights
> to which have been waived = CC0 = public domain. There are a few European
> exceptions to copyright expiration, such as
> h

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Sune Vuorela]

On 2019-01-29, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> I wouldn't necessarily characterize the Unsplash license as FOSS, but
> rather public domain with restrictions (not entirely public domain). I also

I think this is a problem. Both "not characterize as FOSS", and "with
restrictions". And basically the core of this.

/Sune

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

TLDR:
(1) Pexels is out. They seem to be stealing stuff from other websites with
licenses that tell them not to do that.
(2) Unsplash is free but with restrictions. It should be fairly easy to
contact the authors and ask them (their info is on the website itself) and
I think that'd be a good idea.
(3) Public domain doesn't include accreditation, but that doesn't prevent
us from doing so on our own.
(4) We can't deny or enjoin/ban public domain works from KDE - we already
use a great number of public domain elements simply because they're
non-copyrightable (or their rights have expired). A great example would be
the idea of a GUI (or WIMP). For more information, see *A**pple Computer,
Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation*, 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir

. 1994).
(5) I don't think that the possibility for abuse is a good reason not to do
this. Any license can be abused, and I think it's our responsibility to
enforce them (not to avoid them). In addition, it's the author's choice to
release their work into the public domain, we should respect that, and the
"lack of freedoms/protections" that it entails.

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 6:38 AM Krešimir Čohar  wrote:

> First of all, I'd like to mention that I've been snooping around the
> Pexels website and it turns out that they misappropriate images from
> Pixabay while claiming that the license for those images is CC0. The actual
> license for those images is the Pixabay license, which is the same as the
> Unsplash license (forbidding anyone else to create a competing service,
> which Pexels is in direct violation of).
>
> So, Pexels is out.
>
> I wouldn't necessarily characterize the Unsplash license as FOSS, but
> rather public domain with restrictions (not entirely public domain). I also
> think that in order to verify that the photographers have indeed waived
> their rights, we might have to contact them (it's easy enough to do so
> though, their contact information is right there on the website).
>
> *In response to Ken's email*, while I sympathize with what you've
> written, public domain doesn't entail accreditation from what I understand
> (otherwise it wouldn't be *public* domain), and the idea that we can
> avoid using public domain in KDE is somehow *unrealistic* to me, because *we
> do it all the time*. The very GUI itself (or WIMP) is a great example of
> that, see:
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corp.#Background
> and the second paragraph of
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea–expression_divide
> sorta boring legal text that covers this problem in the EU
> https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1446134154470&uri=CELEX:62010CJ0406
>
> Namely, an overwhelming number of our UI elements already are in the
> public domain simply because they're non-copyrightable. We ourselves can
> give credit / enforce accreditation, but we can't deny that we've long
> reaped the benefits of public domain and shall continue to do so, without
> giving any credit to the authors whose public domain elements we use on a
> daily basis (mostly because we don't know who they are).
>
> And I don't think the goal here is to shy away from the possibility of
> abuse considering that any license can be subject to abuse; I think the
> ultimate goal here is to make sure it isn't abused (rather than avoid it
> altogether because it's hard to enforce).
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 12:01 AM Ken Vermette  wrote:
>
>> As an author and contributor I'm giving my thumbs-down on CC0 and
>> friends. The main crux I have is that, already, many of us have
>> artwork (including wallpapers, glyphs, icons, designs, and many other
>> visual assets) which are used unaccredited with extreme regularity.
>> Legally speaking, I need to go after every website I find using the
>> artwork and heckle them to post the appropriate license/attributions.
>> In practice if a company is abusing our visual work in some way (such
>> as claiming ownership, authorship, or excessive rights) I need to be
>> able to claim that the appropriate license was posted for the work,
>> and that I have enforced said license. I have also seen instances
>> where we have distributed assets without any license information at
>> all. In these cases, I at least have our license policy to fall back
>> on should a license abuser come to light.
>>
>> The danger in accepting CC0 is that, if the KDE community were to
>> start publicly validating non-accrediting public domain licenses, then
>> it throws into someone like me *not* actively heckling people to
>> properly post licenses into a legal problem. If someone were to ever
>> abuse our work, it essentially removes my ability to claim that it is
>> not our policy to publish public domain work. I can claim I don't do a
>> great job at enforcement, but in tandem with that a license abuser
>> could claim that KDE community distributes public domain artwork, that
>> license

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

> I think this is a problem. Both "not characterize as FOSS", and "with
restrictions". And basically the core of this.

I agree :D
It's a problem... That's why I got the ball rolling on this really long
thread.

Can a license with restrictions truly be public domain?

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 6:51 AM Sune Vuorela  wrote:

> On 2019-01-29, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> > I wouldn't necessarily characterize the Unsplash license as FOSS, but
> > rather public domain with restrictions (not entirely public domain). I
> also
>
> I think this is a problem. Both "not characterize as FOSS", and "with
> restrictions". And basically the core of this.
>
> /Sune
>
>

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Jonathan Riddell]

> The Unsplash license looks like a FOSS license to me.

It is a non-free licence which we can not use. 'This license does not
include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a
similar or competing service.'

> The CC0 and other public domain licenses bring in complexity without a clear 
> benefit.

CC0 is a declaration not a licence and we really can't stop including
works in the public domain, as others have said it includes many
elements of what we ship including other works people have declared as
public domain, UI elements and APIs and indeed the complete works of
Shakespeare if we so wished.

Jonathan

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

Should we ask Unsplash and/or the photographers if they'd be willing to
release the photographs we selected (seeing as there aren't that many) as
CC0?

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 9:25 AM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:

> > The Unsplash license looks like a FOSS license to me.
>
> It is a non-free licence which we can not use. 'This license does not
> include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a
> similar or competing service.'
>
> > The CC0 and other public domain licenses bring in complexity without a
> clear benefit.
>
> CC0 is a declaration not a licence and we really can't stop including
> works in the public domain, as others have said it includes many
> elements of what we ship including other works people have declared as
> public domain, UI elements and APIs and indeed the complete works of
> Shakespeare if we so wished.
>
> Jonathan
>

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Jonathan Riddell]

You can but try :)

On Tue, 29 Jan 2019 at 18:56, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
>
> Should we ask Unsplash and/or the photographers if they'd be willing to 
> release the photographs we selected (seeing as there aren't that many) as CC0?
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 9:25 AM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:
>>
>> > The Unsplash license looks like a FOSS license to me.
>>
>> It is a non-free licence which we can not use. 'This license does not
>> include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a
>> similar or competing service.'
>>
>> > The CC0 and other public domain licenses bring in complexity without a 
>> > clear benefit.
>>
>> CC0 is a declaration not a licence and we really can't stop including
>> works in the public domain, as others have said it includes many
>> elements of what we ship including other works people have declared as
>> public domain, UI elements and APIs and indeed the complete works of
>> Shakespeare if we so wished.
>>
>> Jonathan

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

Thanks for the vote of confidence haha
So to sum up though, is CC0 acceptable?
if we confirm that the images we're going to use are CC0 can we use them?

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 8:22 PM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:

> You can but try :)
>
> On Tue, 29 Jan 2019 at 18:56, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> >
> > Should we ask Unsplash and/or the photographers if they'd be willing to
> release the photographs we selected (seeing as there aren't that many) as
> CC0?
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 9:25 AM Jonathan Riddell 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > The Unsplash license looks like a FOSS license to me.
> >>
> >> It is a non-free licence which we can not use. 'This license does not
> >> include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a
> >> similar or competing service.'
> >>
> >> > The CC0 and other public domain licenses bring in complexity without
> a clear benefit.
> >>
> >> CC0 is a declaration not a licence and we really can't stop including
> >> works in the public domain, as others have said it includes many
> >> elements of what we ship including other works people have declared as
> >> public domain, UI elements and APIs and indeed the complete works of
> >> Shakespeare if we so wished.
> >>
> >> Jonathan
>

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Jonathan Riddell]

Well others have queried and objected so I guess it's not final.  But
if someone declares their work to be in the pubic domain then a) that
satisfies our needs and the needs of all our distributors and b) no
court in the world is going to uphold a complaint for any use when it
has been explicitly said it's unrestricted.

Jonathan

On Tue, 29 Jan 2019 at 19:43, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
>
> Thanks for the vote of confidence haha
> So to sum up though, is CC0 acceptable?
> if we confirm that the images we're going to use are CC0 can we use them?
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 8:22 PM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:
>>
>> You can but try :)
>>
>> On Tue, 29 Jan 2019 at 18:56, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
>> >
>> > Should we ask Unsplash and/or the photographers if they'd be willing to 
>> > release the photographs we selected (seeing as there aren't that many) as 
>> > CC0?
>> >
>> > On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 9:25 AM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > The Unsplash license looks like a FOSS license to me.
>> >>
>> >> It is a non-free licence which we can not use. 'This license does not
>> >> include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a
>> >> similar or competing service.'
>> >>
>> >> > The CC0 and other public domain licenses bring in complexity without a 
>> >> > clear benefit.
>> >>
>> >> CC0 is a declaration not a licence and we really can't stop including
>> >> works in the public domain, as others have said it includes many
>> >> elements of what we ship including other works people have declared as
>> >> public domain, UI elements and APIs and indeed the complete works of
>> >> Shakespeare if we so wished.
>> >>
>> >> Jonathan

Re: Licensing policy change proposal

[Krešimir Čohar]

Excellent, thank you :D

On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 9:23 PM Jonathan Riddell  wrote:

> Well others have queried and objected so I guess it's not final.  But
> if someone declares their work to be in the pubic domain then a) that
> satisfies our needs and the needs of all our distributors and b) no
> court in the world is going to uphold a complaint for any use when it
> has been explicitly said it's unrestricted.
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Tue, 29 Jan 2019 at 19:43, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> >
> > Thanks for the vote of confidence haha
> > So to sum up though, is CC0 acceptable?
> > if we confirm that the images we're going to use are CC0 can we use them?
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 8:22 PM Jonathan Riddell 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> You can but try :)
> >>
> >> On Tue, 29 Jan 2019 at 18:56, Krešimir Čohar  wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Should we ask Unsplash and/or the photographers if they'd be willing
> to release the photographs we selected (seeing as there aren't that many)
> as CC0?
> >> >
> >> > On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 9:25 AM Jonathan Riddell 
> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> > The Unsplash license looks like a FOSS license to me.
> >> >>
> >> >> It is a non-free licence which we can not use. 'This license does not
> >> >> include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a
> >> >> similar or competing service.'
> >> >>
> >> >> > The CC0 and other public domain licenses bring in complexity
> without a clear benefit.
> >> >>
> >> >> CC0 is a declaration not a licence and we really can't stop including
> >> >> works in the public domain, as others have said it includes many
> >> >> elements of what we ship including other works people have declared
> as
> >> >> public domain, UI elements and APIs and indeed the complete works of
> >> >> Shakespeare if we so wished.
> >> >>
> >> >> Jonathan
>