Re: Get ready....
From: Arkin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright was invented to cover literary work and protect the authors of literary work. Legal documents are not literary works. There are so many ways you can express the same contractual agreement. Thus, you may freely copy all portions of the GPL that are strictly legal clauses. That might be true in Israel, but not here. The GPL is, however, subject to trademark restrictions No, it is not. GPL is not a trademark. If you don't believe me, ask Richard Stallman. Bruce
Re: Get ready....
Derek J. Balling writes: Your position seems contradictory. You support "freedom for the people", but you don't support the right of people to pick the pieces of licenses that best suit their needs. The only true freedom you have is choice -- the choice of not using software if you cannot abide by its license agreement, or developing your own application using the license of your choice to compete with the offending product. Allowing someone to use portions of a license does NOT deny people freedom. It is simply not necessarily granting them privileges the same privileges as others choose to. Let's remember that any alteration of a copyrighted work is a PRIVILEGE, not a right. It is something which is granted by the owner of the copyrighted work, NOT something which you inherently have by being alive. Rights CANNOT be taken away, privileges can. I can say that "no future versions of my software will be released under the GPL", and you no longer have the privilege of copying the code. The sooner you stop confusing "rights" and "privileges", you'll be a lot better equipped for the discussion. :) The author of the GPL, as far as I can infer from his writings and talking to him, does not believe that "alteration of a copyrighted work is a PRIVILEGE, not a right", because he does not believe that software should have any owners at all. Without understanding that, you can't understand the language of the GPL in its proper context. To put this another way, if copyright is not a real right (or intellectual property is not real property), then "true freedom" includes the choice to _ignore_ license restrictions altogether. Since copyright law does not provide this, Richard Stallman invented copyleft in an attempt to emulate as far as possible what life would be like if that choice were recognized as a right. If you think it's obvious that intellectual property exists, you'd naturally say that it's essential for software authors to have the choice of what license to use. If you think it's obvious that intellectual property doesn't exist, you'd equally naturally say that it's essential for users to have the freedom to copy (etc.), and that it's wrong to try to use licenses and copyright law to deny these freedoms to users. The philosophy of the GPL, which you don't have to accept in order to use it, and which accounts for Stallman's decision to copyright the GPL itself, presupposes that users have the right to use and copy software, and that software owners do not have the right to stop them: in other words, that IP does not exist. As Martin Pool just wrote in another message: The text of the GPL is not licensed to you under the GPL: you may think that's inconsistent, but it makes sense in terms of the FSF's goals. (And, of course, it doesn't make sense in terms of goals which are at odds with the FSF's goals.) http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/copyleft.html etc. -- Seth David Schoen [EMAIL PROTECTED] They said look at the light we're giving you, / And the darkness that we're saving you from. -- Dar Williams, "The Great Unknown" http://ishmael.geecs.org/~sigma/ (personal) http://www.loyalty.org/ (CAF)
Re: Get ready....
"R. L. Kleeberger" wrote: Quoting Derek J. Balling ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): At 11:29 PM 4/14/99 -0400, R. L. Kleeberger wrote: There is no reason anymore. I was still unsure whether the GNU GPL was able to be legally modified into another license. It seems it is legal, According to the license it is not. According to the instructions at the top, the license may be copied verbatim, but it may NOT be altered. Since excerption can be defined in terms of alteration, you cannot even excerpt 90% of it (with 9% being the part you don't want, and 1% being the title) since that's an alteration of both omission and change. Yes. I would very much like for someone with legal experience who is familiar with the GPL to step in so we can come to a conclusion on the legality of copying/modifying the GNU GPL. We have conflicting posts, and I can't proceed until this is cleared up. OK -- with the caveat that I am not a licensed lawyer, I chose not to practice after getting my law degree, so what i say can't be taken as legal advice. And most of what I say is based on U.S. law, though much copyright law is harmonized internationally theseadays. Copyright is best thought of as a "bag of sticks" where each "stick" is a "exclusive right". These rights include the right to distribute, the right to copy, the right to perform, the right to prepare derivative works, etc. (see the copyright act). There are various standards for determining when these rights are infringed upon by a party which does not have a license to do so and is not with an exception to these exclusive rights called "fair use" (once again, see Title 17 for more details). Generally, what is called "excerption" above would be considered at least copying -- the new work is at least substantially similar in many parts. It would also likely be an unauthorized derivative work. Assuming that copyright would indeed apply to the license (which in an earlier message I state it might not -- depends on originality), it would probably be infringement unless an infringer could show fair use. One of the criteria for fair use is "substantiality" of the portion taken. If I take one sentence of a three page license, that is likely to be at least fair use due to lack of "substantiality". therefore I don't have much of a buttress accept a philosophical one. And this list is ot for philosophical discussion. Agreed, and we have to clearly define the direction we want to go. I think that licenses should be able to be copied in whole or part, which the current GPL explicitly forbid. I will have to think on this. I am an extremely strong proponent of the GNU GPL, and would like to see all open source licenses created to be GPL compatible. On the other hand, I believe a developer should have the freedom to create a license to fit his needs(with his user's freedoms in mind). I suggested a "menu" approach which I think would allow companies to select which terms (all of which are open source compatible to a certain degree) they like for each issue dealt with in the contract. -Gabe
Re: Get ready....
The author of the GPL, as far as I can infer from his writings and talking to him, does not believe that "alteration of a copyrighted work is a PRIVILEGE, not a right", because he does not believe that software should have any owners at all. Without understanding that, you can't understand the language of the GPL in its proper context. To put this another way, if copyright is not a real right (or intellectual property is not real property), then "true freedom" includes the choice to _ignore_ license restrictions altogether. Since copyright law does not provide this, Richard Stallman invented copyleft in an attempt to emulate as far as possible what life would be like if that choice were recognized as a right. The author can believe whatever he likes. Unfortunately, he's placed his work under the laws of the US, where I'm forbidden because of his wording from altering his writing. Ideologies aside, I cannot break the law. If he wanted to grant freedom to people, he should not have explicitly gone out of his way to remove those freedoms. If you think it's obvious that intellectual property exists, you'd naturally say that it's essential for software authors to have the choice of what license to use. If you think it's obvious that intellectual property doesn't exist, you'd equally naturally say that it's essential for users to have the freedom to copy (etc.), and that it's wrong to try to use licenses and copyright law to deny these freedoms to users. The philosophy of the GPL, which you don't have to accept in order to use it, and which accounts for Stallman's decision to copyright the GPL itself, presupposes that users have the right to use and copy software, and that software owners do not have the right to stop them: in other words, that IP does not exist. Right, which means that for all intents and purposes, the GPL is not practical, because very few commercial entities are going to be willing to live strictly and without change within the GPL model. And, since alteration is verboten, a new license must be created which accomplishes the same goals as the GPL, BUT allows alteration for the real-world conditions which exist, so that the REST of the world can take the parts that work for their business model and alter/delete the rest, but leaving intact a "trail" so that users can be familiar with the "parent" license, and look for changes between generations. As Martin Pool just wrote in another message: The text of the GPL is not licensed to you under the GPL: you may think that's inconsistent, but it makes sense in terms of the FSF's goals. (And, of course, it doesn't make sense in terms of goals which are at odds with the FSF's goals.) http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/copyleft.html Agreed. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the commercial world is at odds with the FSF's goals. *I*'m at odds with the FSF's goals. Heck, after the GNU code got co-opt'ed out from under him to get used in Linux [NOT GNU/Linux] I'm surprised that Stallman isn't against the FSF's goals. :) I bet he wishes, secretly deep down in his heart of hearts that he had just a LITTLE say in how the code was used so that he could try and get some recognition for all the work. :) That's not bad, its a natural thing - to want recognition for your work. FSF (and company) have put a lot of effort into GNU, and their license allowed people to take all the work, call it something else and package it up as Linux. D
Re: Get ready....
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Arkin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright was invented to cover literary work and protect the authors of literary work. Legal documents are not literary works. There are so many ways you can express the same contractual agreement. Thus, you may freely copy all portions of the GPL that are strictly legal clauses. That might be true in Israel, but not here. This is true all over the world with only subtle differences. Copyright laws are very similar between nations and automatically apply across borders by international treaties. The GPL is, however, subject to trademark restrictions No, it is not. GPL is not a trademark. If you don't believe me, ask Richard Stallman. The GPL is a trademark. It is not a registered trademark because it was never registered. However, the mere fact that it is associated with a specific license and known in its field makes it a trademark. This is true in the US, as trademark are not shared internationally. Arkin Bruce
Re: Get ready....
On 14 April 1999 at 20:52, "Derek J. Balling" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] I would FURTHER go so far as to allow alteration of the licenses, but that the "lineage" must be documented, so that people familiar with [for lack of a better term] the OSI-BSD license (whatever they come up with) can say, "Ah, this license from Acme is based on the BSD license, but they changed it somehow. How did they change it I wonder?" and then they'll find out via diff/etc. They'll know all the rest of it as "tried and true" so to speak, and then dig down to the alterations that a particular company needed for their particular business model. [snip] Does ANYONE agree with me here? In spirit, perhaps I do. However, I don't think that it is very sound law practice to review license documents using ``diff'' :-) My thought was that if OSI had these two boiler plate licenses, then organizations could start from one of them. Just using one as the base document would not mean that the derived document would automatically earn an Open Source Certification mark. However, it would certainly make it easier for OSI to determine whether a license meets the requirements of an Open Source Certification mark. In other words, having good starting licenses (which should be complete in their own right, as is the GPL) will encourage organizations to adopt them because: 1. It is less trouble and less confusing than reviewing the large number of ``Open Source'' licenses of today: GPL, BSD, X, Apache, Artistic, NPL, MPL, APSL, IBM's Jikes license, et. al. 2. Because adopting one of these licenses makes it easier to get the Open Source Certification mark (as the licenses would be familiar to OSI). The OSC is crucial. One should not be able to modify an Open Source (cm) license, and claim that the derivative is Open Source (cm). Jacques Vidrine / [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Copyright
Copyright laws apply to the actual source code (and thus binary) of the software because it is a literary work, see the test below. If I set on the task of writing a spreadsheet and end up with Excel, what are the chances that I was copying Excel one for one? On the other hand, I might write it all anew, but attempt to mimick some aspects, like the user interface. This issue is still not clearly resolved, and is derived from laws protecting design, which are different than text (the actual code). Last, there are laws that protect an assembly of works, even if these works are not protected by copyright. For example, if I publish a collection of all the works of Shakespear finished on odd years, I can claim copyright to this particular collection, but not the works themselves. As far as algorithms go, neither is good enough. You cannot copyright the source, because there might be a different way of writing the algorithm which does not look alike. You cannot copyright the design, because there is no recognition of algorithms as design. The only course of action is patent. That is why so many software products are protected by patent. The change from literature to non-literature is subject to a very simple test. Suppose the two of us set to write a story about a shared experience. We would end up with completely different texts, unless one of us copied. But if we attempted to write a shopping list for computer parts, we would probably end up with a very similar list. Im the first case, each one is contributing unique experience, knowledge and skill, and thus creating a work that must be protected. In the second case, there is nothing unique and there are so many ways of writing the same shopping list. This is true all over the world with only subtle differences. Copyright laws are very similar between nations and automatically apply across borders by international treaties. In what way are legal documents different from programs (programs are, or were initially, covered by virtue of being literature)? At what point does a piece of writing change from literature to non-literature under the scheme you have? -- Mark Brown mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Trying to avoid grumpiness) http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/ EUFShttp://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/
menu license
OK, I'll open by stating that this is all very new to me, but fun and interesting so far. Thanks for the heavy discussions. Here's my take: Have a few complete licenses set up -- like OSI-restrictive, OSI-public, and OSI-open, each one being progressively more open. People can cut-paste entire sections only. And there may be certain rules that require sections to go hand-in-hand (i.e. Section 3 of OSI-r may require Section 7 of OSI-r or OSI-p, but not OSI-o). This can all be scripted via CGI and done up on the Web. Any license that can be created this way is automatically certified by the OSI, and can be labeled a "restrictive", "public", or "open" license by means of determining (with a script) which version the weightiest sections are from. Also, since each section must be copied in its entirety, each section can be labeled "Section 4, from OSI-public license" or such, making it easy for people who are familiar with that license to skim those sections. Also, people can take entire sections, and label them as such, to be used in their own non-certified licenses. I didn't say this would be easy, legalese is not my area, but how does this sound? -- Greg Pfeil --- Software Engineer --- (pfeilgm@|http://)technomadic.org "PERL: The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption." --Keith Bostic
testing due to mail failure
testing NatePuri Certified Law Student Debian GNU/Linux Monk McGeorge School of Law [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ompages.com
GPL context
qmail seems to think this thread is too long, so I'll at least take a hint and try to trim down my rejected message. Derek J. Balling writes: The author of the GPL, as far as I can infer from his writings and talking to him, does not believe that "alteration of a copyrighted work is a PRIVILEGE, not a right", because he does not believe that software should have any owners at all. The author can believe whatever he likes. Unfortunately, he's placed his work under the laws of the US, where I'm forbidden because of his wording from altering his writing. Ideologies aside, I cannot break the law. Since the purpose for which you want to alter his writing is also a purpose of which he disapproves, it makes sense that he doesn't want to help you that way. :-) If he wanted to grant freedom to people, he should not have explicitly gone out of his way to remove those freedoms. He didn't go out of his way to remove freedoms, though: - If intellectual property exists, then Stallman was perfectly entitled to control the future use of his license by copyright. :-) - If intellectual property doesn't exist, then Stallman's restrictions are (with a few interesting exceptions) only statements of pre-existing facts, and don't really add much in the way of new restrictions. Stallman basically forbids licensees under the GPL to claim any proprietary rights in intellectual property -- because he doesn't think that anyone _has_ any proprietary rights in intellectual property in the first place! Stallman thinks the US law is unjust and restricts people's rights. He found a clever way (consistent with the law) to create a set of restrictions which forbid people to do things that he thinks take away rights. Obviously, you and he have a pretty big difference in what you think are rights and what you think are privileges. Again, that doesn't mean that his position or actions are inconsistent. The philosophy of the GPL, which you don't have to accept in order to use it, and which accounts for Stallman's decision to copyright the GPL itself, presupposes that users have the right to use and copy software, and that software owners do not have the right to stop them: in other words, that IP does not exist. Right, which means that for all intents and purposes, the GPL is not practical, because very few commercial entities are going to be willing to live strictly and without change within the GPL model. And, since alteration is verboten, a new license must be created which accomplishes the same goals as the GPL, BUT allows alteration for the real-world conditions which exist, so that the REST of the world can take the parts that work for their business model and alter/delete the rest, but leaving intact a "trail" so that users can be familiar with the "parent" license, and look for changes between generations. Well, you're right that the GPL isn't practical for everyone (though the GPL was definitely not intended to be practical for everyone). If you want to preserve some of the goals of the GPL, but make concessions to other factors, you still have the problem of how to tell when you've thrown away too much of the original sense of the GPL. The OSI is one attempt at that, as is license-discuss. Everyone here has _some_ concept of what free software or Open Source software is, or else they wouldn't be here to discuss it. So there always remains a question of how to be sure that "practical" licenses actually remain Open Source, since there are no doubt people who'd like to be able to use the term and associated interest and goodwill without retaining any of the freedom or openness that it was supposed to connote. The immutability of the GPL has a definite advantage in automatically preventing people from excising its many good points; there is very little danger of any kind of corruption or confusion. This property isn't essential (there are other free software licenses, including some that aren't immutable this way), but it does provide some benefits. As Martin Pool just wrote in another message: The text of the GPL is not licensed to you under the GPL: you may think that's inconsistent, but it makes sense in terms of the FSF's goals. (And, of course, it doesn't make sense in terms of goals which are at odds with the FSF's goals.) http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/copyleft.html Agreed. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the commercial world is at odds with the FSF's goals. *I*'m at odds with the FSF's goals. So I see. But given that, I think you might want to talk about how the GPL and its terms are not useful for what you want to do, or not readily acceptible to industry, rather than "inconsistent". Heck, after the GNU code got co-opt'ed out from under him to get used in Linux [NOT GNU/Linux] I'm surprised that Stallman isn't against the FSF's goals. :) I bet he wishes, secretly deep down in his heart of hearts that he had just a LITTLE say in how the code was used so that he
