Re: Can you alter the MIT license?
Now I have a new interpretation to ponder which is probably compatible with the previous paragraph. That the MIT license *can* be changed in derivative works by adding terms, as long as those terms do not require actions or grant permissions banned by the original. But what does this really mean for MIT style licenses? Can I add *any* term except 1) a ban on replicating the permission notice in the documentation, and 2) a requirement that you must include the names of copyright holders in all advertisements? Lots of people have done it before you and some of them, like Bill Joy, got filthy rich from it, nobody stopped them, and if any objections were raised they were ethical ones, not legal ones. Thanks Bruce
RE: Wrapping other licenses in GPL
My sense of this is that it happens every time someone embeds Henry Spencer's Regexp code into GPL'd software. I'm using this as an example in a study of OSS that I am conducting for the Document Management Alliance. (I see it is worthwhile to include the MIT license in the discussion too!) -- Dennis -- Dennis E. Hamilton InfoNuovo mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] tel. +1-206-779-9430 (gsm) fax. +1-425-793-0283 http://www.infonuovo.com -Original Message- From: Jules Bean [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 16:48 To: Scott Johnston Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Can you alter the MIT license? On Mon, 15 Nov 1999, Scott Johnston wrote: -- From: Jules Bean [EMAIL PROTECTED] In particular, the GPL says that you must make available the source of the whole work. Now this is an additional restriction on top the the MIT one, but it's not in conflict with the MIT one - it doesn't ask you to do anything you aren't allowed to do. I see. This is what Bruce must have meant (about adding terms to the MIT license that are not in conflict with the original terms). Know of anyone doing this, adding a copyleft term to a non-copyleft piece of free software? Not off-hand, I'm afraid. I'm sure there are many examples around... [ ... ]
Copyrighting facts (was: Re: Can you alter the MIT license?)
Bruce Perens writes: From: Justin Wells [EMAIL PROTECTED] How far can you go with this notion that you cannot copyright a fact? Can you copyright the arrangement of chess men on a chess board? The arrangement of chess pieces is not the same sort of concrete fact as "Woodhaven Rd. runs between these two points". The strange paradox of copyright is that facts which result from creative intellectual effort are nonetheless facts. For example, the last character of the main text of Douglas Hofstadter's _Godel, Escher, Bach_ is an "r". The second character of (l'havdil) Microsoft Word 97 is a "Z". These are objective facts. In the same vein, I could look up the six hundred twenty-sixth note of Andrew Lloyd Webber's _Requiem_ (assuming a standard ordering of the instrumental voices within a work and the notes within an instrumental line). The identity of that note would also be an objective fact. These particular facts are not copyrightable (because of fair use), but the co-ordinated public mention of a sufficiently large number of them would still be a copyright violation. E.g. The first character of _Neuromancer_ is a "T". The second character of _Neuromancer_ is an "h". The third character of _Neuromancer_ is an "e". The fourth character of _Neuromancer_ is a space. The fifth character of _Neuromancer_ is an "s". The sixth character of _Neuromancer_ is a "k". [...] If I continued this sequence for a little while longer, I would be guilty of a copyright violation. How is that sequence of objective facts essentially different from the following sequence of objective facts? The elevation, in feet, of Alameda, California, is 30. The elevation, in feet, of Berkeley, California, is 150. The elevation, in feet, of Cupertino, California, is 236. The elevation, in feet, of Daly City, California, is 300. The elevation, in feet, of Emeryville, California, is 15. The elevation, in feet, of Fremont, California, is 53. [...] Presumably, the information contained in one is the result of organized human creative effort, where the other is not. (It _is_ the result of human effort, in the form of the USGS GNIS.) So, can I copyright the following? 1aef 9a8e 707e 8274 391d 6de4 3c76 da65 bd62 d2bc 4635 c915 141b 3a33 2fc2 7baa 7be7 7f3d 0cb5 f460 5adb d52d 1231 274e 2f02 a75e 7cc8 faa5 f2fe ad36 110b ba02 fe23 17eb e15f 484a 776d 6a3a 08a1 686f a329 9593 58a0 54b4 6f48 75ea bc61 bd3e 90a2 6d76 03f5 a7ab b45e 3d4b 8b6a 8480 964b 614a 0c38 68c2 718b 53ce a39d 89f9 7109 66ed 6000 591e 6006 5e26 9b4b 7143 950a 2272 531d a0cd ccc9 9797 3670 7828 Do you need to know what it is first to say whether I can copyright it? I don't think it's possible to consider the copyright system reasonable, logical, intuitive, or founded on readily comprehensible rules. Certainly the idea that "you can't copyright facts" won't help someone who desires to report the fact that the text of Microsoft Word is... (well, that person is not myself). -- Seth David Schoen [EMAIL PROTECTED] | And do not say, I will study when I http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/| have leisure; for perhaps you will http://www.loyalty.org/ (CAF)| not have leisure. -- Pirke Avot 2:5
Re: MIT license vs Dynamic Linking
On Wed, 17 Nov 1999, Andrew J Bromage wrote: One could argue that the interface/import file is a derived work of the original source, but it'd be hard to argue that a special interface or import file is "copied into the executable" in such languages. Taking the example to absurd extremes, as is the custom at this point in any such example, does what consitiutes a "derived work" now depend on how the compiler performs its job? Could it vary from compiler to compiler for source written in the same language, depending on whether or not your compiler uses textual inclusion to implement module importing? I don't suppose it would be possible to argue that the GPL's 'derived work' rules take effect at link-time rather than at compile-time, would it? That is, if you're just writing code that's eventually going to link to a GPL'd library, it doesn't become a derived work until you link it? This seems like just about the only interpretation that works for dynamic linking, runtime linking, the existence of both GPL and non-GPL implementations of the library, and all the other pathological cases we've invented. But it's a bit of a problem because the GPL requires source distribution, and it's plausible that the person linking the program against a GPL'd library wouldn't even have the source code. RMS' law school instructor argues that dynamic linking is a device to deliberately circumvent copyright law, and thus should be considered the same as static linking. That interpretation could win in court, or not. That's the kind of thing that Java programmers and other legalists who are obsessed with 'control' would worry about. Strange, I thought it was a device to control use of system resources. :-) And to allow bug fixes and enhancements in libraries to propagate up to all the programs that use them, without having to relink everything. That's pretty important.
