Re: Help with license decision for cluster of similar projects
On Fri, 2004-03-05 at 18:07, Russell McOrmond wrote: This is quickly off-topic for this list again. I wonder if there needs to be an @opensource.org discussion group for discussing the business model and legal analysis of license agreements beyond the question of approving them as OSI compliant? There are Free Software Business list [EMAIL PROTECTED] and the Free Software License discussion list http://lists.alt.org/mailman/listinfo/fsl-discuss. However, both of these seems to have lost momentum. The main feature of a BSD-like (non-copyleft) license is that it allows non-free derivatives. Non-free software minimizes the freedom to develop derivative code of that non-free software. So +1-1=0, meaning that BSD-like licenses do not maximize the freedom to develop code as it appears in the short term, but in fact minimizes long-term freedom to develop the code. In all the discussions about software freedom that I have witnessed over the years, the main disagreement has had its origin in the confusion due to different perceptions of the word freedom. Proponents of copyleft generally speak of freedom for the community; e.g. proprietary derivations are considered non-free because they are not immediately available to the entire community. Proponents of non-copyleft generally speak of freedom for the individual; e.g. the individual developer has the freedom to decide whether or not he wants to share the derivations (or more correctly, his effort that went into those.) The above is, of course, a generalization and not universally valid. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: The regrettable use of all in Section 7 of the GPL
On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 14:23, John Cowan wrote: Therefore, the distribution of all GPLed software is, at least in the U.S., forbidden by the terms of the GPL, and should come to a screeching halt. I have spoken. The probationer is not prevented from distributing the software because of patent restrictions. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Which License should I pick?
On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 22:34, Hans Ekbrand wrote: No it is the other way around: if the program is released under a less restricted license, e.g. xfree86-ish, then you could always, without the consent of contributors, change to (L)GPL for newer versions. The Maybe I am missing something, but why do you think that you can change the XFree86 license without the consent of contributors? -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: That Notorious Suit (Slightly OT)
On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 21:29, Daniel Carrera wrote: I hadn't thought of that. That might be part of the reason why the GPL-based projects are so much larger than the BSD-based projects. As much as we, in this forum, would like to believe that licensing is a prime motivator, empirical data shows that it is not: http://www.osdn.com/bcg/ http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Understanding the LGPL.
On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 17:44, Daniel Carrera wrote: In practical terms, how is the LGPL license different from the BSD? The article Working Without Copyleft deals explictly with this topic http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2001/12/12/transition.html -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Understanding the LGPL.
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 14:23, John Cowan wrote: As I kinda guessed before I read this article, it's basically about freedom for software developers. The GPL is basically about freedom for people who aren't software developers. That's why *I* use it. It was not my intention to start a discussion about licensing preferences by referencing the article, but rather to point out differences between LGPL and BSD, which the original poster asked about. Speak your experience as your truth. I am not sure that I understand the above statement. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: For Approval: Open Source Software Alliance License
On Sun, 2003-09-28 at 19:09, John Cowan wrote: David Presotto scripsit: As an aside, it might have been less inflamatory if the license has said ``if source of the program and any derivatives is distributed under an inheritive license (e.g. GPL), it must ALSO be distributed under this license.'' Then Sean would always have access to changed code for his proprietary works if anyone has access to them. Someone must have suggested this already but I don't see it in the archive. No, no one has, and I think this is quite a clever idea. It's appropriate to apply it to derivative works only, not to to distributions of unchanged code. I once asked Stallman about this and he claimed that such a license would be incompatible with the GPL. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Model Code for the OSD
David Johnson wrote: My opinion is that deliberately obfuscated source code should be decoupled from documentation. The quality and state of documentation is very subjective, and should not be a part of the OSD. I have to agree with David. The documentation quality of the source code is orthogonal to the availability of source code, and thus has nothing to do with the OSD. Trying to establish what documentation quality is, is difficult in the first place. Firstly, people differ in intelligence and experience, so what is obfuscated to one person, may be obvious to another. Secondly, should the quality be judge on the choice of human language? For example, if a russian developer releases source code with comments in Russian, can I claim that he is deliberately obfuscating the source code? Can the russian developer claim that all source code with English comments are obfuscated to him? Thirdly, the source code may implement algorithms or domain knowledge that is inherently difficult to understand, and which would require a book-sized explanation. Would it be considered compliant with the OSD to refer to a (commercially available) book? If not, how does the developer avoid infringing the copyright of the book author while adhering to the suggested OSD documentation requirements? I am sure that there are other concerns as well; the above was simply off the top of my head. I understand the good intentions behind the proposal, but I definitely see it as a slippery slope. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Approval Requested for AFL 1.2 and OSL 1.1
Henry Pijffers wrote: However, suppose big US company didn't register to do business anywhere in Europe, and just licensed some open source software to me through the Internet, and later decides to change their mind, then how can I defend my rights on anything I did with their software (assuming I didn't do anything illegal)? I am not aware of any Open Source or Free Software license that handles this situation. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Bounty Castle license and GNU GPL compatibility ?
Alexandre, The license used by Bounty Castle is the MIT license, which is already known to be GPL compatible. Having said that, the appropriate organization to ask about GPL compatibility is Free Software Foundation, so you may want to verify with them. [1] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php PS: This is not legal advice. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: license name arrogance Re: Academic Free License
Andy Tai wrote: Now, Mr. Rosen prefers to name his licenses in a grandiose fashion. Academic Free License and Open Software License. These give the impression that such licenses are official or superior in some way, as endorsed officially by the OSI. These licenses are better named (for example) Rosenlaw Academic Free License and Rosenlaw Open Software License. The The other licenses were created for specific projects. The AFL and OSL are not, so I think that it is perfectly fine to give them generic names (and yes, they are superior in some way.) OSI should encourage specific license names unless a license is a product of wide community consent. Just a suggestion. How can a license gain such consent prior to having a name, and if it already had a well-known name would it be wise to change it? The only concern I have about the names is that Free and Open seems to be switched. The OSL is based on reciprocity, which is usually associated with Free Software, and the AFL is not, which is usually associated with Open Source (especially when seen in the light of RMS's rejection of Open Source.) -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Open Source Click-Wrap Notice
Forrest J. Cavalier III wrote: You can't run most source code. You must compile it, which is preparing a derivative work. Not quite... [T]he U.S. Copyright Office has traditionally taken the view that object code is not a derivative work of source code. Instead, the Copyright Officers consider the source code of a piece of software and the corresponding object code as the same literary work. [1] For the full explanation read paragraph 32 through 34 in [1]. [1] Mathias Strasser A New Paradigm in Intellectual Property Law? The Case Against Open Sources http://stlr.stanford.edu/STLR/Article/01_STLR_4 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: copyleft lite?
Bruce Dodson wrote: disclaimers appear in supporting documentation. When you distribute this software outside your organization, the source code (including any modifications) must be made available to the recipients under these license terms. You have not defined the copyleft scope. That is, how much of the source code has to be made available? Only the source code put under this license (like MozPL), the source code that somehow belongs together (like LGPL), or everything that goes into the executable (like GPL). -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: UnitedLinux and open source
Andy Tai wrote: Free software means a well defined set of software. Yes, to most English-speaking people it means software that is free of cost (i.e. gratis). Whatever you define is not relevant, if it is not compatible with the well accepted meanings of the community. Following your own line of argumentation, whatever the community defines is not relevant, it it is not compatible with the well accepted meanings of the English-speaking population. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Right to distribute modifications?
John Cowan wrote: AFAIK the free software community has always understood the right to distribute modifications to be implied by this license, but of course (as usual) no court has spoken, and so nobody can say for sure. RMS is being cautious, that's all. Then what differentiates the right to distribute the software with modifications from, say, the right to use the software with modifications (which relates to the FSF's freedom 0), to warrant explicit caution? -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Is inherited class a derivative work?
[ Apologies if multiple copies were sent -- mail server problems ] Michael Beck wrote: I just got a response from FSF lawyers stating that inheritance is considered ^^^ modifying the library (see below). My question was related to releasing code [...] -David Novalis Turner, Licensing Question Volunteer, Free Software Foundation David Turner may have received his reply from a lawyer, but that is not clear from his reply. Please note that David Turner himself is not a lawyer, but a programmer, so I would not recommend taking his reply as legal advice. http://web.novalis.org/resume.html -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
