Re: Apache vs. BSD licenses
on Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 11:13:22PM +, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Wednesday March 21 2001 06:41 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There's a difference between aligning and coinciding. If my goals coincided exactly with the FSF, you would be completely right. But if they differ even a tiny fraction, then the possibility exists that another license is more suited to my purposes. That's why multiple political parties exist in free nations, and why multiple free licenses should exist for Free Software. What differences, specifically? Coincide means to occupy equivalent positions, while align means to be on the same line. The first is a location and the latter a direction. I had in mind a discussion of degrees of freedom in software licensing which are of interest to you. I've had my own internal debates over the GNU GPL, whether it's "the one true way", or merely good enough. I have yet to provide myself an answer I'm satisfied with. I'll reiterate: what Copyleft objectives do you have which are not met or satisfied with the current GPL v.2? There are others (lurking on this list, and you know who you are) who've expressed a concern with the fact that the current state of free software licensing makes it difficult to introduce new ideas into play. I share this concern. I do believe, strongly, that a very conservative approach to licensing is healthy, and that a proliferation of licenses, compatible or otherwise, is bad -- though incompatible licenses are naturally worse. This leads to increasing complexity on the legal landscape, a landscape which a current near-exclusive focus on three fundamental licenses -- GNU GPL, MIT/BSD, and MozPL -- has kept relatively streamlined. Though some have complained about the OSI license approval pipeline and process, I remain half-convinced that a slow process is a feature, not a bug. Though I've suggested previously steps which might help streamline it, as have others. I've suggested previously and will reiterate a proposal for using a reference in a system which might allow for evolution. The original suggestion was aimed at the MozPL and its kin (SCSSL, Jabber), though it could be adapted. Under this scheme, core, immutable, licensing language is defined. Items of variance, which I envision as largely pertaining to identity, authoring/versioning authority, and jurisdiction or venue, would be identified. Parties wishing to adapt and adopt the license could do so. Variants meeting guidelines would be considered equivalent. Parties would be free to propose changes to licensing terms -- having authorship/versioning authority over their variant, they'd be free to do so. However, the standard revised licensing terms would have to be agreed upon by some plurality [1] of parties. Any of these pluralities might decide to go their separate way. There is a benefit, of course, in maintaining compatibility between valuable code bases. And there is always the possibility that after one or more generations of divergence, terms might later come to coincide (analogous to temporary forking of a software development branch). Independently of versioning authority, maintainers of works which had already incorporated code under terms of other licenses would (if required by these licenses) be constrained to remain in coordination with any changes to terms of these licenses. Easy? No. Unwieldy? Maybe. But this is about the only proposal I've seen which remotely addresses to issues of integrity (not ceding versioning authority to another organization or some trusted party as the FSF), *and* of keeping legal language in concert. Notes: 1. I've been reading too many patent claims -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Apache vs. BSD licenses
on Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:23:32AM +, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Wednesday March 21 2001 09:06 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'll reiterate: what Copyleft objectives do you have which are not met or satisfied with the current GPL v.2? Well, since I don't use copyleft for my own works, this is kind of hard to answer :-) I prefer the LGPL over the GPL simply because I won't get into trouble if I dynamically link to it. As a user (one who does not modify the source code), the linkage problems with most copyleft licenses are problematic. Under this scheme, core, immutable, licensing language is defined. Items of variance, which I envision as largely pertaining to identity, authoring/versioning authority, and jurisdiction or venue, would be identified. Parties wishing to adapt and adopt the license could do so. Variants meeting guidelines would be considered equivalent. If you could keep compatibility between the variants, it would be a very good idea. But incompatibilities between variants would be a nightmare, much worse than the current version since it would be all to easy to get the variants confused. Consider that a strong disincentive among the participants to create incompatibilities, and an incentive among the cooperating parties to disassociate themselves from defecting parties. The scheme as presented doesn't call for any voting or unanimity -- typical failure points of collaborative organizations. The standard is as the standard does. It's a good idea. Thanks. I'm happy now to know that at least one other person's read it -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Apache vs. BSD licenses
on Tue, Mar 20, 2001 at 07:43:31PM +, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
On Tuesday March 20 2001 06:12 pm, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
Stallman has indicated to me that clause 4 ("Apache" may not be used to
endorse) will be compatible with the GPL v3, but clause 5 ("Apache" may
not appear in the product name) will not.
Why is it always the non-GPL license that must conform? Why is the GPL never
criticized for being incompatible?
The GPL specifies a set of requirements, and, to further its objectives,
requires that they be adhered to -- they cannot be increased or
diminished. If you think about it, any more flexible approach is likely
to lead to loopholes.
The other question is: if your objectives align with those of the GPL
(copyleft, promotion of free software), why would you need a different
license? This isn't an entirely rhetorical question.
Practically, one alternative that's being practiced with greatre
frequency is mutliple licensing, with the GPL or a GPL-compatible
license (usually the LGPL -- compatibility being accomplished by
deferring to the GPL when used in combination with other GPLd code).
I'm not sure what alternative constructs exist, one option might be a
license which specifies some sort of legal test. The OSD is a possible
instance of same (though it's a meta license). The IBM public license
also provides a somewhat similar test.
The problem with such a construct is you now have to go through and
legally analyze all licenses to see whether or not they satisfy the
test. And come up with a way to deal with the possibility you'll have
to change your mind on such a decision down the road.
By specifying an immutable set of text (the GPL), the test is greatly
simplified. Though some licenses are compatible by virtue of not adding
additional requirements to those of the GPL (revised BSD, MIT,
Artistic). Meaning that a bit of analysis may be necessary even under
the current regime.
--
Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal
http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
PGP signature
Re: Intuit License
on Thu, Jan 01, 1970 at 02:37:46AM +0100, Philip Mötteli ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: ^ Hi I've already sent that request to the -address two weeks ago and haven't received any reaction so far. So I try to send it here directly: You might begin, for starters, by fixing your system clock (or is it really 1970 where you are -- I really *don't* care to relive the 70s, 80s, and 90s again), setting your mailer to wrap at a decent interval (72 characters), and fixing what appears to be a carriage return / linefeed and unprintable characters problem in your text submissions. As past submission candidates have been advised, OSI is a volunteer organization, and the submissions process is slow. I'm not a member of OSI or the submission process, and don't speak for either, though I'm one of several folks who comment on this list. I'm also inclined to believe that a slow queue process isn't a bug. I've also suggested in the past that the following might be helpful in processing submissions: - A synopsis of your license. - An exhaustive analysis of existing licenses (particularly the GNU GPL, GNU LGPL, BSD, MIT, and Mozilla Public License), and the reasons for which thesse are deemed inadequate. - A statement of goals for the project. I tend to see these myself largely as ideological (you strongly believe in free software), technological (you're promoting a standard or protocol, e.g.: BIND, Kerberos, Apache), or free-software+business (such as the Mozilla project, which uses the Mozilla browser as a platform for additional commercial development). Cheers. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Intuit License
on Tue, Mar 06, 2001 at 08:50:22PM -0500, John Cowan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Philip M=?iso-8859-1?q?=F6?=tteli scripsit: I've already sent that request to the -address two weeks ago and haven't received any reaction so far. So I try to send it here directly: License-request is rather slow, because clearing licenses from the queue depends on volunteer action. Intuit has kindly released the so called P-Kit to the community under their new "Intuit Public License". Because it was me, who negotiated with Intuit to release that software to the open source, it seems to remain in my hands to make this license be apporoved by the community, although it hasn't been formulated by me in any way. It looks like a close variant of the IBM/Common Public License. Indeed. After reformatting it to a readable standard, I started going through it. While changes are largely expected name substitutions, I also note that the patent clause is changed slightly to the extent that the hardware license exclusion isn't included. Again, I'd suggest that license submissions be accompanied with documentation *describing* the license, including model licenses (in this case the IBM PL v. 1.0, apparently) and *all verbatim differences, or in the case of a nonliteral following, a mention of licenses (if any) providing guidance. Larry Rosen included a lengthy comparison of the Jabber and Mozilla licenses. While the in-depth doc is useful, a more concise (1 page?) summary would also be of use. While such documents *cannot* substitute for legal analysis, they can help guide it. In particular, discrepencies from the description and the actual text of the license should stand as a red flag. I'd be curious as to how lawyers approach license and contract analysis. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: warranties
on Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 05:23:14AM -0800, Carol A. Kunze ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I do not believe implied warranties should apply to open source software. IAAL, however, IANYL and this is not intended, nor should it be construed as legal advice. I will confine my remarks to one point, although there are others. Implied warranties on open source software do not make sense because there is no license income to support granting a warranty. I think you'll find general agreement with this viewpoint here, once all parties understand you're talking about _implied_, not _explicit_ warrantees. I believe there's confusion on this point in David Johnson's response. Free software is more or less predicated on the principle that a free software license can disclaim implied warrantees and laibility. With the slate wiped clean, _express_ warrantees or service contracts can be provided, as value-added service, and a revenue stream. I also suspect I know where this is headed. I know Carol from the CNI-COPYRIGHT mailing list and her work with UCITA (she graciously offerred assistance as I prepared my licensing presentation at last summer's O'Reilly Open Source Conference). I suspect a UCITA plug in the offing, though I doubt it will be warmly received here. Let me first note that this view does not include express warranties, described in statutes as "an affirmation of fact or promise, . . . including by advertising, . . . any description . . . . " Exactly. There can be no license income because every copy carries with it the right for the user to make more copies and to distribute those copies in competition with the original supplier. One cannot extract a profit on software under this scenario - at least not for long. So in practice, it is free beer. Business-issue quibble: I don't know that this is the case. Risk-averse organizations themselves (e.g.: businesses) typically benefit from the service, support, and guarantees available through commercial distribution of free software. Last I heard, Red Hat was still generating significant revenues on "direct software sales" -- shrinkwrap and service-bundled sales. Red Hat's standard Linux product sells on disks for $29.95 with printed documentation and installation service. It competes with Red Hat's own free download version. It also competes with the Red Hat Linux version distributed on disks by Cheapbytes for $4.99. ...and with various other bundles ranging in price to several hundreds of dollars, possibly thousands, per sale. The bits are free. The chrome, services, and support, are not. Note also that it isn't necessary for RH to support the development effort for all software under its lable, but merely the aggregation, anciallary documentation, and administrative support tools RH itself provides. Market economics will not tolerate a profit on the software under this competitive scenario. In fact, Red Hat is selling the medium, printed documentation and services for $29.95, but the software is free. If Red Hat could extract a profit, someone would immediately set up a competing business to undercut its price, and then that price would be undercut by another distributor and so on until the price was reduced back to zero. Effectively the cost floor appears to be ~$10-20 (including shipping and handling) for a delivered disk set for a distro. Or free download. Keep in mind, Windows operating system sells for what, about $200? $319 for the professional version last time I checked. OT: The Register did a rough valuation of what the "fair market cost" of a GNU/Linux distro would be, some years ago, arriving at something on the order of $5000, IIRC. There are also unanswered questions with respect to open source and warranties. Microsoft gets paid for every user of Windows (discounted price of $1,199 for 10 users). Compare this to a small business which "buys" a copy of Linux for $29.95 and makes 9 more copies. Has the supplier warranted 10 copies or 10 users? Given the present disclaimers in most free software licenses, the correct answer is, barring explicit warrantee, zero. The issue is worse when it comes to the actual authors who may sell some free software basically for the price of the disks: "If free-software authors . . . find themselves getting sued over the performance of the programs they've written, they'll stop contributing free software to the world. It's to our advantage as users to help the author protect this right." -- Bruce Perens, Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, 1999 Given that open source software does not generate license income, implying a warranty is not reasonable. Put another way, open source software cannot even afford to win a warranty lawsuit. Again, no argument, this is commonly accepted fact. It is *not*, AFAIU, any rationale for adoption of UCITA. There are existing conventions, if not legal doctrines,
Re: warranties
on Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 12:58:46PM -0800, Carol A. Kunze ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: on Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 05:23:14AM -0800, Carol A. Kunze ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Given that open source software does not generate license income, implying a warranty is not reasonable. Put another way, open source software cannot even afford to win a warranty lawsuit. Again, no argument, this is commonly accepted fact. David seems to have a different opinion. It is *not*, AFAIU, any rationale for adoption of UCITA. There are existing conventions, if not legal doctrines, restricting the imposition of implied warrantees for freely performed services -- e.g.: good samaterian laws -- and, I'm given to understand, for advice, instructions, recipies, technical data, etc., published in books and magazines. This might be an area to explore. If specific carveouts for free software are required, there are far better vehicles than UCITA to accomplish this task. As you're stating what I believe is a commonly accepted truth in the free software world, I have to ask: what's your point? I'm not sure how I can be any more clear. As I said in the beginning, "I do not believe implied warranties should apply to open source software." OK. Just, knowing your background, thought I'd raise the other flag. Surprising as it may seem, people have been known to post here with agendas. How about this: I think a more appropriate rule would be that there is no warranty on open source software unless one is expressly offered. I'll ponder this. I'm not sure it's necessary, or even advantageous. The present regime appears to work, you suggest as much. Blanket license might open avenues for abuse, though frankly no specifics come to mind at the moment. My bandwidth will likely be greatly reduced over the next few weeks, don't expect rapid response. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: IPL as a burden
on Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 01:36:11PM -0500, Lou Grinzo ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: What about dual-licensing? Can a company say, "this tool is free and distributed under the GPL, but only for creating free software; if you want to sell your software you have to pay for a license and get it under our normal close-source license"? Or would that violate the GPL and/or OSI guidelines? Cf: Troll Tech's Qt libraries? OSI Certified Open Source applies to _licenses_, not _software_. This is slightly different from the FSF's definition of free software, which applies to software. The mapping of both definitions onto software is very similar, though not identical. What is commonly called "public domain" (Larry tells me there's no such beast until copyright expiry) is, for example, FSF free software, but not OSI Open Source. The free software license, if it met the OSD, and was available without prejudice to all comers, should satisfy the OSI's requirements. Alternative licensing terms, applying, again, without prejudice to all comers for other than free software use shouldn't IMO effect this. I'm not asking this in an attempt to be a devil's advocate. I thought this was OK, but this thread now has me wondering if my assumption was wrong or if there's some reason why using different licenses with different customers isn't a viable solution for the company in question. Frankly, my recommendation to them would be either to create a gated community along the lines of Sun's Java efforts and some of the Collab projects, forgoing the lable of OSI Certified Open Source, or work out a dual licensing scheme as we're discussing here. Intentions appear to be for source distribution but not fully free terms. Their problem appears to be a desire for rivalrous simultaneous confectionary consumptive activities. Cake, have, eat, not. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: IPL as a burden
on Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 11:15:52AM -0800, Lawrence E. Rosen ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: OSI Certified Open Source applies to _licenses_, not _software_. Actually, no, the certification mark is applied to *software* that is distributed under approved *licenses*. Certification marks cannot be applied to licenses, because licenses aren't "goods" distributed in commerce. OK. Clarifying question: the certified entity is the license and its terms. So distribution under a doctrine of "public domain" (abandonment, etc.), leaves you without a basis for affixing this lable, no? And, yes, I realize that PD is used here advisably. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Cherry-picking license proposals
on Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 12:30:15AM -0800, Brian Behlendorf ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Sorry if this seems pedantic... Not at all, quite appreciated. I have trouble keeping up with everything and appreciate the watchful eye. Thanks. On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Convergence. Despite some degree of internal conflict, the final nail was really the result of independent external resolution of many of the issues we had sought to address. As of the last meeting (O'Reilly Conference, July, 2000), the landscape was clearly shifting to focus on what seemed to be three principle licensing models: - GNU GPL/LGPL: A primary license for HP's EZSpeak (?) project, e-speak. Also OpenOffice. adopted as part of multi-licensing models by Sun, Mozilla, and others. - Mozilla Public License: With very minor wording changes, adopted by Sun as the SISSL. Uh, no. Adopted by Sun for the "SPL", under which they've released NetBeans. The SISSL is much different, much shorter, more in spirit with the BSD licenses than the other two. - BSD/MIT style: Apple's Darwin code is derived from BSD sources, and Apple appears more comfortable with the BSD licensing model than GPL. Apple's own licensing has changed within the past month, I still need to review the changes. Yes, but to be clear, Apple's APSL is much different than the BSD license. Brian -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Advice on advice (was Re: trademarked logos and GPL)
on Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 05:23:00PM -0800, Lawrence E. Rosen ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: -Original Message- From: Bart Decrem [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 5:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: trademarked logos and GPL Hi everyone, I have a feeling that the question I'm about to ask has been asked answered a few times already, so I do apologize for that. We at Eazel are trying to figure out what we need to do so we can distribute our corporate logo along with our Nautilus software, which is GPL'd, without losing our ability to control the use of our trademark. It looks like Red Hat distributes their logo in a separate RPM, which is released under very restrictive licensing terms, and that there are a few GPL'd applications (most prominently Red Hat Update Agent) that have a dependency on that. So we're thinking of doing exactly the same thing. We use the Eazel logo as a 'throbber' (think: the throbbing N in your Netscape browser). The installer for our Nautilus software would always install that logo. But if someone objects to the licensing terms of the logo, they could uninstall our logo RPM, in which case they would see a generic throbber. The CVS version of our source code would only include the generic throbber. Is this the best way to proceed? I want to discourage license-discuss participants from answering questions like this one. Not that its a bad question, or one that would be uninteresting for more than the questioner to hear answered. But non-lawyers have to avoid giving legal advice -- and the questioner would be foolish to accept legal advice from non-lawyers about a technically complicated subject such as trademark law. Even lawyers like me have to be very careful. We are not supposed to give generic legal advice to non-clients over the Internet. That's why I sometimes avoid answering questions on this discussion list, simply because I don't want to be seen as advising someone how to act when I don't know them and don't represent them. I encourage the questioner to direct his question, in private, to an attorney. If you don't know of a good attorney, call me or call other people you know and ask for recommendations. As one of the usual suspects in situations such as this (and mindful that I should avoid giving direct advice), I'll note that my own response tends toward: - My own personal reaction -- does the proposal irk me? - Other examples -- any interesting references I can think of. - Relevant discussion -- FSB just went through a slightly bloody round of "how can I apply trademark within the free software model?", which might be interesting. - Questioning goals: the question is slightly vague, what is the intended use and significance of the mark? ...informing, without serving direct legal guidance. Or so I'd hope. I don't think we need to avoid such questions or discussions. I do believe we should be aware of the limitations upon them. Note that non US nationals might or might not be held to US law regarding disbursment of legal knowledge as well (I don't know what the standard isLarry? g). -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: OpenDivX license
on Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 09:51:40PM -0800, Brian Behlendorf ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Patrik Wallstrom wrote: http://www.projectmayo.com/opendivx/divx_open_license_v10.txt This license has not been approved by OSI, has it? They call OpenDivX an Open Source-project, but limits the code to be compatible with the MPEG-4 standard: 6. Any Codec or Larger Works created by you must conform to the MPEG-4 Video Standard. The license contains other things as well... On a casual rereading of the OSD I don't see any provision of the OSD that such a requirement would contradict, though clearly the provisions of that "standard" might conflict with the OSD and the document that describes that standard should be considered part of the license itself. For example, if the "standard" said "no software implementing this protocol may have its source code revealed" e.g., the CSS standard for DVD decryption, there's no way that license could be considered Open Source. The big issue is, who gets to judge conformance? How would a negative judgement be challenged? If the license provided two paths to follow depending on the conformance of the software to that standard, with both paths being legit under the OSD, that's ideal. See the SISSL for an example of a license such as the above. A philosophical point first: I believe that attempting standards enforcement through copyright licensing is fundamentally broken. We've seen this tried several times, with the Artistic (control over "Perl" name), and SCSL licenses, the results tending to be that the license doesn't work as intended or doesn't meet the OSD. Wrong tool for the task. I'd argue that tying allowed modification to specific compatibility standards is a violation of: - Condition 3, Derived Works: Is the original license bound to the same terms, or could the authors modify the code to be incompatible with the MPEG-4 standard. This might be a stretch, but I'd argue it hard. - Condition 6, Discrimination against fields of endeavor: This is IMO far more clear cut. Restricting application of the license to code meeting specific compatibility requirements is imposing a restriction that a work *not* adhering to this standard is not permitted. The discrimination is against any field of endeavor which isn't directly focused on MPEG-4. Cheers. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: IPL as a burden
on Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 10:17:41AM -0800, Frank LaMonica ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Gregor, I like the terminology you used: "source included software (SIS)". SIS would be much better than a closed source, proprietary alternative, but I don't see any incentive for open source programmers to contribute to such a program. As has been noted severally, source availability covers a spectrum, probably best described as multidimensional. There are terms which *require* permanent availability of sources -- RMS applies the term "Copyleft" to such licenses. GNU GPL is an example. There are terms which require permanent availability but limit the scope of coverage in derived works: LGPL, MozPL, etc. There are terms which provide for source distribution and modification, but which *don't* require any such availability in derived works: BSD/MIT, etc. Yadda, but original author maintains certain controls: Some of Apple's licenses, SCSL, Netscap Public License. Academic or similar licensing arrangements (Sun, w/ Solaris, IIRC). NDA arrangements. Employment arrangements. Code escrow. ...etc. There is a continuum of source availability. At various points in the continuum, you'll find various amounts of participation, given sufficient reasons, or, as the expression goes, reasons per hour. This continuum is illustrated by Bob Young in his book _Under the Radar_, and by Don Rosenberg in _Open Source: The Unauthorized White Papers_, with a handy diagram, even. See also: http://www.stromian.com/Open_Source_Licensing.htm Cheers. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: OSI compliance requiring software to be free beer?
on Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 07:32:43PM +0100, Manfred Schmid ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Dear Board Members: I follow up on the discussions on [EMAIL PROTECTED] concerning our IPL / Developer Program Model. We know, that up to now Open Source Software has been free both in the meaning of "free speech" and "free beer". As has been pointed out to you. Clearly. Repeatedly. This is simply not true. As others have suggested, your persistance on this point suggests obtuseness, pedantic fixation, or an inability to comprehend. We want to introduce a model that guarantees free speech but takes the free beer aspect away. Then simply charge for your software. The problem with your model is that you were proposing to distribute software in binary and/or source form, but *require* an additional license for the purposes of running the software, in at least some instances. This violates term 7 of the OSD. Under certain conditions, IPL requires you to pay the prices according to our price list, if you want to use IPLed software. Change that to "if you want to aquire", make the terms conformant with the remainder of the OSD (not discriminating against persons, groups, or fields of endeavor), and you should be fine. There is no conflict between OSD and charging for distribution. Downstream (third-party) obligations, and secondary licenses, are inconsistant with the OSD. We do not want to change the definition of Open Source, nor do we want to correct GPL etc. For us, Open Source covers a continuum defined by freedom, competition and the availability, changeability and distribution of Source Code. Not to put too fine a point on it: Read. Comprehend. Decide if you want or don't want OSI certification. Put up or shut up. My patience has been exhausted. Danke. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Open Source *Game* Programming?
on Tue, Jan 16, 2001 at 01:37:37PM -0400, Henningsen ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I would like some advice on what to do in my situation. I am developing artificial intelligence modules for computer games, and model games to demonstrate and test them. I would like to do that in an open source environment, and would like my code to be used widely in other open source games. However, the only chance I have of ever seeing my creations in a first class game is if they are picked up by a commercial publisher who then will have to pay about a million dollars largely for graphics to get the game up to AAA standards. If I publish under the GPL (as I have done) or any of the other open source licenses I have seen and understood, a publisher could simply take my work, add modifications to my code (to which I would have access, since they would have to be open source also), add his copyrighted graphics (to which I would not get access to use in my own versions of the game, because graphics that goes with code is not covered in open source licenses), and then he could sell it without giving me either royalties or proper artistic credit (credit in the source files and the Readme file is worthless in a game). I don't think this would be fair, and therefore I will not release my work under a license that makes this possible. This is what free software and the OSD are designed to permit. Your goals are in conflict with these objectives. The type of license I am looking for is one that is basically like the GPL for non-commercial users, but that requires commercial users of my software to acquire a license from me (which implies that I will be paid and get artistic credit). Or else, a license that would force any graphics bundled with my code to become freely available, and that would ensure that I get proper artistic credit. So my questions are simple: See, for example, L. Peter Deutsch's Aladdin Free Software License, described here recently. Deutsch uses a technique I refer to as "delayed public license" (DPL), releasing older versions of his product under the GPL (in part due to a personal pledge to RMS to do so). Under GPL, Deutsch's software is free software / OSD compliant. Under AFSL, it is not, due to the discrimination against commercial use. And a more philosophical question: If it is against the spirit of open source to require commercial users to buy a license, why is that? Read the rationale to definition 6 of the OSD. Consider that the definition of "commercial use" may be arbitrary, inconsistant across multiple licensors, and of wide-ranging impact. What constitutes "commercial use"?: - Inclusion on a CDROM sold for profit. Nix most GNU/Linux distributions, and online resellers such as LinuxCentral, ThinkGeek, etc. - Use within an organization for direct or indirect commercial gain. Nix Yahoo, eToys, Wired's website, etc. - Incorporation within other products distributed as free software. Nix Slash, Scoop, and similar projects based on Perl, MySQL, Apache, etc. I could continue at length. The point you fail to grasp is that, depending on licensing terms, your "commercial coöption" is subject to competitive pressures from other free implementations of the same project, if licensing does allow proprietary distribution terms (e.g.: BSD/MIT), or free appropriation and redistribution in the case of Copyleft-style licenses (GPL, LGPL, MozPL). I think it is perverse to require me to offer my work as a donation to Microsoft and other game publishers just so I can use SourceForge. Remember, the modifications a publisher might make to my code are worth nothing. The graphics is what is valuable. SourceForge is offering something to you for free, in return for a consideration on your part. If you want an online project hosting site, accept the terms of service, or supply your own. If you don't want to share your work, don't. But don't pretend this is free software. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: IPL as a burden
on Tue, Jan 16, 2001 at 06:54:22PM +0100, Manfred Schmid ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: It is indeed interesting that GPL does not address the matter of running a GPLed program. It does. Explicitly, in section 0: Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. _The act of running the Program is not restricted_, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Emphasis added. The apparent lapse is of the OSD, not the GPL. The OSI and FSF are entirely separate organizations. The projections of the OSD and the FSF's definition of "free software" onto the universe of software projects overlap greatly, but are not identical. From a legal standpoint it might be interesting, if the OSD is an inegral part of GPL or not. The OSD is not an integral part of the GPL, which it greatly post-dates. See above. We do not feel that the license is an obstacle. Free Software mens free speach, not free beer (adopted from gnu.org). If you're going to quote the FSF on the meaning of free software, get your quotes right. We're very familiar with the material. Specifically: "Free software" refers to the users' freedom to *run*, copy, distribute, study, change, and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the *users* of the software: - The Freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0) - The Fredom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). - The freedome to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. A program is free software if users have *all* of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission. [http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html] Emphasis added. Your proposed IPL meets neither the definitions of an OSI-certified license, nor "free software". Either change the license such that it does conform, or stop claiming that it does. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Request: Publication of this discussion
on Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 02:58:21PM -0500, Ralf Schwoebel ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Hi *, we think that the discussion about IPL reached a point where the board will tell us, what we could do. Until then we have to continue to work and I kindly ask for the permission of everybody who posted to "license-discuss" on that matter, that we put a prominent link to these mails on our www.vshop.org, Linking should not be an issue, Ticketmaster v. Microsoft and RIAA v. DeCSS notwithstanding. Permision to link to or publish my own posts, with attribution, granted. BEFORE somebody downloads the sources and state the uncertainty of the approval "Open Source". It's not uncertain. It hasn't been granted. In all likelihood with your current license, it won't be. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Free Software Licensing Strategy -- Some guidelines
A work in progress for some time, but somewhat prompted by the IPL discussion yesterday, I thought I'd cast this out to the wolves. Intent is to provide a reference addressing more strategic than legal considerations for those contemplating entry into the free software licensing fray, either with an existing or a novel license. While I have some biases, I'm generally trying to present a relatively centrist (from the FS/OS world) view. This document originated as a response to a posting on the CNI-COPYRIGHT mailing list asking for some very general advice on choosing or creating a free software license. I feel it may be helpful as a strategic guide to others. It is not intended as legal advice. I _am_ interested in feedback on this, it may be the germ of something of broader scope. Posted recently to a mailing list: My company is considering making the source code of a relatively minor software tool we developed available to the public. Any thoughts about pros and cons of going through one of the existing open source licenses (and, if so, which one?) or do something else? You're providing very little specific information on what the software is or why you want to take it open source. You may want to look at the mailing lists FSB (Free Software Business: http://www.crynwr.com/fsb/) or License-Discuss (http://www.opensource.org/), where business and legal matters concerning free software are discussed. I tend to focus on the strategic, rather than the strictly legal, issues of a free software initiative. In general, my own _recommendations_ are: 0. Use an existing license -- The costs and penalties involved in authoring your own license are tremendous. Very few firms outside the Fortune 10 should even consider creating one. This is contentious suggestion, particularly among new (or hopeful) entrants to the free software world; it also has its critics within the free software community who contend that there is a need for new licensing models to better support the slightly conflicting aims of producing free software and generating revenues at the same time. I'm personally less convinced that any major themes within this space are yet uncovered: the L/GPL, BSD/MID, and MozPL offer a fairly broad range of possible business models. My own feeling is that there is more a lack of creativity on the business side of the house, with a fixation on the traditional "software as a money mint" model of selling bits at a huge premium over marginal cost. I feel rather strongly that this is a business model tied strongly to a period of time which is now passing, and only worked truly effectively for a handful of companies at best. Presenting a license which _doesn't_ meet the existing definitions of "free software" (from the FSF) or "open source" (from the OSI), but presenting it as if it does, is likely to draw much negative attention to your efforts. If your license is criticized, particularly in forums such as FSB, license-discuss, or news:gnu.misc.discuss, as not meeting definitions of free or open source software, listen to your critics. They very likely know what they are talking about. Some of them may be the same people as will decide (or advise those who do) on your license's qualifications under these definitions. I do feel that there should be better mechanisms for introducing potential changes and modifications into the licensing mix, and have suggested several possible options of doing so in the past. While I won't _insist_ that a project or organization use an existing license, I will *VERY STRONGLY ENCOURAGE* this tack. If a novel license is proposed, it should be accompanied by an _exhaustive_ analysis of major existing licenses (GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT, MozPL) and the reasons for which the existing licenses were deemed inadequate. 1. Understand the standard licensing models --- In general, these include the GNU GPL and LGPL, the BSD and MIT licenses, and the Mozilla Public License (MozPL). Other licenses are largely variants of these (in particular, there are many versions of the BSD/MIT license, most of which are compatible), and a collection of odd or eclectic licenses more-or-less divided into a handful of business licenses, a bunch of odds'n'ends, and the Artistic License. IBM, Sun, and Apple have each authored their own licenses. Sun and Apple have been evolving toward more traditional free software terms (Apple's most recent changes being on January 4, 2001). The "odds'n'ends" range from smaller organizations to small projects and independent developers who've tried to restrict specific actions or uses of software. I tend to consider many of these attempts misguided. The Artistic License is notable for its use with the Perl programming language,
Re: A question about distributing software under GPL
on Tue, Jan 16, 2001 at 12:11:56AM -0500, Chris F Clark ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: If we have some software (a library) that we wish to distibute under the GPL, but that software supports an application (specifically an application generator) that is not distributed under the GPL and is not open source, can we distribute the library under the GPL, Oblig: IANAL, this is not legal advice. As a general rule, my argument would be "yes". *If* you are the sole author and/or copyrightholder in the work, *or* if you have secured permission from (all) copyrightholder(s) to do so. and more importantly can we distribute it (and permits others to do so) with the non-open source program, since their interoperability is more than mere aggregation? Again, as a general rule, yes. Subject to the caveats above. The short explanation: The GNU GPL (as with most free software licenses) grants rights to _non authors_ (or copyrightholders) of a work _which they wouldn't have, independently of the license_. You, as author, have these rights. It's not necessary to grant them to yourself (though, as I say in my standard spiel on this topic, you can have your people talk to your people, do lunch with yourself, and see if you can't do business together). Relevant facts (as I percieve them): The software to be released under the GPL is not currently open source (and has not been derived from any open (or closed) source materials)--i.e. the group wishing to distribute the software is the ^^^ author of the software in all senses of the word and it is theirs to distribute under any licenses they see fit. If this representation is true, you should be OK. ... Still, the real question is can the author of software release it under the GPL and yet distribute it with non-GPL software when the (interoperability) bonding appears to be tighter than aggregation? Generally, yes. See above. ... Note that we cannot be compelled to release the application under the GPL (or any other license) as it does not currently contain any GPL (or otherwised licensed) components. Regarding compulsion under the GPL. My understanding is that you may find yourself, as a result of certain actions and/or inactions, in noncompliance of the GPL. However, you cannot be compelled (short a directive from some legal authority) to release anything against your will. You may *choose* to release code to come into compliance. As I've said here before, compliance with and release of code under the GPL are two separate issues. Further, I presume that if we can release our library under the GPL with the related application generator (not under the GPL), this will not produce a hole in the GPL, since the only reason we want to claim that we can do so is that we have a non-GPL copy of the library code we used in the generator. This is how I'd argue it. ... If we had used any GPL (or otherwise licensed) code in our program, then we would have had to abide by that license (and in the case of the GPL release a source copy of our generator under the GPL (or not release it at all)). Yes. Glad you got to this, because this is a limitation of acting in the way you describe. While you can claim bragging rights to a piece of LGPLd software, you are essentially becoming what I call a "code exporter" -- you have granted your code to the free software community, but your rules of operation provide you very limited benefits from doing so. ... On a related point, if we cannot distribute our non-open source application with a GPL copy of our library, how could anyone release a CD with a non-open source Linux application and a copy of Linux (since the application is not useful without Linux, of which some parts must be GPL)? See the OS exemptions to the GPL. ... For those of you are interested why we might do this, we are attempting to follow the lead of L. Peter Deutsch and release old copies of our software under more liberal (and more open source) licenses. We expect no return for this release--we are doing it simply so we can easily give our software away (for example to universities)--in the hopes that by giving it away someone might do something useful with it that they couldn't (or wouldn't) have done without it. Fair 'nuf. Finally, if we can distribute the software as we desire, how should we describe it? An unpretentious application, with fruity overtones Call it what it is and state that the libraries are *also* available, separately, as an LGPL'd package, but not the combined work as a whole. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Modifying existing licenses in minor ways
on Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 07:24:27AM -0800, Adam C. Engst ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: At 6:13 PM -0800 11/28/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's been part of my argument with Larry Rosen WRT the Jabber License. While I agree with him in being able to move beyond the current state of art in licensing, rather than being stuck with static terms dictated by another party, I still have very strong misgivings over license proliferation. Fortunately, the practice appears to be fading somewhat, and projects which have adopted distinctive licenses are either fading or adopting one of the emergent standards (GPL, BSD/MIT, or MozPL). From this, it would seem that you're saying my concern over making necessary modifications to a license is well-founded, and most open source projects are dealing with it by adopting one of the licenses that explicitly tries to be general. I guess my question remains, though. If you do need to make any changes at all, is it true that OSI needs to re-certify the result? OSI would have to answer that, my understanding is that they do. However, for modifications which are restricted to simple substitutions in well-established licenses, this review is easier, if not expedited. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Free documentation licenses
on Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 01:43:59PM -0500, John Cowan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In the general case, if the documentation is to be freely redistributable to a large license, a license which allows distribution under terms at least as liberal as the software license should be sufficient. Indeed, but that is a general point not specific to documentation. It is commonplace for parts of a GPLed software package to be released under newBSD/MIT. No, it is specific to documentation, so long as the documentation doesn't incorporate code from the project. Software and its accompanying documentation are generally considered two seperate works. There is no licensing compatibility requirement between the docs and the code. Even where short samples of code could be used in the document, they could be incorporated under fair use 107 exemptions or (possibly) by turning the document as a whole into a collective work. I don't believe there's anything in the GNU GPL, e.g., which prohibits publishing of the source code within a book, so long as the source itself is clearly identified as GPLd. Your example is backwards: newBSD/MIT software can be relicensed under GPL. GPLd software cannot be relicensed, by third parties, under any other license (barring GPL versioning allowances), without specific authorization from the copyright holder(s). IANAL, this is not legal advice. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Modifying existing licenses in minor ways
on Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 02:36:53PM -0800, Mitchell Baker ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: on Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 12:25:56PM -0800, Adam C. Engst ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Hey folks, A quick question. If you want to adopt an OSI-certified license to avoid the proliferation of yet more open source licenses, how do you deal with the fact that many of the open source licenses have specific language that doesn't make sense if used by any product other than what the license was generated to address? This is an issue I've brought up with several parties, including Mitchell Baker of Mozilla and Danise Cooper of Sun. It's more of an issue with copyleft-style licenses (particularly Mozilla) than with BSD/MIT style, as the latter allows mingling of licenses. My most recent suggestion, reiterated again, is this: - Draft a standard Mozilla-style license. Lets call it SMozPL. Nobody uses it. - What people *do* use is their own Derived Mozilla Public License, a DMozPL. This specifically restricts modifications to, say: Section 6.1, "New Versions" substitutions for "Netscape Communications Corporation", "Netscape", etc. Section 11, "Miscellaneous" Venue -- "California", "United States of America", "Northern District of California", "Santa Clara Count, California", etc. ...and any additional exhibits. - The common license provides that, for derived licenses limiting modifications to the specific substitutions specified, code is miscable between licenses. What this does is allow for use of common licensing terms while reserving to a particular organization the right to modify its terms (and break compliance) at a later date. Another option is to dual-license under some license, say MozPL, and the GNU GPL and/or LGPL. In this case, two MozPL-style licenses could share code under the terms either of the "separate files" provisions of MozPL-style licenses or the GPL. The latter would, however, have the effect of making downstream versions of the work essentially GPLd. For instance, in the Python license, item 1 starts "1. This LICENSE AGREEMENT is between the Corporation for National Research Initiatives" How could anyone else use that license without changing it, since CNRI wouldn't be involved in other products? CNRI may not be particularly involved in Python at the present time either, but that's another story. Python has essentially a BSD-style license. Provided no incompatibilities were introduced (e.g.: specific exclusion of works covered under the Python license), a license replacing organizational references should be compatible. Similarly, the Apache license says "The end-user documentation included with the redistribution, if any, must include the following acknowledgment: "This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/)."" But that makes no sense if another product were to use the Apache license. The new BSD license is more forgiving in this regard. IANAL, this is not legal advice. The MPL is due for a revision before long. I'd like to make the revised version as neutral as possible for just this reason. mitchell I don't see how you're going to get around the fundamental issues of versioning authority and jurisdiction, though the reserved names could be offloaded to an appendix. The idea of a MozPL licensing authority has certain attractions. It's been part of my argument with Larry Rosen WRT the Jabber License. While I agree with him in being able to move beyond the current state of art in licensing, rather than being stuck with static terms dictated by another party, I still have very strong misgivings over license proliferation. Fortunately, the practice appears to be fading somewhat, and projects which have adopted distinctive licenses are either fading or adopting one of the emergent standards (GPL, BSD/MIT, or MozPL). -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Free documentation licenses
on Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 05:26:20PM -0500, John Cowan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Software and its accompanying documentation are generally considered two seperate works. There is no licensing compatibility requirement between the docs and the code. Even where short samples of code could be used in the document, they could be incorporated under fair use 107 exemptions or (possibly) by turning the document as a whole into a collective work. I agree; my argument speaks to expediency, not necessity. Indicating general agreement. I don't believe there's anything in the GNU GPL, e.g., which prohibits publishing of the source code within a book, so long as the source itself is clearly identified as GPLd. I can't see this. A book which incorporates all of another textual work strikes me as a paradigm case of a derivative work. IANAL, but such a book looks clearly derivative of the source code and as such would have to be published under the GPL. The way I read 3(c), the GNU GPL refers to the program, but doesn't preclude its inclusion into a larger, ***nonprogram*** work: The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable. My including, say, a T.S. Eliot poem in a manuscript of my own authorship doesn't give me rights to dictate terms for republication of the poem, but neither do its rights infect the manuscript. Which doesn't translate strictly to the GPL, but I'd say that the informal definition of source code above in the GPL might allow one to make the argument that a GPLd work within a larger work represents a "mere aggregation" in storage medium of two seperate works -- the text and the GPLd source. Your example is backwards: newBSD/MIT software can be relicensed under GPL. GPLd software cannot be relicensed, by third parties, under any other license (barring GPL versioning allowances), without specific authorization from the copyright holder(s). The term "relicense" should be avoided, as it leads to wifty thinking. No one but the copyright holder can "relicense" anything, in the sense of changing the license. You can create a *derivative* work containing BSD parts and GPL parts, and license the whole work under the GPL. You cannot license the whole work under the BSD license. You also cannot change the licenses of the parts. In particular, I can extract a BSD-licensed component from a GPL-licensed work and use it in derivative works under the BSD license. "Additionally licensed" might be a better phrase, though I tend to like your phrasing better than my original. As I understand it would be possible to simply publish without modification a newBSD/MIT work under the terms of the GPL. The work is effectively dual-licensed. Downstream modifications from this tree would be governed, as a whole, by the GPL. The original code would still be available under the terms of newBSD/MIT, as appropriate. From a strategic perspective, I'm coming to feel that it's the *possibility* of such a license-driven code fork of newBSD/MIT code which may be serving to help secure the availability of projects under these licenses in free versions. A credible proprietized fork would likely be countered by a GPL or otherwise copylefted fork. This is portrayed in its effect of tendency for code to avoid forking in Bob Young's licensing diagram, found in the back of _Under the Radar_. A similar diagram is used by Don Rosenberg in his _Unauthorized White Papers_, though his placement of the BSD/MIT license is significantly different from Young's. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Free documentation licenses
on Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 02:43:13PM -0800, Mitchell Baker ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: John Cowan wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... Software and its accompanying documentation are generally considered two seperate works. There is no licensing compatibility requirement between the docs and the code. Even where short samples of code could be used in the document, they could be incorporated under fair use 107 exemptions or (possibly) by turning the document as a whole into a collective work. I agree; my argument speaks to expediency, not necessity. We're also trying to figure out a documentation license for the Mozilla Project. One reason we've talked about using the same license for documentation and code is that it can be difficult to separate the two. For example, the Help documentation is included in electronic format as part of the source code. It seems odd to treat this documentation under one license in this format and under another license if it's printed. And even odder to say that the help documentation in the code is not governed by the MPL, but by a different documenation license. Has anyone sorted through this type of problem? Apologies if this has been discussed and I missed the thread. John and I were arguing slightly different points. Where docs are clearly differentiated from code, independent licensing is an *option*. In the instance you describe, the close relationship makes the distinction harder to draw. I'd also look at some of the issues addressed in documentation licenses which are different from those of software -- the GFDL deals with several of these, though some could perhaps be more rigorously defined (e.g.: output-only HTML). -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Free documentation licenses
on Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 08:13:58AM -0500, John Cowan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Sun, 26 Nov 2000, David Johnson wrote: I am in the process of writing a user manual and did some checking around for appropriate free licenses. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything suitable. IMHO it makes sense to release a manual under the same license as the software, so that it can be changed in synchrony with the software. What you have here looks like a close variant of new-BSD. If you are releasing the software under new-BSD, then use new-BSD as the documentation license as well. I'm not sure license conformance between software and documentation is necessary for synchrony. There might be reasons for making documentation licensing more or less restrictive than software licensing. Unless there is inclusion of significant code in the documentation, the issue of compatability may simply be immaterial. In the general case, if the documentation is to be freely redistributable to a large license, a license which allows distribution under terms at least as liberal as the software license should be sufficient. David's license is largely similar to a BSD/MIT license, and looks on first glance to be relatively reasonable. I gather that the strong persistance features of the GPL are not of interest to him. The one benefit to conformant licensing I can see is that the downstream distributer/modifier doesn't have to deal with multiple sets of licensing terms in deciding how the work or derived works can be (re)distributed. IANAL, this is not legal advice. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Qt/Embedded
program: Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). (GNU GPL v 2, June, 1991) Whether "a program linked to a library at runtime is a derivative work" is a different question. The answer is unambiguous: it's a derivative work. Whether or not it is a *protected* work is another question. IANAL. Likewise. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Qt/Embedded
on Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 10:44:39PM -0800, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Friday 17 November 2000 09:41 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The legal test of copyrightability (what is copyrightable) is "original works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium" [1]. Or at least the second part of that. This seems to be a different issue. Those are good attributes for what can be copyrighted. But it doesn't follow that they are necessarily the same attributes for what can be regulated by the copyright holder. One specific example is a movie. The author can restrict how a movie is shown, even if it is displayed fleetingly on a movie screen, failing the "fixed" attribute. Film and video qualify. Performance is an exlusive right. Okay, what am I missing here. Something is not following... First you say that the copyright holder can restrict software in RAM because it is "fixed in a tangible medium". But you referenced a phrase that seems to apply to "copyrightability". So I questioned this by giving the example of film and video "display", which in not fixed in a tangible medium (the celluloid is, the transient images of light are not). Copyright in film is conveyed by fixation in celluloid, video, digital, or other form. The film is protected by copyright. One of the exclusive rights under US law is that of public performance. Read the law, I'm not going to explain it to you paragraph by paragraph. Then you switch over to performance! No, you switched to movies. I responded, briefly, identifying the missing links of your argument. Perhaps I don't understand the word "copyrightability". I assumes it to mean "a work that can be copyrighted." See the reference two posts prior to the US Library of Congress Circular on copyright, including a discussion of what is copyrightable. So, apropos to the original question: does the GPL restrict dynamic linkage because it makes a derivitive work in the user's RAM? (the electrical states in a RAM chip being classified as "fixed in a tangible medium") Or does it restrict dynamic linkage because it is a performance? Or does it restrict it because the user has entered into an agreement with the author (which would be binding regardless of copyright law)? Derivative work in RAM, with, as I understand, an argument of "contributory infringement" being made for works which are distributed as object plus libraries. I'd be more comfortable hearing from the lawyers here (Larry, you awake?). -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Qt/Embedded
on Sat, Nov 18, 2000 at 06:46:01AM -0500, Eric Jacobs ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't see how this follows. You don't see how what follows? That linking is a corrolate of Mai v. Peak, or the principles established in Mai v. Peak? That linking has anything to do with Mai v. Peak. You and David are chasing the same rabbit. You're running in the right direction... See my response to David. While I'm not entirely clear on the logic, my understanding is that, if the code plus linked libraries in memory is a derivative work (we'll take this as given for the moment, and fight about it later if we need to), then a special circumstance arises when a system is shipped with disaggregated code plus libraries, with the intent that, at runtime, the user create the combined derivative work by running the program. The user's act would appear to be allowable under 117. The argument I think I've seen used is that the party shipping the combination of code is necessitating an infringement of the terms of the GPL. As this isn't the party running the code, or the owner of the copy, they wouldn't be afforded the same 117 exemption. Maybe. This has been hashed out in gnu.misc.discuss many times, I may try digging through archives. A search earlier tonight through Google on "GPL link layer boundary copyright" turned up results but nothing meaningful. ... Whether "a program linked to a library at runtime is a derivative work" is a different question. The answer is unambiguous: it's a derivative work. Whether or not it is a *protected* work is another question. Given the vagueness of the statutory definition of "derivative work" in 17 USC 101, I can hardly agree that the answer is unambiguous. I disagree: A ``derivative work'' is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as [list ommitted] or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. (17 USC 101) The GPL states: "... a 'work based on the Program' means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law; that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language." (Section 0, GNU GPL v 2). A program linked to a library at runtime would not be a derivative work (because it does not contain the library or a portion of it.) You're aquainted with how a linker works? It's the linking of object code plus libraries which creates the machine-code executable. For a dynamically linked program, this step occurs at runtime. The runtime executable *does* contain, in machine code form (see above WRT derivative works), the referenced portions of the library. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Qt/Embedded
on Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 05:29:20PM -0800, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Friday 17 November 2000 01:20 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The idea is that, if a program is a work, and if (as the courts have held, in Mai v. Peak) a program in memory meets the fixed and tangible requirements of copyright law, and is therefore a copy under copyright law, then a program linked to a library at runtime is a derivative work. I've heard this before, but I've always dismissed it as hearsay. I will have to look up Mai v Peak. The implications of this are mind-boggling! Does Stephen King have rights to my brain because I've read his books and they're now in my memory? The legal test of copyrightability (what is copyrightable) is "original works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium" [1]. Or at least the second part of that. "Original" -- not a copy of another work. "Authorship" -- some creative threshold (however low) must exist. "Fixed" -- persisting over some period of time. "Tangible" -- capable of being perceived by others. Your own thoughts might meet the first three tests, but fail the fourth -- there is not yet a mindreading machine. What the LoC and/or Congress will decide when this time comes, I cannot say. IA(S)NAL (still) [1] http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wwp -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Qt/Embedded
on Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 08:22:57PM -0800, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Friday 17 November 2000 08:02 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've heard this before, but I've always dismissed it as hearsay. I will have to look up Mai v Peak. The implications of this are mind-boggling! Does Stephen King have rights to my brain because I've read his books and they're now in my memory? The legal test of copyrightability (what is copyrightable) is "original works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium" [1]. Or at least the second part of that. This seems to be a different issue. Those are good attributes for what can be copyrighted. But it doesn't follow that they are necessarily the same attributes for what can be regulated by the copyright holder. One specific example is a movie. The author can restrict how a movie is shown, even if it is displayed fleetingly on a movie screen, failing the "fixed" attribute. Film and video qualify. Performance is an exlusive right. You'd do yourself a favor to become aquainted with the fundamentals of copyright law. 17 USC 101 - 122 are a good start, you can find them here: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/ch1.html I'm assuming US law for the discussion, it covers a lot of ground in any event. In any case, restricting the user based on the presence of the software in RAM is a bad precedence for Open Source licenses to take. The *use* of the software should not be restricted in any way. Regulating it based on derivation and distribution is much better. But grasshopper, our enemy's strength is our strength. The same protections and provisions which apply to proprietary software apply equally to free software. If in-memory operations on software were exempted from the domain of copyright law, this would be a large hole through which software intended to be used only with other free software might be used otherwise. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Qt/Embedded
on Sun, Nov 12, 2000 at 11:53:23PM -0800, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Sunday 12 November 2000 11:07 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Will a BSD or MIT application even be able to use these #ifdefs so that the end user can recompile in private? Oblig: IANAL It's generally accepted that the MIT license is convertible to GPL, as is BSD without advertising clause. Programs licensed under such terms might be considered GPLd if linked to the Qt libraries. I understood it to be in the opposite direction. The GPL apparently considers dynamic linkage to be derivation of the copyrighted work, but derivation has a definite direction. A GPL application could link to or incorporate BSD/MIT code, but that BSD/MIT code could not link to or incorporate GPL code. ObligLarryRosenMemorialDisclaimer: IANAL. The governing principles are, as I understand, these: - The GPL requires that derived works of the original work not add or remove licensing and/or redistribution terms. - The BSD (non-advertising clause) and MIT licenses allow modification of distribution terms, so long as a copyright notice is retained. - The copyright notice requirement of the BSD/MIT licenses is consistant with a similar copyright notice requirement of the GNU GPL. Therefore the BSD/MIT licenses are convertible to the GPL. In the instance you describe above, BSD/MIT code could link to or incorporate GPL code, but only if the derived work were distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL. Under section 2 of the GPL it seems to be okay as it is the distribution of the whole that must be under the GPL, not the individual "independent and separate works". However, section 3 says that all source code must be distribute under the terms of section 1, which says "publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice" and "give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License". This is kind of confusing, as section 1 pertains only to the original work (verbatim copies), while section 2 pertains to derivative or collective works. So does section 3 mean to apply section 1 OR section 2 as appropriate, or is it saying that section 1 AND section 2 be applied to all parts regardless of whether they are original, derivative or collective? I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to here. "Independent and seperate works" doesn't appear in the GPL, what are you quoting? I read Section 3 to refer to distribution under either section 1 or section 2: 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: ...the use of "Sections 1 _and_ 2" is confusing. One of the real lawyers care to step forward? Mozilla is going to be released under a dual or multi-license scheme, including the GNU GPL, and possibly the GNU LGPL, as well as the MozPL and some legacy NPL code (last I'd heard, NPL was being strongly deprecated in favor of MozPL). There's an announcement of same at http://www.mozilla.org/. Can a dual-licensed work be linked to GPL code if one of the licenses is not compatible with the GPL? This would be a pretty big loophole. The theory as I understand is that if code 'A' licensed under multiple licenses, and allowing distribution or modification under any given single one of these licenses, is joined with code 'B' licensed under terms compabible with only a subset of the multiple licenses, then the combined work 'AB' accesses 'A' under only the compatible subset of licenses. In tangible terms, if Mozilla project code were incorporated with other code under terms compatible with the MozPL but not the GPL, the governing Mozilla license would be the MozPL. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Free For All by Wayner
on Sun, Nov 12, 2000 at 02:05:08PM +0800, W . Yip ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I refer to the following: "Free For All: How Linux and the Free Software Movement undercut the High Tech Titans" by Peter Wayner (HARPER BUSINESS, July 31st 2000) ISBN:0066620503 Has anyone read this book? I am curious whether this book discusses licenses in any depth, in particular about GPL. Unfortunately, bookshops in my country do not carry this book and I have no opportunity to browse, and I don't want to place an order with online book retailers unless I am sure there is *some* discussions conducted regarding the terms of the licenses. I haven't read it myself. Friend whose opinion I respect found it pretty good, particular for a historical background. The book does touch on major licenses, including a couple of pages on GPL. A rather better site in general for the GNU GPL is the FSF's own website. For a good third-party perspective, I'd turn to http://www.stromian.com/, where Don Rosenberg has compiled a rather nice collection of others and his own essays on free software and free software licensing. Don's also got a book called _Open Source: The Unauthorized White Papers_, which does focus principally on licensing and business implications of same: http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.asp?theisbn=0764546600 -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Qt/Embedded
on Sun, Nov 12, 2000 at 09:40:10PM -0800, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: When Trolltech announced that they were offering their Qt/Embedded product under the GPL, I initially assumed that it would be a dual GPL/QPL license just like Qt/X11. I was wrong. It is only under the GPL and their proprietary license. This brings up an interesting quandery. There are lots of non-GPL applications that use Qt. What will their relationship with Qt/Embedded be? Not sure. This is a specific issue that's been raised by Sun and Netscape in deciding to dual license their technologies under a combination of GNU GPL and other licenses. On one hand the GPL dictates the license of all applications that reference the library's interface. On the other hand, the interface for for Qt/Embedded is nearly identical to Qt/X11, so that many programs can be ported with a few #ifdefs and a recompile. Will a BSD or MIT application even be able to use these #ifdefs so that the end user can recompile in private? Oblig: IANAL It's generally accepted that the MIT license is convertible to GPL, as is BSD without advertising clause. Programs licensed under such terms might be considered GPLd if linked to the Qt libraries. Will embedded platforms be off limits to these applications? For GPL authors, this is a non-issue, but for the rest of us its frustrating (imagine the next version of GTK+ being under the GPL license and you're a Mozilla developer). Mozilla is going to be released under a dual or multi-license scheme, including the GNU GPL, and possibly the GNU LGPL, as well as the MozPL and some legacy NPL code (last I'd heard, NPL was being strongly deprecated in favor of MozPL). There's an announcement of same at http://www.mozilla.org/. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: revised GPL?
on Sat, Oct 28, 2000 at 07:18:28PM -0400, Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Your message has engaged my curiosity. Why are discussions about open source/FSF licenses being held in secret? It seems to me that we all should be informed of not only the status of these discussions, but also the folks who are doing 'the discussing.' I know IBM has a license, but it seems odd to hear that they are an insider on an issue as important as this one is for the open source movement. Please enlighten us further. The following link and article may be of interest: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/11/01/1636202 Sneak preview of GPL v. 3: The business-friendly version Thursday November 02, 01:02 PM EST[ Advocacy ] By Eric Ries Those people who buy into the rhetoric about RMS and the Free Software movement may be surprised to learn that his latest effort to revise the GNU General Public License stems from his concerns about making the GPL more business friendly. ... A more major change would be a requirement to release modified source code for anyone who sets up a Web site providing access to a modified version of a program covered by the GPL. Currently it is all too easy to circumvent the GPL by means of the so-called "ASP loophole." -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Linux 0.97 is under GPL, isn't it?
on Sun, Oct 29, 2000 at 02:23:19PM +0100, Sven Dehmlow privat ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Hi, Linux 1.0 is under GPL, of course. But is Linux 0.1 is under Linus' "own" license. Is Linux 0.97 under GPL? You can find historic versions of the Linux_ kernel at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/ The archive may be incomplete -- I see an 0.99.x and 0.96[abc]. No 0.97. The 0.96 tarball contains no readily apparent COPYING file or licensing notice, other than Linus's copyright. It's possible (though I don't know for certain) that the code has be retroactively included in the GPL relicensing. Why specifically 0.97? -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Linux 0.97 is under GPL, isn't it?
on Tue, Oct 31, 2000 at 06:39:00PM +0100, Sven Dehmlow ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Hi, I develop a kernel basing on Linux 0.97, so I need to know which license it has. Ask Linus. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Linux 0.97 is under GPL, isn't it?
on Tue, Oct 31, 2000 at 07:38:20PM +0100, Sven Dehmlow ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Well, to ask Linus is a good idea, but it only makes sense if Linus answers and I'm not sure about that... You're not going to find that out writing here. If Linus doesn't respond, I'd go to Linux International and/or its members. At some point, you'll find someone with a sufficiently empty mailbox that they'll see your question and either respond or escalate it for you. Alan Cox is another reasonable bet, Don Becker or Ted T'so as well, and likely to be less swamped than Linus. My experience in general has been that members of the free software community are extremely approachable and responsive by email, particularly for short questions. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: revised GPL?
on Sat, Oct 28, 2000 at 10:19:56AM -0700, Laura Majerus ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Does anybody have any information on the status of the next version of the GPL that I have been hearing rumors about? (Sorry in advance about the stupid confidentiality banner!) The best source of information on this would be Richard Stallman himself. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] My understanding is that GPL v.3 has been under discussion for the past couple of years. Red Hat and IBM, among others, have been involved in the discussions, though I don't know of specific contacts at either company, or other participants in the discussion. Progress is slow. This may not be a bad thing. Principle points under consideration, as I understand, are: - Strengthening or weakening scope of GNU GPL transmission to derivative works. Currently this is based on the "link-layer boundary" -- linking to GPL'd code is considered to produce a derivative work. New programming models change some of the fundamental assumptions. - Specific consideration of new/emerging technologies and trends. In particular web-based applications, COM (common object model) software, and embedded systems. - Patent and trademark language. - Dual licensing. Stallman has said that while he won't (and cannot) change the fundamental nature of the GPL, he may make modifications in the spirit of the GPL to accomplish its goals in a changing environment. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: revised GPL?
on Sat, Oct 28, 2000 at 07:18:28PM -0400, Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Your message has engaged my curiosity. Why are discussions about open source/FSF licenses being held in secret? It seems to me that we all should be informed of not only the status of these discussions, but also the folks who are doing 'the discussing.' I know IBM has a license, but it seems odd to hear that they are an insider on an issue as important as this one is for the open source movement. Please enlighten us further. The discussions aren't, AFAIK, secret. I'm not close to the process, so I'm not particularly familiar with what arrangements have been made. Stallman and Eben Moglen (the FSF's attorney) tend to prefer having people come to them to talk rather than the other way around -- it's easier to deal with someone who's convinced that what you're doing is of interest to them, to having to convince them first. The FSF's usual communications channels are their website(s), the gnu.* Usenet discussions. GPL issues are usually announced on gnu.misc.discuss, though RMS doesn't typically get involved in discussions there, and there are a number of long-standing trolls who make conversations somewhat painful. Though the FSF does have a PR firm (Leslie Proctor at Alexadner Ogilvy), I imagine their budget is fairly thin. Discussion of GPL v.3 has been ongoing for several years, and RMS does post occasional updates. Again, he or the FSF would be the best source of additional information. ...and we haven't even mentioned the CLWG ;-P [1] -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org [1] CLWG: The Common Licensing Working Group. Formed after the 1999 O'Reilly Perl / Open Source Conference, as a forum for larger commercial organizations and free software community to discuss licensing issues, with a desired outcome of identifying a set of relatively standard or common licensing terms. Not formally disbanded, but largely inactive for most of this year, with several of the key members announcing dual-licensing initiatives, frequently including the GNU GPL or LGPL among licensing options. The group was, again, not wholly secret, but as I liked to describe it "A shadowy foundation operating on the edge of the law" (OK, all you Knight Rider fans, come out of the closet NOW). Just remember, there *is* no K5 Cabal. PGP signature
Re: FW: NASM Licence
On Tue, Oct 17, 2000 at 11:44:54PM -0500, Nelson Rush ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Good points. -Original Message- From: David Johnson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 11:20 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: NASM Licence On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, you wrote: I think Julian agreed to dual licensing without knowing he was agreeing to it. Which leaves us at a strange impasse. Simon on the other hand has no problem with it being dual licensed. My first reading of it seemed to say that it only "declared" GPL compatibility, and if there were any problematic clauses or phrases, to be interpreted on the side of compatibility. But I can easily see the other side. I still think that Debian is wrong in relicensing it under the GPL. This brings up the question of what "GPL compatibility" is. If license A says that license B can be applied to software P, and License B says that License B requires all, and only, those terms which are part of License B, then does License A implicitly grant or authorize relicensing of code under License B if it states compatibility? This appears to be the reasoning applied by Debian, and would be an argument I'd make. The NASM license is unfortunately vague in this regard. It may be the legal equivalent of Epimedes' Paradox, which IMO is a Bad Thing®. Clauses VII and X appear to be mutually incompatible, unless VII implies that relicensing under GPL per X is specifically allowed. Copyright law does not grant the recipient the right to relicense. And neither does the NASM license grant that right, the opposite in fact according to clause VII. I would need something a little stronger than clause X before I assumed I had the right to alter the author's license. Considering that the authors are not in agreement, I'll gladly err on the side of caution. ObligLarryRosenPacifier: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. PGP signature
Re: license and copyright
On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 10:02:32AM +0200, Ferdinando Ametrano ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Hi all I will announce a new open source project in a few days, but I still have a few questions for which I would like to receive some help. I am especially confused about copyright stuff. 1) I've chosen a XFree86-style licence (or is it called XConsortium/MIT style licence?), that is a BSD style licence without the advertising clause. I append a prototype of this licence at the end of this message. Since the license itself has to be copyrighted, my question is: who should copyright it? Is it me? This is itself an interesting question -- copyright in legal documents. There's an argument that legal documents are inherently functional, and/or when they appear in court or legal procedings, they become part of the public record. Arguments exist for both sides of this argument. It's not clear to me that you can, or need to, secure copyright on the license itself. However, adding a copyright line probably won't hurt -- though it doesn't carry much legal import in the US and most Berne signatory countries either. 2) I and my colleagues will be providing the initial code base to the project. Should we have a copyright line in each file? This is a good project management practice, falling largely outside the realm of copyright for reasons similar to above. You have copyright in your own works of original authorship. Noting same aids in bookkeeping. 3) What about later changes of existing (copyrighted) files? Should every developer copyright his modification? Again, to a large extent, a project management issue, though your license allows addition of additional terms to the original license. Legal implications may exist. Generally, contributing authors add a copyright notice to files they've modified. Some projects use a seperate CONTRIBUTORS or similar file. Wouldn't this approach turn every file into a mess of copyright lines? This might be seen as the sign of a successful project. It's one of those problems that's a sign of success. thanks for you help ciao -- Nando -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: What license to pick...
rst problem (of many to come, may I add) was which distribution to use. It appeared like the was no such thing as 'linux' but rather several distributions. What was even more confusing was that these distributions were also growing apart, thus creating some level of incompatibility. Yeah, way to go GPL. This is a grossly inaccurate and incorrect assessment. First, Linux the kernel, and a Linux-based distribution, are two wholly different things. One is a single program, the other is an assemblage of programs under a wide variety of licenses, including both non-free and proprietary licenses in many cases. Each of the distributions you were contemplating almost certainly contained a kernel directly released by Linus Torvalds. Other aspects of the distributions may be software licensed under GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT, public domain, MozPL, or other licenses. Configuration issues such as the filesystem layout, location and format of files under /etc, location and name of services, etc., are not subject to copyright at all. The GPL is very simply *not* the root cause of incompatibilities between Linux systems. Much as they're discussed, the differences tend to be smaller than the similarities. And, IMAO, the distribution most closely aligned with the aims of the GPL (Debian) does a rather fine job of holding to standards. Note that the case of the BSDs is an interesting contrast. The nominal license (BSD) is intended to allow proprietary (or free) forking. Still each of the BSDs strongly resembles the others in gross structure. However the kernels are different, and follow different development tracks. Almost the inverse of the Linux situation. Licensing has little to do with this; group, project, and commercial dynamics far more. Another big thing is that I'm looking for a license 'just to get started'. I want to 'share' our code with the public as soon as possible, but (of course) with the necessary protection. I think what you're looking for is a form of NDA or general developers agreement, not a general software license, per se. Given your apparent intent and cautions, I'd suggest you explore these alternatives. Later you can modify this if necessary. But especially in this stage, the early beginning, I don't want to throw our precious code on the web with complete freedom. This does suggest a need for companies and organizations which are interested in moving toward open source but don't wish to take the plunge completely in one fell swoop. I'd be interested in comments on this. So what am I doing here on opersource.org? I want to go "open source". I'd call what you want "source distributed" -- you want to distribute source. You don't want to open it completely. Cheers. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Fwd: Software conforming to spec breaches copyright in written specification]
Posted today to CNI-Copyright. Australian law. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 Interesting case Australian case recently decided on whether software conforming to a written specification breaches the copyright in that specification. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2000/1273.html Court headnotes appear below. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY - copyright - whether written specifications for the operation of poker machines could be original literary works - whether the specifications were a product of the applicant's work, or simply reflected a common industry standard INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY - copyright - dramatic works - whether written specifications for the operation of poker machines could constitute original dramatic works - whether the video display could constitute a cinematograph film INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY - copyright - infringement - whether respondent's poker machines infringed the applicant's copyright in the written specifications for its poker machines - where the games were substantially similar - where the respondent pursued a policy of collecting and analysing competitors' games WORDS AND PHRASES - "scenario" - "choreography"- "cinematograph film" - "dramatic work" Copyright Act 1968 ss 10(1), 13 and 31 -- | Tim Arnold-Moore, Ph.D., LL.B., B.Sc. (Hons) | Postal address: Multimedia Database Systems, RMIT | GPO Box 2476V | Melbourne 3001 | AUSTRALIA | Tel: +61 3 9925 4116 | Fax: +61 3 9925 4098 | simul iustus et peccator PGP signature
OpenSales Dev. Agreement (was Re: License List -- as of 9-11-00)
On Mon, Sep 11, 2000 at 09:18:08AM -0700, Lawrence E. Rosen ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Listed below are all the licenses approved by OSI and all the licenses I'm aware of that have been submitted to OSI for its approval. Please let me know if there are any changes, additions or deletions to these lists. /Larry Rosen Executive Director, OSI 650-216-1597 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... LIST OF SUBMITTED LICENSES FOLLOWS ... * OpenSales Developer Agreement: http://www.opensales.org/html/devagree.shtml This was posted to license-discuss for, er, license discussion, not for OSI certification per se. I don't believe the agreement falls within the scope of OSI cert, unless someone wants to tell me differently, in which case I'll raise the issue at OpenSales. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: License List -- as of 9-11-00
On Mon, Sep 11, 2000 at 09:17:32AM -0700, Danese Cooper ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Larry, Our "Sun Public License" is a verbatim copy of the MozPL 1.1, except that we substituted the word "Sun" everywhere for "Mozilla" and "Netscape", and we added documentation to the list of covered things (as separate from source code). So, are we automatically covered because MozPL 1.1 is okay now? Do we need to submit separately? I've already responded privately to Danese. It's also been mentioned to the CLWG. Anyone know if Mitchel is subscribed to license-discuss? One suggestion I've made in the past regarding the Mozilla license is, that as it appears to be emerging as a standard (and is a good choice of licenses to do so, particularly when dualed with [L]GPL), it might make sense to institute an organization implement something along the lines of the following. Principle degrees of freedom on MozPL variants are: 1. Occurances of "Netscape Communications Corporation" and "Netscape" in section 6, "Versions of the License". 2. "California", "Northern District of California", and "Santa Clara County, California", in section 11, "Miscellaneous". Nowhere else is there specific language as far as I can see. (BTW: I've noticed what appears to be a typo referencing the "NPL" in section 13 of the MozPL). A principal concern of companies and organizations is ceding authoring authority for the license itself to an external company or organization, including possible competitors. Simultaneously, there is a concern that trivially differing licenses might be considered different, leading to license balkanization. As a remedy to both concerns, a standards organization is charged with drafting a reference license, and indicating what variances to the two items of language above may be allowed. Licenses which have these and only these variances from the standard are considered conformant, allowing for code compatibility (aka license transitivity). Eg: software licensed under one set of terms is considered equally validly covered under any of the variant licenses. This issue itself could be addressed either in contractual language or via a certification process similar to OSI. Companies or organizations adopting the standard *retain right of versioning* -- the right is *not* ceded to the central authority. Rather, as new versions of the reference license are drafted, co-licensees have the option of adopting the new language or continuing on their own track. It is, of course, hoped that conformance will be maintained. Previously issued code will continue to be covered under original (and any subsequent) licensing terms. This will allow for conformant license forking of existing projects to maintain conformance in the event any subset of co-licensees attempts to hijack the standard, minimizing hijacking risk. This proposal also allows for continued input into licensing terms and a continued evolution of language, which has been IMO useful to free software licensing in the past. This language does retain a certain US-Centric perspective, however, it should significantly broaden the prospects for license standardization. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Proposal for OSI Certification: The SteelBlue License
arise hereunder. It might be appropriate to specify county or city as well if this is your intent. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Proposal for OSI Certification: The SteelBlue License
On Fri, Sep 08, 2000 at 06:48:03PM -0700, David Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Fri, 08 Sep 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 5. TERMINATION. In the event of any default or failure of User to abide by the terms hereof, this license may be revoked by TCG without prior notice and all rights granted hereunder rescinded. In the event of such revocation, the Program and all copies thereof however stored and on all media, temporary and permanent, shall be returned to TCG or destroyed or otherwise disabled by User. Upon request User shall provide sufficient evidence of compliance said obligation. Unilateral termination language is generally not favorably received. You can yank rights at any time. Sorry, I won't play. I think you have misinterpreted the clause. The way I read it, they can only yank rights away if the user does not abide by the license. This isn't unilateral, it can only happen through specific action by the user. Ok. I see it this way. In which case it appears that successor rights are also terminated (aka transmitted rights). Cf: Section 4 of the GNU GPL: "However, parties who have received copies...". Although I don't like how they can terminate usage rights. It would be much better if only distribution rights were terminated upon license violation. Yes. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Qt and the GPL
icense (essentially: a GPL-convertible license) would be good enough for me. But it would have to be what it said it was. The reason it would have been impossible is that it would cause a huge number of Qt based applications, including major portions of KDE, be become illegal. With a GPL/Proprietary dual-license one has to either write a GPL application or pay for a license. This would leave all of the BSD, MIT, Artistic and even LGPL authors out in the cold. No. BSD, MIT, Artistic, and LGPL are all convertible to GPL. You'd leave out those people who were using these licenses to interoperate with software licensed under non-GPL terms as a single work. But the triple licensing is a stroke of genius the more I think about it. Qt is Free for Free Software, Open Source for Open Source Software and proprietary for proprietary software. You can't get much more equitable than that. If you were the one who planted this idea in their heads, congratulations! Ditto, both counts. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Qt and the GPL
On Mon, Sep 04, 2000 at 11:34:31PM -0700, David Johnson wrote: On Mon, 04 Sep 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The reason it would have been impossible is that it would cause a huge number of Qt based applications, including major portions of KDE, be become illegal. With a GPL/Proprietary dual-license one has to either write a GPL application or pay for a license. This would leave all of the BSD, MIT, Artistic and even LGPL authors out in the cold. No. BSD, MIT, Artistic, and LGPL are all convertible to GPL. You'd leave out those people who were using these licenses to interoperate with software licensed under non-GPL terms as a single work. Hmmm, this isn't how I understand it. One can link from a GPL application to a BSD library, but not from a BSD application to a GPL library. This is because the application is a derivative of the library according to the GPL, and all derivatives of GPL code have to be GPL as well. The BSD SW would convert to GPL, which is allowable if it doesn't contain the advertising clause. In any case, it would also leave out the MPL and QPL users, of which there is a significant number of the latter. Yes, but you didn't mention these g. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Qt and the GPL
No need to cc: me. I'm on the list. On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 07:39:34AM -0400, Lou Grinzo wrote: This latest exchange points out one of the most troubling aspects of software licensing--even many of the people who care about such issues and closely read the licenses can't always agree on exactly what is and isn't allowed. In this case, I think it would help everyone a great deal if the FSF added a page to their web site that simply enumerated all the combinations of ways to statically and dynamically link free and non-free software to create free and non-free software, and then indicate whether the GPL and LGPL allow or forbid it. (A sentence or two of explanation might also be a good idea, for some cases.) You mean like: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/license-list.html ? -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Qt, GPL, Artistic
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 09:25:58AM -0700, Chip Salzenberg wrote: According to [EMAIL PROTECTED]: BSD, MIT, Artistic, and LGPL are all convertible to GPL. Artistic isn't convertible to GPL: It requires project forks to take new names, which is not a GPL-compatible requirement. (I'm not surprised you'd think it was convertible, though. Perl is dually licensed Artistic+GPL, and it's easy to confuse Perl with the license it pioneered.) Modulo the name change, Artistic code itself can be GPDld. It's not quite transparent, but pretty darned close. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Qt and the GPL
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 03:54:49PM -0700, Brian Behlendorf ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On Tue, 5 Sep 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The BSD SW would convert to GPL, which is allowable if it doesn't contain the advertising clause. Not according to Stallman, there are issues with other clauses. This is a popular misconception. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0006/msg00119.html This appears to be specific to the Apache license. Cf the FSF license discussion page for the modified BSD license: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/license-list.html -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Plan 9 license
Rather like a car wreck, I can't keep myself from watching. I see sloppy thinking on both sides of this debate. Neither John nor David should feel particularly distinguished by my response. On Mon, Sep 04, 2000 at 02:20:22AM -0400, John Cowan wrote: On Sun, 3 Sep 2000, David Johnson wrote: "right of property" is a dangerous concept, meaning that someone else can be compelled to hand over their property to you, whereas the right to pursue property means that you can use voluntary means to acquire property but cannot coerce it from anyone. Coercion, like property, can only be defined within the context of a specific legal system. It has no natural existence. Extralegal coercion can exist. Cf: mafia protection racket. But another definition of property is that it can be defended and controlled through voluntary means. In terms of land ownership, it can be defended and controlled in the absence of trespass laws through the use of locks, fences and guards. Likewise, information can be defended in the absence of IP laws through encryption, registration and time limitations. Hmp. Just try defending property rights in -- or even the existence of -- stock certificates in the absence of a legal system. Rather than try to develop a new definition of property, how about dicussing the relevance of an accepted legal one: 1. The right to possess, use, and enjoy a determinate thing (either a tract of land or a chattel); the right of ownership. 2. Any external thing over which the rights of possession, use, and enjoyment are exercised. Black's Law Dictionary (Pocket Edition) Since information has been created by the author and can be defended by the author, it counts as a form of property. Rather more specifically, intellectual property, as distinguished from real property. IP rights only become significant when the content *is* publicly known. Secret books aren't that useful or profitable. Disputed. Again, Cf: the mob. Or the CIA. To cite a different authority: Success for some people, depends on becoming well-known; for others, it depends on never being found out. - Ashleigh Brilliant Copyright can and has been used to protect unpublished materials. But even if the copyright laws were repealed tomorrow, software developers can still privately protect their works. Indeed, the copyright license for closed-source software is no problem: "All rights reserved". Since you do not own the software anyway, your other rights don't exist. Review please for class "first sale doctrine". Or if copyright is the only thing holding back software from being free, why isn't my public domain binary considered Free Software? Failing to read the FSF's licenses discussion, we see. PD *is* free software. However, it's not copyleft, which addresses an additional set of concerns. Review please for class. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
What is CMM (was Re: Plan 9 license)
On Sun, Sep 03, 2000 at 10:24:42PM -0400, John Cowan wrote: On Sun, 3 Sep 2000, Angelo Schneider wrote: ... Most propritary software organizations are on CMM level 1. What is "CMM"? What is "CMM level 1"? CMM is an acronym for the Capability Maturity Model, a metric of software development process sophistication applied to an organization as a whole, developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. CMM level one is roughly equivalant to "Thog invent square wheel. No ask no one for advice. No remember why square wheel no work last time." For a more conventional definition of CMM levels, see: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.sum.html -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Plan 9 license
On Mon, Sep 04, 2000 at 12:40:23PM -0700, David Johnson wrote: On Mon, 04 Sep 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Or if copyright is the only thing holding back software from being free, why isn't my public domain binary considered Free Software? Failing to read the FSF's licenses discussion, we see. PD *is* free software. However, it's not copyleft, which addresses an additional set of concerns. Review please for class. I understood the FSF to mean that PD with_source_code is Free Software. It is a requirement for Free Software that the source code be available. My hypothetical case involved a PD binary where the source code had not been disclosed. Ok, you got me, I think. Though, in this case, reverse-engineering the code to produce human-readable sources would be allowable. PD is PD for works and derivatives. The person REing the sources would then have to release these as PD rather than claiming copyright to them, as might be possible. PD binary is a step removed from PD source, but it's still PD, and could possibly meet the FSF's definition, even though source code (a precondition in the FSF's discussion) isn't initially available. Note also that a PD binary is of limited utility w/o the sources anyway. I don't know what the point of the PD binary comment was -- it lacks context (even in the original post). -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Qt and the GPL
On Mon, Sep 04, 2000 at 03:35:22PM -0700, David Johnson wrote: On Mon, 04 Sep 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If there will be separate versions (and I hope there won't), then this will be the first time (that I am aware of) that a GPLd library will be available with an identical non-GPL version. Not quite. Apache has dualed Artistic and GPL licenses for some time. My bad. I was thinking Perl, not Apache. Apache is BSD (advertising clause). -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Qt and the GPL
On Mon, Sep 04, 2000 at 05:57:53PM -0700, David Johnson wrote: On Mon, 04 Sep 2000, Nelson Rush wrote: I mentioned the idea of triple licensing (or dual licensing) qt in this way in June to Trolltech. They told me where I could stick it then and it looks like they've reconsidered it now. You also have to consider the history of Trolltech. Everytime they have taken one step forward, huge sectors of the community have jumped them enmass and bitched that they didn't take a big enough step. It could have been worse -- they could be Sun. Note that both Troll and Sun have come around to at least a partial embrace of the GPL (I'd say Troll's taken the larger step -- Qt is a bigger part of their business by orders of magnitude than StarOffice is of Sun's). The problem was with Troll, KDE, and Sun making noises that they were in fact: 1). OSI/OpenSource 2). GPL compatible, and/or 3). Unfairly persecuted ...which IMO really crossed up a lot of folks. If you want to play the FS/OS game, play it. If you want to be close, but not quite, there, then 'fess up. BitMover (BitKeeper License) is an example of the other. Larry McVoy unabashadly says it's not OSI Open Source certified, but it's close enough. Larry's also trying to make a buck, and by reports, he's at least moderately successful. KDE and Sun were trying to hand-wave the problem away, and we're sorry, but that just didn't work. We're now seeing substantive change. Yes, it would have been nice to see it six, nine, twelve, eighteen months ago, but Letting people use the library with no cost for OSS wasn't good enough (and it wasn't). Changing to a OSS license wasn't good enough. Considering a GPL-compatible v2 of the QPL wasn't good enough. I'd have a difference of opinion here. A GPL-compatible license (essentially: a GPL-convertible license) would be good enough for me. But it would have to be what it said it was. The reason it would have been impossible is that it would cause a huge number of Qt based applications, including major portions of KDE, be become illegal. With a GPL/Proprietary dual-license one has to either write a GPL application or pay for a license. This would leave all of the BSD, MIT, Artistic and even LGPL authors out in the cold. No. BSD, MIT, Artistic, and LGPL are all convertible to GPL. You'd leave out those people who were using these licenses to interoperate with software licensed under non-GPL terms as a single work. But the triple licensing is a stroke of genius the more I think about it. Qt is Free for Free Software, Open Source for Open Source Software and proprietary for proprietary software. You can't get much more equitable than that. If you were the one who planted this idea in their heads, congratulations! Ditto, both counts. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Source Distribution
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 01:37:47AM +, Ben DeLong wrote: Hi all, I have a question. I am building a Linux appliance based completely on open source software. In putting this appliance together I have not added nor modified a single line of code in any of the open source applications that I'm using. As this is an appliance and storage space is limited, there is no room to include the source within the appliance. Given that all the code in this appliance is freely available from a variety of locations on the net, do I have to go to the trouble of providing a source CD for all the open source programs that I have included in it? Cf: Section 3 of the GNU GPL, which spells out source distribution obligations. You must distribute sources, or a promise to provide same at no more than cost of physically performing the source distribution. If and only if you are considering a non-commercial use of GPL'd code can you rely on pointing to existing distribution points. Distribution need not be on the appliance itself. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
US, EU, piracy, freedom, control (was Re: Plan 9 license)
On Sun, Sep 03, 2000 at 08:44:42PM +0100, Angelo Schneider wrote: Well, It seems that I beg for misunderstanding? So I simply delete and skip that part :-) Nonsense. The U.S. has been changing its copyright laws since 1976 to come into *conformity* with the rest of the world, specifically including the EU. In the EU it is not possible to transfer a copyright. This is only partially correct, AFAIK. Commercial rights may be transferred. Moral rights cannot. For commercial purposes, EU and US law are highly conformant. The concept of moral rights is somewhat peculiar to the EU, and (IIRC) French tradition in particular -- "Droit d'author". -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
IP, theft, markets, morals (was Re: Plan 9 license)
On Sun, Sep 03, 2000 at 05:30:14PM -0700, Ken Arromdee wrote: On Sun, 3 Sep 2000, Mark Wells wrote: Here's a simple test to determine if something has been stolen: does the original owner still have it? Doesn't work. "Because my work is copied and the coies are widely spread, I do not have the potential market that I did before. That market has been stolen from me." But not the work itself. The proper legal term, BTW, is misappropriation, WRT unauthorized publication of a copyrighted work: The act or an instance of applying another's property or money dishonestly to one's own use. Theft is "the felonious taking and removing of anothers personal property with the intent of depriving the true owner of it". Because of the nonrivalrous nature of use of information, theft is both an improper technical term and (for reasons put forth by RMS) not morally appropriate. It's a misused pejorative. There's a whole 'nother can of worms opened when you consider your "market" and just how it's provided you in the first place. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: OpenSales -- DRAFT developers agreement
On Thu, Aug 31, 2000 at 11:16:56AM -0700, Lawrence E. Rosen wrote: I've read through your DRAFT developers agreement. One of the basic rules of contract law is that there must be "consideration" for every contract. Yet your agreement expressly states that "You do not want to receive any compensation, at any time, for any reason from OpenSales or anyone else for your Contributed Code." If the Contributed Code is a gift, it can be revoked at any time for any reason. How do you intend to get around that? The statement that "OpenSales Has The Right To Enforce The GNU GPL For Your Contributed Code" won't work. Under the copyright law, only the copyright owner or owner of an exclusive right has the standing to enforce a copyright. That is probably why the FSF requires copyright assignment. I was remembering a clause I'd through was part of the Mozilla PL, it was actually part of the original "OpenMerchant Community Source License". Though we adopted the GPL, there were some interesting and IMO rather good aspects to this license. 1.6 Licensees Rights to Enforce. You may have the right to enforce the obligations of Other Licensees under the License, and the Original Developer hereby grants You that right as part of the License, subject to the limitation that the Original Developer may not be made a party to any suit brought by You in that regard and that Your right to enforce this License will not include any circumstance where the Original Developer is a necessary or indispensable party or is otherwise required to be a party to an action or other proceeding. It's language I somewhat like -- it provides independent developers with additional rights and powers, strengthens (IMO) the enforcement of the license. If the right is one of the owner, can it *not* be assigned (exclusively or nonexclusively) to another party? The relevant language appears to be 17 USC 501(b): (b) The legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright is entitled, subject to the requirements of section 411, to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the owner of it. The court may require such owner to serve written notice of the action with a copy of the complaint upon any person shown, by the records of the Copyright Office or otherwise, to have or claim an interest in the copyright, and shall require that such notice be served upon any person whose interest is likely to be affected by a decision in the case. The court may require the joinder, and shall permit the intervention, of any person having or claiming an interest in the copyright. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/501.text.html If a contributor grants you a license to his Contributed Code under the GPL, then you have the right to use that code as part of a derivative work including your own code, as long as your Larger Work is also licensed under the GPL. Why isn't that sufficient? This is a crux question: is the GPL in and of itself sufficient protection to both contributors and code maintainers, including in the instance of a corporate code maintainer, or isn't it: To be sufficient, or not to be sufficient. That is the GPL question. I'm going to try not injecting my own biases into the discussion at this point, though the question is indeed key. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
OpenSales -- DRAFT developers agreement
OpenSales (my employer) is working on a set of supporting legal documents. We've drafted a developers agreement as part of our code submission process, and have posted it for review at http://www.opensales.org/html/devagree.shtml Developer agreements are something I've advocated for companies engaged in free software development. I believe they offer protections to both companies and developers. Their use is somewhat controversial -- the FSF has one which requires copyright assignment, XFree86 uses one, as do a handful of other projects, but most seem not to use one, or drop those which they've used in the past (eg: Python and CNRI). Comments and feedback appreciated. Thank you. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Embedded systems OS/FS
Trying to pick some brains before I get up on stage and make a fool of myself again (Intel Developers Conference). I'm told the audience will be a mix of both SW and HW developers, with the HW folks doing a mix of embedded devices and chip/circuit designs. Question I've got: how does software licensing, free/OS or otherwise, effect the hardware market. My read is that some licenses, notably the GNU L/GPL, may have their source availability requirements triggered by the physical distribution of media (HW) on which the software is embedded, etched, or otherwise fixed. The primary statuatory provisions of copyright (in the US) are of the reproduction, making derivative works, distributing, performing, and displaying of copies. The GPL specifically restricts itself to "copying, distribution and modification" (section 0). An instance in which this would matter: ACME Mfg. creates printers. They incorporate GPLd code 'gnuprint' into their product 'acmeprint', creating a derived work 'gnuacmeprint' of the two programs. In distributing the printers to wholesalers and eventually customers, does ACME trigger the GNU GPL's source distribution and relicensing requirements? To whom does the source obligation apply -- wholesalers, final customers, or both? My read is that yes, ACME does. The code to 'gnuacmeprint' must be licensed under the GPL, and the terms of 3(a) or 3(b) of the GNU GPL must be met. I'm not sure that the wholesalers would have a solid claim to code, the end customer certainly would. Other takers? -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Rebranding OSI.
On Sun, Aug 13, 2000 at 01:17:05PM +0930, Ross N. Williams wrote: At 10:54 PM -0400 12/8/2000, Russell Nelson wrote: We have since created the OSI Certified open source certification mark. We've had no trouble defending that mark. What you should do is invent an OSI Certified mascot. :-) ...in which case I suggest we (ahem) piggy-back off the already confusing nearness in cyberspace with http://www.osi.org/ and pick a swine. Hmmm So what does connotate "Open Source" -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: The different between GPL and non-license
To the best of my knowledge, this is grossly incorrect. There is nothing within the US copyright statute which prevents an author or copyrightholder from ceding rights to a work. One of many corroborating references: http://www.benedict.com/basic/public/public.htm. A Google or other online search will produce many others. Please provide a legal citation or reference supporting your claims. On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 at 04:27:48AM -0500, Nelson Rush wrote: It is actually impossible for individuals to release anything to the public domain themselves. Public Domain can only be invoked after a copyright has expired. Releasing software to the public domain is a myth and only causes legal confusion when attempted. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, August 07, 2000 12:09 PM To: Diskusi Lisensi Subject: Re: The different between GPL and non-license On Mon, Aug 07, 2000 at 12:37:29PM +0700, Kristiono Setyadi wrote: I want to ask about the different between GPL with non-license. I think that GPL and non-license is the same. Both of them are distribute to anyone. Is my opinion true or false? Thank you. If you mean the distinction between the GNU GPL and public domain, no they aren't the same. Any license in which copyright is retained reserves rights to the author. Placing a work in the public domain releases virtually all rights of authorship (excepting possibly "moral rights" depending on jurisdiction). The GPL allows broad lattitude in use of code, but imposes restrictions. There are few if any restrictions on use of public domain works. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: The different between GPL and non-license
On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 at 09:52:26AM -0400, Rod Dixon wrote: On Thu, 10 Aug 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: To the best of my knowledge, this is grossly incorrect. There is nothing within the US copyright statute which prevents an author or copyrightholder from ceding rights to a work. One of many corroborating references: http://www.benedict.com/basic/public/public.htm. A Google or other online search will produce many others. The only way I know to accomplish what the website you cited claims can be done is to abstain from enforcing your copyrights. Doing so, however, is not the same as the public domain. The public domain status of a work operates as a matter of law. The copyright owner does not have a *choice* as to whether to put/transfer/cede a work to the public domain. I have a hard time believing this. If all else fails, I believe there are doctrines under contract law -- estoppal, possibly -- which act as a bar from granting broad rights to something at one point in time then reversing yourself later. I claim no authority in this area -- contracts are a part of law I really haven't studied closely. This has been raised several times WRT the question of the FSF arbitrarily proprietizing its copyrights or revising the GPL to the extent it would no longer meet the definition of a copyleft. Because the FSF has represented these works as being freely available for all time, changing the terms would raise options for challenge under contract law. Granted, this moves the discussion from copyrights to contracts. I don't believe this is even necessary, but it does present other avenues. Although the effect may be the same, it is quite a different transaction to donate a work to the Federal government and, thereby, achieve public domain status of the work. Under that scenario, the copyright owner actually transfers all exclusive rights to the Federal government (not the public domain). And, as a result, the operation of law, changes the status of the work from a work subject to copyright protection to one that is not. Though the US Federal Government cannot secure copyright in its *own* works, it can own copyright in works *transferred* to it. The transfer you describe above would require the same act of "abandonment" you say is impossible in the private sector or state/local governments. We must be careful in how we characterize copyright transactions because the implications are wide-ranging and far-reaching as you can see in the DVD/DeCSS and Napster litigation. Rod Actually, no, I don't see. What are you pointing at? -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: StarOffice under the GPL ?
On Wed, Aug 09, 2000 at 04:32:01PM -0700, Brian Behlendorf wrote: On Tue, 8 Aug 2000, Brian Behlendorf wrote: There *is* a Sun Public License modeled after the NPL, pretty much s/Netscape/Sun/, which Netbeans was released under (www.netbeans.org). Sorry, my bad, the Sun Public License is a verbatim (except for substitution of the terms "Mozilla" and "Netscape" with the term "Sun" and addition of "documentation" to the list of covered items) copy of the Mozilla Public License, NOT the Netscape Public License. The NPL is not an open source license, because it has language that carves out some redistribution rights for Netscape, which the MPL does not. Thanks for 'fessing up. That was my general understanding. I'll have to give it a closer read, but I believe there's also a definition of what it is to be an API in the Sun version of the license. I'm talking through my hat as I'm not looking at SISSL at the moment. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Does linux use GPL or not??
On Mon, Aug 07, 2000 at 09:57:48PM -0700, David Johnson wrote: On Mon, 07 Aug 2000, Kristiono Setyadi wrote: On Mon, 7 Aug 2000, David Johnson wrote: If you modified the kernel and distributed it under a different license, you will get in serious trouble. It is not a crime exactly, but a copyright violation. When you go to court it will be to a civil court not a criminal court. What about the other version of Linux (like RedHat, Slackware, etc.)? Can we say that the Kernel of the Linux have been changed? All of the different Linux distributions use the same kernel. Some will use different patches or modifications that the others don't, but all of these patches are also under the GPL. So far, the kernel has not forked, and I doubt that it will unless there is a technical reason to do so. Not strictly true, nor relevant to the discussion. What all Linux distributions *do* use is a kernel which is derived from the one Linus Torvalds (and other kernel hackers) have released under the terms of the GNU GPL. Ownership of copyright transmits through derived works (the laywers here may want to wordsmith that, but I believe the gist is correct). The various Linux kernels, and the distributions they are distributed with, contain copyrighted code written by Torvalds and others. The license by which the code is allowed to be distributed is the GPL. All kernels need not be identical. They are, however, a set of derived works under copyright law. IANAL. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Does linux use GPL or not??
On Mon, Aug 07, 2000 at 09:57:48PM -0700, David Johnson wrote: On Mon, 07 Aug 2000, Kristiono Setyadi wrote: On Mon, 7 Aug 2000, David Johnson wrote: In some countries, the copyright is some of the most frequently violated. Most of the microsoft (and other commercial software..) are pirated. Have you heard about Linux pirated?? There is no point in pirating Linux. It is already free with no cost. There is nothing wrong with purchasing a $80 boxed set of Redhat and making a million copies of it, selling them for $1 each. There may be a trademark violation if these copies are sold as "official" Redhat distributions, but there is still very little reason to do this. Overall, there is very little incentive to pirate Linux. It is a completely different class of software than Windows. As I like to say, "you can't steal what is free". There is a possible incentive, if it's believed that by practicing "embrace and extend" tactics, a specific distributor could gain a stranglehold on the Linux market. It's also possible to effectively pirate the brand or trademarks of a Linux distribution. Several years ago, RedHat practiced some pretty liberal branding and distribution agreements, which were later significantly tightened up. There's a branding statement on their website (the URL keeps drifting, I'll find it on request though) which goes into length on what can and cannot be done with the "RedHat" brand. Generally it's ok to refer to RedHat as an inspiration for a distribution, but this cannot be done in such a way that the "RedHat" mark or text stands out from other body text. So you have CheapBytes selling a RedHat 6.2 CD for $4.95, but that's just "RedHat 6.2", not bold or otherwise distinctive type. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Does linux use GPL or not??
On Tue, Aug 08, 2000 at 05:59:04PM +0100, SamBC wrote: -Original Message- From: Kristiono Setyadi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] SNIP What about the other version of Linux (like RedHat, Slackware, etc.)? Can we say that the Kernel of the Linux have been changed? They do not modify the kernel (except for the odd proprietary patch which is unusual). However, they distribute under the GPL also (mostly), and they charge for documentation, support, and media, not for the software itself The TurboLinux clustering software is, I believe, an example of this. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: BH Fonts and XFree86
On Tue, Aug 08, 2000 at 07:48:50PM -0700, David Johnson wrote: I got pulled into a discussion on a non-software mailing list regarding fonts. It was claimed that redistributing the Lucida fonts was illegal. This surprised me since these are included with XFree86, which I still consider to be freely redistributable. The dispute involved trying to acquire these fonts in order to reproduce the style of a certain publisher. Data point, and I'm not sure it's relevant. The Plan 9 OS license from Lucent has a specific carve-out for fonts. I don't know if these are the same fonts in question or others. Note that in general there is a distinction made between fonts as they are printed and appear on paper, and the program used to generate fonts. The only instances I'm aware of in which copyright is applied to fonts applies specifically to the programs generating the typeface, not the typeface itself. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: StarOffice under the GPL ?
On Tue, Aug 08, 2000 at 01:36:06AM -0300, petruzza wrote: I heard and read about Sun will release the source of StarOffice suite in october. Someone know that is truth ? What you think about ? This step will make SOffice better ? faster like Netscape, when the source was freely ? I think that change will shake like a hurricane with other companies and her suites, more than when Sun buys StarDivision. StarOffice will be released under the GNU General Public License and the SISL (a Sun-written variant of the Mozilla Public License) on October 13, 2000. Info: http://www.openoffice.org/project/www/press/sun_release.html -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: The different between GPL and non-license
On Mon, Aug 07, 2000 at 12:37:29PM +0700, Kristiono Setyadi wrote: I want to ask about the different between GPL with non-license. I think that GPL and non-license is the same. Both of them are distribute to anyone. Is my opinion true or false? Thank you. If you mean the distinction between the GNU GPL and public domain, no they aren't the same. Any license in which copyright is retained reserves rights to the author. Placing a work in the public domain releases virtually all rights of authorship (excepting possibly "moral rights" depending on jurisdiction). The GPL allows broad lattitude in use of code, but imposes restrictions. There are few if any restrictions on use of public domain works. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Public Domain and liability
On Mon, Aug 07, 2000 at 01:01:07PM -0700, Blake Cretney wrote: One reason people don't often release software to the public domain is fear of liability. The concern is that even if you place a disclaimer on the software, someone could legally distribute your software without the disclaimer. Then, if the software fails in some way, you could be sued as the manufacturer of defective software. Now, to me, this sounds crazy. However, I'm not a lawyer, and often legal decisions leave me amazed. Has anyone ever been sued, especially successfully, for a non-malicious public domain program? Does anyone have any comment on whether this is likely to happen? I believe we can move this into the realm of copyrighted but publicly distributed works if we consider books which describe inherently dangerous practices for which there might be liability attached. Examples which come to mind: anything dealing with explosives or flammables, particularly "cookbooks" describing how to produce such materials. There's _The Anarchist's Cookbook_, written by William Powell and published by L. Stuart, 1971. A euthenasia book giving methods for suicide or assisted death made the headlines a few years back, _Final Exit_ by Humphry Derek, published by the Hemlock Society, 1991. The University of California online catalog lists another sixty or so titles. There are several instances of parents seeking legal redress against rock and roll bands or stars for songs or albums which were thought to have contributed to actions of children. Maralyn Manson comes to mind though a quick web search doesn't turn up any plausible mentions of him in law suits. I'd say there's a body of case law and examples which should at least provide grist for the mill here. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Compulsory checkin clauses.
iabilities opened up. Suppose that at this large company a disgruntled employee hacks in BigCoTradeSecret.h to BugFixCode, and lets it sit for 60, 90, whatever, days. D.E. quits BigCo and joins OtherCo, which has also been using, and contributing, to BugFixCode. OtherCo decides it has rights of enforcement to BugFixCode's license, being a copyright holder of portions of the code, and enjoins BigCo in a lawsuit to have BigCoTradeSecret released publicly, under pains of intentional copyright violation, etc., etc. I can see why BigCo might choose not to use BugFixCode, even if chances for losing such a suit were small. Downside risks are huge. Promoting widespread acceptance of software distributed under such terms, particularly when alternatives (both to software and license) exist, is unlikely. The other legal angle is that the primary mechanism of several of the key free software licenses ([L]GPL, MozPL, BSD/MIT) is a fallback to copyright. The licenses largely address rights reserved to authors under copyright. Transgressing the license then moves the issue to one of copyright law, not license enforcement. A bugfix clause is placing a requirement on the licensee *after* she has copied, modified, or distributed the code (from its distribution point) compliant with the license. US copyright law has a strong tradition of fair use, which has been interpreted to include investigation and study of software in the case of reverse engineering. It's quite possible that a bugfix clause would be seen as restricting this fair use right of the recipient, as well as confounding factors such as first sale doctrine (with which I'm less familiar). You're dealing with Australian law, which may differ, but US copyright law is a large part of the relevant landscape. The same fair use arguments might also be used as a launching point for deciding that bugfix clauses violate the four freedoms Stallman speaks of for free software, specifically: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs. http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html There may also be a conflict with the Open Source Definition, though I believe this is an open question, and I'm not familiar with earlier arguments. Sun's SCSL and Apple's APL both include similar terms. SCSL has not been OSI-Certified, not sure about the APL, though it's not listed on OSI's licenses page: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ The relevant parts of the Open Source definition IMO might be: 1. Free Redistribution "The license may not require a royalty or other fee for such sale". 3. Derived Works "The license must allow modifications and derived works..." http://www.opensource.org/osd.html ...if you consider a bugfix obligation a royalty or other fee, then bugfix requirements are not OSI compliant. As I said, I don't have the discussion history here, I'd be interested in other reads. Oblig: IANAL. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
Re: Aggregation.
On Sat, Aug 05, 2000 at 04:34:49PM +0930, Ross N. Williams wrote: Has anyone come up with clean simple language that resolves the ambiguity of the concept of "aggregation" in the GNU GPL? For example Larry Wall felt moved to clarify its application in the case of PERL modules (some GPL, some not) that are shipped together as code to be executed as a whole. (He said that a module does not fall under the GPL unless it's author explicitly places it under the GPL). http://www.perl.com/pub/doc/manual/html/READMEs/README IANAL My understanding is that licensing terms don't apply to a piece of software until the author fixes them to the software. Attempts by others to apply terms might well be construed as infringement or misrepresentation of the author's copyright. Aggregation of non-GPLd and GPLd code in a single work may result in noncompliance with the terms of the GPL. I don't see it as resulting in a preemptive licensing of the additional (previously non-GPLd) code under the terms of the GPL. License compliance and application of license are two seperate issues. Don't confound them. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Opensales, Inc.http://www.opensales.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Debian GNU/Linux rocks! http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/K5: http://www.kuro5hin.org GPG fingerprint: F932 8B25 5FDD 2528 D595 DC61 3847 889F 55F2 B9B0 PGP signature
