[License-discuss] combining GPL and proprietary software - was: CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On 03/01/2012 11:57 PM, Chris Travers wrote: Ok, so part of avoiding lawsuits is to avoid areas where folks think they can sue about. Not quite, because neophytes think they can sue about anything. Sometimes lawyers cooperate in this, because they think the victim will settle or otherwise change their behavior without ever getting near a court. So, it has to be an area where there is not such a bright line that litigation would immediately fail and that any competent attorney would know that. As an example, the abortive attempt of Astrolabe to sue Olsen over the timezone database had the obvious flaw that it attempted to assert copyright law over facts like legislative changes to daylight savings time. When the defendant showed them a fully-written pleading for a Rule 11 sanction, Astrolabe withdrew. No gray area there. So the FSF's statements are important here Only because they have good counsel and have successfully enforced the license many times. In contrast, Linus Torvalds' various confusing and conflicting mailing list statements about what is OK and not OK under the GPL were not something you could rely on. I think he now knows not to make them. I can tell you that if I ask two different lawyers with different ideological views regarding free software what the implications of mixing BSD and GPL3 files in the same project, I get two different answers. The fact that there are courts is evidence that lawyers frequently disagree. However, you should resist the temptation to waste your time on the areas of contention. They are known and can be engineered around. There are cases where no amount of isolation will protect you from having created a derivative work. For example, suppose I write a graphics driver which recognizes Doom's OpenGL calls, and transforms them in some interesting way. We have cases about just this that you can read. They are Goloob v. Nintendo, and Micro Star v. Formgen. But you are really far now from combining GPL and proprietary software, which doesn't present the problems of transforming visual output which is itself a creative work. What I am saying is there's a difference between you saying "Linking is legally dubipus under the GPL" and me saying "As far as LedgerSMB is concerned, we interpret the GPL not to restrict linking and mere use of API's, but believe that inheritance may be run into trouble." At least given that I am more or less the de facto leader of the LedgerSMB project. The first is an attempt to describe the license in the abstract. The second is a representation on behalf of a project as to what license rights we believe we are granting. As I understand it, these are very different statements Yes, but if Dieter wished to enforce his license in a way contrary to your sentiment, your statements would have little meaning because his contribution is independent of you and your policies and precedes your involvement. Even in the case of other developers who are concurrent with you, they are either independent copyright holders or share-holders in a collective work, and haven't ceded you the right to represent their legal interest. If they gave me, as an expert witness, the task of showing your statements to be naive and unreliable, it wouldn't be much of a problem. Thanks Bruce <> smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] combining GPL and proprietary software - was: CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On Fri, Mar 02, 2012 at 09:50:22AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: > On 03/01/2012 11:57 PM, Chris Travers wrote: > > > >Ok, so part of avoiding lawsuits is to avoid areas where folks > >think they can sue about. > > Not quite, because neophytes think they can sue about anything. > Sometimes lawyers cooperate in this, because they think the victim > will settle or otherwise change their behavior without ever getting > near a court. So, it has to be an area where there is not such a > bright line that litigation would immediately fail and that any > competent attorney would know that. > > As an example, the abortive attempt of Astrolabe to sue Olsen over > the timezone database had the obvious flaw that it attempted to > assert copyright law over facts like legislative changes to daylight > savings time. When the defendant showed them a fully-written > pleading for a Rule 11 sanction, Astrolabe withdrew. No gray area > there. On the other hand, "a fully-written pleading for a Rule 11 sanction" is beyond the means of someone who cannot afford a competent attorney. I suppose *those* developers, then, should just "avoid areas where folks think they can sue" based on the above statements. There seem to be three general approaches to failing to address the important matter of how to deal with the needs of independent open source software developers: 1. "It's easy! All you need is the ability to fall back on a lawyer's help." 2. "It's easy! Just avoid everything." These are not the only approaches I find problematic, but they're the two biggies that utterly fail to meaningfully address the needs of a lone open source software developer who just wants to stay out of touble. -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] combining GPL and proprietary software - was: CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On 03/02/2012 10:38 AM, Chad Perrin wrote: On the other hand, "a fully-written pleading for a Rule 11 sanction" is beyond the means of someone who cannot afford a competent attorney. Since Olson was a Free Software developer, EFF provided his attorney pro-bono. Thanks Bruce <> smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] combining GPL and proprietary software - was: CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On 3/2/12 1:38 PM, "Chad Perrin" wrote: >There seem to be three general approaches to failing to address the >important matter of how to deal with the needs of independent open source >software developers: > >1. "It's easy! All you need is the ability to fall back on a lawyer's >help." > >2. "It's easy! Just avoid everything." Ah, what was your third general approach? How about: 3. "It's easy! Just use Apache 2.0 licensed stuff!" Permissive. Explicit patent grant. Done. :) ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] combining GPL and proprietary software - was: CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On Fri, Mar 02, 2012 at 11:17:49AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: > On 03/02/2012 10:38 AM, Chad Perrin wrote: > >On the other hand, "a fully-written pleading for a Rule 11 > >sanction" is beyond the means of someone who cannot afford a > >competent attorney. > Since Olson was a Free Software developer, EFF provided his attorney > pro-bono. Something tells me it is not reasonable to just always expect that writing open source code guarantees the EFF's help. -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] combining GPL and proprietary software - was: CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On 03/02/2012 11:34 AM, Chad Perrin wrote: Something tells me it is not reasonable to just always expect that writing open source code guarantees the EFF's help. Sure. But folks who have asked me for help got me free, and I've sometimes found them an attorney too. This is something I would otherwise charge $7.50 per minute for. <> smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] combining GPL and proprietary software - was: CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On Fri, Mar 02, 2012 at 11:43:41AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: > On 03/02/2012 11:34 AM, Chad Perrin wrote: > >Something tells me it is not reasonable to just always expect that > >writing open source code guarantees the EFF's help. > Sure. But folks who have asked me for help got me free, and I've > sometimes found them an attorney too. This is something I would > otherwise charge $7.50 per minute for. I think that's great, and I commend you on being an exception rather than the rule. -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] combining GPL and proprietary software - was: CC withdrawl of CC0 from OSI process
On Fri, Mar 02, 2012 at 02:29:28PM -0500, Tzeng, Nigel H. wrote: > On 3/2/12 1:38 PM, "Chad Perrin" wrote: > > >There seem to be three general approaches to failing to address the > >important matter of how to deal with the needs of independent open source > >software developers: > > > >1. "It's easy! All you need is the ability to fall back on a lawyer's > >help." > > > >2. "It's easy! Just avoid everything." > > Ah, what was your third general approach? > > How about: > > 3. "It's easy! Just use Apache 2.0 licensed stuff!" > > Permissive. Explicit patent grant. Done. :) Be careful about those requirements for things like per-file modification notices and proliferation of NOTICE file attributions. Of course, these are relatively minor matters compared to many other licenses, and I agree with your statement in principle; I just think the Apache License 2.0 is far from ideal. -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
