This is just a particularly interesting part of the private
discussions I've been holding with FIGlet authors/copyright holders.
Any comments?
-- Forwarded message --
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 13:27:26 -0400
Subject: Re: figlet license change from
On Tue, Oct 19, 2004 at 05:59:42PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > Sublicensing means that you are still bound by the original licence,
> > but you can offer any licence in the specified range to those you
> > distribute to.
>
> Quite so, and I should have clarified that point. If Alice licenses
>
Glenn Maynard scripsit:
> This also implies that, for example, "Licensor hereby agrees to provide
> a machine-readable copy of the Source Code of the Original Work ..."
> means "if you distribute this, you're the licensor, so *you* agree to
> provide ...". This clause reads as if it says "the ori
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 06:30:42PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> > but I can distribute it under the X11
> > license, so the person I send it to is no longer forced to include source
> > (or to grant patent licenses, and so on).
>
> Just so. AFL original and derivative works may be redistributed und
Glenn Maynard scripsit:
> Watch out: it only says "if you sue me for patent infringement, you lose
> your license", not "you can't sue me for patent infringement".
Of course. I was oversimplifying.
> General (but not unanimous) feeling on d-legal is that choice of venue is
> not free. (This
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 08:03:49PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> The AFL's restrictions are intended to protect the licensor and his
> original licensees. Other persons (including said licensees if they
> choose to become licensors as well) can undertake whatever obligations
> they wish to.
It seems
Glenn Maynard scripsit:
> It seems that this license is actually doing two fundamentally distinct
> things: granting a license to people to do stuff, and making promises
> from the distributor/licensor.
Correct.
> I think this combination is what makes it
> so confusing: it looks like it require
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 10:24:29PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> > Could you give an example of something that would "contradict the AFL",
> > that isn't allowed? (If I'm allowed to distribute the work under the X11
> > license, then it seems like anything is allowed, except for obvious things
> > li
Glenn Maynard scripsit:
> You were previously talking about "contradicting the AFL", though. Are
> there actually any cases of this, or is it a practically null set?
Well, I can invent really stoopid licenses that do it, like this:
Alice licenses Yoyo under the AFL; Bob adds his changes, and lic
On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 10:01:59AM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> Sorry, I don't follow this. How is enforcement involved here?
The example you gave showed a case where you've been promised something
and not given it, and you can't sue to get it. The copyright license case
is different, since there'
Glenn Maynard scripsit:
> He was given permission to do so, and nothing in that permission
> included a condition that the permission may be revoked at will.
The whole definition of "bare license" means a license that is unsupported
by consideration (i.e. not a contract):
A bare license
On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 10:01:59AM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> The GPL isn't a contract, everyone agrees on that. So how can the
> licensor be bound by it? If EvilCo buys the copyright of Alice's
> GPLed Hummity software, they can announce "No more GPL on Hummity" and then
> sue, say, Bob, who has
On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 03:26:54PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> The FSF is well familiar with this. It's one of the many reasons (or excuses)
> why Daniel Bernstein refuses to release his software under a free license,
> since he says that free licenses claim to grant more rights than are actually
>
On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 21:33:51 -0500 Glenn Maynard wrote:
> It seems that this license is actually doing two fundamentally
> distinct things: granting a license to people to do stuff, and making
> promises from the distributor/licensor. I think this combination is
> what makes it so confusing:
[...]
Francesco Poli scripsit:
> a) releasing the work under a real copyright license grant (such as the
> Expat a.k.a. MIT license http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt)
The AFL *is* a "real copyright license grant"; it already grants
everything the MIT license does and more.
> *and*
>
> b) offering
On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 03:26:54PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> The whole definition of "bare license" means a license that is unsupported
> by consideration (i.e. not a contract):
>
> A bare license must be executed by the party to whom it is given
> in person, and cannot be made over o
Glenn Maynard scripsit:
> If you can point to a US statute or case law echoing the above, or in
> some way suggesting that it's relevant to the US, then it might help
> give me the specific question for the FSF that I'm hunting for.
Well, Lynn v. Raney (1964 OK 212, 400 P.2d 805) is a real-proper
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:49:12 -0500 John Cowan wrote:
> Francesco Poli scripsit:
>
> > a) releasing the work under a real copyright license grant (such as
> > the Expat a.k.a. MIT license http://www.jclark.com/xml/copying.txt)
>
> The AFL *is* a "real copyright license grant"; it already grants
>
Francesco Poli scripsit:
> And that is probably another issue with contract-ish licenses: who is
> going to accept contracts? ftp-masters and all the mirror operators?
> That sounds problematic...
You are already distributing code under the MPL license, which is a
contract, in debian-stable main.
On Thu, 04 Nov 2004, John Cowan wrote:
> Francesco Poli scripsit:
> > And that is probably another issue with contract-ish licenses: who is
> > going to accept contracts? ftp-masters and all the mirror operators?
> > That sounds problematic...
>
> You are already distributing code under the MPL li
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Glenn Maynard
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
This isn't a legal principle, it's an assertion. Why is my grant of
copyright license revokable? I just can't find comparisons to "permission
to trespass" very convincing. (I've also heard things along the lines
of "allow
On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 09:33:51PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > > However, it seems that a similar possible problem exists with contracts:
> > > that they're not binding without consideration.
> >
> > "Consideration is as much a matter of form as seal." Any benefit to the
> > licensee, howev
On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 22:54:55 -0500 John Cowan wrote:
> You are already distributing code under the MPL license, which is a
> contract, in debian-stable main.
IIRC, the Mozilla relicensing is underway (though a bit slowly). Debian
is therefore waiting for any NPL/MPL-related issues to be solved.
On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 02:39:31PM -0300, Carlos Laviola wrote:
> > I must admit that I lack the legal expertise to claim that the AFL 2.1
> > conforms to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, since it talks about
> > needlessly complicated things like patents and jurisdictions.
>
> Both the Open S
On 2004-10-14 18:39:31 +0100 Carlos Laviola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
-- Forwarded message --
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[...]
Since none of us can possibly suffer a commercial loss, and since
FIGlet
is not registered with the Copyright Office, there is no one with
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:39:31 -0300 Carlos Laviola wrote:
[...]
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 13:27:26 -0400
> Subject: Re: figlet license change from Artistic to Clarified Artistic
> or Artistic 2.0?
> To: Carlos Laviola <
On Sun, Oct 17, 2004 at 01:23:42PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote:
> "stating that *you* changed the files" is weaker than requiring "stating
> that you changed the files and stating which *your name* is".
>
> Requiring that the modifier's name is placed in a comment line fails the
> Dissident Test.
(CC to John Cowan since most of this response is directed at him, and there's
no indication that he's on this list.)
On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 02:39:31PM -0300, Carlos Laviola wrote:
> From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> with the GNU GPL, but I (and the author of the AFL) believe this to be
> i
On 2004-10-18 22:58:58 +0100 Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
"Sublicensing" is an uncommon practice in free software licenses, so
we
(debian-legal) don't have a very good understanding of what it is, how
it works, and why it's used. Any input you can provide would be
helpful.
Subli
On Fri, Oct 15, 2004 at 10:57:44AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> I suspect Larry Rosen's work was part of the motive for Branden
> proposing the contract/ autocrat test for licences.
You're not wrong, but as you imply, he's far from the only offender.
--
G. Branden Robinson| The po
Note: lists.debian.org is refusing to allow me to subscribe: please
forward this post.
MJ Ray scripsit:
> Sublicensing means that you are still bound by the original licence,
> but you can offer any licence in the specified range to those you
> distribute to.
Quite so, and I should have clari
You can post to d-legal even if you're not subscribed.
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--
Glenn Maynard
--- Begin Message ---
(Please forward to debian-legal; I don't seem to be able to sign up for it
successfully.)
Glenn Maynard scripsit:
> This also implies that, for example, "Licensor hereby agrees to pro
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