Nabble - Debian Legal

Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-19T14:46:16Z

In message <7fdf4c21068c1acb3ed732c0cf862c1e.cherepan@...>,
Alexander Cherepanov <cherepan@...> writes

>Hi Anthony!
>On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:03:45 +0000, "Anthony W. Youngman"
><debian@...> wrote:
>
>>>>>> Or if they receive an UNALTERED copy from you! Because if you change the
>>>>>> licence (which you're not allowed to do) it's not an unaltered copy :-)
>>>
>>>>>Please don't not mix licenses and license grants:-)
>>>>>Let's consider it in more details: suppose I distribute your source
>>>>>code non-altered or non-creatively altered (so I don't have any
>>>>>copyright in this work) with GPLv3 attached and all references to
>>>>>other licenses (whether GPLv2 or BSD) stripped. AFAICS it's clearly
>>>>>permitted under clauses 4 and/or 5 of GPLv3.
>>>
>>>> In which case, you HAVE altered my work. You've removed part of it,
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>> namely the licence grant.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>
>>>Not necessarily but for simplicity let's consider the case when yes, I
>>>have altered you work.
>>>
>>>> Oh - and that probably is a very definite copyright violation :-)
>>>
>>>Please provide relevant quotes.
>>>
>>>> I didn't grant you a licence to do that,
>>>
>>>Sure you did, it's called GPLv3.
>
>> In that case, seeing as you're taking "the work" to INCLUDE the licence
>> grant,
>
>No, that's you who said that the work includes the license grant --
>see above, underlined.
>
>> I assume "the work" also includes the licence?
>
>No.
>
>> In which case I've
>> just given you permission to alter the GPL :-) Which I *haven't* because
>> I *can't*.
>
>Sure.
>
>>>> I granted you a licence to alter the program :-)
>>>
>>>You take the position that the program != the work? I'm suprised.
>
>> No. I'm taking the position that the licence *grant*, like the licence
>> *itself*, is OUTSIDE of the work. I don't actually see how it can,
>> legally, be part of the work itself, seeing as it's granting permissions
>> to the work.
>
>Ah, so you changed your position. Well, it doesn't matter whether the
>license grant is part of the work or not. If it is, it can be modified
>according to GPL. If it is not, GPL doesn't require to distribute it.

Let's assume the GPL doesn't require it to be distributed.

So you distribute a copy of my code, and a copy of the GPL. What right
does your recipient have to distribute my code? They have two separate
works, the GPL and my code, and NOTHING to link the two.

So they can't distribute my code, because they have nothing that says
they can. They have nothing that says the GPL that you gave them applies
to the code (mine) that you gave them.

>
>>>> And as someone else in this thread said, if they get one copy via one
>>>> route that is GPL, and another via another route that is BSD, they think
>>>> they can apply either licence to either copy. This is a very vague area.
>>>
>>>The copyright covers works, not copies. Accordingly GPL applies to
>>>works, not copies. So it doesn't metter which copy to use while it's
>>>the same work.
>
>> But the GPL (or BSD or whatever) ONLY applies if, separate from BOTH the
>> work, AND the licence, you have a document that tells you that the
>> licence applies to the work.
>
>Even if so, this only requires that you need two copies of such
>documents, not two copies of the work.
>
>>>> But as far as I am concerned, legal niceties aside, if I dual-licence my
>>>> work (such as, let's say, making it GPL v2+), if you strip off the v2
>>>> and change it to v3+ you are misrepresenting me to my users,
>>>
>>>I don't misrepresent you, I don't represent you at all. I just pass
>>>your work under GPLv3 and don't imply that you have licensed it under
>>>GPLv3 only in the first place.
>
>> Well, you MUST use GPLv3, or GPLv2, or GPL-whatever, to pass the work
>> on.
>
>Yes.
>
>> If your argument is correct, as I have said repeatedly, the mere act
>> of passing on a v2+ work (*completely* *unaltered*) would, before v3
>> came out, have stripped the "plus" permission because it would have been
>> distributed under v2.
>
>No.
>
>That's unreleated question. Whether it's possible to modify license
>grant doesn't matter when it's not modified.
>
>>>> and you are stripping my users of the rights I granted them. Doesn't
>>>> the GPL 2 itself say "you mustn't impose further restrictions"?
>>>
>>>Sure. And requirement to pass arbitrary license grants from original
>>>author is exactly further restriction. So you cannot require it (if
> ^^
>>>you want your program to be distributable).
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>> But that is a requirement *I* am imposing on *you* (which, as copyright
>> holder, I can do). Licence requirements NEVER apply to the copyright
>> holder. So I *can* require it of you.
>
>Sure, that's why I added the part in the parentheses -- see above.
>
>>>> What is removing
>>>> the option to use v2, if not an unpermitted "further restriction"?
>>>
>>>Then let's see what GPLv2 really says about it. From section 6:
>>>
>>> You may not impose any further
>>> restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
>>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>
>>>So I cannot impose restrictions outside GPLv2, not outside some
>>>license grant.
>
>> But without the licence grant, the GPLv2 doesn't apply. You seem to be
>> assuming the licence grant is unimportant.
>>
>> No grant, no licence!
>
>GPL itself requires to keep intact all notices stating that GPL
>applies to the code. So no problem here.

Ah! Keep *intact* *all* notices stating that the GPL applies to the
code.

So you would argue that, for example, changing my statement that "GPLv2+
applies" to "GPL v3 applies" is keeping *all* notices *intact*?

I'd describe that as butchering my notices, actually :-)

You got me on a couple of points, I think I've got you on this one :-)

>
>>>> While this may be a legal grey area, it isn't a grey moral area -
>>>> it's just unacceptable.
>>>
>>>I fully agree that it's important question. And would like to see some
>>>solid base here. Unfortunately, for now, I only see appeals to judge's
>>>common sense, morality etc.
>
>> Actually, as you can see, I'm convinced it's NOT a grey area. The
>> licence grant tells you that you can use the licence with relation to
>> the work. Therefore, the three (the licence, the grant and the work) are
>> *legally* *separate*.
>
>Actually I'm also convinced now (more or less) that it's NOT a grey
>area. Everybody preserves full license grants for upstream
>dual-licensed projects just because it's The Right Thing, not because
>it's legally required. And this is a feature, not a bug.
>
>It's quite in line with the section 7 of GPLv3:
>
> When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option
> remove any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part of
> it.
>
>BTW, Mozilla tri-license boilerplate also explicitly spells it out:
>
> http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/boilerplate-1.1/mpl-tri-license-txt
>
> Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of
> either the GNU General Public License Version 2 or later (the "GPL"), or
> the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1 or later (the "LGPL"),
> in which case the provisions of the GPL or the LGPL are applicable instead
> of those above. If you wish to allow use of your version of this file only
> under the terms of either the GPL or the LGPL, and not to allow others to
> use your version of this file under the terms of the MPL, indicate your
> decision by deleting the provisions above and replace them with the notice
> and other provisions required by the GPL or the LGPL. If you do not delete
> the provisions above, a recipient may use your version of this file under
> the terms of any one of the MPL, the GPL or the LGPL.

Notice that this gives you EXPLICIT PERMISSION to edit the licence grant
- permission which is notably lacking from the GPL.
>
>The only remaining question is what exactly means to "keep intact all
>notices stating that this License [...] apply to the code". If a
>notice is like "This program is licensed under BSD or GPL", does GPL
>require to keep it really intact or permits to drop "BSD or"?
>
If the GPL says "you have to keep it intact", then that's what it means!
As I said above, dropping the reference to BSD is imho butchering it,
not keeping it intact :-)

After all, dropping the reference to the GPL denies the recipient the
opportunity to use the GPL as their licence (because they have no
evidence that the GPL applies), so the GPL clearly doesn't consider that
"keeping the notice intact". So if dropping the GPL isn't keeping the
notice intact, dropping BSD can't be keeping the notice intact, either
:-) (or dropping v2, or the plus, or whatever).

Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - anthony@...

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-19T07:14:38Z

On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:47:29 +0300 Alexander Cherepanov wrote:

[...]
> Actually I'm also convinced now (more or less) that it's NOT a grey
> area. Everybody preserves full license grants for upstream
> dual-licensed projects just because it's The Right Thing, not because
> it's legally required. And this is a feature, not a bug.

For what it's worth, I am under the impression that Alexander is right
here...

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-19T06:47:29Z

Hi Anthony!
On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:03:45 +0000, "Anthony W. Youngman" <debian@...> wrote:

>>>>> Or if they receive an UNALTERED copy from you! Because if you change the
>>>>> licence (which you're not allowed to do) it's not an unaltered copy :-)
>>
>>>>Please don't not mix licenses and license grants:-)
>>>>Let's consider it in more details: suppose I distribute your source
>>>>code non-altered or non-creatively altered (so I don't have any
>>>>copyright in this work) with GPLv3 attached and all references to
>>>>other licenses (whether GPLv2 or BSD) stripped. AFAICS it's clearly
>>>>permitted under clauses 4 and/or 5 of GPLv3.
>>
>>> In which case, you HAVE altered my work. You've removed part of it,

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>> namely the licence grant.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>>
>>Not necessarily but for simplicity let's consider the case when yes, I
>>have altered you work.
>>
>>> Oh - and that probably is a very definite copyright violation :-)
>>
>>Please provide relevant quotes.
>>
>>> I didn't grant you a licence to do that,
>>
>>Sure you did, it's called GPLv3.

> In that case, seeing as you're taking "the work" to INCLUDE the licence
> grant,

No, that's you who said that the work includes the license grant --
see above, underlined.

> I assume "the work" also includes the licence?

No.

> In which case I've
> just given you permission to alter the GPL :-) Which I *haven't* because
> I *can't*.

Sure.

>>> I granted you a licence to alter the program :-)
>>
>>You take the position that the program != the work? I'm suprised.

> No. I'm taking the position that the licence *grant*, like the licence
> *itself*, is OUTSIDE of the work. I don't actually see how it can,
> legally, be part of the work itself, seeing as it's granting permissions
> to the work.

Ah, so you changed your position. Well, it doesn't matter whether the
license grant is part of the work or not. If it is, it can be modified
according to GPL. If it is not, GPL doesn't require to distribute it.

>>> And as someone else in this thread said, if they get one copy via one
>>> route that is GPL, and another via another route that is BSD, they think
>>> they can apply either licence to either copy. This is a very vague area.
>>
>>The copyright covers works, not copies. Accordingly GPL applies to
>>works, not copies. So it doesn't metter which copy to use while it's
>>the same work.

> But the GPL (or BSD or whatever) ONLY applies if, separate from BOTH the
> work, AND the licence, you have a document that tells you that the
> licence applies to the work.

Even if so, this only requires that you need two copies of such
documents, not two copies of the work.

>>> But as far as I am concerned, legal niceties aside, if I dual-licence my
>>> work (such as, let's say, making it GPL v2+), if you strip off the v2
>>> and change it to v3+ you are misrepresenting me to my users,
>>
>>I don't misrepresent you, I don't represent you at all. I just pass
>>your work under GPLv3 and don't imply that you have licensed it under
>>GPLv3 only in the first place.

> Well, you MUST use GPLv3, or GPLv2, or GPL-whatever, to pass the work
> on.

Yes.

> If your argument is correct, as I have said repeatedly, the mere act
> of passing on a v2+ work (*completely* *unaltered*) would, before v3
> came out, have stripped the "plus" permission because it would have been
> distributed under v2.

No.

That's unreleated question. Whether it's possible to modify license
grant doesn't matter when it's not modified.

>>> and you are stripping my users of the rights I granted them. Doesn't
>>> the GPL 2 itself say "you mustn't impose further restrictions"?
>>
>>Sure. And requirement to pass arbitrary license grants from original
>>author is exactly further restriction. So you cannot require it (if
^^
>>you want your program to be distributable).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> But that is a requirement *I* am imposing on *you* (which, as copyright
> holder, I can do). Licence requirements NEVER apply to the copyright
> holder. So I *can* require it of you.

Sure, that's why I added the part in the parentheses -- see above.

>>> What is removing
>>> the option to use v2, if not an unpermitted "further restriction"?
>>
>>Then let's see what GPLv2 really says about it. From section 6:
>>
>> You may not impose any further
>> restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>>So I cannot impose restrictions outside GPLv2, not outside some
>>license grant.

> But without the licence grant, the GPLv2 doesn't apply. You seem to be
> assuming the licence grant is unimportant.
>
> No grant, no licence!

GPL itself requires to keep intact all notices stating that GPL
applies to the code. So no problem here.

>>> While this may be a legal grey area, it isn't a grey moral area -
>>> it's just unacceptable.
>>
>>I fully agree that it's important question. And would like to see some
>>solid base here. Unfortunately, for now, I only see appeals to judge's
>>common sense, morality etc.

> Actually, as you can see, I'm convinced it's NOT a grey area. The
> licence grant tells you that you can use the licence with relation to
> the work. Therefore, the three (the licence, the grant and the work) are
> *legally* *separate*.

Actually I'm also convinced now (more or less) that it's NOT a grey
area. Everybody preserves full license grants for upstream
dual-licensed projects just because it's The Right Thing, not because
it's legally required. And this is a feature, not a bug.

It's quite in line with the section 7 of GPLv3:

When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option
remove any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part of
it.

BTW, Mozilla tri-license boilerplate also explicitly spells it out:

http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/boilerplate-1.1/mpl-tri-license-txt

Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of
either the GNU General Public License Version 2 or later (the "GPL"), or
the GNU Lesser General Public License Version 2.1 or later (the "LGPL"),
in which case the provisions of the GPL or the LGPL are applicable instead
of those above. If you wish to allow use of your version of this file only
under the terms of either the GPL or the LGPL, and not to allow others to
use your version of this file under the terms of the MPL, indicate your
decision by deleting the provisions above and replace them with the notice
and other provisions required by the GPL or the LGPL. If you do not delete
the provisions above, a recipient may use your version of this file under
the terms of any one of the MPL, the GPL or the LGPL.

The only remaining question is what exactly means to "keep intact all
notices stating that this License [...] apply to the code". If a
notice is like "This program is licensed under BSD or GPL", does GPL
require to keep it really intact or permits to drop "BSD or"?

Alexander Cherepanov

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-19T04:25:17Z

Hi Anthony!
On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:33:41 +0000, "Anthony W. Youngman" <debian@...> wrote:

>>> Basically, you can choose which licence you want to apply to YOU. But
>>> you pass on my package as a whole (including my permission to choose
>>> which licence). So that's where your recipients get the same choices you
>>> got.

>>I pass your code and GPLv3, there is no requirement to pass your full
>>license grant.

> Just spotted something important :-)
>
> WITHOUT MY COPYING FILE your recipient has no evidence that the GPLv3
> bears any relevance to my code.

They have no evidences in any case. If they see some text like "this
program is licensed under GPL", how would they know that it was not
arbitrarily added by some third-party in the way?

> You've just stripped all licencing from my code and

In our imaginary case I've stripped only irrelevant licensing and have
kept everything relevant to GPLv3.

> that MOST DEFINITELY IS a pretty blatant GPL violation!

Can you please back at least some of your statements by anything aside
from your own words?

> So to sum up, the GPL (whatever variant) is meaningless on its own.
> Passing the code on without my licencing grant is a GPL violation. And
> the GPL does NOT give you permission to change my grant.

Here is my take on it. The requirements for preserving copyright
notices etc. are in the section 4 of GPLv3:

4. Conveying Verbatim Copies.

You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you
receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and
appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice;

Yes, I have published "Copyright 2009 Anthony W. Youngman".

keep intact all notices stating that this License and any

Yes, all references to GPLv3 preserved. References to everything else
(GPLv2, GPLv4+, BSD etc.) stripped.

non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code;

Let's suppose there are no non-permissive terms.

keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty;

Yes, "No warranty" preserved.

and give all
recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.

Sure, GPLv3 attached.

If I modify your work I need to meet the conditions of the section 5
but this is not relevant to our discussion.

As a bottom line, all conditions of GPL (either version) are met,
GPL doesn't require to preserve license grants for any other licenses,
and requiring to preserve them is not permitted (at least under
GPLv2).

> My grant does give you the right to choose which licence applies to YOU.
> In fact, as I said elsewhere, you HAVE TO CHOOSE A SPECIFIC licence to
> apply to you.

Yes.

> If you choosing a specific licence stripped your
> recipients' right to choose which licence applied to them, there would
> be no point to the "or any later version" wording because that would be
> invalid for any recipient beyond the first person to get it direct from
> the copyright holder.

The point is that if I keep your full license grants then (and only
then) my recipients can choose a license. But if I keep only the
license which applies to me then they cannot choose a license.

Alexander Cherepanov

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-19T03:03:45Z

In message <65986059fd940d55852a9fc4350fadd5.cherepan@...>,
Alexander Cherepanov <cherepan@...> writes

>Hi Anthony!
>On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:17:48 +0000, "Anthony W. Youngman"
><debian@...> wrote:
>
>>>> Or if they receive an UNALTERED copy from you! Because if you change the
>>>> licence (which you're not allowed to do) it's not an unaltered copy :-)
>
>>>Please don't not mix licenses and license grants:-)
>>>Let's consider it in more details: suppose I distribute your source
>>>code non-altered or non-creatively altered (so I don't have any
>>>copyright in this work) with GPLv3 attached and all references to
>>>other licenses (whether GPLv2 or BSD) stripped. AFAICS it's clearly
>>>permitted under clauses 4 and/or 5 of GPLv3.
>
>> In which case, you HAVE altered my work. You've removed part of it,
>> namely the licence grant.
>
>Not necessarily but for simplicity let's consider the case when yes, I
>have altered you work.
>
>> Oh - and that probably is a very definite copyright violation :-)
>
>Please provide relevant quotes.
>
>> I didn't grant you a licence to do that,
>
>Sure you did, it's called GPLv3.

In that case, seeing as you're taking "the work" to INCLUDE the licence
grant, I assume "the work" also includes the licence? In which case I've
just given you permission to alter the GPL :-) Which I *haven't* because
I *can't*.
>
>> I granted you a licence to alter the program :-)
>
>You take the position that the program != the work? I'm suprised.

No. I'm taking the position that the licence *grant*, like the licence
*itself*, is OUTSIDE of the work. I don't actually see how it can,
legally, be part of the work itself, seeing as it's granting permissions
to the work.
>
>> And as someone else in this thread said, if they get one copy via one
>> route that is GPL, and another via another route that is BSD, they think
>> they can apply either licence to either copy. This is a very vague area.
>
>The copyright covers works, not copies. Accordingly GPL applies to
>works, not copies. So it doesn't metter which copy to use while it's
>the same work.

But the GPL (or BSD or whatever) ONLY applies if, separate from BOTH the
work, AND the licence, you have a document that tells you that the
licence applies to the work.
>
>> But as far as I am concerned, legal niceties aside, if I dual-licence my
>> work (such as, let's say, making it GPL v2+), if you strip off the v2
>> and change it to v3+ you are misrepresenting me to my users,
>
>I don't misrepresent you, I don't represent you at all. I just pass
>your work under GPLv3 and don't imply that you have licensed it under
>GPLv3 only in the first place.

Well, you MUST use GPLv3, or GPLv2, or GPL-whatever, to pass the work
on. If your argument is correct, as I have said repeatedly, the mere act
of passing on a v2+ work (*completely* *unaltered*) would, before v3
came out, have stripped the "plus" permission because it would have been
distributed under v2.
>
>> and you are stripping my users of the rights I granted them. Doesn't
>> the GPL 2 itself say "you mustn't impose further restrictions"?
>
>Sure. And requirement to pass arbitrary license grants from original
>author is exactly further restriction. So you cannot require it (if
>you want your program to be distributable).

But that is a requirement *I* am imposing on *you* (which, as copyright
holder, I can do). Licence requirements NEVER apply to the copyright
holder. So I *can* require it of you.

>
>> What is removing
>> the option to use v2, if not an unpermitted "further restriction"?
>
>Then let's see what GPLv2 really says about it. From section 6:
>
> You may not impose any further
> restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>So I cannot impose restrictions outside GPLv2, not outside some
>license grant.

But without the licence grant, the GPLv2 doesn't apply. You seem to be
assuming the licence grant is unimportant.

No grant, no licence!
>
>> While this may be a legal grey area, it isn't a grey moral area -
>> it's just unacceptable.
>
>I fully agree that it's important question. And would like to see some
>solid base here. Unfortunately, for now, I only see appeals to judge's
>common sense, morality etc.
>
Actually, as you can see, I'm convinced it's NOT a grey area. The
licence grant tells you that you can use the licence with relation to
the work. Therefore, the three (the licence, the grant and the work) are
*legally* *separate*.

Therefore, while the GPL gives you permission to alter the work, it does
not give you permission to alter the (legally separate from the work)
licence grant, which tells you that you have that permission!

Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - anthony@...

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-19T02:24:26Z

Hi Anthony!
On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:17:48 +0000, "Anthony W. Youngman" <debian@...> wrote:

>>> Or if they receive an UNALTERED copy from you! Because if you change the
>>> licence (which you're not allowed to do) it's not an unaltered copy :-)

>>Please don't not mix licenses and license grants:-)
>>Let's consider it in more details: suppose I distribute your source
>>code non-altered or non-creatively altered (so I don't have any
>>copyright in this work) with GPLv3 attached and all references to
>>other licenses (whether GPLv2 or BSD) stripped. AFAICS it's clearly
>>permitted under clauses 4 and/or 5 of GPLv3.

> In which case, you HAVE altered my work. You've removed part of it,
> namely the licence grant.

Not necessarily but for simplicity let's consider the case when yes, I
have altered you work.

> Oh - and that probably is a very definite copyright violation :-)

Please provide relevant quotes.

> I didn't grant you a licence to do that,

Sure you did, it's called GPLv3.

> I granted you a licence to alter the program :-)

You take the position that the program != the work? I'm suprised.

> And as someone else in this thread said, if they get one copy via one
> route that is GPL, and another via another route that is BSD, they think
> they can apply either licence to either copy. This is a very vague area.

The copyright covers works, not copies. Accordingly GPL applies to
works, not copies. So it doesn't metter which copy to use while it's
the same work.

> But as far as I am concerned, legal niceties aside, if I dual-licence my
> work (such as, let's say, making it GPL v2+), if you strip off the v2
> and change it to v3+ you are misrepresenting me to my users,

I don't misrepresent you, I don't represent you at all. I just pass
your work under GPLv3 and don't imply that you have licensed it under
GPLv3 only in the first place.

> and you are stripping my users of the rights I granted them. Doesn't
> the GPL 2 itself say "you mustn't impose further restrictions"?

Sure. And requirement to pass arbitrary license grants from original
author is exactly further restriction. So you cannot require it (if
you want your program to be distributable).

> What is removing
> the option to use v2, if not an unpermitted "further restriction"?

Then let's see what GPLv2 really says about it. From section 6:

You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

So I cannot impose restrictions outside GPLv2, not outside some
license grant.

> While this may be a legal grey area, it isn't a grey moral area -
> it's just unacceptable.

I fully agree that it's important question. And would like to see some
solid base here. Unfortunately, for now, I only see appeals to judge's
common sense, morality etc.

Alexander Cherepanov

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-18T14:33:41Z

In message <9f4091d0c9afc9ede2ecc519bd6830bb.cherepan@...>,
Alexander Cherepanov <cherepan@...> writes
>> Basically, you can choose which licence you want to apply to YOU. But
>> you pass on my package as a whole (including my permission to choose
>> which licence). So that's where your recipients get the same choices you
>> got.
>
>I pass your code and GPLv3, there is no requirement to pass your full
>license grant.

Just spotted something important :-)

WITHOUT MY COPYING FILE your recipient has no evidence that the GPLv3
bears any relevance to my code. You've just stripped all licencing from
my code and that MOST DEFINITELY IS a pretty blatant GPL violation!

So to sum up, the GPL (whatever variant) is meaningless on its own.
Passing the code on without my licencing grant is a GPL violation. And
the GPL does NOT give you permission to change my grant.

My grant does give you the right to choose which licence applies to YOU.
In fact, as I said elsewhere, you HAVE TO CHOOSE A SPECIFIC licence to
apply to you. If you choosing a specific licence stripped your
recipients' right to choose which licence applied to them, there would
be no point to the "or any later version" wording because that would be
invalid for any recipient beyond the first person to get it direct from
the copyright holder.

Cheers,
Wol
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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-18T02:17:48Z

In message <9f4091d0c9afc9ede2ecc519bd6830bb.cherepan@...>,
Alexander Cherepanov <cherepan@...> writes
>> Or if they receive an UNALTERED copy from you! Because if you change the
>> licence (which you're not allowed to do) it's not an unaltered copy :-)
>
>Please don't not mix licenses and license grants:-)
>Let's consider it in more details: suppose I distribute your source
>code non-altered or non-creatively altered (so I don't have any
>copyright in this work) with GPLv3 attached and all references to
>other licenses (whether GPLv2 or BSD) stripped. AFAICS it's clearly
>permitted under clauses 4 and/or 5 of GPLv3.

In which case, you HAVE altered my work. You've removed part of it,
namely the licence grant.

Oh - and that probably is a very definite copyright violation :-) I
didn't grant you a licence to do that, I granted you a licence to alter
the program :-)

And as someone else in this thread said, if they get one copy via one
route that is GPL, and another via another route that is BSD, they think
they can apply either licence to either copy. This is a very vague area.

But as far as I am concerned, legal niceties aside, if I dual-licence my
work (such as, let's say, making it GPL v2+), if you strip off the v2
and change it to v3+ you are misrepresenting me to my users, and you are
stripping my users of the rights I granted them. Doesn't the GPL 2
itself say "you mustn't impose further restrictions"? What is removing
the option to use v2, if not an unpermitted "further restriction"? While
this may be a legal grey area, it isn't a grey moral area - it's just
unacceptable.

Cheers,
Wol
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Re: Fwd: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-17T18:42:11Z

On 12/18/09, Ben Finney <ben+debian@...> wrote:

> Andrew Donnellan <ajdlinux@...> writes:
>
>> On 12/18/09, Ben Finney <ben+debian@...> wrote:
>> > I'm doubtful that it's correct to say “If it's copyright, it has an
>> > owner”. Copyright is *not* a property right; it's a different
>> > monopoly right. Monopolies are held; that doesn't make the holder of
>> > a monopoly the “owner” in a property sense.
>> >
>> > IANAL, but it seems the attempt to frame copyright as property is
>> > not founded in its inception nor its effects.
>>
>> As much as a lot of us want to disagree with it, the law does
>> explicitly state that copyright is property
>
> That is answering the question of what specific laws say in specific
> jurisdictions, which is not a question I raised.
>
> While it's true that the wording of copyright law in specific
> jurisdictions is where it actually matters, this sub-thread is about the
> correct *framing* of copyright.
>
> Which is why I'm arguing from the inception and effects of copyright, to
> point out that copyright wasn't conceived as property, nor is it
> sensible to see its effects in terms of property. So we should avoid the
> framing of copyright as *necessarily* a property right; that wasn't the
> case in the past, so we don't need to accept that it will remain so.
>
> Our framing should be in accordance with that.

I understand what you're saying - admittedly I'm not really keeping up
with this thread so I haven't really been thinking about the context,
but whenever we say that copyright shouldn't be treated as property,
the fact is the law says it's property. Although in response to the
original question about the term 'proprietary software', this being
debian-legal we all understand the FSF use of the term.

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Re: Fwd: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-17T18:33:01Z

Andrew Donnellan <ajdlinux@...> writes:

> On 12/18/09, Ben Finney <ben+debian@...> wrote:
> > I'm doubtful that it's correct to say “If it's copyright, it has an
> > owner”. Copyright is *not* a property right; it's a different
> > monopoly right. Monopolies are held; that doesn't make the holder of
> > a monopoly the “owner” in a property sense.
> >
> > IANAL, but it seems the attempt to frame copyright as property is
> > not founded in its inception nor its effects.
>
> As much as a lot of us want to disagree with it, the law does
> explicitly state that copyright is property

That is answering the question of what specific laws say in specific
jurisdictions, which is not a question I raised.

While it's true that the wording of copyright law in specific
jurisdictions is where it actually matters, this sub-thread is about the
correct *framing* of copyright.

Which is why I'm arguing from the inception and effects of copyright, to
point out that copyright wasn't conceived as property, nor is it
sensible to see its effects in terms of property. So we should avoid the
framing of copyright as *necessarily* a property right; that wasn't the
case in the past, so we don't need to accept that it will remain so.

Our framing should be in accordance with that.

--
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`\ enemy from oppression.” —Thomas Paine |
_o__) |
Ben Finney

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Re: Fwd: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-17T16:50:46Z

On 12/18/09, Ben Finney <ben+debian@...> wrote:
> I'm doubtful that it's correct to say “If it's copyright, it has an
> owner”. Copyright is *not* a property right; it's a different monopoly
> right. Monopolies are held; that doesn't make the holder of a monopoly
> the “owner” in a property sense.
>
> IANAL, but it seems the attempt to frame copyright as property is not
> founded in its inception nor its effects.

As much as a lot of us want to disagree with it, the law does
explicitly state that copyright is property - see e.g. Copyright Act
1968 (Cth) s196(1): "Copyright is personal property..."

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Re: Fwd: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-17T16:38:34Z

Francesco Poli <frx@...> writes:

> On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:00:48 +0000 Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
>
> > If it's copyright, it's proprietary.
> >
> > "proprietary" == "property". If it's copyright, it has an owner,
> > therefore it's property, therefore it's proprietary.
>
> Your reasoning does not seem incorrect.

I'm doubtful that it's correct to say “If it's copyright, it has an
owner”. Copyright is *not* a property right; it's a different monopoly
right. Monopolies are held; that doesn't make the holder of a monopoly
the “owner” in a property sense.

IANAL, but it seems the attempt to frame copyright as property is not
founded in its inception nor its effects.

--
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`\ television and could not exist in its present form without it.” |
_o__) —John Kenneth Galbraith, _The New Industrial State_, 1967 |
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Re: Fwd: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-17T15:30:20Z

On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:00:48 +0000 Anthony W. Youngman wrote:

> In message <20091216233823.af491478.frx@...>, Francesco
> Poli <frx@...> writes
> >> The second question may seem strange, but why copyleft license is
> >> used?
> >
> >Hopefully in order to prevent the distribution of proprietary
> >derivative works...
>
> CLOSED derivative works.
>
> If it's copyright, it's proprietary.
>
> "proprietary" == "property". If it's copyright, it has an owner,
> therefore it's property, therefore it's proprietary.

Your reasoning does not seem incorrect.

However, I use the term "proprietary software" as a synonym of
"non-free software" (that is to say, anything that is not Free
Software).
In this regard, I follow the FSF terminology.

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Ideas For Change opens up for bloggers and enters phase 2

2009-12-17T14:36:49Z

Hi,

We are very proud to enter phase two in IdeasForChange.tv, our ambitious project building a platform that will become an active tool to improve our world. We do this by collecting ideas and connect them to the right problem. We do this to give you better tools to connect and build projects.

News
We have opened up the possibility to register to the site and start blogging and engaging. Please go to http://www.ideasforchange.tv/wp-login.php?action=register and become a member. by entering a username and e-mail All posts will go through our editorial team first, at this point. We have also created a donation button and if you like what we do, please use our new DONATE button on the top right part of the site. All contributions will go directly to the "Idea of the year" prize that we will give out next fall.

Status and info
At this point we have received approximately 500 films and have more then 60 writers (not all on regular basis). The interest is big and we have started several collaborations both with NGOs but also with politics, strategic partners and communities. We have added some new categories and continuously taking care of the films, texts and causes we receive.

Please note that the subscription to the newsletter form on the website has been down from September to November so if you have entered your e-mail you have to please do that again.

The next step, in April/May 2010, is to connect the dots and this means allowing you guys to start your own groups, categories and discussion forums and connect that to politics, the community and the companies. And to problems that need to be solved.

Please enjoy, spread the word if you will and engage!

/The Ideas For Change Global Team

Visit the web site IdeasForChange.TV

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-17T14:19:35Z

Hi Anthony!
On Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:34:27 +0000, "Anthony W. Youngman" <debian@...> wrote:

>>In section 10 (GPLv3):
>>
>> 10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.
>>
>> Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically
>> receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and
>> propagate that work, subject to this License. [...]
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[skip]
>>> Actually, that then totally destroys the whole point of "v3 or later" if
>>> you choosing v3 takes away your recipients rights to choose according to
>>> the original author's grant!
>>
>>They are always free to get the program directly from original author
>>(put aside the case of a program combined from different sources for a
>>moment:-). Then they have a choice of license.

> But the law (generally) given the choice between a sensible
> interpretation, and an alternative that is either ludicrous or obviously
> not what was intended, will *usually* choose the sensible one.

Yep, but in this case we have a unequivocal statement in the license.
To say that what is written is obviously not what was intended, is,
well, quite a stretch IMHO.

>>Yet another variation: suppose you licensed your program to Alice
>>under BSD and to Bob under GPLv3. Does recipients which get your
>>program from Bob get "BSD or GPLv3" or just GPLv3?

> Bob's recipients get just GPLv3. That's all he got, that's all he can
> pass on.
>
> To make it even worse, if somebody got one copy from Alice and one from
> Bob,

Yes, this is even more interesting.

> I guess technically they'd have to keep the two copies (and
> associated licences) separate unless they contacted me and got my
> permission to combine them!

I don't think so. Licenses apply to works, not copies.

>>> At the end of the day, YOU need a licence to distribute my code. My
>>> grant gives you a choice of v2 or v3. Whether you choose v2 or v3, your
>>> recipient then gets the same grant as you did,
>>
>>Sorry, I don't see where it comes from.

> Basically, you can choose which licence you want to apply to YOU. But
> you pass on my package as a whole (including my permission to choose
> which licence). So that's where your recipients get the same choices you
> got.

I pass your code and GPLv3, there is no requirement to pass your full
license grant.

>>> and they can also choose v2 or v3.
>>> If your choice of v3 took away your recipients choice of v2 I
>>> would consider that a VERY retrograde step.
>>
>>I agree and would be happy to learn where I'm wrong.
>>
>>> But at the end of the day, it's simple. If I say "v2 or v3" then I
>>> granted EVERY recipient of my code the right to *choose*.
>>
>>Yes, if they receive from you directly.

> Or if they receive an UNALTERED copy from you! Because if you change the
> licence (which you're not allowed to do) it's not an unaltered copy :-)

Please don't not mix licenses and license grants:-)
Let's consider it in more details: suppose I distribute your source
code non-altered or non-creatively altered (so I don't have any
copyright in this work) with GPLv3 attached and all references to
other licenses (whether GPLv2 or BSD) stripped. AFAICS it's clearly
permitted under clauses 4 and/or 5 of GPLv3.

Alexander Cherepanov

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-17T10:39:40Z

On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:06:41 +0100 Andrew Dalke wrote:

[...]
> The best counter example
> is the GFDL->Creative Commons relicensing, when the original GFDL's
> license grant is essentially identical to the GPLs.

Sorry, but I strongly disagree with your statement about the presumed
"essential identity" between the GFDL and the GPL.

The Debian Project has established (through General Resolution
GR-2006-001: http://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001 ) that GFDL'ed
works without invariant material comply with the DFSG, but recognizes
that even such works are *not* free of trouble.
No comparable problematic clauses are found in the GPL.

Moreover, I personally think that even GFDL'ed works without invariant
material *fail* to comply with the DFSG, due to the other problematic
clauses. If you take a look at the GR outcome, you'll see that my
opinion is shared by a significant minority of Debian developers.

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-17T10:10:38Z

Andrew Dalke wrote:
> On Dec 17, 2009, at 3:41 AM, MJ Ray wrote:
> > Maybe a proper citation instead of a bare URL
> > would have helped avoid this confusion. (Line wraps would help too.)
>
> Since my first post, of which I think you are talking about, also
> included the book title and author name, I figured that was
> sufficient. [...]

It included a variation of the book title, so it's not reasonable to
blame anyone for being confused about whether it was exactly the same
book or not.

> I think you're the first person in about 12 years to mention that
> linewraps are a problem. I stopped carefully linewrapping [...]

Don't carefully linewrap - fix the mail client. I suspect Apple Mail
is missing format=flowed when you want it, but I don't know for sure.
I guess this nicely spikey reply might be why people stopped
mentioning the breakage about 12 years ago. Not fun. I don't
bother that much any more, but this list hasn't generally succumbed
to the waves of Outlook easy-to-write-but-hard-to-read emails yet.

> > So people who were persuaded to buy the book were persuaded by the book
> > - is that surprising for this type of book?
>
> Pardon? One isn't required to purchase an item via Amazon before one
> can comment on said item, at least to my understanding. I believe
> one could get the book from the library and also comment on Amazon.
> Or read parts of it online and gratis, as I did.

I click "Create a Review". The options are "No, I am a new customer"
and "Yes, I have a password". Nothing suggests a way for non-customers
to comment. Maybe it's possible, but it seems like a minority sport.

> > Also, remember that Amazon ...
>
> It seemed an appropriate source to try to understand if the views of
> Youngman were singular, rare, or widely espoused.

and I explained why the click-to-buy patenter's site might not be an
appropriate source. OK?

[...]
> Again, I was not thorough. Given that the response came so quickly
> I would assume it's a matter of a few moments to point to something
> definite, and that my details responses would indicate that it's
> not a trivially found and widely expressed idea.

Assumption is the mother of all mistakes. There's also the point
that Larry Rosen does seem to be a smart lawyer who can make a
convincing argument which mere developers can't perfectly refute
even if we're sure the conclusions like pay-my-lawyers are wrong.

[...]
> I still hold that Youngman is wrong in saying that relicensing takes
> away user rights, as a universal statement. The best counter example
> is the GFDL->Creative Commons relicensing, when the original GFDL's
> license grant is essentially identical to the GPLs.

OK, if that's the counter example, please show how a user can obtain
the same rights they would have had with the GFDL'd copy when they
only obtain one under a CC licence?

Relicensing seems to remove a possible licence for everyone
downstream.

[...]
> > As far as I recall (I read it too long ago), the book was partly a
> > sales pitch for Rosen's licences
>
> I did not notice anything in the chapters I read which mentioned any
> of his licenses. I did not read the entire book. Nor do I know of the
> 5-point definition of which you also spoke. It may have occurred
> after he published the book.

So you haven't read it and you made these conclusions? It sounds like
you are going off at half-cock. There's a free online copy, you know.

> [...] There's also
> the doctrinaire point that Debian considers the Artistic License to
> be free, in opposition to GNU.

This isn't that black-and-white. It's far fuzzier than that.

GNU actually says "We cannot say that this is a free software license
because it is too vague; some passages are too clever for their own
good, and their meaning is not clear."
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ArtisticLicense

So, they are not willing to rule it in, but they don't really rule it
out and they do accept it as part of perl's licence:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#PerlLicense

For whatever reason, ftpmasters may have decided it's vague but good
enough. Thanks to Artistic 2, this is a disappearing problem.

> [...] rather than blunt
> statements about my need to do yet more work, or vague and not easily
> confirmed statements regarding the character of the people involved.

Sure, but it's a bit hard if someone challenges one to justify an
opinion of another person on a mutual project years ago with
documentary evidence.

Given how long this project has been running, sometimes debian-legal
contributors are primary sources, odd as that may seem. They still
benefit from verifying in secondary sources, but inability to find
such secondary sources doesn't make them wrong necessarily, just
unverified.

Regards,
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Obrigado pela ajuda - Feliz 2010

2009-12-17T09:02:04Z

No próximo ano...

Desejamos que os seus sonhos lhe sirvam de inspiração para realizar e sentir que a vida é um presente de Deus para você.

Um ótimo Natal e uma ano 2010 maravilhoso.

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-17T01:20:20Z

In message <20091217024135.AF5A9F7114@...>, MJ Ray
<mjr@...> writes

>Andrew Dalke wrote:
>> On Dec 14, 2009, at 9:16 PM, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
>> > I can't be bothered to read the book, but if it's the book I think
>> >it is, then I already have read it and came to the conclusion that
>> >the author was blind.
>[...]
>> > Read it for yourself, make sure you've got a copy of the GPL next
>> >you so you can *check* every reference he makes, and see if you come
>> >to the same conclusion I did, namely that the black letter of the
>> >GPL flatly contradicted the core assumption on which a large part of
>> >this book is based.
>>
>> You haven't read it and you made that conclusion? It sounds like you
>>are promulgating hearsay and rumor. There's a free online copy which I
>>linked to, and if what you are saying is right then it should be easy
>>to point out some of the contradictions.
>
>This part followed "if it's the book I think it is, then I already
>have read it". Maybe the contradictions aren't in the part of the
>book linked, but elsewhere in the book read. The link seemed to be to
>a PDF of part of a book and Anthony W. Youngman wrote that he couldn't
>be bothered to read it. Maybe a proper citation instead of a bare URL
>would have helped avoid this confusion. (Line wraps would help too.)

Spot on. I tried to get back to find the TOC of the book, but once I
stripped the page url, all I got was the home page, with no useful links
I could find to get at the rest of the book.
>
>Further, Anthony W. Youngman isn't the only debian-legal contributor
>to think Larry Rosen's interpretations should not be taken wholesale,
>nor the only one who can't give full citations because those
>impressions were formed by interactions as much as literature. I'm
>another and I'm pretty sure there are others.
>
Okay, I'll explain LONG-hand my problems with Larry.

His critique of the GPL is based *entirely* on the premise that the GPL
*implicitly* allows sublicensing. The GPL itself in black letter states
"if the GPL does not explicitly allow sublicencing, then it isn't
allowed" (not an exact quote I'll admit ... but it's what the GPL says).
I think I pointed to that very clause ...

I'm sorry, but if a lawyer can't understand BASIC legalese, then I don't
trust them to be able to understand anything else!

Cheers,
Wol
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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-16T20:06:41Z

On Dec 17, 2009, at 3:41 AM, MJ Ray wrote:
> This part followed "if it's the book I think it is, then I already
> have read it". Maybe the contradictions aren't in the part of the
> book linked, but elsewhere in the book read.

Indeed. BTW, I should have interpreted the original phrase as "read
the linked document" rather than "read the book."

I have not found those contradictions, and as I asked in my
earlier response I would like an example.

> Maybe a proper citation instead of a bare URL
> would have helped avoid this confusion. (Line wraps would help too.)

Since my first post, of which I think you are talking about, also
included the book title and author name, I figured that was
sufficient. Should I have also included publication year and
publishing company? Or do I have to give the proper citation every
time I repeat the same book link in a thread?

I think you're the first person in about 12 years to mention that
linewraps are a problem. I stopped carefully linewrapping when I
started seeing all my nicely wrapped text look ugly once >quoted a few
times and displayed on systems which had automatic wrapping. I
thought that nearly all of the email programs did that these days,
including the text-based ones. Linewrapping at fixed column sizes
also looks very ragged when viewed with proportional fonts.

> Further, Anthony W. Youngman isn't the only debian-legal contributor
> to think Larry Rosen's interpretations should not be taken wholesale,
> nor the only one who can't give full citations because those
> impressions were formed by interactions as much as literature. I'm
> another and I'm pretty sure there are others.

Eternal September. I've never posted here before, and I'll be
unsubscribing soon, once this thread is over. They did not come
up in my searches for more information about this topic.

> So people who were persuaded to buy the book were persuaded by the book
> - is that surprising for this type of book?

Pardon? One isn't required to purchase an item via Amazon before one
can comment on said item, at least to my understanding. I believe
one could get the book from the library and also comment on Amazon.
Or read parts of it online and gratis, as I did.

> Also, remember that Amazon ...

It seemed an appropriate source to try to understand if the views of
Youngman were singular, rare, or widely espoused. It wasn't my only
information source used to construct my reply, and I gave references
to those other sources, including two letters by Stallman defending
Rosen from more egregious statements made by reviewers of Rosen's
book.

In one of them Stallman does point out that Rosen's criticism
did not hold up in court, but that is the only criticism I could
find regarding the book that I could find from a freedom perspective.

Again, I was not thorough. Given that the response came so quickly
I would assume it's a matter of a few moments to point to something
definite, and that my details responses would indicate that it's
not a trivially found and widely expressed idea.

> It scores 3.8 our of 5 on http://www.librarything.com/work/72601
> (compared to 4.17 for Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of
> Richard M. Stallman http://www.librarything.com/work/179957 which
> I think is the highest-rated book in the cluster: read them yet?)

I had never heard of librarything before this. I will have to look at
it some more.

I have not read that collection of essays by Stallman. The point I was
researching was in regards to Youngman's comment

I'm always wary of explicitly relicencing. The GPL doesn't
permit it, and by doing so you are taking away user rights.

Searching Stallman's book now I see that "relicense" is not mentioned
and "sublicense" is only mentioned as parts of the quoted GNU
licenses. It provides no extra information to this topic.

I still hold that Youngman is wrong in saying that relicensing takes
away user rights, as a universal statement. The best counter example
is the GFDL->Creative Commons relicensing, when the original GFDL's
license grant is essentially identical to the GPLs. He urged me to
"Read what the GPL says, CAREFULLY", but I see nothing in GPLv2 which
prevents the addition of a relicensing clause of the kind which
occurred with GFDL.

Rosen's book, on the other hand, did specifically discuss the need for
sublicensing and relicensing, and helped me understand some of the
changes that went into GPLv3. As well, it helped me understand some
of the nuances between the BSD and MIT licenses.

> As far as I recall (I read it too long ago), the book was partly a
> sales pitch for Rosen's licences

I did not notice anything in the chapters I read which mentioned any
of his licenses. I did not read the entire book. Nor do I know of the
5-point definition of which you also spoke. It may have occurred
after he published the book.

> it
> should be immediately obvious that that book is probably going to have
> an inflammatory perspective. Its title is "Open Source Licensing:
> Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law" which manages to
> squeeze two of http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html into
> one book title.

Indeed, I did notice that. As a quibble point, the book covers the
original Artistic License, and GNU says that the Artistic License is
not a free license. Had the title been "Free Software Licensing" then
it would not have been able to do so. I suppose it could have included
a "*" and a note "(plus an extra open source license)". There's also
the doctrinaire point that Debian considers the Artistic License to
be free, in opposition to GNU.

> Hope that illuminates,

Mostly showing my newbie Eternal September aspect. It reveals
that I do not know the people behind this topic.

In the other direction, pointers to existing documents help me better
than statements which, based on my limited but non-trivial research,
are not defensible. I provided the documentary details to show how I
drew my conclusions, and I prefer responses like yours which bring up
additional topics which I had not heard of, rather than blunt
statements about my need to do yet more work, or vague and not easily
confirmed statements regarding the character of the people involved.

Andrew
dalke@...

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-16T18:41:35Z

Andrew Dalke wrote:
> On Dec 14, 2009, at 9:16 PM, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
> > I can't be bothered to read the book, but if it's the book I think it is, then I already have read it and came to the conclusion that the author was blind.
[...]
> > Read it for yourself, make sure you've got a copy of the GPL next to you so you can *check* every reference he makes, and see if you come to the same conclusion I did, namely that the black letter of the GPL flatly contradicted the core assumption on which a large part of this book is based.
>
> You haven't read it and you made that conclusion? It sounds like you are promulgating hearsay and rumor. There's a free online copy which I linked to, and if what you are saying is right then it should be easy to point out some of the contradictions.

This part followed "if it's the book I think it is, then I already
have read it". Maybe the contradictions aren't in the part of the
book linked, but elsewhere in the book read. The link seemed to be to
a PDF of part of a book and Anthony W. Youngman wrote that he couldn't
be bothered to read it. Maybe a proper citation instead of a bare URL
would have helped avoid this confusion. (Line wraps would help too.)

Further, Anthony W. Youngman isn't the only debian-legal contributor
to think Larry Rosen's interpretations should not be taken wholesale,
nor the only one who can't give full citations because those
impressions were formed by interactions as much as literature. I'm
another and I'm pretty sure there are others.

> BTW, none of the reviewers on Amazon agree with you
> http://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/product-reviews/0131487876/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
> and I thought that if the the book would be that poorly written then there would be some evidence. [...]

So people who were persuaded to buy the book were persuaded by the book
- is that surprising for this type of book?

Also, remember that Amazon filed the notorious click-to-buy patent,
uses DRM/TPM to erase books from their e-book reader (RMS called it
the Amazon Swindle) and tries to overthrow laws they don't like (such
as France's Lang Law), so some free software fans won't touch them
with a bargepole. It's not a good place to go for reviews of free
software related books.

It scores 3.8 our of 5 on http://www.librarything.com/work/72601
(compared to 4.17 for Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of
Richard M. Stallman http://www.librarything.com/work/179957 which
I think is the highest-rated book in the cluster: read them yet?)

As far as I recall (I read it too long ago), the book was partly a
sales pitch for Rosen's licences and also included an attempt to
correct one of the big mistakes of the Open Source Initiative and pick
a 5-point definition of Open Source which could actually compete with
the 4-point Free Software Definition. I think OSI still use 10
points, so that's how convincing the book is.

Even without knowing the problems of the choice-of-venue and
pay-my-lawyers clauses in Larry Rosen's quesionable licences, it
should be immediately obvious that that book is probably going to have
an inflammatory perspective. Its title is "Open Source Licensing:
Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law" which manages to
squeeze two of http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html into
one book title.

Hope that illuminates,
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Re: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-16T17:45:57Z

On Dec 17, 2009, at 2:00 AM, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
> CLOSED derivative works.
>
> If it's copyright, it's proprietary.
>
> "proprietary" == "property". If it's copyright, it has an owner, therefore it's property, therefore it's proprietary.

Although the GNU project disagrees again with your viewpoint:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
“Closed”
Describing nonfree software as “closed” clearly refers
to the term “open source”. In the free software movement,
we do not want to be confused with the open source camp,
so we are careful to avoid saying things that would
encourage people to lump us in with them. For instance,
we avoid describing nonfree software as “closed”. We call
it “nonfree” or “proprietary”.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#ProprietarySoftware
Proprietary software is software that is not free or
semi-free. Its use, redistribution or modification is
prohibited, or requires you to ask for permission, or
is restricted so much that you effectively can't do it freely.

Of course, in this regard Stallman's well known viewpoint that "intellectual property" is a legal unjustifiable term as copyright, patent, and trademark law are not based in property rights at all, is counter to what I expect most lawyers would say.

(I say that if a dwarf planet like Pluto isn't a planet then it holds that intellectual property might also not be property. But I'm just a guy on a couch.)

In the context of debian-legal, especially where the term "copyleft" is used, I would have assumed that the default vocabulary is well aligned with that of GNU, and to be expected.

Andrew
dalke@...

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Re: Fwd: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-16T17:00:48Z

In message <20091216233823.af491478.frx@...>, Francesco
Poli <frx@...> writes
>> The second question may seem strange, but why copyleft license is
>> used?
>
>Hopefully in order to prevent the distribution of proprietary
>derivative works...

CLOSED derivative works.

If it's copyright, it's proprietary.

"proprietary" == "property". If it's copyright, it has an owner,
therefore it's property, therefore it's proprietary.

Cheers,
Wol
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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-16T15:30:44Z

On Dec 17, 2009, at 12:19 AM, Matthew Johnson wrote:
> I assume, then, that it can function without that non-free file?

Yes. Either it provides validation capabilities they don't need, or they have some hand-written code to deal with the parts that were automated because of having the schema around.

Andrew
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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-16T15:19:49Z

On Thu Dec 17 00:06, Andrew Dalke wrote:
> The feedback here has helped. The CML maintainers are going to split
> off the CC-BY-ND into another file which can go into non-free, the
> rest of the JUMBO code will clarified to be "Apache 2.0", the CML
> developers are going through all their code to check that there are no
> other outstanding licensing details like that.

I assume, then, that it can function without that non-free file?

Matt

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-16T15:06:01Z

On Dec 15, 2009, at 10:20 AM, Matthew Johnson wrote:
> Clause c and the fact that the author may have claims to the JUMBO name
> under trademark law means he can certainly require a name change. I
> don't think he can stop you from claiming that you can read and write
> his format, however. A secondary thing here, however, is that you
> generally want to get on with your upstream. If you start doing things
> he doesn't like, then he will make life difficult for you (see: ion3).

Yeah. Since the biggest users of the Jumbo software, and also promotors of that CML format, distribute a patched version of the software, it's something they'll have to work out amongst themselves. I think it won't stay for all that long. Either that or I'll be an annoying bastard and harp on it in emails. ;)

The feedback here has helped. The CML maintainers are going to split off the CC-BY-ND into another file which can go into non-free, the rest of the JUMBO code will clarified to be "Apache 2.0", the CML developers are going through all their code to check that there are no other outstanding licensing details like that.

There's the minor point outstanding of it Apache 2.0's relicense clause allows LGPL, but the only time that will come into play is if as of yet non-existent downstream providers package the software and distribute the derived system with a license fee. My judgement is that that is unlikely, what CML has done is enough, that the result is free (since it can all go to GPL), and therefore these changes fit into Debian's policy.

Cheers!

Andrew
dalke@...

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Re: Fwd: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-16T14:38:23Z

On Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:20:45 +0200 anatoly techtonik wrote:

> Hello,

Hello...

>
> Following recent Python policy updates I wonder if GPL is really the
> license of choice for software documentation in Debian?

IMHO, yes it is and it should be, really!
The GPL is the best choice, whenever a copyleft license is being
searched for. For any kind of work: programs, documentation, images,
and so forth...

This is my personal opinion, but is shared by others, as well.

> There are many
> other licenses available that are more clear to general public, such
> as Creative Commons.

Creative Commons are not clear at all!
Try and read their actual legal text: there are many open questions,
such as the ones around the infamous anti-DRM clause, where even
official Creative Commons representatives refused to disclose the
intended meaning of the clause.
There are other problematic clauses, IMHO.

I summarized my concerns about CC-by-v3.0 (which is even simpler than
CC-by-sa-v3.0) in the following message:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/07/msg00124.html

As you can see, I am convinced that CC-by-v3.0 does *not* meet the DFSG.
However, the FTP-masters disagree with me, and accept works released
under the terms of this license (and of CC-by-sa-v3.0) in Debian main.

Anyway, claiming that Creative Commons licenses are "clear" seems to be
a huge stretch.
The Creative Commons "human-readable summaries" may seem to be clear,
but, unfortunately, they are just summaries (and not very accurate,
BTW): they are not the actual legal terms...

>
> The second question may seem strange, but why copyleft license is
> used?

Hopefully in order to prevent the distribution of proprietary
derivative works...

> Does it allow to cite Debian Policy in books without making
> those books freely available?

Within the quotation limits established by the applicable copyright
law, it is always allowed to quote a published work, AFAIK: the Berne
Convention seems to say that signatory countries have to implement
quotation rights in their copyright laws.
http://wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P144_26032

>
> Please, CC.

Done.

[...]

> >> One specific problem is that nobody understands what do you mean
> >> when releasing something that is not software under GPL.
> >
> > The Debian policy is digital information, therefore it is software
> > (as opposed to hardware).
> >
> > Perhaps you mean “something that is not a program”.
>
> I mean that "documentation for software" is not software
> itself.Software can render documentation or process it. Documentation
> can be printed and still remain documentation. Software is not.

[...]

You seem to be fond of the strict meaning of the term "software".
There's also a broad meaning.
Please see my essay on this distinction:
http://www.inventati.org/frx/essays/softfrdm/whatissoftware.html

Anyway, whatever you mean by "software", it seems that this FAQ has
already been pointed out to you on debian-python:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOtherThanSoftware
This should make it clear that the GPL *can* be used for non-program
works.

I hope this helps to clarify.

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Fwd: Final updates for this Python Policy revision

2009-12-15T04:20:45Z

Hello,

Following recent Python policy updates I wonder if GPL is really the
license of choice for software documentation in Debian? There are many
other licenses available that are more clear to general public, such
as Creative Commons.

The second question may seem strange, but why copyleft license is used?
Does it allow to cite Debian Policy in books without making those
books freely available?

Please, CC.

Original thread:
http://old.nabble.com/Final-updates-for-this-Python-Policy-revision-to26754791.html
--
anatoly t.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: anatoly techtonik <techtonik@...>
Date: Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: Final updates for this Python Policy revision
To: Ben Finney <ben+debian@...>
Cc: debian-python <debian-python@...>, debial-legal
<debial-legal@...>

Given that people are tired of discussing things they've already
decided for themselves I CC this to debian-legal.

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Ben Finney <ben+debian@...> wrote:
> The Debian policy is software with source code: the DocBook source document.

It is not clear why GPL notice doesn't stay in the source then and
instead appear in "binary form", but it seems ok.

BTW, where is the link to Debian Python Policy source in
http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/python-policy/ ? Shouldn't
it be mentioned in documentation?

>> 1. What am I free to do with with GPL'ed policy text?
>
> View it, examine its source code, modify it, and/or redistribute it
> under the same license terms.

>From your words it sounds like I can do just anything about it -
remove authors, sign under my name and sell for a big money without
distributing source code. Is that right?

>> 2. Are you sure about that?
>
> Yes. The GPL grants those freedoms.

>> > What specific problems do you see from choosing the GPL for a work,
>> > and why should those problems concern us in this case?
>>
>> One specific problem is that nobody understands what do you mean when
>> releasing something that is not software under GPL.
>
> The Debian policy is digital information, therefore it is software (as
> opposed to hardware).
>
> Perhaps you mean “something that is not a program”.

I mean that "documentation for software" is not software
itself.Software can render documentation or process it. Documentation
can be printed and still remain documentation. Software is not.

>> It can simply be deemed invalid in court and usual copyright rules
>> apply. In this case it can be sought like the freedom authors choose
>> to express their opinions about what did they meant later. You do not
>> license for that.
>
> I don't know what would lead you to think the GPL would be deemed
> invalid for the Debian policy more than any other software work.

Considering your argument that policy source is DocBook and .html is
"compiled binary software" I am beaten. However, most people won't get
that without lengthy discussion.

>> I still have no idea why Policy authors have chosen GPL
>
> Perhaps, then, you should not assert they have chosen the GPL blindly.

I still can't see the reasons why they couldn't choose GPL blindly. At
the time when original author was forced to choose license there could
not be other choice. All others are just followed. Now there are many
more clear suitable licenses, that's why I ask. Maybe authors would
like to choose non-copyleft license at all?

> Now, in the absence of a specific problem with applying the GPL to the
> software work that is the Debian policy, I don't think there's any more
> need to call for changing it.

While nobody understands what does it all mean, let's leave it alone. =)

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-15T01:20:58Z

On Tue Dec 15 00:42, Andrew Dalke wrote:
> How do I interpret this LICENSE.txt? The Artistic License 2.0 allows
> relicensing to the GPL. I'm well and clear about that (though there's
> still a subtle question of if it allows relicensing to the LGPL).
>
> However, if I use clause 4(c)(ii) to switch the GPL, am I and my
> downstream users still prohibited from:

> - distributing the software under the name JUMBO (or a derivative)
> ("Jumbo, Jr", "Dumbo", "Elephant" and "Timothy" all seem derivative)
> - calling a modified version a "compliant CML system"
> - asserting that a modified version can read and write CML?

> That is, are these clauses additions to the Artistic License 2.0 which
> must be preserved even after 4(c)(ii) relicensing to the GPL? My
> suspicion is that derivatives must still be prohibited from those
> activities.

It's interesting, the GPLv3 says explicitly:

...
c) Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material, or
requiring that modified versions of such material be marked in
reasonable ways as different from the original version; or
....

All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further
restrictions" within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as you
received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is
governed by this License along with a term that is a further
restriction, you may remove that term. If a license document contains
a further restriction but permits relicensing or conveying under this
License, you may add to a covered work material governed by the terms
of that license document, provided that the further restriction does
not survive such relicensing or conveying.

Clause c and the fact that the author may have claims to the JUMBO name
under trademark law means he can certainly require a name change. I
don't think he can stop you from claiming that you can read and write
his format, however. A secondary thing here, however, is that you
generally want to get on with your upstream. If you start doing things
he doesn't like, then he will make life difficult for you (see: ion3).

> Is the resulting software (with these extra limitations) free software
> enough for Debian?

Yes, there's ample example of rename clauses. Iceweasel is a
high-profile example. DFSG4 says:

"... The license may require derived works to carry a different name
or version number from the original software."

Matt
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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-14T17:34:27Z

In message <ab9c74f8aa8f5d509d7617b49633a35b.cherepan@...>,
Alexander Cherepanov <cherepan@...> writes

>Hi Anthony!
>On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:44:35 +0000, "Anthony W. Youngman"
><debian@...> wrote:
>
>>>> Your recipients also get *my* grant, so any one of
>>>> them can say "actually, I like v *2* so I'll take that as my licence".
>
>>>Why do you think that my recipients will get your entire grant? GPLv3
>>>only says that they will get your grant for _this_ License, i.e. GPLv3.
>
>> WHERE does it say that?
>
>In section 10 (GPLv3):
>
> 10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.
>
> Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically
> receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and
> propagate that work, subject to this License. [...]
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>GPLv2 says effectively the same:
>
> 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
> Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
> original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
> ^^^^^^^^^^
> these terms and conditions. [...]
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>> But in that case, as soon as you distribute my code using GPL2 as your
>> licence, YOU have STOPPED them distributing under version 3! That
>> argument cuts both ways!
>
>Sure.
>
>> Actually, that then totally destroys the whole point of "v3 or later" if
>> you choosing v3 takes away your recipients rights to choose according to
>> the original author's grant!
>
>They are always free to get the program directly from original author
>(put aside the case of a program combined from different sources for a
>moment:-). Then they have a choice of license.

But the law (generally) given the choice between a sensible
interpretation, and an alternative that is either ludicrous or obviously
not what was intended, will *usually* choose the sensible one.
>
>Some variation of the scenario: suppose your grant is "this software
>is licensed under BSD or GPLv3" and I choose GPLv3. Does this mean
>that my recipients still get "BSD or GPLv3"?

Given that, imho, BSD doesn't permit relicencing either, yes your
recipients do get that choice.

As soon as you modify my code, they then only get GPLv3 (unless they
strip your modifications out).
>
>Yet another variation: suppose you licensed your program to Alice
>under BSD and to Bob under GPLv3. Does recipients which get your
>program from Bob get "BSD or GPLv3" or just GPLv3?

Bob's recipients get just GPLv3. That's all he got, that's all he can
pass on.

To make it even worse, if somebody got one copy from Alice and one from
Bob, I guess technically they'd have to keep the two copies (and
associated licences) separate unless they contacted me and got my
permission to combine them!

>
>> I've just checked v3, and it contains the same "gets your licence from
>> the original licensor" wording as v2, so they get their grant from me,
>> and you don't have the right (or ability) to change what I grant.
>
>I hope quotes above explain what I mean.
>
>> At the end of the day, YOU need a licence to distribute my code. My
>> grant gives you a choice of v2 or v3. Whether you choose v2 or v3, your
>> recipient then gets the same grant as you did,
>
>Sorry, I don't see where it comes from.

Basically, you can choose which licence you want to apply to YOU. But
you pass on my package as a whole (including my permission to choose
which licence). So that's where your recipients get the same choices you
got.

>
>> and they can also choose v2 or v3.
>> If your choice of v3 took away your recipients choice of v2 I
>> would consider that a VERY retrograde step.
>
>I agree and would be happy to learn where I'm wrong.
>
>> But at the end of the day, it's simple. If I say "v2 or v3" then I
>> granted EVERY recipient of my code the right to *choose*.
>
>Yes, if they receive from you directly.
>

Or if they receive an UNALTERED copy from you! Because if you change the
licence (which you're not allowed to do) it's not an unaltered copy :-)

>> Both v2 and v3
>> are explicit that your recipients get their rights from ME not you, so
>> your choice of v3 does not constrain their right to choose.
>
>Alexander Cherepanov
>
Cheers,
Wol
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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-14T17:24:45Z

In message <E77D3607-AF7F-43F4-A7E0-11E7C541C911@...>,
Andrew Dalke <dalke@...> writes

>>> I pointed out the quote from a copyright lawyer with a special interest in free software who said that the GPL was ambiguous about sublicensing
>>>and if a chain of licenses was required or not.
>>>
>> I see the GPL explicitly agrees with me, not Larry Rosen :-) !!!
>>
>> This is the GPL v3 - read the last section of "2. Basic Permissions" :
>
>Which means you didn't look at the top of the first page of the link I
>sent you, where you would see the book was written in 2004 and
>therefore pre-GPLv3.

I didn't need to. I knew it was pre-GPL3. And you've confirmed this is
the book which confirmed my dim view of Larry's competence ...

> It also means you didn't recall my original text where I wrote:
>
> As you can tell, a professional lawyer in this field is not clear
> about if the GPLv2 allows sublicensing, so I hope it's understandable
> how someone could view a change from GPLv2 to GPLv3 without keeping
> the chain of titles (which is the common practice) could be
> considered a relicense.

My views on him are a direct consequence of discussing things - WITH HIM
- on the lsb mailing lists. He referred me to this book and I read it in
its entirety back then - quite some years ago (probably circa 2005,
maybe even 2004). Basically I formed the impression he was a very
capable lawyer, determined to twist everything to suit his
interpretation of things regardless of fact or clear intent. And as I
say, reading this book only confirmed that impression that I had already
formed.

>
>I believe I have careful to only used references from that book with
>respect to GPLv2, and not use it as a way to interpret reading the book
>has helped me understand some of the improvements made in GPLv3. The
>above was one of the few cases where I was not. The proper behavior
>should be to point out that I likely was imprecise and should have
>written "GPLv2" instead of simply "GPL."
>
>> "10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.
>>
>> Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that
>>work, subject to this License. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License."
>>
>> This is exactly the section (maybe worded, certainly numbered, differently) that I have repeatedly been referring to from the GPL v2.
>
>This is the specific improvement to text which Rosen says is ambiguous
>in GPLv2. As you have not bothered to read the text and yet still
>comment on what you believe he has written, I shall copy it here:
>
>http://rosenlaw.com/Rosen%5FCh06.pdf
>> This GPL section 4, with its negative wording, is also the only place that references the right to sublicense. One might assume from the way GPL
>>section 4 is worded that the right to sublicense was intended in sections 1 (right to copy), 2 (right to modify) and 3 (right to distribute) as well.
>>However, section 6 implies that there are no sublicenses but instead a direct license from each up-stream contributor:
> ...
>> As to sublicensing, then, the GPL is ambiguous. I refer you to the discussion in Chapter 5 of sublicensing in the MIT license. Sublicensing rights
>>can be very important to open source distributors for dealing properly with the chain of title to contributions. In practice, most software projects
>>ignore the issue completely and assume that, for GPL software, only the most recent license in the chain of title matters. They assume that GPL
>>licensed software is sublicenseable, but the GPL isn’t clear about that.
>

I think that ALL Larry's negative comments about the GPL stem from that
assumption that you can sublicence GPL code. As I understand the GPL,
(a) sublicencing is unnecessary, and (b) this very section 4 clearly
says you can only sublicence GPL code if the GPL explicitly says you can
(which it then *doesn't*).

That section in GPLv3 part 2 makes it clear that v2 did *not* intend to
permit sublicencing. Obviously, rms seems to respect Larry's view a bit
more than I do, in that he explicitly addressed it in v3, but equally
it's clear that v2 did not (in his view) permit sublicensing.
>
>> Sorry, I know I'm being nit-picky about things, but lawyers do nit-pick. If you don't, it can cost you EVERYTHING.
>
>Then nit-pick over things that actually exist. Lawyers at least get
>paid to nit-pick over whatever they get paid for. They also get paid to
>work on multiple iterations of their text, where obviously what I am
>writing now is a first draft.

As I understand it, Larry is *willfully* *misunderstanding* the GPL.
imho that's a fact :-)
>
>> See above. It's the *grant* which allows YOU to choose which version of the GPL applies to YOU. As I said above, I know I'm being nit-picky. But
>>if you don't understand what you're doing, then you're going to get burnt at some point.
>
>Point made. It could have been done without as many exclamation points
>and two lines of clarification text in your original reply.
>
Sorry. That's just my writing style when I want to be emphatic.
>
>> I know. But I was trying to respond to what I perceived as your reasons for bringing this into the issue.
>
>I'm bringing it into the issue because I think your statement that
>relicensing takes away rights is incorrect. Some relicensing does, but
>others do not.
>
>I then gave examples.

>
>> And I can understand why those owners became perturbed. Because they had chosen GFDL and were shocked that *someone* *else* could
>>change that to CC. I would be shocked. Which is why I prefer licences that DON'T allow relicencing.
>
>Then be shocked. But the GNU licenses do allow relicensing, as I've
>pointed out in the LGPL and the GFDL. That you don't like them doesn't
>mean that they aren't still free licenses designed to not take away
>rights.
>
>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
>>> If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the
>>>option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If
>>>the Program does not specify a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free
>>>Software Foundation.
>
>
>> Will the BLACK LETTER of the GPL convince you otherwise? The statement in v3 that sublicensing is not permitted? The statement in both v2
>>and v3 that - if it's MY code, your recipients get their licence from ME not you?
>
>> Except that the above text is NOT PART OF THE LICENCE.
>
>If this is true then I can no longer make any statements about the
>license. The above text ("If the Program specifies that a certain
>numbered version of the GNU General Public License ... ") comes from
>
> 14. Revised Versions of this License.
>
>in the section labeled "Terms And Conditions". If that is not part of
>the license then I don't know what makes something part of the license.
>
>To quote you fully:
>
>> the above text is NOT PART OF THE LICENCE. Yes, it's included in the licence text but legally it has absolutely nothing to do with the licence
>>itself. It's just a recommendation as to the text of the licence *grant* - a legally separate entity - which you need to have as well as the licence
>>itself before you have the right to do anything otherwise forbidden by copyright law.
>
>If this section is not part of the license then which other parts of
>the T&C are not part of the license? Is it only section 14 which has
>"absolutely nothing to do with the license itself"? Or can I also
>ignore section 8? Section 3?
>
>
>My best interpretation is that you did not read what I wrote and
>assumed I repeated the text which suggests how to word the grant.
>Section 14 is obviously a section on how to interpret the grant.
>

Correct :-(

Mind you, I wonder how a Judge would interpret it ...

If the Program just said "GPL" and the grant just said "GPL", would the
Judge say "okay, you can choose v3 and v3 gives you the right to choose
v1 or v2", or would he say "the grant is ambiguous therefore invalid",
or would he say "seeing as it doesn't specify a version, the only
reasonable assumption is it means 'the only version' and the only one
that ever satisfied that was v1".

So. Does section 14 actually make legal sense? Me dunno ... but it was
written by a lawyer ...

Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - anthony@...

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-14T15:42:46Z

On Dec 15, 2009, at 12:20 AM, Ben Finney wrote:

> More precisely, the grant would need to say (words to the effect of)
> either:
>
> You may do X, Y, Z to this work under the following terms:
> foo, bar, baz.
>
> or:
>
> You may do X, Y, Z to this work under the terms of foobar license;
> see $EXPLICIT_REFERENCE_TO_SPECIFIC_VERSION_OF_FOOBAR_TERMS.

which brings my back to my original question. The LICENSE.txt file from JUMBO/CML says

> All JUMBO code is distributed under the Open Source Artistic License
> (http://www.opensource.org). You are free to modify the code but if you do it may no
> longer be distributed under the name JUMBO (or a derivative) without permission of Peter
> Murray-Rust. Any distribution must acknowledge the origins and also include copies of the
> JUMBO source (see Artistic License for details). You may not claim that a modified version
> is a compliant CML system and may not assert that it reads or writes CML.

In private mail the copyright owners have clarified that this is 2.0.

How do I interpret this LICENSE.txt? The Artistic License 2.0 allows relicensing to the GPL. I'm well and clear about that (though there's still a subtle question of if it allows relicensing to the LGPL).

However, if I use clause 4(c)(ii) to switch the GPL, am I and my downstream
users still prohibited from:

- distributing the software under the name JUMBO (or a derivative)
("Jumbo, Jr", "Dumbo", "Elephant" and "Timothy" all seem derivative)
- calling a modified version a "compliant CML system"
- asserting that a modified version can read and write CML?

That is, are these clauses additions to the Artistic License 2.0 which must be preserved even after 4(c)(ii) relicensing to the GPL? My suspicion is that derivatives must still be prohibited from those activities.

Is the resulting software (with these extra limitations) free software enough for Debian?

Best regards,

Andrew
dalke@...

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-14T15:20:38Z

"Anthony W. Youngman" <debian@...> writes:

> As I said in another post, you're confusing the licence *grant* with
> the licence *itself*.

It might be clearer to say that the issue is a confusion between the
license grant versus the license terms.

> Let's say I write some software and - as I would - I stick a notice
> that says "this software is licenced v2 or v3". That is my grant.

More precisely, the grant would need to say (words to the effect of)
either:

You may do X, Y, Z to this work under the following terms:
foo, bar, baz.

or:

You may do X, Y, Z to this work under the terms of foobar license;
see $EXPLICIT_REFERENCE_TO_SPECIFIC_VERSION_OF_FOOBAR_TERMS.

The former is a license grant immediately followed by license terms.
(That's what you get often with very short license terms, such as
Expat.)

The latter is a license grant only, referring the reader to another
document to discover what the license terms are. (That's what you get
often with longer license terms, such as the GPL.)

When people say “the GPL” in the context of licensing, they're referring
to *the set of terms* that make up the GPL. Those terms, floating in a
document, don't grant anything to anyone.

The grant of license must, as Anthony points out, be distinct and
explicit, only applies to some specific work, and can only be granted by
the copyright holder for that work.

--
\ “He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.” |
`\ —Maurits Cornelis Escher |
_o__) |
Ben Finney

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-14T15:17:25Z

On Dec 14, 2009, at 11:24 PM, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
> It's a law site, where SCO Group's lawsuit against IBM, Novell and Linux in general is getting thoroughly dissected. If you're not interested then fair enough, but copyright and the GPL in particular are very important there.

I have and enjoy using my Mac. I remember that case but did not follow the details.

> Sounds weird to me you're deferring to rms then :-) While he'd defend your *right* to choose BSD/MIT or LGPL, he'd be very sorry about your choice - you should be choosing GPL :-)

This is an issue of Artistic License and LGPL compatibility which I'm bringing up because people I associate want to include their software with Debian. Debian's policies and those of Stallman's are well aligned, excepting that Stallman and the FSF does not consider the Artistic License to be a free license while Debian does.

My deference, as you incorrectly put it, is because that's the closest proxy I have to something which is definite for this argument. My own views on BSD are largely irrelevant.

> I also wrote that I thought the artistic licence was close to BSD (ie not strong copyleft).

And that would not be correct. The Artistic License has many clauses which are not BSD-like, such has prohibitions against license fees which the BSD does allow.

> You can relicence BSD as closed source - where are your "essential rights" now?

I quoted and used the phrase "essential rights" because it derives from Stallman's use in the GFDL->Creative Commons relicensing, which he specifically called a relicensing which does not lose "essential rights."

> I obviously thought something similar could happen with artistic. (looking at it - especially artistic 2 - in more detail, I see that it's far more strong copyleft than I thought.)

Why did you not look at it the first time, instead of making quite incorrect assumptions about it?

> Well, linux itself is explicitly v2 only :-)

I was unaware of that. I rarely am on a Linux box. My main server machine is a FreeBSD box.

>> I pointed out the quote from a copyright lawyer with a special interest in free software who said that the GPL was ambiguous about sublicensing and if a chain of licenses was required or not.
>>
> I see the GPL explicitly agrees with me, not Larry Rosen :-) !!!
>
> This is the GPL v3 - read the last section of "2. Basic Permissions" :

Which means you didn't look at the top of the first page of the link I sent you, where you would see the book was written in 2004 and therefore pre-GPLv3. It also means you didn't recall my original text where I wrote:

As you can tell, a professional lawyer in this field is not clear
about if the GPLv2 allows sublicensing, so I hope it's understandable
how someone could view a change from GPLv2 to GPLv3 without keeping
the chain of titles (which is the common practice) could be
considered a relicense.

I believe I have careful to only used references from that book with respect to GPLv2, and not use it as a way to interpret reading the book has helped me understand some of the improvements made in GPLv3. The above was one of the few cases where I was not. The proper behavior should be to point out that I likely was imprecise and should have written "GPLv2" instead of simply "GPL."

> "10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.
>
> Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License."
>
> This is exactly the section (maybe worded, certainly numbered, differently) that I have repeatedly been referring to from the GPL v2.

This is the specific improvement to text which Rosen says is ambiguous in GPLv2. As you have not bothered to read the text and yet still comment on what you believe he has written, I shall copy it here:

http://rosenlaw.com/Rosen%5FCh06.pdf
> This GPL section 4, with its negative wording, is also the only place that references the right to sublicense. One might assume from the way GPL section 4 is worded that the right to sublicense was intended in sections 1 (right to copy), 2 (right to modify) and 3 (right to distribute) as well. However, section 6 implies that there are no sublicenses but instead a direct license from each up-stream contributor:
...
> As to sublicensing, then, the GPL is ambiguous. I refer you to the discussion in Chapter 5 of sublicensing in the MIT license. Sublicensing rights can be very important to open source distributors for dealing properly with the chain of title to contributions. In practice, most software projects ignore the issue completely and assume that, for GPL software, only the most recent license in the chain of title matters. They assume that GPL licensed software is sublicenseable, but the GPL isn’t clear about that.

> Sorry, I know I'm being nit-picky about things, but lawyers do nit-pick. If you don't, it can cost you EVERYTHING.

Then nit-pick over things that actually exist. Lawyers at least get paid to nit-pick over whatever they get paid for. They also get paid to work on multiple iterations of their text, where obviously what I am writing now is a first draft.

> See above. It's the *grant* which allows YOU to choose which version of the GPL applies to YOU. As I said above, I know I'm being nit-picky. But if you don't understand what you're doing, then you're going to get burnt at some point.

Point made. It could have been done without as many exclamation points and two lines of clarification text in your original reply.

> I know. But I was trying to respond to what I perceived as your reasons for bringing this into the issue.

I'm bringing it into the issue because I think your statement that relicensing takes away rights is incorrect. Some relicensing does, but others do not.

I then gave examples.

> And I can understand why those owners became perturbed. Because they had chosen GFDL and were shocked that *someone* *else* could change that to CC. I would be shocked. Which is why I prefer licences that DON'T allow relicencing.

Then be shocked. But the GNU licenses do allow relicensing, as I've pointed out in the LGPL and the GFDL. That you don't like them doesn't mean that they aren't still free licenses designed to not take away rights.

> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
>> If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

> Will the BLACK LETTER of the GPL convince you otherwise? The statement in v3 that sublicensing is not permitted? The statement in both v2 and v3 that - if it's MY code, your recipients get their licence from ME not you?

> Except that the above text is NOT PART OF THE LICENCE.

If this is true then I can no longer make any statements about the license. The above text ("If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License ... ") comes from

14. Revised Versions of this License.

in the section labeled "Terms And Conditions". If that is not part of the license then I don't know what makes something part of the license.

To quote you fully:

> the above text is NOT PART OF THE LICENCE. Yes, it's included in the licence text but legally it has absolutely nothing to do with the licence itself. It's just a recommendation as to the text of the licence *grant* - a legally separate entity - which you need to have as well as the licence itself before you have the right to do anything otherwise forbidden by copyright law.

If this section is not part of the license then which other parts of the T&C are not part of the license? Is it only section 14 which has "absolutely nothing to do with the license itself"? Or can I also ignore section 8? Section 3?

My best interpretation is that you did not read what I wrote and assumed I repeated the text which suggests how to word the grant. Section 14 is obviously a section on how to interpret the grant.

Cheers,

Andrew
dalke@...

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Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files

2009-12-14T14:26:47Z

Hi Anthony!
On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:44:35 +0000, "Anthony W. Youngman" <debian@...> wrote:

>>> Your recipients also get *my* grant, so any one of
>>> them can say "actually, I like v *2* so I'll take that as my licence".

>>Why do you think that my recipients will get your entire grant? GPLv3
>>only says that they will get your grant for _this_ License, i.e. GPLv3.

> WHERE does it say that?

In section 10 (GPLv3):

10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.

Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically
receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and
propagate that work, subject to this License. [...]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

GPLv2 says effectively the same:

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
^^^^^^^^^^
these terms and conditions. [...]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> But in that case, as soon as you distribute my code using GPL2 as your
> licence, YOU have STOPPED them distributing under version 3! That
> argument cuts both ways!

Sure.

> Actually, that then totally destroys the whole point of "v3 or later" if
> you choosing v3 takes away your recipients rights to choose according to
> the original author's grant!

They are always free to get the program directly from original author
(put aside the case of a program combined from different sources for a
moment:-). Then they have a choice of license.

Some variation of the scenario: suppose your grant is "this software
is licensed under BSD or GPLv3" and I choose GPLv3. Does this mean
that my recipients still get "BSD or GPLv3"?

Yet another variation: suppose you licensed your program to Alice
under BSD and to Bob under GPLv3. Does recipients which get your
program from Bob get "BSD or GPLv3" or just GPLv3?

> I've just checked v3, and it contains the same "gets your licence from
> the original licensor" wording as v2, so they get their grant from me,
> and you don't have the right (or ability) to change what I grant.

I hope quotes above explain what I mean.

> At the end of the day, YOU need a licence to distribute my code. My
> grant gives you a choice of v2 or v3. Whether you choose v2 or v3, your
> recipient then gets the same grant as you did,

Sorry, I don't see where it comes from.

> and they can also choose v2 or v3.
> If your choice of v3 took away your recipients choice of v2 I
> would consider that a VERY retrograde step.

I agree and would be happy to learn where I'm wrong.

> But at the end of the day, it's simple. If I say "v2 or v3" then I
> granted EVERY recipient of my code the right to *choose*.

Yes, if they receive from you directly.

> Both v2 and v3
> are explicit that your recipients get their rights from ME not you, so
> your choice of v3 does not constrain their right to choose.

Alexander Cherepanov

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