Re: Updated Licence Policy

[Andreas-86]

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Jonathan -

I respectfully disagree with your conclusion re: the membership.  The GPL is pretty clear how acceptance is manifested - "that proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version *permanently* authorizes you to choose that version for the Program".  Section 8(5) of the KDE eV's charter specifies that "[e]ach individual board member has the right to represent the [eV] to outside parties" and the charter does not clearly reserve the authority to approve a license to the membership.  So it seems to me that if the KDE eV board (or an officer) publicly stated that the version was accepted, the issue is settled, irrespective of what the membership thinks.  Personally I think this is rather unwise.

An alternative would be to amend the KDE eV charter to specifically prohibit anyone but the membership from approving a license, but that seems more difficult than adding a few bytes to a file.

Best regards,

Andreas Pour

----- Original Message ----
From: [...]
To: [...]; kde-licencing@...
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 5:02:29 PM
Subject: Re: Updated Licence Policy

On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 04:23:39PM -0800, Andreas Pour wrote:

>
>    Jonathan -
>    For the GPL, I would change:
> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License or (at
> your option) version 3 or, at the discretion of KDE e.V. (which shall
> act as a proxy as in section 14 of the GPLv3), any later version.
>
>    to:
> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License or (at
> your
>  option) either version 3 or any later version of the GNU General
> Public License accepted by the membership of KDE e.V. (or its successor
> approved by the membership of KDE e.V.), which membership is authorized
> to act as the proxy contemplated by Section 14 of version 3 of the
> License.
>
>    Reasons:  the membership (rather than the board) should accept the
>    license - beyond the fact that choosing licenses is beyond the scope
>    of the power the board *should* have, I think it's beyond the scope of
>    powers that the board *does* have.  I would also include successors so
>    that if a different entity is used in the future (e.g., organized
>    under a different charitable law or in another country) the permission
>    to act as proxy still stands.  Also some language clean-up.

I'm unconvinced about the need to add "membership" in, while I agree
it's not the board who should approve GPL versions, KDE e.V. is
composed of its members, if it was the board's decision that would
have to be specified not the other way around, (plus the membership can
always vote the board down).  It makes the already lengthy text longer
still and harder to read.

I've added "successors".

>    I would make a similar change to the LGPL:
> This library is free software; you can redistribute it
>  and/or
> modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
> License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
> version 2 of the GNU Library General Public License, or (at your
> option) either version 2.1 or 3 of the GNU Lesser General Public
> License or any later version accepted by the membership of KDE
> e.V. (or its successor approved by the membership of KDE e.V.),
> which membership is authorized to act as the proxy contemplated
> by Section 6 of version 3 of the License
>
>    Note in this one the section reference was also wrong (its Section 6
>    of the LGPL which authorizes proxies).

Section updated

>    Also in the summary I think the use of "(GPLv2+3+e.V)" is confusing -
>    I would delete

Deleted.

Jonathan

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On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 06:00:18PM -0800, Andreas wrote:

>    I respectfully disagree with your conclusion re: the membership.  The
>    GPL is pretty clear how acceptance is manifested - "that proxy's
>    public statement of acceptance of a version *permanently* authorizes
>    you to choose that version for the Program".  Section 8(5) of the KDE
>    eV's charter specifies that "[e]ach individual board member has the
>    right to represent the [eV] to outside parties" and the charter does
>    not clearly reserve the authority to approve a license to the
>    membership.  So it seems to me that if the KDE eV board (or an
>    officer) publicly stated that the version was accepted, the issue is
>    settled, irrespective of what the membership thinks.  Personally I
>    think this is rather unwise.

OK, you convinced me, I've updated the draft.

Jonathan
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