Re: Why licenses *are* free (was: Re: Why I don't share Manojs fears.
On Sat, 15 Aug 1998, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 14, 1998 at 10:26:01AM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
[The next section is Marcus, of course - manoj is double-indented]
> My fear is that people will be satisfied with documents belonging in the
> "verbatim" section. For example, if software documentation also is allowed
> to belong there. I would like to see a proposed definition of the new section
> before I express further considerations.
I gave a sketchy one a couple of days ago. Certainly documentation is not
allowed within.
>
> > What about
> > non-technical documents, like Graphic novels or any of the other
> > categories?
>
> We haven't talked about them yet. Currently, we don't ship such things, do
> we?
I am undecided about this one, although I think that it's not of paramount
importance to us, since we are in the business of creating an OS, not a
library. However, that's not to say it doesn't have some relevance - we
include magazines and so on..
>
> > Actually, I am going to make a stand about our Hypocrisy;
> > anything that you have said also applies to Licenses. You want to
> > throw things like the FHS and others out of main, you have to throw
> > out the DFSG, the social contract, and GPL etc out as well
> >
> > All the arguments about stadards apply to licenses as well.
>
> This seems to be your core argument in the current discussion, but it is
> wrong or right, however you want to see it. But what is wrong, is the
> conclusion that copyright licenses need to be free.
>
> Reasons why Copyright documents are different from standards.
>
> 1) Practical reason
>
> Every piece of software comes with copyright notices. A big deal of Debian
> is under the GPL. If we choose we can't ship the GPL, we can't ship those
> software. For example, we couldn't ship dpkg :) and all FSF stuff.
>
> 2) Legal reason
>
> No copyright can restrict you on what license you choose to put your work
> under. This means, whatever license I write, I don't violate a copyright.
> This applies mainly to the legal text, of course. So, I can take the legal
> text of the GPL (the "terms"), and apply them with whatever changes I want
> to my document. This means:
>
> * Deriving a new license from the GPL using the terms of the GPL is already
> granted by common law. *
This is the critical point. I was not aware of this fact. If it is true,
then we should explain it somewhere (probably on the website, as well as
in /usr/doc/copyright/README). Is it true in all jurisdictions that
Debian is distributed in?
>
> 3) Technical reason
>
> The GPL is not a technical document. The only benefit you can gain from
> taking parts of the GPL is taking from the legal text, which is already
> granted by point 2 above. This leaves the preamble and the footer, both are
> very FSF specific and do not contain any legal or technical text, but
> personal opinion and meta-text. Does somebody wants to derive from that?
> Maybe. Is it essential and useful? Probably not.
>
> Shouldn't we ask RMS to make the license of the GPL more free?
>
> No. Because it alöready is as free as it ever needs to be (see point 2
> above). Essentially, if RMS would change the copyright of the GPL text, he
> would probably choose something like this:
>
> Fictional GPL copyright:
> * You may distribute verbatim and modified versions of the legal terms
> below, but you have to remove the preambel and the section "How to
> apply..." from the derived work. You have to remove any reference to the
> FSF and GNU GPL, too *
>
> This would essentially be a free+(name change, remove non-technical part)
> copyright, and it is exactly that what is already granted by law. It is not
> necessary to include all permissions already granted by law in the license
> text. For example, fair use is also not mentioned in the copyright
> documents, but is granted anyway.
True. But this hinges on the truth of your above statement. (Which I
don't dispute, I just ask whether it's true everywhere).
[Sorry about the high ratio of quote to reply here]
Now, we just need Raul to speak up for Free Content, and re-open the
debate :-)
Jules
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