Re: Why licenses don't need to be free (was: Re: Why licenses *are* free)
Hi,
>>"Marcus" == Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:
Marcus> Hello Manoj and everyone,
>> I think it is a bad decision to stop shipping the FSSTND in main.
Marcus> Wasn't it your suggestion to make "main" as modificable as
Marcus> possible? Or do you mean "Debian" here instead main?
Yes, I mean Debian.
>> I can write a standard that kinda does the same as the FSSTND,
>> as long as I don't quote verbatim. Same thing. Licenses and
>> standards are exactly the same.
Marcus> This is not true. Stand-alone license documents are exactly
Marcus> the same as other data entities, but licenses are not written
Marcus> for this purpose, they are always written to *apply* to a
Marcus> certain software or other work.
No more so than standards. The GPL standas alone. Software
authors can choose to use the GPL as the license under which to
distribute their software.
Standards stand alone. Software authors can choose to
adopt/follow the standard in their code.
I see very little difference at all.
Marcus> You say above "We can say that an immutable document, bundled
Marcus> with software, does not prevent the inclusion of the software
Marcus> in main." This makes sense. However, what are you trying to
Marcus> discuss here then? We only ship licenses bundled with the
Marcus> software, this is the whole purpose of licenses. We are not
Marcus> in the business creating a legal repository.
We do not ship the GPL bundled with software. The licenses
/usr/doc/copyright/{Artistic,BSD,GPL,LGPL} are shipped sepatrately,
in one *ONE* package, namely, base-files (the package is in no way
under all those licenses).
We do not ship licenses bundled in with software. Repeat after
me: We do not ship licenses bundled in with software.
Marcus> Removing the license from the software would be illegal, so
Marcus> we can't do it (and I wouldn't want to do it).
Then we are already breaking the law. Find out how many
packages actually contain a copy of the GPL first, before making
statements like this.
Marcus> So, we have to ship the license with the software in the main
Marcus> distribution.
Therefore, this statement is also incorrect. We can too put
the GPL in verbatim.
Marcus> We don't have a stand-alone GPL package, so this whole
Marcus> discussion is non-sense.
Yes, and no. The apckage also contqains other files, including
other licenses. But is does not contain any executable that I can see
offhand.
I think this discussion is not what is non-sense; the
arguments you have presented so far may qualify ;-)
Marcus> This makes me wondering what you are trying to
Marcus> argue. Licenses are at least not a valid reason to warrant a
Marcus> "verbatim" section.
Actually, in light f the truth, they are.
>> No, the license and standrds are not distinct, at least under
>> the laws of the united states.
Marcus> You are speaking about stand-alone licenses.
Umm, aren't all licenses stand alone? This makes no sense.
Marcus> We have to consider solely licenses that are applied to
Marcus> software and data entities.
Yes, true. Like the GPL, artistic, BSD, etc, which we ship
stand alone.
Marcus> License documents are not the data entities we are talking
Marcus> here about, they are "meta" in the sense that the spoeak
Marcus> about the date.
No more so than standards. The RFC on SMTO doies not itself
implement an smtp service, or indeed, talk about internals of a smtp
server. It is a meta docuent that talks about the interface.
I see little difference between a standard and a license.
Marcus> We can't ship the data without the license, and furthermore
Marcus> the license is the only thing that grants us our freedom.
Yes, we need shipt the license. But it can be in the verbatim
section. No one tells us where in the file system or on the archive
we have to put the license.
Marcus> We can't strip the license from the software, so either we
Marcus> have to drop the Debian project or break the law.
We do indeed strip it, so in your intrerpretation we are
breaking the law, or the Debian is dead. Heh.
__> egrep GPL /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/base-files.list:/usr/doc/copyright/GPL
/var/lib/dpkg/info/base-files.list:/usr/doc/copyright/LGPL
/var/lib/dpkg/info/smalleiffel.list:/usr/lib/smalleiffel/misc/header.GPL
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xosview.list:/usr/doc/xosview/COPYING.GPL.gz
So, we only have 2 packages under the GPL that are not
breaking the law?
Marcus> I'm not in favour for any of these, but I suggest we leave
Marcus> the licenses in the software and in main were it belongs.
Marcus> Our freedom to modificate the original source is restricted:
We do not ship the licenses with the software, so this is nonsense.
Marcus> Is this bad? No. Has this any influence on our work? No. Does
Marcus> it make sense to create an extra section for license
Marcus> documents? No, why should we ship license documents
Marcus> seperately from the software?
I love this. I can now repeat all your arguments about
standards here. Do I have to? I shall, if you want. Licenses can also
be under rename-if-modified clause which shall allow people the
freedom to innnovate. And all the other arguments (I can trudge
through the archive and come up with them).
You have failed to show that licenses are any different from
standards, so far.
I think I object to treating them differently. Hypocrisy is
somehting I abhor.
manoj
--
You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior
executive.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
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