Fwd: Re: Revised Severability provision following list discussion initiated by tieguy. (5129dea)
by Richard Fontana
Posting GitHub comment to list.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [copyleft-next] Revised Severability provision following
list discussion initiated by tieguy. (5129dea)
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 07:26:58 -0800
From: Engelnyst <notifications(a)github.com>
Reply-To: richardfontana/copyleft-next
<reply+c-2367238-b1dbcafcca3643d72129393d43090f804a7b399e-1179636(a)reply.github.com>
To: richardfontana/copyleft-next <copyleft-next(a)noreply.github.com>
CC: Richard Fontana <fontana(a)sharpeleven.org>
FWIW: when I read 'is to be reformed' I asked immediately "by who".
(the entire license, statement of project position, something else?)
The main question I would personally have, here, is: is the statement
of the project, its clarifications, its statement of intended meaning
or limits of applicability, enough to choose between interpretations
of a clause?
I don't have a better suggestion though, and from the diff and mailing
list discussion IMHO it's a better phrase than the former. However if
the intention is to limit the "by who" strictly to courts of law, then
perhaps it would be better to state that somehow...
Obligatory note: IANAL.
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11 years, 4 months
Fwd: Re: Encourage the involvement of Free Software developers and contributors. (007ec15)
by Richard Fontana
Posting GitHub comment to list.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [copyleft-next] Encourage the involvement of Free
Software developers and contributors. (007ec15)
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:54:02 -0800
From: Engelnyst <notifications(a)github.com>
Reply-To: richardfontana/copyleft-next
<reply+c-2367204-b5f657cbd9ac666f1119dc39043012c0828c3c7a-1179636(a)reply.github.com>
To: richardfontana/copyleft-next <copyleft-next(a)noreply.github.com>
FWIW, I think this is a good idea and it goes hand in hand with making
this copy (at least) available on github as well. It might succeed or
not, but that's always true.
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11 years, 4 months
Fwd: Re: Revise Proprietary Relicensing poison pill. (021eb72)
by Richard Fontana
Posting GitHub comment to list.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [copyleft-next] Revise Proprietary Relicensing poison
pill. (021eb72)
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:35:05 -0800
From: Engelnyst <notifications(a)github.com>
Reply-To: richardfontana/copyleft-next
<reply+c-2367179-ec89f72124a412582d6abdd7fb73f292aacf92ca-1179636(a)reply.github.com>
To: richardfontana/copyleft-next <copyleft-next(a)noreply.github.com>
CC: Richard Fontana <fontana(a)sharpeleven.org>
I'm very, very glad to see this reference of the OSI approval. It is
the best usable criterium I can think of, to distinguish a license
from 'proprietary licensing'.
* Simplicity argument is fair and reasonable IMHO: indeed it is
straightforward to know what falls under the OSI list, and tbh that is
very useful to developers. Not everyone will or can take the time to
figure out on their own what may fall under a definition like OSD, FSD
or Debian (except to use those definitions for understanding, context,
argumentation in particular cases).
* If there are doubtful licenses on the OSI list, personally I don't
see that as a downside of any significance. One can very well take the
path to publicly discourage or not encourage or express doubt on them,
rather than make the whole definition in this license legally too
restricted or confusing. That risks to be unusable.
* I should say, I do think that a relying on a definition has its
strenghts however, besides the risks.
> not to mention the offense the FSF is likely to take
This is a purely political argument, one that smells very bad. I've
been occasionally following development of copyleft-next, with the
hope that it will perhaps define copyleft without compromises which,
lets say, have no good reasons to be made. Not trying to open an
argument on that side, lets just say that IMHO a reasonable enough
criterium (even if perhaps no criterium is perfect) is preferable to
compromises with others 'offenses'.
> It occurs to me that this Proprietary Relicensing provision is the one
part of copyleft-next that is in danger of taking on certain GPLv3-ish
stylistic qualities that are undesirable generally for
copyleft-next. I am not sure how to solve that without making the
provision significantly longer or removing it from copyleft-next. I
don't like either of those options.
What do you mean by "certain GPLv3-ish stylistic qualities that are
undesirable generally for copyleft-next"? A quick pointer to where I
can find details will be enough. Thank you.
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11 years, 4 months
fixing the record on my role [was Re: [MERGE REQUEST] restore "install and run" text (was Re: app-stores and copyleft-next)]
by Luis Villa
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 2:59 PM, Richard Fontana <fontana(a)sharpeleven.org> wrote:
> On 12/03/2012 03:59 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
>> TL;DR: Fontana, please accept the merge request at
>> https://gitorious.org/copyleft-next/copyleft-next/merge_requests/25
>> to restore the "install and run" wording until such time as
>> community consensus is reached regarding a compromise of which
>> users should actually get the freedom to install modified
>> versions.
> [...]
>> I'm sorry to see that Richard has removed it at Luis' behest without any
>> discussion about the issue.
>
> I didn't remove it at Luis's behest - he never suggested that it be
> removed (AFAICR). I'd be happy to have further discussion about the issue.
>
For the record, I'll confirm Richard's recollection: at no point
(publicly or privately, implicitly or explicitly) did I request this
removal. If anything, my emails on the subject were supportive of
inclusion:
* My previous draft of this language, sent to this list on Aug. 5th,
aimed to remove verbs I felt were superfluous or ill-defined but
specifically retained "run" and "install."
* My recent email described platforms that allow running and
installation of modified versions as "rights-respecting" and referred
to the text in question as "anti-lockdown."
Tangentially, but also for the record: I am participating in this list
purely on my own time and out of my own interests. Neither my clients
nor my firm are paying me to be here, nor have I discussed
copyleft-next with them. Should a client ever ask me to take an
advocacy position here, I would disclose that I was acting on behalf
of a client, and any email relating to such advocacy would come from
villalu(a)gtlaw.com.
Luis
11 years, 4 months
Numbering of first release
by Richard Fontana
Should the first release of copyleft-next be designated with the
version number 1.0, 0.1, 0.01, something else?
I'm somewhat inclined to go with "0.01" (which still is suggestive of
'likely to see further improvement'). Incidentally, I am increasingly
of the view that the version stability of (at least interesting) FLOSS
(and free or quasi-free content) licenses is a flaw, and I am
envisioning copyleft-next as a license that could rapidly evolve even
when one only considers a series of official numbered releases.
Most FLOSS licenses with numbered releases (and names) have begun with
"1.0" (famous exceptions are the GNU LGPL and the GNU AGPL).
Apparently there was an 0.5 release of the Common Public License that
was applied to some software, so there is some limited precedent for
having pre-1.0 numbered releases.
- RF
11 years, 4 months
Update 2012-08-02
by Richard Fontana
Here's an update of what's been going on with the copyleft-next draft.
Deletion of dl-supp
===================
The biggest change of the past week was my deletion of "dl-supp". In
an earlier commit, I moved the "anti-Tivoization" provisions derived
from the second part of GPLv3 section 6 into a supplementary document
which an initial licensor could place on a new program. I now see no
point in even having it as a supplement.
Thus, copyleft-next has no anti-Tivoization provisions, and so the
patch originally proposed by mcgrof (see
<https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/12/401> ) has now effectively been applied.
A lot of careful thought and discussion went into the corresponding
provisions of GPLv3. They represent the result of a difficult
compromise, and are motivated by policy goals for which I have deep
personal sympathy. I contend that they are among the best-drafted
parts of that license. The policy concern about locked-down consumer
devices with effectively nonmodifiable GPL-licensed software has
become more relevant in the years since those provisions were drafted.
Yet, with respect to GPLv3, it has been my own intuition that few
projects consciously choosing that license do so because of the
anti-Tivoization provisions. I do not have the sense that the
inclusion of these provisions in GPLv3 has had the effect of
increasing users' freedom to modify software in consumer devices they
own. To the contrary, it appears if anything to have motivated
risk-averse companies to avoid use of GPLv3-licensed software. That is
not dispositive but it is relevant. (There may be evidence to the
contrary that I am unaware of.)
I'm open to being convinced that this deletion should be reverted, but
if no one successfully convinces me, it is likely to stay deleted.
Part of what influences me is the availability of outbound (A)GPLv3
compatibility. As with the more obscure 'contractor' provision of
GPLv3 section 2, those who care strongly about these provisions will
be able to incorporate copyleft-next code in GPLv3-licensed works.
Deletion of first part of anti-anti-circumvention provision
===========================================================
While I currently continue to feel it is worthwhile for copyleft-next
to explicitly address anti-circumvention law, I no longer consider the
first paragraph of what was GPLv3 section 3 to be desirable.
The basic idea here was the hope that courts would be influenced by a
general declaration by the licensor that covered works are, in some
sense fundamental to the license, not 'effective technological
protection measures'. There is no known history of use of this
provision by those defending against invocation of anti-circumvention law.
This strikes me as being an inherently weak provision, but, the less
weak one assumes it is, the more problematic it becomes from a free
software perspective, since it approaches something like a field of
use restriction. That certainly is not what the FSF intended, but that
lack of intent does not make the discomfort go away.
The reason for effectively two (or three, depending on how you look at
it) anti-anti-circumvention provisions had to do with concerns about
differences between US and EU approaches to anti-circumvention law. I
consider it better to come up with one provision suitable for major
jurisdictions in which the license is likely to be granted. A
modification of the second part of what was GPLv3 section 3 is a
better basis for such a provision.
Further changes to termination
==============================
In response to discussion on the mailing list, I have changed the
EPL-inspired "reasonable time period" cure to a 30-day cure.
I have also eliminated the relatively complex "automatic termination
-> provisional automatic reinstatement -> permanent automatic
reinstatement' feature which was originally added to GPLv3 section 8
in the final draft. I have explained this in a posting to this list
made earlier today.
Deletion of liberty-or-death example
====================================
This is a noteworthy change. If people think that we need the example
given in GPLv3 section 12, let me know.
- Richard
11 years, 4 months
Use of Gitorious and GitHub
by Richard Fontana
Would anyone besides Bradley object (weakly or strongly) to my using
GitHub as the apparent one true public source code repository for
copyleft-next? (I have been mirroring [that's probably not even the
correct concept here] commits to the Gitorious repository in my GitHub
copyleft-next repository ever since using Gitorious for
copyleft-next.) Having used Gitorious for several months now, I have
to say that I don't like it.
I note that Bradley has already proposed some changes to copyleft-next
by attaching patches to mailing list posts in addition to Gitorious
merge requests. This seems to prove that someone who strongly objects
to GitHub can still actively participate in this project, at least if
I reverse my current practice and consistently mirror the GitHub
repository in the existing Gitorious repository (or some other public
git repository location that Bradley would not object to).
- RF
11 years, 4 months