8:23 a.m.
Recently, most (all?) of Dan Bernstein's software was relicensed into
the public domain.
Please hold off on packaging and submitting these packages for review
into Fedora, pending legal advice as to whether he can actually do that
or not, under US law.
Thanks,
~spot
10:28 a.m.
New subject: [Fedora-legal-list] DJB's software components
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 09:23 -0500, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
Recently, most (all?) of Dan Bernstein's software was relicensed
into
the public domain.
Please hold off on packaging and submitting these packages for review
into Fedora, pending legal advice as to whether he can actually do that
or not, under US law.
And the answer is that we are fine to pick these up. Hold lifted.
~spot
12:51 a.m.
"Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa(a)redhat.com> writes:
Recently, most (all?) of Dan Bernstein's software was relicensed
into
the public domain.
Please hold off on packaging and submitting these packages for
review
into Fedora, pending legal advice as to whether he can actually do that
or not, under US law.
[ blink... ] I would be interested to know what legal theory claims
that DJB cannot relicense his own work.
regards, tom lane
1:18 a.m.
Tom Lane <tgl <at> redhat.com> writes:
[ blink... ] I would be interested to know what legal theory claims
that DJB cannot relicense his own work.
Believe it or not, in most European countries, you can't place anything in the
public domain, especially not after you claimed copyright for it first. Under
such a system, you can only license your rights (e.g. under a BSD-style
license), not give them up. In addition, there may be rights which cannot even
be licensed, for example in France, you can't use a work in a way which hurts
the author's image/reputation (and I believe that part of a French copyright
doesn't even expire); even if the license allows it, the clause allowing it is
void (or if it's a broad BSD-style "you can do anything" clause,
reinterpreted
so "anything" doesn't include hurting the author's reputation).
(Of course all this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer, laws may vary
wildly between countries in Europe, and the above paragraph may contain
mistakes. But disclaimers aside, I hope I got the general idea across. ;-) )
Kevin Kofler
8:09 a.m.
On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 07:18:34AM +0000, Kevin Kofler wrote:
Believe it or not, in most European countries, you can't place
anything in the
public domain, especially not after you claimed copyright for it first. Under
such a system, you can only license your rights (e.g. under a BSD-style
There are quite a few you don't want to. Don't assume that "public
domain" has
any attached liability waivers
2:04 a.m.
New subject: [Fedora-legal-list] DJB's software components
Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
And the answer is that we are fine to pick these up. Hold lifted.
Nice! Is anyone working on packaging qmail already?
--
\___/
|___| Bernardo Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
\___\ One Laptop Per Child - http://www.laptop.org/
12:21 p.m.
New subject: [Fedora-legal-list] DJB's software components
On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 03:04:00 -0500
bernie(a)codewiz.org (Bernardo Innocenti) wrote:
Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
> And the answer is that we are fine to pick these up. Hold lifted.
Nice! Is anyone working on packaging qmail already?
I have a set of qmail src.rpms that I was thinking of polishing off and
submitting. I'm not sure how many people really are interested in it at
this point though...
qmail has some pretty bad behavior for a modern MTA, like not having
ability to reject invalid recipients at SMTP time and instead
generating a bounce message for each.
I suppose if no one beats me to it I could submit my packages so they
are available for anyone interested in them.
kevin
6:29 a.m.
On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:18:34 +0000, Kevin Kofler scripst:
Believe it or not, in most European countries, you can't place
anything
in the public domain, especially not after you claimed copyright for it
Better to be said -- in most of the European, there is no such thing as
public domain de iure. There is a public domain de facto, but it looks
slightly differently from the US public domain. Let lawyers deal with
junk like this.
In addition, there may be rights which cannot even be licensed, for
example in France, you can't use a work in a way which hurts the
author's image/reputation (and I believe that part of a French
copyright doesn't even expire);
That's pretty common all over Europe (knowing only the Czech copyright
law though).
(Of course all this is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer, laws may
vary wildly between countries in Europe, and the above paragraph may
contain mistakes. But disclaimers aside, I hope I got the general idea
across. ;-) )
I was a lawyer, but I haven't practice copyright law for years, so IANAL
for purposes of this thread as well.
Matěj
--
The content of this message is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 License, Some Rights Reserved.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
6:32 a.m.
On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:09:13 -0500, Alan Cox scripst:
On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 07:18:34AM +0000, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Believe it or not, in most European countries, you can't place anything
> in the public domain, especially not after you claimed copyright for it
> first. Under such a system, you can only license your rights (e.g.
> under a BSD-style
There are quite a few you don't want to. Don't assume that "public
domain" has any attached liability waivers
Which was the reason I was shocked DJB released qmail under public domain
and why I would always prefer at least MIT/X/BSD-no-appropriation/CC-au
always. IIRC, sqlite is the only substantial software which is under
public domain and there is a reason for that.
Matěj
--
The content of this message is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 License, Some Rights Reserved.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
12:06 p.m.
New subject: [Fedora-legal-list] DJB's software components
On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 03:04:00AM -0500, Bernardo Innocenti wrote:
Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
> And the answer is that we are fine to pick these up. Hold lifted.
Nice! Is anyone working on packaging qmail already?
Might be worth looking and possibly reusing some of qmailtoaster's work
on this (they have src RPM's with many patches as well).
Ray
4:19 p.m.
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 13:32 +0100, Matej Cepl wrote:
Which was the reason I was shocked DJB released qmail under public
domain
and why I would always prefer at least MIT/X/BSD-no-appropriation/CC-au
always. IIRC, sqlite is the only substantial software which is under
public domain and there is a reason for that.
IANAL, but doesn't this mean he's effectively released it under *every*
license ever written? :) Are we going to have GPL and BSD forks battling
it out now?
6:18 p.m.
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 16:19 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 13:32 +0100, Matej Cepl wrote:
> Which was the reason I was shocked DJB released qmail under public domain
> and why I would always prefer at least MIT/X/BSD-no-appropriation/CC-au
> always. IIRC, sqlite is the only substantial software which is under
> public domain and there is a reason for that.
IANAL, but doesn't this mean he's effectively released it under *every*
license ever written? :) Are we going to have GPL and BSD forks battling
it out now?
Its possible, but Public Domain means something closer to "no license"
than "every license". We could see forks battling it out, but somehow, I
doubt this will happen.
~spot
11:10 p.m.
On Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 05:48:24AM +0530, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 16:19 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 13:32 +0100, Matej Cepl wrote:
> > Which was the reason I was shocked DJB released qmail under public domain
> > and why I would always prefer at least MIT/X/BSD-no-appropriation/CC-au
> > always. IIRC, sqlite is the only substantial software which is under
> > public domain and there is a reason for that.
>
> IANAL, but doesn't this mean he's effectively released it under *every*
> license ever written? :) Are we going to have GPL and BSD forks battling
> it out now?
Its possible, but Public Domain means something closer to "no license"
than "every license". We could see forks battling it out, but somehow, I
doubt this will happen.
Right - really "no license".
Public Domain means anyone is free to take it and use it however they
want - including pulling into another app and re-licensing it.
One of the ways people can contribute to GNU projects is to explicitly
assign copyright of code to the FSF. The other way is to disclaim
your work into the public domain, at which point the GNU project
maintainer may pick it up and include it in a GNU-licensed
application. Changes to the code will carry the FSF copyright, and
the whole will carry the GNU license. (see
parted/libparted/labels/gpt.c for such an example if you're curious).
--
Matt Domsch
Linux Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO
linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
12:18 p.m.
On Dec 3, 2007 10:10 PM, Matt Domsch <Matt_Domsch(a)dell.com> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 05:48:24AM +0530, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 16:19 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
> > On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 13:32 +0100, Matej Cepl wrote:
> > > Which was the reason I was shocked DJB released qmail under public domain
> > > and why I would always prefer at least MIT/X/BSD-no-appropriation/CC-au
> > > always. IIRC, sqlite is the only substantial software which is under
> > > public domain and there is a reason for that.
> >
> > IANAL, but doesn't this mean he's effectively released it under
*every*
> > license ever written? :) Are we going to have GPL and BSD forks battling
> > it out now?
>
> Its possible, but Public Domain means something closer to "no license"
> than "every license". We could see forks battling it out, but somehow, I
> doubt this will happen.
Right - really "no license".
Public Domain means anyone is free to take it and use it however they
want - including pulling into another app and re-licensing it.
One of the ways people can contribute to GNU projects is to explicitly
assign copyright of code to the FSF. The other way is to disclaim
your work into the public domain, at which point the GNU project
maintainer may pick it up and include it in a GNU-licensed
application. Changes to the code will carry the FSF copyright, and
the whole will carry the GNU license. (see
parted/libparted/labels/gpt.c for such an example if you're curious).
Oh dear god.. there is the nightmare of my tech support life.. gqmail..
--
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"
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13 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
Alan Cox -
Bernie Innocenti -
Callum Lerwick -
Kevin Fenzi -
Kevin Kofler -
Matej Cepl -
Matt Domsch -
Ray Van Dolson -
Stephen John Smoogen -
Tom Callaway -
Tom Lane