Re: location of UnicodeData.txt

["Bernhard R. Link" <blink@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>]

* Jim Penny <jpenny@universal-fasteners.com> [021130 18:43]:
> Huh?  If I change the text of the standard, I have changed the standard!
> For example, if I have :
> 0332;COMBINING LOW LINE;Mn;220;NSM;;;;;N;NON-SPACING UNDERSCORE;;;;
> and change this to
> 0332;NON-COMBINING LOW LINE;Mn;220;NSM;;;;;N;SPACING UNDERSCORE;;;;
> Then the standard has been changed!
> 
> That is, this file is line after line of character number assignment,
> followed by character name, (and other information).  There is no
> possible change that does not change the standard!
> 
> Hint: (from standard writer's viewpoint) - A standard that can be
> changed by anyone, at anytime, without notice and consultation is not
> a standard, especially if it is a contentious standard that has some
> people seriously upset (i.e, Russian and XJK users).

You seem to understand less and less. If the text is changed, it is no
longer the standard. (A standard can not be changed changing the text,
as the standard is not a local file, but the unmodified text).
What the licence of a standard file may resonable demand is that no
changed text pretends to be the unmodified standard.  

> The text of every standard that I know of is modifiable.  However, it
> normally takes the consent of the standards body and is issued under
> its aegis.  Again, Jim Penny's unicode standard has no value, and even
> debian unicode has very limited appeal.

You are again talkin of the standard. Not the text of the standard.
A standard body can issue a new standard. And trademark laws and other
things can force any new "XYZ standard for UVW" to be issued by some
special entity.

> On the other hand,  if you wish to create a competitor to the unicode 
> standard, say the debicode standard, I see no moral right that you have 
> to incorporate, without permission, the unicode standard.  You should 
> expect to start from scratch!

> Now, IANAL, but I suspect that any unicode editor that reproduced enough
> information from the unicode standard to be useful would be considered a
> derived work.  More importantly, I think that is is arguable that this
> table is, in the terms of the Debian Social Contract,  "necessary for 
> the execution" of a full unicode editor.  (The language of the debian 
> Social Contract is even more general and vague than copyright law!

It talkes about "and to freely use the information supplied in the
creation of products supporting the UnicodeTM Standard."
If this does not include making modifications, then jurisdiction is
more broken then I ever thought. (In my eyes the information should
even not be copyrightable at all, but this point may be discussed).

> In either case, the social contract would place the unicode table into
> non-free; and any editor that depended on the table, or information
> derived from the table (in a copyright sense) in either non-free or
> contrib.

The table itself may be non-free. I doubt any editor will use the file
itself but use modification suitable for the program.

> I have no problem with this result.  But saying that the unicode
> character table cannot be distributed by debian, in spite of specific
> language permitting us to do so, seems a bit extreme.  

If it does not suit for main, then it can not be distributed as part of
debian. (by definition)

> And the
> consequences of this decision will probably seem extreme to many people.
> This example just happens to be particularly cogent; there is no doubt
> it is non-free, there is no doubt it is copyrightable, there is little
> doubt that it is "necessary for the execution" of a substantial corpus
> of programs which are otherwise DFSG free.  These program would
> certainly include unicode editors, and would probably include python,
> perl and ruby.

These "no doubt" are all wrong in my eyes.

MfG,
  Bernhard R. Link

-- 
<gEistiO> sagen wir mal...ich hab alle sourcen in /lost+found/waimea
<me> gEistiO: [...] Warum lost+found?
<gEistiO> wo haette ich es denn sonst hingeben solln?