Re: Question(s) for clarifications with respect to the LPPL discussion
At 01.31 +0200 2002-07-22, Jeff Licquia wrote:
>On Sat, 2002-07-20 at 15:16, Henning Makholm wrote:
>> Scripsit Lars Hellström <Lars.Hellstrom@math.umu.se>
>>
>> > The discussion between Jeff and me turned up another main concern,
>> > regarding the distribution of modified works. In his opinion (which I now
>> > suspect holds for at least those jurisdictions where copyright is
>>something
>> > which just arises rather than has to be claimed) it could be a problem
>>that
>> > the LPPL does not say anything about the copyrights of the authors of the
>> > original (LPPLed work) to a modified derivative thereof. It appears that
>> > they in principle could later demand that an arbitrarily restrictive
>> > license should be applied for the derivative work.
>>
>> I don't think this is an actual problem. We have many licences that
>> say "you may modify and distribute your modifications if you do
>> so-and-so", and we've always interpreted that as meaning "and I
>> promise that as long as you do so-and-so I will give my permission
>> to the distibution of the derived work without any further
>> requirements".
>
>Right. The question is "what modification rights do you have?" There's
>good reason to believe that the "must change the file name" clause must
>apply to derived works as well, so each time a file changes, its name
>must change.
The claim in that last sentence is certainly unproven, and the license text
makes yours a highly unlikely interpretation. The only thing it says about
the licensing of modified files is:
7. You must distribute the modified file under a license that forbids
distribution both of the modified file and of any files derived
from the modified file with the filename of the original file.
It forbids (requires that the licenses of the modified file and any files
derived from that contains a clause that forbids) giving the modified file
or any file derived from that the name of the original file, but it does
not say anything about whether the modified file may be further modified
without any change in its name. Had this been the intention then it would
have been just as easy to say so, hence that is in all likelihood not how
the text should be interpreted.
At 22 Jul 2002 01:04:10 -0500, Jeff Licquia <licquia@debian.org> wrote
(under the subject Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia):
>I distribute it to my friend Ralph.
>
>Now Ralph modifies it:
>
>foo
>bar
>baz
>quux
>
>The question is: what name shall he give the new file?
>
>Let's assume that I don't care. Thus, this line "baz" is unencumbered.
>Of course, the line "quux" is his. But what about the other two lines?
>
>They are licensed under the LPPL, which states:
>
>> If for any part of your program you want or need to use *distribution*
>> conditions that differ from those in this license, then do not refer to
>> this license anywhere in your program but instead distribute your
>> program under a different license. You may use the text of this license
>> as a model for your own license, but your license should not refer to
>> the LPPL or otherwise give the impression that your program is
>> distributed under the LPPL.
>
>Note that *distribution* conditions are waived (except for the filename
>thing), but *modification* conditions are not. So, when people modify
>files containing LPPLed work, they must honor the copyright on the part
>with LPPLed code as well.
I've told you before: you're completely misinterpreting this paragraph;
probably because you've taken it out of context. What it means is roughly
that it is OK (although not free) to start a file with
% pig.sty
% Copyright 2002 M. Y. Name
%
% This program may be distributed and/or modified under the
% conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License (either version 1.3
> % of this license or (at your option) any later version), as long
> % as you in addition pay $99 to M. Y. Name before making any
> % modifications to this file.
% The latest version of this LaTeX Project Public License is in
% http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
% and version 1.3 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
% version 2002/06/01 or later.
\endinput % This renders this file useless, and must be
% removed or worked around to get some use out of this file.
... % Now do some really cool stuff
since that extra condition is a _modification_ condition. It is however not
OK to say
% pig.sty
% Copyright 2002 M. Y. Name
%
% This program may be distributed and/or modified under the
% conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License (either version 1.3
> % of this license or (at your option) any later version), as long
> % as it is not given to Saddam Hussein, dictator of Iraq.
% The latest version of this LaTeX Project Public License is in
% http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
% and version 1.3 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
% version 2002/06/01 or later.
... % Now do some really cool stuff
(although it wouldn't totally surprise me if there was a US law requiring
its citizens---and everybody else that rogue state might feel like seizing
jurisdiction over---to include such a condition in licenses for certain
types of software) since that is a _distribution_ condition. The paragraph
goes on to say "We don't mind if you model your license after the LPPL, you
may even copy most of the text verbatim, but it must not say that it is the
LPPL or make any reference to the LPPL."
Lars Hellström
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