On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:37:28AM -0800, Michael Adams wrote:
> I dislike the notion of software patents just as much as you do,
> perhaps even more as they have been causing me a lot of grief with
> respect to JasPer. I am very much in favor of software with no usage
> restrictions at all. In an ideal world, JasPer would have no usage
> restrictions imposed by its license. What I ask is that you please
> appreciate the world is far from ideal. I have received a number of
> rather unkind e-mail from some members of the open-source community.
> That is, a number of people have been very critical of me for
> the compliant-usage clause in the JasPer license. In this regard, I wish
> that people would make a genuine attempt to understand the issues
> involved before they attack me for being an unfair/unkind person.
Professor Adams,
I can speak only for myself, but as a Debian and Free Software developer
for over five years, as a participant in the Debian Project's legal
discussions forum for a majority of that time, and as a paid developer
of both free-licensed and proprietary software for over four years to
date, I'd like to say this:
1) I feel I have a fairly well-developed lay understanding of copyright,
patent, and trademark licensing issues as they apply to computer
software in the U.S.;
2) I feel I understand the tradeoffs and competing interests that must
be served when developing free software in a commercial environment;
3) I trust the vast majority of my fellow Debian Developers to not send
intemperate mails to authors of software making personal attacks upon
them for their licensing decisions.
In reviewing this matter for my own interest I noticed the following
clause in the JasPer license:
> F. This software is for use only in hardware or software products
> that are compliant with ISO/IEC 15444-1 (i.e., JPEG-2000 Part 1). No
> license or right to this Software is granted for products that do not
> comply with ISO/IEC 15444-1. The JPEG-2000 Part 1 standard can be
> purchased from the ISO.
The freedom to use computer software for any purpose -- I repeat, *any*
purpose, is one of the most fundamental and least controversial premises
of the Free Software community. You will not find much internal dissent
upon these points. Richard Stallman's seminal article enumerating four
essential freedoms may be a useful reference:
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
In this article, Mr. Stallman says:
"Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy,
distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it
refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
[...]
The freedom to use a program means the freedom for any kind of person or
organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of
overall job, and without being required to communicate subsequently with
the developer or any other specific entity."
This necessarily includes the freedom to run computer programs on
platforms that are not conformant with some particular technological
standard, for whatever reason (whether it's a matter of 100% compliance
with or without waivers from the standards body, or whether the platform
makes no effort to be compliant with a particular standard is
irrelevant).
> First of all, I am not the sole owner of the JasPer software. I am
> only a partial copyright holder along with the other JasPer
> Contributors. More specifically, JasPer is co-owned by the following
> parties:
> 1) Image Power, Inc.
> 2) University of British Columbia
> 3) Michael Adams
> As a result, the terms of the JasPer license cannot be dictated by me alone.
> The license and any revisions must be made with the approval of all of
> the above parties. Consequently, I was only able to provide input to
> the license drafting process, but I could not dictate the terms of the
> license myself.
The Debian Project commonly encounters this situation, and we understand
that our point of contact for a given software project is often not solely
empowered to make licensing decisions.
> Second, and more importantly, there is a critical legal issue involved
> here. In fact, it is for this reason that all of the JasPer
> Contributors agreed that the compliant-usage clause was necessary. The
> troublesome issue is this: The JasPer Contributors might be held
> liable for the patent-infringing use of the JasPer software by
> *others*. This is a very serious concern. This is, in fact, the
> primary reason why the license imposes the compliant-usage restriction.
> That is, this clause in the license serves to protect the JasPer
> Contributors (e.g., from lawsuits claiming contributory infringement or
> something similar).
As an international volunteer organization dedicated to producing an
operating system of 100% Free Software, we completely understand your
desire to avoid vexatious litigation.
It is a sad fact that in many cases, our freedom as software developers
is infringed by the ill-advised application of the patent system to
intangible goods like software, and that failure of the legislature and
courts to look sternly upon harassment of party A because his software
runs on the hardware of patent-infringing party B has a chilling effect
on software innovation. Moreover, these facts of life distort the free
market, a consequence that is generally found abhorrent by certain
ideologies, but which is tolerated quite comfortably when the
distortions produced are to the pecuniary benefit of their exponents.
I humbly suggest, for the sake of reducing further confusion, that you
modify the language on JasPer's home page so that members of the Open
Source and Free Software communities are less likely to jump to
incorrect conclusions. The page currently says:
"The JasPer Project is an open-source initiative to provide a free
software-based reference implementation of the codec specified in the
JPEG-2000 Part-1 standard (i.e., ISO/IEC 15444-1)."
It might be changed to read:
"The JasPer Project is an initiative to create a public,
freely-modifiable, and freely-distributable reference implementation of
the codec specified in the JPEG-2000 Part-1 standard (i.e., ISO/IEC
15444-1). Unfortunately, due to patent restrictions on ISO/IEC
15444-1, we are unable to license this implementation for
general-purpose use."
(If the patent restrictions would more accurately or precisely described
as applying to something other than ISO/IEC 15444-1, then of course the
above language should be modified accordingly.)
I believe the above will both signal members of the Free Software and
Open Source communities that they will need to look elsewhere for
software satisfying their licensing requirements, and place the
responsibility for the failure to license the reference implementation
for general-purpose use where it belongs.
Thanks for your time.
--
G. Branden Robinson | Any man who does not realize that
Debian GNU/Linux | he is half an animal is only half a
branden@debian.org | man.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Thornton Wilder
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature