On Wed, 24 Dec 2003, Lionel Elie Mamane wrote: > Every SRFI contains a reference implementation, and bears this > copyright notice: > > Copyright (C) /author/ (/year/). All Rights Reserved. > > This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to > others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain > it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, > published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction > of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this > paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. > However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such > as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Scheme > Request For Implementation process or editors, except as needed for > the purpose of developing SRFIs in which case the procedures for > copyrights defined in the SRFI process must be followed, or as > required to translate it into languages other than English. > > The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be > revoked by the authors or their successors or assigns. > > This document and the information contained herein is provided on > an "AS IS" basis and THE AUTHOR AND THE SRFI EDITORS DISCLAIM ALL > WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY > WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE > ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS > FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. > > Is a scheme implementation that includes the reference implementation > DFSG-free (providing the rest of the implementation is, obviously)? No, unfortunatly, because irregardless of the FAQ, the license is contradictory, and seemlingly violates DFSG #3. [Unless there is a provision which I am missing to license the actual implementation of a reference implementation separately... Could you provide reference to the "procedures for copyrights defined in the SRFI process"?] > Doesn't the SRFI copyright notice contradict itself? > You're probably thinking of the sentence "However, this document > itself may not be modified in any way [...] except as needed for > the purpose of developing SRFIs [...]" which might seem to > contradict the answers to the previous questions. However, this > sentence is only to prevent passing off a modified copy of the > document as the document itself. So SRFI x is an inviolable > entity (and once finalized, very close to cast in amber). But you > can excerpt from it at will, with attribution. (We have actually > consulted with several lawyers on this; it is what we intended, > and it is what it means.) May I suggest that this particular text of the license actually be changed to say exactly what is meant, instead of relying on a lawyer's interpretation of its meaning? EG: Modifications must indicate the nature of any change and the date of such change. Additionally, modifications as made must explicitely indicate that they are not a SRFI Reference Implementation in a location routinely used for such notices, or in the very document itself. While there is no doubt in my mind that you could make a case for the statement in the FAQ, its also quite possible (and probably more likely) to claim the opposite, and still have an interesting and expensive legal slugfest. Moreover, there's nothing in this document that gives you the right to modify outside of creating "derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation." [You could argue, I suppose, that any dirivative work explains the work its derived from, but if that's the tack to take, why not just say it?] > In the case of scsh, which includes some of these reference > implementations, upstream's opinion is that what the license means is > "the copyright needs to remain intact", not "the code cannot change". I'm personally not convinced of that, but it's possible I can be swayed. Don Armstrong -- "People selling drug paraphernalia ... are as much a part of drug trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide." -- John Brown, DEA Chief http://www.donarmstrong.com http://www.anylevel.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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