Here is my long-procrastinated remainder of my LPPL analysis. My apologies to the LPPL team for my tardiness, and my gratitude for their patience. As before, I am classifying my remarks according to the following scheme: Categories ---------- cosmetic nit: a typographical issue; failure to rectify this should have no real consequences at all semantic nit: a wording issue that does not, in my opinion, obscure the meaning or intent of the license to an intelligent reader who is unversed in licensing issues semantic wart: a wording issue that I think may be misleading or confusing even to an intelligent reader who is fairly conversant with licensing issues; an issue that could cause people to misinterpret or be confused by the meaning of the license DFSG problem: a semantic wart that renders the license DFSG-non-free as applied to a hypothetical work using its terms aside: just chatting On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 01:24:09AM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote: > MAINTENANCE OF THE WORK > ======================= [aside] Ordinarily, I guess this wouldn't be legally binding material, but since the Current Maintainer is afforded extra privileges with respect to the Work, I guess it makes sense to include it in the license document. This isn't a discrimination problem for DFSG purposes because, apart from the apparent error in the terms and conditions that I noted in part 1 of my analysis, the license is DFSG-free for people who *aren't* the Current Maintainer. (As long as a work is DFSG-free for everyone, it's okay if there is a privileged group that enjoys even fewer restrictions.) > The Work has the status `author-maintained' if the Copyright Holder > explicitly states that The Work can only be maintained by the > Copyright Holder. #include <from_before/cosmetic-nit-about-The-Work> #include <from_before/cosmetic-nit-about-grave-accents-as-quotation-marks> [semantic wart] Where can a user of the Work reasonably expect to find such an explicit statement? Does he or she need to look any farther than the copyright information on the Work? > The Work has the status `maintained' if there is a Current Maintainer > who has indicated in The Work that they are willing to receive error > reports for The Work (for example, by supplying a valid e-mail > address). It is not required for the Current Maintainer to acknowledge > or act upon these error reports. > > The Work changes from status `maintained' to `unmaintained' if there > is no Current Maintainer, or the person stated to be Current > Maintainer of the work cannot be reached through the indicated means > of communication for a period of six months, and there are no other > signs of active maintenance. [semantic nit] I'd soften "no other signs" to "no other significant signs". Such things are always going to be a judgement call anyway, so I think it makes sense to use slightly grayer language than you have. I am presuming that the intent of the LPPL is not to let a person hold onto Current Maintainer status even if he's lazy and phones in a trivial update every five-and-a-half months or so as to mark his territory. [aside] I bring this up because we have had problems in the Debian Project with barely-active maintainers who "maintain" packages in letter only, not in spirit. > You can become the Current Maintainer of The Work by agreement with > any existing Current Maintainer to take over this role. > > If The Work is unmaintained, you can become the Current Maintainer of > The Work through the following steps: > > 1. Make a reasonable attempt to trace the Current Maintainer (and > Copyright Holder, if the two differ) through the means of > Internet Search, etc. [cosmetic nit] s/Internet Search, etc/an Internet search or similar means/ > 2. If this search is successful, inquire whether The Work is still > maintained. > > a. If it is being maintained, ask the Current Maintainer to update > the communication data. [semantic wart] What happens if you ask him to update the communication data and he or she does not do so is not defined. I suggest putting a time limit (maybe one month?) on how long an interested party must wait for the Current Maintainer to do this trivial thing. If the Current Maintainer doesn't, then the interested person should be able to proceed as if he hadn't reached the Current Maintainer at all. [aside] As above, people will say they'll do things, and then they won't. Just look at how long it took me to finish my LPPL analysis. :-/ > b. Otherwise, announce your intention to take over maintenance > within the pertinent community. (If The Work is a LaTeX > work, this could be done, for example, by posting to > comp.text.tex.) > > 3a. If the Current Maintainer is reachable and agrees to pass > maintenance of The Work to you, then this takes effect > immediately upon announcement. > > b. If the Current Maintainer is not reachable and if after > three months your intention is challenged neither by the Current > Maintainer nor by other people, then you may arrange for a change > of The Work to name you as the (new) Current Maintainer. [aside] Here's one place you might handle the circumstance of the Current Maintainer saying he'll update his communication data, but fails to do so. > 4. If the previously unreachable Current Maintainer returns within > six months, that Current Maintainer must become or remain the > Current Maintainer upon request. [aside] I'd strike this. It may dis-incentivize people from trying to take over the Current Maintainer position from one of these "phone in an update every so often" types. In my opinion, a Current Maintainer needs to make more than token gestures, he needs to actually maintain things. I'd find this clause less worrisome (again, from a project management and community caretaking, not a "debian-legal", standpoint) if the duration within which the old Current Maintainer could hijack the Work back were drastically reduced. Maybe to one month. Even that will feel like a long probationary period to the new Current Maintainer. > A change in the Current Maintainer does not alter the fact that The > Work is distributed under the LPPL license. [semantic nit] You might say s/does not alter/does not, of itself, alter/. This way it's crystal-clear that the changing of Current Maintainer doesn't *prohibit* a change in license terms. As I understand it, only the Copyright Holder can do that, and he or she is not constrained by any change in the position of Current Maintainer. > If you become the Current Maintainer of The Work you should ensure > that this is clearly stated in The Work by changing the nomination or > by or adding one. [semantic nit] "Changing the nomination", while probably formally accurate, feels very stilted to me, and more prone to cause confusion. I'd say: If you become the Current Maintainer of the Work, you should immediately provide clear and unambiguous notice of your status as Current Maintainer within the Work. You should also announce your new status to the same community that applies in 2b) above. > WHETHER AND HOW TO DISTRIBUTE WORKS UNDER THIS LICENSE > ====================================================== > > This section contains important instructions, examples, and > recommendations for authors who are considering distributing their > works under this license. These authors are addressed as `you' in > this section. > > Choosing This License or Another License > ---------------------------------------- > > If for any part of your work you want or need to use *distribution* > conditions that differ significantly from those in this license, then > do not refer to this license anywhere in your work but instead [cosmetic nit] s/work but/work, but/ > distribute your work 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 work is distributed under the LPPL. > > The document `modguide.tex' in the base LaTeX distribution explains > the motivation behind the conditions of this license. It explains, > for example, why distributing LaTeX under the GNU General Public > License (GPL) was considered inappropriate. Even if your work is > unrelated to LaTeX, the discussion in `modguide.tex' may still be > relevant, and authors intending to distribute their works under any > license are encouraged to read it. > > A Recommendation on Modification Without Distribution > ----------------------------------------------------- > > It is wise never to modify a file of The Work, even for your own > personal use, without also meeting the above conditions for > distributing the modified file. While you might intend that such > modified files will never be distributed, often this will happen by > accident -- you may forget that you have modified the file; or it may > not occur to you when allowing others to access the modified file that > you are thus distributing it and violating the conditions of this > license. It is usually in your best interest to keep your copy of The [semantic nit] If you want to turn up the heat here, you could say: s/license./license, potentially exposing you to civil or criminal legal liability for copyright infringment/ However, that may sound nastier than you want to come across. [aside] I'm not advocating the above, just offering it as a possibility since I do recall that the LaTeX community was very concerned about inadvertent infringing distribution. > Work identical with the public one. Many Works provide ways to > control the behavior of that Work without altering its licensed files. > > How to Use This License > ----------------------- > > To use this license, place in each of the files of your work both > an explicit copyright notice including your name and the year and also [semantic nit] s@the year@& the work was authored and/or last substantially modified@ > a statement that the distribution and/or modification of the file is > constrained by the conditions in this license. > > Here is an example of such a notice and statement: > > %% pig.dtx > %% Copyright 2003 M. Y. Name > % > % This work 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. > % The latest version of this license is in > % http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt > % and version 1.3 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX > % version 2003/06/01 or later. > % > % This work has the LPPL maintenance status "maintained". > % > % This Current Maintainer of this work is M. Y. Name [cosmetic nit] Put a period at the end of that sentence. :) > % > % This work consists of the files pig.dtx and pig.ins > % and the derived file pig.sty. > > Given such a notice and statement in a file, the conditions given in > this license document would apply, with `The Work' referring to the > three files `pig.dtx', `pig.ins', and `pig.sty' (generated from [semantic nit] s/(generated/(the latter generated/ > `pig.dtx' using `pig.ins'), the `Base Interpreter' referring to any > `LaTeX-Format', and both `Copyright Holder' and `Current Maintainer' > referring to the person `M. Y. Name'. > > To prevent the Maintenance section of LPPL allowing someone else to [cosmetic nit] s/allowing/from &/ > become the Current Maintainer without your agreement, you could change > "maintained" above into "author-maintained". > > Important Recommendations > ------------------------- > > Defining What Constitutes The Work > > The LPPL requires that distributions of The Work contain all the > files of The Work. It is therefore important that you provide a > way for the licensee to determine which files constitute The Work. > This could, for example, be achieved by explicitly listing all the > files of The Work near the copyright notice of each file or by > using a line like > > % This work consists of all files listed in manifest.txt. > > in that place. In the absence of an unequivocal list it might be > impossible for the licensee to determine what is considered by you > to comprise The Work. [semantic wart] I'd add: In such a case, the licensee is entitled to make reasonable conjectures as to which files comprise the Work. END OF ANALYSIS Whew! I apologize again for the stupidly long delay. Thank you again for your boundless patience. -- G. Branden Robinson | Human beings rarely imagine a god Debian GNU/Linux | that behaves any better than a branden@debian.org | spoiled child. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Robert Heinlein
Attachment:
pgpgtjaNO2ezS.pgp
Description: PGP signature