On Sun, May 30, 2004 at 06:28:12AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > I have been toying with the possibility of rewriting the DFSG such > that it enumerates which things a free license *can* do, rather than > just give examples of things it *cannot*. I think that such a revision > could get the guidelines to be much closer to the *actual* practise of > how we evaluate licenses than if we simply make local adjustments to > the current DFSG. The downside is that the whole truth cannot be > condensed into the "ten commandments" schema of the current DFSG. > > My results so far are at > <http://henning.makholm.net/debian/dfsg-bis.html> > > Comments will be appreciated - both about the general angle of attack, > and about my specific draft. I have probably forgotten about a detail > here and there. I think that we should retain the DFSG in their current form (but revised), but it would seem viable to *add* something like this as another document with equivalent priority. As always, interpretation of the boundary cases falls to us; we're writing guidelines here, not a program. That aside, here's a few observations of the forest: > A. The right to use > A user must have the right to execute the work on a computer if it is > a program; to display and read it if it is a text, and so forth. This appears to fail my old test: --- Your document is not free unless its license permits me to print it out and beat you with the hardcopy, as an expression of my opinion of the quality of your work. --- This paragraph seems to explain the boundary cases but not the core one. I'd be happier with something like this: A user must have the right to use the work, for any purpose. For example, if it is a computer program, this would include the right to execute the work on a computer if it is a program; if it is a text, this would include the right to display and read it in any form. > B. The right to copy and distribute > A user must have the right to create copies of the work in any > medium, and to give such copies to whomever he decides to distribute > to. Missed the most important part here, too. Let's haul 5A up here; duplication is not really an issue for this document: A user must have the right to create unlimited copies of the work in any medium, and to give such copies to whomever he decides to distribute to. It must be permitted for these copies to be given without requiring a royalty or other fee from any parties involved. > D. The right to distribute derived works > A user must have the right to give copies of derived works created > by himself or others to whomever he decides to distribute to. And again: A user must have the right to give copies of derived works created by himself or others to whomever he decides to distribute to. The user must be allowed to distribute these derived works under the terms of the original license. > 6. Patents > [Something needs to be said here.] I disagree on general principle. We should not concern ourselves with specific laws in this fashion; rather, we should concern ourselves with what you are and are not permitted to do, under *any* relevant laws. That applies to copyright as much as patent law. Now some tree-gazing: > The source for a work is a machine-readable form that is appropriate > for modifying the work or inspecting its structure and inner > workings. It is usually immediately clear what the source form is, > but sometimes it is a judgement call what to consider source. Are there actually any known cases where it is not bloody obvious? Non-free advocates like to throw this around, but all their examples are immediately seized upon and dissected, and the "source" turns out to be obvious after all once you have stripped away all the confusion they wrapped the problem in. I can see what the source to an image or font is, even if some people want to close their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears. I'd rather drop this if possible; I don't want to falsely encourage the notion that this is a difficult thing to determine. > D. Forced distribution of source with binaries > The right to distribute the work (or derivates) may exclude > distribution in forms other than source where the distribution is > not accompanied with the source. That reads awfully. The right to distribute the work in forms other than source may be made conditional on the inclusion of the source with any such distribution. And "conditional" is just ambiguous enough to capture things like the complicated clause 3 of the GPL. > E. Integrity of the original work > The license may require derived works to carry notices that make it > clear that they are not the original. > The license may require derived works to carry a different name or > version number from the original work. > However, such requirements may not be constructed such that they > interfere with the usual use of the derived work (assuming that the > derived work is of the same kind as the original one). I'd like to append something like the following: The license may not place further constraints on the naming or labelling of the derivative work. This includes specifying the form of such notices, or the manner in which derivative works must be named. > G. Copyleft licenses > The right to create and distribute derived works may be contingent > on the user granting every other user the same rights with respect > to his own copyright in the derived work as every user has already > been granted with respect to the original work. > The license may require the user not to use other legal measures > than copyright (such as trademarks, patents, or contracts) to > attempt to control the further copying and distribution of copies > that he distributes. Following from the principle I stated regarding section 6: The right to create and distribute derived works may be contingent on the user granting every other user the same rights in the derived work as every user has already been granted with respect to the original work. The license may require the user not to use other legal measures to attempt to control the further copying and distribution of copies that he distributes. <i>This includes the use of trademarks, patents, and contracts.</i> (Specific references to copyright excised, and the list has become non-normative and explicitly inclusive) > L. Specific exception for 4-clause BSD licenses I'd love a sunset clause on this bitch. > N. Acknowledgements in documentation > The license for a free program may require that end-user > documentation which accompanies the program contains a short > acknowledgement that credits the author. That's horrible. This could mean that we have to include the blasted things in the release notes. Survey of licenses and a tighter restriction before we write this one in, please. I'm not sufficiently familiar with such clauses to be able to pull one out of the air. > B. Notifying the author > A free license cannot require that the user notifies the author > prior to (or after!) exercising his basic rights. The temporal aspect seems useless. A free license cannot require that the user notifies the author as a condition for exercising any of his basic rights. > F. Adhering to standards > A free license cannot require that derived works must implement a > specific interface or comply with a specific standard. s/standard/specification/ on general principle, but "specific standard" reads awfully, so: F. Adhering to specifications A free license cannot require that derived works must implement a given interface or comply with a given specification. And then since it's a cute corner case: <i>It is acceptable for restrictions in the form of 4E, requiring derived works to be labelled or differently named, to make this restriction conditional on the derived work implementing a given interface or complying with a given specification.</i> > H. Discrimination against persons or groups > A free license cannot exclude any person or group of persons from > getting the basic rights, subject to acceptable restrictions mentioned > in section 4. Yow. A sane way of rewriting DFSG #5. I've been wrestling with that for ages. > I. Discrimination against fields of endeavour > A free license cannot restrict the work from being used for specific > purposes. For example, it must not restrict the work from being used > in a business, or from being used for genetic research. Almost, but not quite: A free license cannot explicitly restrict the work from being used for specific purposes. <i>It may implicitly restrict the use of the work as a consequence of other restrictions, if those restrictions are inherantly acceptable in a free license.</i> And that shoots out the last of the bloody loopholes. > K. Arbitrary termination > A free license cannot be revoked by the author even if the author > learns that he is not the sole copyright holder for the work or that > the the work is covered by patents. That's two clauses, let's split it up to make it clear it's not a conditional: A free license cannot be revoked by the author. This applies even if the author learns that he is not the sole copyright holder for the work or that the the work is covered by patents. > L. License specific to Debian > The rights attached to the work must not depend on the works's being > part of a Debian system. If the work is extracted from Debian and > used or distributed without Debian but otherwise within the terms of > the license, the basic rights must still be available to all users. > Meta-comment: Is this still necessary? It ought to be covered by the > comment in the definition of user. Ah, who cares? It can't hurt to leave it in. And let's work the Chinese Dissident test into section 5, since we've got the Desert Island one in there already. A free license may not require that the author divulge his identity to anybody. I'm refraining from serious analysis of issues of wording at this stage, since anything I propose fixes for will doubtless get mangled again later. But on general principle, using latin letters for section headings on a list this long is probably a bad idea; we'll wind up extending it to about 28 items if you do that. How about roman numerals? -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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