Re: Re: Please pass judgement on X-Oz licence: free or nay?
Joe Wreschnig wrote in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/msg00200.html:
>I guess I'm also convinced that just because it's not numbered like it
>is in the BSD license, doesn't make it not a clause. That is, the X
>license says "Permission is hereby granted... subject to the following
>conditions:"
Actually, this is incorrect. Which perhaps is the key difference. From
http://www.x.org/Downloads_terms.html:
>Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
>copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
>"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
>without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
>distribute, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons
>to whom the Software is furnished to do so, provided that the above
>copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear in all copies of
>the Software and that both the above copyright notice(s) and this
>permission notice appear in supporting documentation.
It simply does not say "subject to the following conditions". It says:
>...provided that the above
>copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear in all copies of
>the Software and that both the above copyright notice(s) and this
>permission notice appear in supporting documentation.
The conditions quite clearly end with the period at the end of the
sentence. That single sentence is, in fact, the entire permission
grant. Above it is the copyright notice (which ends with the words "All
rights reserved."). Below it are some other statements.
A more exhaustive analysis: The permissions are granted "...provided
that... (condition 1) and (condition 2)." Condition 1 is "the above
copyright notice(s) and this permission notice appear in all copies of
the Software". Condition 2 is "the above copyright notice(s) and this
permission notice appear in all copies of the Software". Then the
sentence ends, ending the grant of permission and completing the list of
conditions.
This is simply parsing of English.
> and then goes on to lay out the requirement that the
>copyright notice be preserved; then the warranty disclaimer; then the
>paragraph in question. At no point is it obvious to me that "the
>following conditions" is ending and being replaced by something else.
Pay more attention. :-)
The warranty disclaimer is not a condition of the license; it's not a
condition of any sort, simply an assertion that there is no warranty.
Now if a license said "provided that you accept the following
disclaimer", that would be a condition.
Similarly, the sentences following the warranty disclaimer are not
conditions; they're wholly independent.
"Except as contained in this notice, the name of a copyright holder
shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use
or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization
of the copyright holder."
"X Window System is a trademark of The Open Group."
"OSF/1, OSF/Motif and Motif are registered trademarks, and OSF, the OSF
logo, LBX, X Window System, and Xinerama are trademarks of the Open
Group. All other trademarks and registered trademarks mentioned herein
are the property of their respective owners."
Any of these claims could be independently disputed. They are
independent sentences.
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