Re: Interpretation of the GR
Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 09:31:04PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>> So the GR promotes a "do what I mean, not what I say" approach to
>> license interpretation for the GFDL -- it does *not* claim that the
>> literal reading of the DRM restriction is free.
>
> But GRs don't get to say what licenses mean. Are you saying that the GR
> is saying: "even though the license says we can't do this, we're going
> to pretend otherwise, deliberately violate the license and hope for the
> best"?
That was my impression, yes. I believe the view amounted to "RMS says it
doesn't mean what it says, and he wrote it, so it doesn't mean what it
says."
>> I still think such a philosophy is an invitation to get in legal
>> trouble, but it seems to be the preferred choice of the developers.
>> At least Debian still believes in removing stuff without free licenses
>> from Debian if the licensors decide to actually enforce their licenses
>> as written.
>
> ... but at that point, it's too late. Debian and/or its users may already
> be liable. Such a claim by a licensor would not be a guaranteed victory,
> of course, but it does feel like Debian would genuinely be in the wrong.
Well, at least Debian and/or its users would only be liable for past
uses. :-P Normally copyright holders send cease-and-desist letters before
making claims. So I guess it's fairly unlikely that anyone would actually
sue or file charge without sending one first.
But I agree with you, it feels very much like Debian and/or its users would
be in the wrong.
I think it would be Debian in the GFDL case, because the copies stored on
ftpmaster are rendered inaccessible to the general public, by means of
technical measures. Only the copies of those copies on the mirrors are
accessible.
Actually, I'm surprised I didn't notice that before -- GFDL documents can't
be legally distributed by Debian if you actually read what the license
says. They're *undistributable*.
Gaaah! Can we please kick them out? I so wish the FSF would buy a clue and
fix that clause.
> Note that this is very unlike the Pine case. In that case, UW was the
> licensor, applying an unnatural interpretation to its license to
> retroactively
> retract permissions. Here, Debian is the licensee, applying an unnatural
> interpretation to try to give itself permissions it hasn't been granted.
I agree. What can I say? I suppose Adeoato's interpretation of the DRM
clause is plausible if you pretend that "or" actually means "and". But it
doesn't.
--
Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com>
Bush admitted to violating FISA and said he was proud of it.
So why isn't he in prison yet?...
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