Re: InaTux's "Author's Choice of Terminology License"

Yes. I don't know much about copyright. But, I would guess that with a properly written license, that you would "append" it to a legal copyright registration along with the work that the license is covering, and send it to the "patent office" of copyrights.

And i realize that Debian is just the final collection of software for execution. All the Debian developers could do is recommend people license they software under the ACTL when they want to design something for the Debian operating system.

I don't know how it would work as a trademark license more than a copyright license. But I would guess it could be both, it would just matter which form one chose for the license, i.e. copyright+ACTL or trademark+ACTL.

I don't know which one would actually be the one that would be able to restrict people's marketing terminology, which is what the license does.

--- On Sun, 6/7/09, Anthony W. Youngman <debian@thewolery.demon.co.uk> wrote:

From: Anthony W. Youngman <debian@thewolery.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: InaTux's "Author's Choice of Terminology License"
To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org
Cc: "Ben Finney" <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>, "oohay moc." <loopy_bajj@yahoo.com>
Date: Sunday, June 7, 2009, 7:13 AM

In message <[🔎] 170691.3044.qm@web34408.mail.mud.yahoo.com" href="/mc/compose?to=170691.3044.qm@web34408.mail.mud.yahoo.com">[🔎] 170691.3044.qm@web34408.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, oohay moc. <loopy_bajj@yahoo.com> writes
> Did you read the license?
>
> The majority of the software in Debian is licensed under the GPL, that is why Debian is referred to as licensed under the GNU GPL.
>
> I would think the license would be applied to the act of final distribution of Debian, to the source LiveCD, or other ways. So that when one receives the operating system they have to follow the same terminology in modifications.

WRONG. Sorry. But the ONLY person(people) who can apply or change a licence are the people who own the copyrights. For the MOST part, those people are NOT Debian people.

Yes, Debian can apply a licence to the LiveCD, because they've done the work of making it. But that licence will NOT apply to the contents of the disk, because Debian don't own the copyright to the stuff they put on the disk.
>
> The license aims to ensure the that operating systems be called "GNU/Linux" in any derivative works, like Ubuntu. It also aims to ensure that any software licensed under it has to be call "Free Software." But, one could use the license to ensure that the OS be call "Linux" and the software be called "Open Source." That is my paraphrased summary of the ACT License.
>
> I didn't write the license so I don't fully understand myself. The only information I have is the link to the license at inatux.com that I already posted.
>
It appears you also don't understand copyright (don't worry, you're in very good company :-)

I haven't read the InaTux licence, so I can't comment on whether it's a good or bad licence - it sounds a nice one in some respects, but it also sounds like it should be a trademark licence, not a copyright one. But it's not applicable here because the people you're asking to apply the licence AREN'T the authors, and don't have the legal right to apply the licence.

Cheers,
Wol
-- Anthony W. Youngman - anthony@thewolery.demon.co.uk

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