Re: Copyright from the lcs-projekt!? [dwarf@polaris.net: Re: First cut at testing and validation]
On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Philip Hands wrote:
> > On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Philip Hands wrote:
> >
> > > [long-ish and largely off topic]
> > >
> > > Hi Dwarf,
> > >
> > > [ excuse me, while I succumb to the urge to be argumentative for a second.
> > > If this irritates you unduly, please just ignore it :-) ]
<bears chest and paints target> ;-)
> > >
> > > OK, so I take your program, and because I don't like code duplication, I patch
> > > it by removing all the while loops, and replacing them with this:
> > >
> > > while read file type
> > > do
> > > while read name
> > > do
> > > if ! [ $type $name ]
> > > then
> > > SUCCESS=FALSE
> > > echo "Failed to find $name"
> > > fi
> > > done < $file
> > > done <<'EOF'
> > > lcs-sonames -L
> > > lcs-pkgnames -x
> > > lcs-pgmnames -x
> > > lcs-cnfnames -e
> > > EOF
> > >
> > > and post the result back to the list as a suggested improvement.
> > >
> > > Would this be a copyright violation ?
> >
> > Not as far as I can tell. The whole purpose of the posting the outline
> > code was to elicit responses. What you supplied in you email is an example
> > code snippet with suggestions on how I might impliment it.
>
> No, you miss my point --- If I had edited the above code snippet into your
> code, and posted the result to a public list, I would have been distributing a
> modified version of your code, in violation of it's copyright.
>
No I didn't. ;-) To me, it doesn't matter how you arrived at the code
snippet you posted. The action you are taking in posting to me and the
list does not represent itself as the validate program provided by LCS.
That is the only thing that is restricted. You are not trying to modify
the standard with this posting, only suggest an improved way of displaying
it clearly.
> > While there are clear "typo" advantages to the way you wrote the code, I
> > might argue that it "hides" function a bit more than my code, but in the
> > end, I would probably adopt yours as safer to modify and extend.
> >
> > Can I do that? I see no copyright notice so must assume you have applied
> > the most restrictive copyright ;-)
>
> Tell you what, I'll put it under the GPL for you.
>
> > Please let me steal your code ;-)
>
> Oh damn, you cannot use GPLed code in your script, under it's current licence,
> can you ?
>
> <evil grin>
>
Which should suggest that if you really want to contribute to the effort
you will not do such a thing.
One thing is clear here. Everyone is concerned that if this is valuable
code that there is some danger of it becoming proprietary and therefore
useless to the Free Software community.
I have already made it clear that I don't intend to let this happen. If
you make it impossible for me to continue on the present course, some
other committee member will be chosen to write the test suite, and I feel
pretty certain that there is less chance that they will be as "reasonable"
as I have been, dispite how unreasonable some think me to be.
If I am the copyright holder I guarantee that I can release important code
contributions back to the community under the GPL, so Debian can benefit
from them as well as the rest of the Linux community. I can obviously not
make that guarantee for anyone else. I realize that this requires a great
deal of trust on the part of Debian, but I believe you cannot know unless
you try.
> ...
> > Copyright can never stop any behavior, not even the violation of
> > copyright. The community at large stops you from using the above code for
> > anything but argument purposes, since if you falsly declare your distro to
> > be compliant, it IS going to become apparent very quickly that you are
> > not, and only your distro will suffer from such false information.
>
> My point exactly.
>
My point is that the copyright gives power to the holder to enforce the
copyright.
The copyright applies to exactly the sequence of characters that I, the
author, set down under the copyright. If I allow that copyright material
to be modified then the copyright no longer applies to the result. This
weakening of the copyright is not desirable.
With software, it is easy to provide the original unmodified material
together with its copyright, along side diffs that produce a second set
of source code that is then built into a binary (possibly with
notification of the changes). None of this weakens the copyright of the
original material, while providing the freedom to produce something
different from the original without a total rewrite, allowing it to grow.
In the case of code that "defines" a standard, rights to modify remove the
controls of the standards committee over the standard. It then becomes
"public property" and no longer a fixed standard but growing into
something potentially very different.
Can you imagine how difficult it would be to talk about POSIX conformance
if there were multiple versions of the standard, each with some small, but
impactful, difference?
That is what is being asked of this standard, and it hasn't even been
realized yet!
How is Linux compatibility served by have dozens of slightly different
standards, each expoused by some small group or other.
If the single standard proposed by the LCS committee is total anathema to
Debian, then it should be rejected. Copyright restrictions shouldn't have
anything to do with that determination.
> The restraint is the disdain of the community, not the copyright.
>
> The copyright is in fact totally ineffective, and is actually counter
> productive:
>
> it has the potential for restricting people from suggesting improvements
> while the scripts are being developed.
>
> If people that submit patches want to be GPL bigots, you cannot use their
> patches, and might have to go to pains to show that you came up with them
> independently
>
> it's causing this largely pointless argument ;-)
>
Pointless? <feels top of head>
> You're going to have to refer to the verification suit in the standard anyway,
> so why not just specify the exact version of the suit that that standard
> accepts as showing compliance, and tell people not to modify it in a way that
> could result in confusion about what the right version is.
>
> No need for a non-DFSG licence, because anyone distributing a version that
> would cause you concern, will be vilified by the community, just as they would
> if the distributed my silly, non-copyright-infringing, ``It works'' script.
>
The point is that any other version, that is not a version submitted by
the Standards Committee, is going to be unacceptable, as it implies some
authority is granted to the new standards version by the committee. No
such "transfer of authority" will ever be considered by the committee to
be a "good thing".
> P.S. I was only joking about GPLing the patch, use it for whatever you like,
> under any licence you like :-)
>
Much appreciated. Cooperation is far more constructive.
> You might want to keep in ming the fact that you cannot borrow any GPL code
> while you're writing the verification suit though.
>
Understood. I hope it doesn't strain my skills ;-)
Waiting is,
Dwarf
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