Re: FilterProxy and DFSG-compliancy?
(I am not a lawyer)
On Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 01:03:53AM -0600, Bob McElrath wrote:
> My license is intended to accomplish 3 things:
> 1) Make copyright compliance of the filtered HTML the responsibility of
> the person *running* it, not mine. (I don't want to be sued, and I
> think this is reasonable -- see license for further justification)
Isn't it usually the case that the user is responsible for their actions? Even
if not, couldn't this be replaced by a statement similar to the one you make
above? Rather than stating that the user cannot do X or Y, state that the user
shall assume responsibility for their use of the software.
> 3) Explicitly disallow redistribution of modified HTML. While the
> source is always readily available in this case, modifying it for
> redistribution is out of the question, since the HTML may not have
> been obtained under some kind of "open content" license. Personal
> use, by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose, is fine.
How is FilterProxy, in this case, any different than, say, a text editor?
Emacs doesn't have restrictions on its license stating that you cannot edit and
redistribute copyrighted works with it; that is covered by other law. Isn't
this also the case for web content?
> Well, if you can...but what would flying pig taste like?
>
> Seriously, I think section 6 is ambiguous in this regard. Would Debian allow
> a software that, while free, prevented you from installing or compiling
> modified versions of key software? For FilterProxy, What about HTML
> documentation that is distributed under a Open Documentation license? If
> FilterProxy touched the HTML, it could be violating the license the
> documentation is distributed under.
Again, is it the job of FilterProxy's license to enforce this, when it is
already covered by the license of the original document? Never mind that it's
quite unreasonable for anyone to try to verify the copyright/licensing status
of a WWW document before viewing it.
--
- mdz
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