Re: Debian Legal summary of the X-Oz License
On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 05:00:04AM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 09:52:36PM -0500, selussos wrote:
> > I can only state that if the 4th clause is indeed your concern
> > there is a lot more software than ours that you should be worried
> > about, and so I must ask, why aren't you?
>
> That is a very serious accusation. Please give specific examples of
> all other things in the Debian archive that you are aware of with a
> similar clause; we will investigate them all, and if they do indeed
> share the same problems, either get the upstream authors to
> clarify/change the license or remove the offending material from the
> archive.
Frankly, I think she has a point. The XFree86 1.0 and X.org license
both share pretty much the same clause.
X-Oz License version [1]:
4. Except as contained in this notice, the name of X-Oz Technologies
shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use
or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization
from X-Oz Technologies.
XFree86 1.0 License version [2]:
Except as contained in this notice, the name of the XFree86 Project
shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use
or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization
from the XFree86 Project.
X.org License version [3]:
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.
So if we're saying that there is a problem with the language in the X-Oz
license then there has to be a problem with the other X licenses. Note
that the XFree86 1.0 license is the license applied to XFree86 4.3 and
earlier versions, that Debian is currently shipping.
> *To the best of my knowledge*, no such cases exist. The X.org, MIT,
> and various BSD licenses have similar clauses, but do not have the
> same issues - they are merely nebulous "may not be used to endorse or
> promote products derived from this software" statements, which is
> self-evident even if it weren't present in the license. But it's not
> unknown for variations like this to get missed; they're often subtle.
Actually as you can see above the various X license all have pretty much
the same wording.
MJ Ray has made the argument that the X-Oz license is different because
it's more clear that the clause is a condition of the copyright license.
This makes some sense to me.
However, I think MJ Ray's argument is equally true of the XFree86 1.0
license, while not true of the X.org license. I don't think is argument
is as clear on the XFree86 1.0 license, but I do think it is true.
The XFree86 and the X-Oz licenses both have the phrase "subject to the
following conditions:" included in them. X.org does not. Clause 4 is
without a doubt a condition of the license of the X-Oz license.
However, the same language (not numbered) in the XFree86 1.0 license
probably is a condition on the copyright.
It does say "conditions" and if you don't consider the warranty
disclaimer and the sentence following it to be conditions then there
would only be one condition. So I'd argue the advertising part of the
XFree86 1.0 license is also a condition (though an oddly placed and out
of order condition).
We've seen arguments explaining why people think this language is too
broad. I don't think any of the copyright holders are interpreting
their license this way and X-Oz has said to me (in a message that I
forwarded to the list) that they don't intend anything more than the BSD
endorsement clause.
Unfortunately X-Oz is being less than forthcoming with answering various
questions. Which is making it difficult to resolve the problem. The
ideal solution would be for X-Oz to remove the clause or replace it with
the more "nebulous" (your term) BSD endorsement language.
XFree86 has the same problem and if we really feel there is a problem
with the X-Oz license, someone needs to deal with the XFree86 1.0
license as well.
[1] http://www.x-oz.com/licenses.html
[2] http://www.xfree86.org/legal/licenses
[3] http://www.x.org/Downloads_terms.html
--
Ben Reser <ben@reser.org>
http://ben.reser.org
"Conscience is the inner voice which warns us somebody may be looking."
- H.L. Mencken
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