Re: Contracts and licenses
Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
> lex@cc.gatech.edu wrote:
> > Right, but that is circular reasoning. Why is this a bad thing, *IF IT
> > IS A MINOR REQUIREMENT*?
>
> Because it is actually taking away rights.
Still circular. How does this violate DFSG?
> > I think you are talking about cases where a restriction in the
> > license interferes with some other license?
>
> Yes, some other license you already had. *Or*, and more importantly, when
> it interferes with your fair use rights, your right to use the program
> (which is not restricted by copyright), and the other rights you'd have if
> you *didn't* accept the license. In the US at least, although you have
> these rights, you're allowed to "sign them away", in whole or in part, by
> agreeing to a contract. (There was some precedent about that on Groklaw
> recently.) A free license should not make you do that!
So suppose that it doesn't. Why does it become non-free to sign
anything away whatsoever? Please base your answer on the DFSG.
Practically speaking, to an end user, I see little difference between
being required to advertise for Berkeley, being forced to distribute
source, and say, being forced to send an email to the originator if
email is free for you. It actually seems worse to me that an end user
may have to put 100-line headers at the top of each file they edit, but
such a requeriment is generally considered "free" by us despite the
restrictions it applies to people who accept the license.
> > In that case, I point you
> > back to the GPL clause which allows you to distribute binary and make
> > the source code available. IANAL, but even if I have a separate license
> > that says I can distribute the binary without posting source, I still
> > can't undo the fact that in the past I have already distributed the
> > binary under the GPL option. However, I can certainly use the
> > newly-obtained license for disributions in the future.
>
> That's because in the GPL, the distribution rules are a restriction on the
> grant of rights.
>
> If distributing the source *whenever* you distribute the binary was an
> actual *consideration* -- in the "fictional GPL" -- you could *not* use the
> newly-obtained license for future binary-only distributions. Or rather,
> doing so would mean you had broken your contract (the fictional-GPL) and
> could not distribute under the fictional-GPL any more.
Yes, but once you distribute binary-only, you come under an obligation.
You can use all the technical legal speak you like but if you agree to
the GPL then you must keep making the source available even if a later
license you obtain says you don't have to. It seems suspicious to me to
try and weasle out of this scenario by saying that the GPL does not mean
what it says it means in some jurisdictions; surely there are places
which will hold you to a written document you have agree to follow, and
surely Debian does not want to be treading in this kind of water.
> (If you want a more compelling example, assume that you had the
> 'newly-obtained license' *first*, and it was irrevocable. Distributing
> under the fictional-GPL would effectively terminate your rights under the
> other license.)
I don't follow your example. If the first license agreement is non-free
then it could say quite a lot of things, including an agreement not to
participate with free software in the future. There is no second
license agreement that can undo this, and so we clearly cannot require
that all free license will undo any obligations a person has due to
previous agreements.
> > Generalizing, if the restriction does not interfere with the normal
> > free-software rights, I do not see the problem.
>
> The "normal free-software rights" must include fair use rights in the US,
> the right to use a program for its ordinary purpose without agreeing to
> anything, etc. If a license is written as a contract with requirements,
> and is not written carefully to specifically protect those rights, then by
> agreeing to the license you may be signing away those rights!
Right. Sov suppose the restriction does not interfere with these things.
Why would the license not be DFSG free?
People are first saying that a contract -- a technical term with a
shifting meaning -- cannot be a free software agreement, and then they
are saying that any agreement of any form of action whatsoever cannot be
part of a free software agreement. Both of these seem too extreme to
me, and the former is formulated too sloppily to be useful for a
world-wide organization anyway.
-Lex
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