Re: Ogre demos distribution
On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 03:58:25PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > Stephen Gran <sgran@debian.org> wrote:
> >> This one time, at band camp, MJ Ray said:
> >> > Andres Mejia <mcitadel@gmail.com> wrote: [...]
> >> > > You may use this sample code for anything you like, it is not covered b> y the
> >> > > LGPL like the rest of the engine."
> >> > No clear permission to modify or distribute. I think it needs clarifying.
> >> > Sorry.
> >> While it might be useful to get that clarified, I think the intent is
> >> fairly clear.
> > How can one tell that they intend 'use' to mean 'use, copy, distribute and
> > modify' or something like that?
> It's intended to be less restrictive than the LGPL (otherwise, the
> explanatory second clause doesn't explain anything),
No, that does not follow from the text. "It is not covered by the LGPL like
the rest of the engine" doesn't automatically mean "you can do anything you
want with this software", it defaults to "all rights reserved". Maybe the
intent is to allow copying, modification, and distribution, but that's *not*
what the license currently says, and a clarification is needed.
> so "anyhting you like" has to be interpreted as the widest possible
> copyright license.
It does not "have" to be interpreted that way; that interpretation doesn't
even follow logically from the requirements of copyright law.
> > It's not obvious from the written text and we've encountered the
> > opposite case before (PINE, seyon pre-GPL, IIRC).
> The Pine license was clarified by the copyright holder in the wrong
> direction. On paper, it's as ambiguous as ISC's variant of the BSD
> license, for instance.
The clarification of the Pine license was that an "or" was interpreted as an
"xor" contrary to normal English usage. This license doesn't even have the
"or" bits; it would be irresponsible to rely on a perceived implicit
permission to modify or distribute, and Debian does not do this.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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