On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:15:38 +0200 Lasse Reichstein Nielsen wrote: > On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:46:06 +0200, Francesco Poli > <frx@firenze.linux.it> wrote: > > > OK, this is my attempt to rephrase clause 5d in a form that is weak > > enough to be less harmful than clause 2c of GPLv2: > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~ begin proposed text ~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > d) If the Program has interactive user interfaces which display > > legal notices, this feature must be preserved in each > > interactive interface that is also present in the work. In > > this subsection, an interactive interface is said to "display > > legal notices" if it includes a convenient feature that > > displays an appropriate copyright notice, and tells the user > > that there is no warranty for the work (unless you provide a > > warranty), that licensees may convey the work under this > > License, and how to view a copy of this License. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ end proposed text ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > What does "each interactive interface" mean? I.e., what delimiters an > interface? The term is not defined in a precise manner, but I think that it's clear enough. > Does a program with more than one window have more than one interface? Not in my understanding. AFAICS, a program with two interfaces could be something that may be started in such a way to offer a GUI, but also in a different way to offer an interactive textual command interpreter, for instance... > What if it is a web application with several clients? That each open > different > windows? (This is not specified in the GPLv3 draft either, but I don't > think > it is at all obvious.) As long as the web application presents the same kind of window to each client, it has only one interface, AFAICT. > > > Anyway, consider this case: > > Program A has a graphical user interface with an "about" feature > showing legal > notices. It also has some very clever algorithms in its belly. > > Program B wants to use the algorithms, but cares not for the > interface of program A. Minor nitpick: program B wants to reuse the algorithm *implementations* (algorithms are not copyrightable, only their implementations are). But anyway, let's go on... > > Program B has an interactive textual user interface. > (Can the *feature* be preserved when going from graphical to > textual?) Maybe, but my proposed clause is *not* intended to mandate this, as no interactive interface of program A is kept in program B. Maybe it's clearer if the clause says: "this feature must be preserved in each interactive interface that is present both in the Program and in the work" > > Program B extracts the algorithms and uses them, but dumps the > interface. Should Program B preserve the legal notices? Obviously > yes. As stated above, my proposed clause is *not* intended to mandate the preservation of the feature that displays legal notices, when the affected interactive interfaces are dropped. Of course program B must have appropriate copyright notices and stuff required by the rest of the GNU GPL. But, with my proposed clause, program B would not be compelled to implement a feature to display legal notices in the interactive interfaces that are not "taken" from program A. > > Now the people at Program B Software first extract the clever > algorithms and distributes them, alone, under the original license, > as allowed by > the GPL. > Then they use *this* distribution in program B. The program they use > has > no interactive > user interface at all, and no feature displaying legal notices, so > program B isn't > required to have it either. That is the same exact result that we would get in your previous example (assuming that my proposed clause works as intended...). > > This problem is inherent to linking a requirement relating to an > entire program > to only parts of that program (here: the user interface). Anybody can > remove those > parts and distribute the rest, thereby removing the requirement. > > Your version does alleviate this problem. Clause 5d of GPLv3draft3, as > you quoted it, > does. It requires that legal notices be inserted if deriving form a > program with no user interface (but not from one with a user interface > but without legal notices). It's not necessarily the same notices as > the original program, though, > just the default GPL notices. Wait, let me understand: are you criticizing my proposed clause because you feel that it's not restrictive enough? If this is the case, please note that it's *intended* to be *more* permissive than clause 5d of GPLv3draft3! After all, I said that my proposed clause is a *weakened rephrase* of clause 5d! Indeed, I hope that my proposed clause is more permissive than clause 2c of GPLv2... -- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/etch_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian etch installation walk-through? ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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