Re: Artistic and LGPL compatibility in jar files
Andrew Dalke wrote:
> On Dec 17, 2009, at 3:41 AM, MJ Ray wrote:
> > Maybe a proper citation instead of a bare URL
> > would have helped avoid this confusion. (Line wraps would help too.)
>
> Since my first post, of which I think you are talking about, also
> included the book title and author name, I figured that was
> sufficient. [...]
It included a variation of the book title, so it's not reasonable to
blame anyone for being confused about whether it was exactly the same
book or not.
> I think you're the first person in about 12 years to mention that
> linewraps are a problem. I stopped carefully linewrapping [...]
Don't carefully linewrap - fix the mail client. I suspect Apple Mail
is missing format=flowed when you want it, but I don't know for sure.
I guess this nicely spikey reply might be why people stopped
mentioning the breakage about 12 years ago. Not fun. I don't
bother that much any more, but this list hasn't generally succumbed
to the waves of Outlook easy-to-write-but-hard-to-read emails yet.
> > So people who were persuaded to buy the book were persuaded by the book
> > - is that surprising for this type of book?
>
> Pardon? One isn't required to purchase an item via Amazon before one
> can comment on said item, at least to my understanding. I believe
> one could get the book from the library and also comment on Amazon.
> Or read parts of it online and gratis, as I did.
I click "Create a Review". The options are "No, I am a new customer"
and "Yes, I have a password". Nothing suggests a way for non-customers
to comment. Maybe it's possible, but it seems like a minority sport.
> > Also, remember that Amazon ...
>
> It seemed an appropriate source to try to understand if the views of
> Youngman were singular, rare, or widely espoused.
and I explained why the click-to-buy patenter's site might not be an
appropriate source. OK?
[...]
> Again, I was not thorough. Given that the response came so quickly
> I would assume it's a matter of a few moments to point to something
> definite, and that my details responses would indicate that it's
> not a trivially found and widely expressed idea.
Assumption is the mother of all mistakes. There's also the point
that Larry Rosen does seem to be a smart lawyer who can make a
convincing argument which mere developers can't perfectly refute
even if we're sure the conclusions like pay-my-lawyers are wrong.
[...]
> I still hold that Youngman is wrong in saying that relicensing takes
> away user rights, as a universal statement. The best counter example
> is the GFDL->Creative Commons relicensing, when the original GFDL's
> license grant is essentially identical to the GPLs.
OK, if that's the counter example, please show how a user can obtain
the same rights they would have had with the GFDL'd copy when they
only obtain one under a CC licence?
Relicensing seems to remove a possible licence for everyone
downstream.
[...]
> > As far as I recall (I read it too long ago), the book was partly a
> > sales pitch for Rosen's licences
>
> I did not notice anything in the chapters I read which mentioned any
> of his licenses. I did not read the entire book. Nor do I know of the
> 5-point definition of which you also spoke. It may have occurred
> after he published the book.
So you haven't read it and you made these conclusions? It sounds like
you are going off at half-cock. There's a free online copy, you know.
> [...] There's also
> the doctrinaire point that Debian considers the Artistic License to
> be free, in opposition to GNU.
This isn't that black-and-white. It's far fuzzier than that.
GNU actually says "We cannot say that this is a free software license
because it is too vague; some passages are too clever for their own
good, and their meaning is not clear."
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ArtisticLicense
So, they are not willing to rule it in, but they don't really rule it
out and they do accept it as part of perl's licence:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#PerlLicense
For whatever reason, ftpmasters may have decided it's vague but good
enough. Thanks to Artistic 2, this is a disappearing problem.
> [...] rather than blunt
> statements about my need to do yet more work, or vague and not easily
> confirmed statements regarding the character of the people involved.
Sure, but it's a bit hard if someone challenges one to justify an
opinion of another person on a mutual project years ago with
documentary evidence.
Given how long this project has been running, sometimes debian-legal
contributors are primary sources, odd as that may seem. They still
benefit from verifying in secondary sources, but inability to find
such secondary sources doesn't make them wrong necessarily, just
unverified.
Regards,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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