Re: Establishing dialogue between the Debian project and OGC regarding Document & Software Notice terms
Sebastiaan Couwenberg <sebastic@xs4all.nl> writes:
> In February 2015 the problematic OGC licenses were discussed on the
> OSGeo standards list [2], because the PyCSW project and its packaging
> was affected by the same issues as TinyOWS [3]. OGC followed that
> discussion and wants "to do whatever possible to ensure that OGC
> licensing is not a hurdle".
Glad to know that, thank you for the references.
Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
> So, are we able to proceed to discuss the matter openly without the
> prior condition of “establish a dialogue between the Debian Project
> and OGC”?
I'll assume we are good to proceed with an open discussion of the
effects of license grants, and license conditions, on software freedom.
Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
> What works are being considered for entry to Debian? What exact grant
> of license does the copyright holder of those works make to
> recipients, and where is that text granting explicit permission under
> particular license conditions?
We'll need to see the complete *grant* of license, so we know exactly
what works are entailed, what permissions are granted to recipients, and
what the complete set of license conditions is.
> As of 2015-12-07, <URL:http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/document> gives
> this text:
>
> Document Notice
>
> Public documents on the OGC site are provided by the copyright holders
> under the following license. The software or Document Type Definitions
> (DTDs) associated with OGC specifications are governed by the Software
> Notice.
It's worth noting that the “Software Notice” (below) claims to apply to
works “including software, documents, or other related items”.
So this paragraph, which claims that “Public documents on the OGC site
are provided by the copyright holders under the following license [the
OGC Document Notice license]”, leaves open the question of what is the
intended full set of license conditions: both? only one? some other set?
A clear explicit grant of license in the work would be very helpful.
> By using and/or copying this document, or the OGC document from
> which this statement is linked, you (the licensee) agree that you
> have read, understood, and will comply with the following terms
> and conditions:
That's an unreasonable condition. A free software license is not
conditional on any form of acknowledgement from the recipient.
> Permission to use, copy, and distribute the contents of this
> document, or the OGC document from which this statement is linked,
> in any medium for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby
> granted,
Grants permission to copy, redistribute, for any purpose and for any
fee. Good.
No permission granted to redistribute modified works. This violates DFSG
§3 “Derived Works”.
> provided that you include the following on ALL copies of the
> document, or portions thereof, that you use:
>
> 1. Include a link or URL to the original OGC document.
If the recipient has the document, but does not have such a URL, this
clause denies their license. That's worrisome.
> 2. The pre-existing copyright notice of the original author, or if it
> doesn't exist, a notice of the form: "Copyright © <date-of-document>
> Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/document (Hypertext is preferred,
> but a textual representation is permitted.)
The text “All rights reserved” is both legally null (copyright is
effective everywhere without that text), and immediately contradicted by
the grant of rights earlier. It should be removed, IMO.
> 3. If it exists, the STATUS of the OGC document.
No information in this text as to how to satisfy this clause, and its
terms aren't defined. I have no idea what effect this is meant to have,
so can't judge its effect on software freedom.
> When space permits, inclusion of the full text of this NOTICE
> should be provided.
How is the “should” to be interpreted here? If it is normative, this
becomes a requirement (another condition of the license). If it's not
normative, it becomes a mere request. Best to avoid this ambiguity by
making it a clear condition or a clear request.
> We request that authorship attribution be provided in any
> software, documents, or other items or products that you create
> pursuant to the implementation of the contents of this document,
> or any portion thereof.
How does this differ from the earlier condition of attribution? If it's
reduntant, it should be removed. If it's an additional request for
attribution, it's not clear what extra is being requested.
> No right to create modifications or derivatives of OGC documents
> is granted pursuant to this license. However, if additional
> requirements (documented in the Copyright FAQ) are satisfied, the
> right to create modifications or derivatives is sometimes granted
> by the OGC to individuals complying with those requirements.
This is poor practice for a license text. The recipient can receive a
work, complete with this text, and *still* not know what requirements
they operate under. Effectively, with only this text, the recipient has
no permission at all to redistribute modified works if they cannot
access the “Copyright FAQ”.
It is much better to have the full conditions of a license *in* the
license text itself, distributed with the work, so there is one point of
reference for knowing what those conditions are.
> THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED "AS IS," AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS MAKE NO
> REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT
> NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A
> PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR TITLE; THAT THE CONTENTS
> OF THE DOCUMENT ARE SUITABLE FOR ANY PURPOSE; NOR THAT THE
> IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH CONTENTS WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY
> PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS
Disclaimer of warranty; unproblematic.
> COPYRIGHT HOLDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
> SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY USE OF THE
> DOCUMENT OR THE PERFORMANCE OR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONTENTS
> THEREOF.
Disclaimer of liability for damages; unproblematic.
> The name and trademarks of copyright holders may NOT be used in
> advertising or publicity pertaining to this document or its
> contents without specific, written prior permission. Title to
> copyright in this document will at all times remain with copyright
> holders.
Disclaimer of trademark license; unproblematic.
Now to the “OGC Software Notice”.
> As of 2015-12-07, <URL:http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/software> gives
> this text:
>
> Software Notice
>
> Back to OGC copyright notice.
>
> This OGC work (including software, documents, or other related items) is
> being provided by the copyright holders under the following
> license.
If this license is granted in a work, it seems on a simple reading of
this text that this is the *only* set of conditions in that work. It
explicitly covers “documents”. So it seems to partially contradict the
“Document Notice” conditions.
> By obtaining, using and/or copying this work, you (the licensee)
> agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with the
> following terms and conditions:
That's an unreasonable condition. A free software license is not
conditional on any form of acknowledgement from the recipient.
> Permission to use, copy, and modify this software and its
> documentation, with or without modification, for any purpose and
> without fee or royalty is hereby granted,
Grants permission to copy, modify, redistribute, for any purpose and for
any fee. Good.
> provided that you include the following on ALL copies of the
> software and documentation or portions thereof, including
> modifications, that you make:
>
> 1. The full text of this NOTICE in a location viewable to users of the
> redistributed or derivative work.
That's a restriction on the operation of the work, and is insensitive to
the form of whatever that work is. Some works may not be practicable to
present such a full text to the user. Some works may not be executable
at all.
Though probably not intended as such, I think this constitutes an
unnecessary restriction on field of use: derived works which do not have
the capability of presenting “the full text of this notice in a location
viewable to users” are not permitted.
So I think this violates DFSG §5 (users may be as a group unable to view
the notice), and DFSG §6 (derived works that are incapable of presenting
the notice viewable are not permitted).
> 2. Any pre-existing intellectual property disclaimers, notices, or
> terms and conditions. If none exist, a short notice of the following
> form (hypertext is preferred, text is permitted) should be used
> within the body of any redistributed or derivative code: "Copyright
> © [$date-of-document] Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. All Rights
> Reserved. http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/legal (Hypertext is
> preferred, but a textual representation is permitted.)
Appears to be an ad-hoc writing of a requirement of attribution. Why was
this written from scratch, with so many clauses? There are
better-understood legal wordings of these.
> 3. Notice of any changes or modifications to the OGC files, including
> the date changes were made. (We recommend you provide URIs to the
> location from which the code is derived.)
Distribution of derived works permitted only with documentation of
changes made. Unproblematic.
Incidentally, this kind of “clearly show your changes” clause (also
found in many more widely-used free-software licenses) should be
sufficient in the “Document Notice”, instead of forbidding
modifications. No?
> THIS SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS," AND COPYRIGHT
> HOLDERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
> INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS
> FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR
> DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS,
> TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS.
Disclaimer of warranty; unproblematic.
> COPYRIGHT HOLDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL
> OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR
> DOCUMENTATION.
Disclaimer of liability for damages; unproblematic.
> The name and trademarks of copyright holders may NOT be used in
> advertising or publicity pertaining to the software without specific,
> written prior permission. Title to copyright in this software and any
> associated documentation will at all times remain with copyright
> holders.
Disclaimer of trademark license; unproblematic.
I'd like to know the answers to the meta-questions (which exact works?
what exact license grant? what exact set of license conditions?) before
I can make recommendations.
--
\ “Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” —Donald |
`\ Robert Perry Marquis |
_o__) |
Ben Finney
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