Re: Why licenses *are* free (was: Re: Why I don't share Manojs fears.
On Sat, Aug 15, 1998 at 10:26:52PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >>"Marcus" == Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:
> Marcus> [...]
> >> > This would essentially be a free+(name change, remove non-technical part)
> >> > copyright, and it is exactly that what is already granted by law. It is not
> >> > necessary to include all permissions already granted by law in the license
> >> > text. For example, fair use is also not mentioned in the copyright
> >> > documents, but is granted anyway.
> >>
> >> True. But this hinges on the truth of your above statement. (Which I
> >> don't dispute, I just ask whether it's true everywhere).
>
> Marcus> A good question. International copyright law is hard, and
> Marcus> I'll not claim any knowledge on it. However, this was the
> Marcus> essence of a mail by RMS (I posted it several times the last
> Marcus> months, and I quoted the relevant part in my reply to Manoj),
> Marcus> at least for the US.
>
> No. RMS essentially said if licence A requires condiftion foo;
> license B can require condition foo as well, and the owner of license
> A can't restrict the owner of license B from doing so
I concede this point, as we have no way to assess law, you have convinced me
that we have to stay on the safe side.
> Marcus> I think people who argue that licenses have to be explicitely
> Marcus> free are playing devils advocate. (Not that this is
> Marcus> necessarily a bad thing, but at some time one has to get
> Marcus> reasonable).
>
> I am not playing devils advocate. I think you have no right to
> characterize my position in that fashion.
Maybe it helps if I rephrase. I think that it does not make sense to talk
about stand alone licenses (and you are talking about stand alone licenses),
because we don't ship them. We ship software with a copyright attached to
it. And we have to keep the copyright intact, or we are not able to
distribute it at all.
This is why I think this discussion is steering in the wrong dsirection,
because it assumes that we ship licenses, but essentially we are shipping
copyrights attached to other works.
> Marcus> Would somebody of these people care to explain why they want
> Marcus> copyrights to be free? They are no technical documents, and
> Marcus> they are bound to the work they protect.
>
> Why do you want standards to be free? Since I can't just copy
> the GPL, every argument you apply to standards applies to licenses.
I agree for stand alone licenses. We don't ship licenses for the sake of the
license, but because it is the copyright of another work we want to
distribute. See my other mail (sent a minute ago), for a more detailed
explanation of what I mean.
Thank you,
Marcus
--
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