Re: Why licenses don't need to be free (was: Re: Why licenses *are* free)
Hello,
On Sun, Aug 16, 1998 at 02:11:38PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> Marcus> Base-files contains the GPL for the whole distribution for
> Marcus> practical reasons. It can't be removed from main without
> Marcus> breaking law.
>
> Rubbish. It can just as easily be moved to verbatim, and no
> law is broken.
This is not true. We are not only shipping the complete distribution, we are
also shipping seperate packages. Everyone can get a single package from the
ftp site, and is not forced to get the base-files package. So, I think the
current situation is bad. Just because we have done it wrong in the past
does not mean that we should do it also wrong (or even worse) in the future.
As a side issue, it is also not practical to remove all licenses from all
packages. There is not only the GPL, you know, there are many more. You want
to remove the copyright notices, and this is illegal.
Or do you only want to remove the GPL, LGPL, BSD, and Artistic License? Why
make exceptions for those four?
Still, you are confusing stand alone license documents, and works covered
under a special license. For the first, you already have my support, they
belong in non-free if immutable. The second have to be shipped with the
binary packages, everything else is an infringement.
As long as we have GPL'ed packages, we must have a version of the GPL in
main.
> Marcus> base-files is essential. This is only for practical
> Marcus> reasons. The spirit is there, and we ship the GPL iqn the
> Marcus> Debian MAIN distribution because this is required by
> Marcus> copyright law.
>
> Nope. All that copyright law requires os that the copyright be
> part of Debian. Not that it be included in a particular section of
> the distribution (if the copyright law talks about Debian sections, I
> shall be intereseted in knwoing about it)
Yopu suggest to put them on another CD, and outside of the main
distribution. To be honest, I find your notion of law is disgusting. You
don't have my support.
> Marcus> So, we have to ship the license with the software in the main
> Marcus> distribution.
>
> That des not follow. It should be in debian, yes, but not
> necesarily in main.
Here you say it.
> >> Therefore, this statement is also incorrect. We can too put
> >> the GPL in verbatim.
>
> Marcus> But we can't remove it from main, and this is my point you
> Marcus> choose to ignore.
>
> We can too remove it from main and put it in verbatim. You
> choose to ignore this fact too.
And here again. We can't remove it from main. We must include it in the
binary package. I'll put effort into this so this can be done with the
standard licenses, too, without wasting disc space.
> Marcus> You are speaking about stand-alone licenses.
> >> Umm, aren't all licenses stand alone? This makes no sense.
>
> Marcus> No they are not. They apply to the work they copyright.
>
> The GPL, by itself does not copyright anything. Various people
> have appled the GPL to their code. The realtionship goes the other
> way. The GPL is stand alone. The software is not.
One instance of the GPL is not standalone if it is applied to a software we
ship. For a stand alone GPL package, which does not apply to any software
(which we don't have at the moment), you already have my support to not let
it in main.
> Marcus> No, we do not. Stand alone means we could remove them. We
> Marcus> can't remove them without being illegal.
>
> Stand alone means we can ship the GPL alone. With nothing else
> on the gloppy, I can ship the GPL. It stands alone.
This is not the only meaning of stand alone. Stand alone also means that it
can be removed. You can include it, or you can remove it. Both is true for
stand alone entities. The GPL can be included, but it can't be removed as
long as we have GPL'ed packages.
> Now, the software is what we can't ship, so the software is
> not stand alone.
So you reckognize it, fine. Software and copyright license can only be
shipped together. Not the software on one CD, and the copyright on another.
Not the software here on the ftp site, and the copyright somewhere else on
the ftp site.
Together.
> This is a critical distinction.
You should see both dependencies.
> >> No more so than standards. The RFC on SMTO doies not itself
> >> implement an smtp service, or indeed, talk about internals of a smtp
> >> server. It is a meta docuent that talks about the interface.
>
> Marcus> We can choose not to ship a standard, but we can only choose
> Marcus> to not ship a copyright if we ship nothing else, too. The
> Marcus> copyright is the only thing that grants us redistribution.
>
> Correct. The copyright, however, is stand alone.
We don't ship it stand alone. We ship it because it applies to software we
ship. If all GPL'ed packages ship their own version of the GPL, a package
which contains the GPL without a work applied to it may go in non-free.
> >> I see little difference between a standard and a license.
>
> Marcus> This is your problem. Sorry, I have tried to make it
> Marcus> understandable for you. If you still can't see the
> Marcus> difference, I can't help you.
>
> So, if you can't prove something, the instructor is at fault?
I can't see any instructors around, sorry. Can you?
> Sorry. If you can't stand behind your arguments, it is *YOUR*
> problem. You put up 3 reasons why licenses are diffrent. One was
> debatable, two others were plain wrong (as yuou admitted
> yourself). And now you have the gall to say you proced it? Since when
> do invalid points prove an argument?
Yes, I conceded that the implications imposed by international law are too
complicated to argue that coppyrights are modificable.
This does not effect my points made in this and the last two mails.
> Marcus> Is this bad? No. Has this any influence on our work? No. Does
> Marcus> it make sense to create an extra section for license
> Marcus> documents?
> >>
> >> I love this. I can now repeat all your arguments about
> >> standards here.
>
> Marcus> I take this that you are only discussing for the sake of
> Marcus> discussion. This makes sense, as your comments are failing to
> Marcus> be reasonable and are deliberately missing the point.
>
> Here goes. These are essentially your arguments. Lets see how
> you like them.
[snipped]
> Works for me.
Woks for me, too. For stand alone copyrights. I already agreed for them.
What were you arguing?
Thank you,
Marcus
--
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