Why licenses can -never- be free.

[Buddha Buck <bmbuck@acsu.buffalo.edu>]

OK, this is informal, but I think the argument is sound.

We know that some countries (like the US) consider copyright licenses 
to be able to be covered by copyright.  I assume that there is an 
implicit license to copy (verbatim) the license whenever the work 
licenses is legally copied (verbatim or not).  Otherwise, the license 
would get lost.

But unless there is an explicit license to copy and distribute modified 
versions of the license, or to copy the license verbatim outside of the 
implicit license I mentioned above, there is no license to distribute.  
So we have to add an explicit license.

Example:  Let's say "Buddha's Public License (BPL)" was a 
DSFG-compliant license.  In order to make the license itself DSFG, I 
would have to add a license to it, like:

"Permission to distribute verbatim copies of the BPL is hereby granted 
without fee.  Permission to distribute derivative works based on the 
BPL is hereby granted without fee subject to the restriction that any 
such work clearly identify that it was derived from the BPL, but may 
not, in any way, shape, or form, identify itself as the BPL"

(This I think is a basic "modify-with-name-change" DSFG license.)

So far so good.

However, that above license, as simple as it is, is not DSFG.  Unless I 
provide an explicit license saying you can create derivative works.

This can be extended indefinately.

Unless we can short-circuit the process somehow, we are stuck at some 
point at having a non-modifiable license somewhere.  The only way I can 
see to do so is to develop a license that is, either directly or 
indirectly, licensed under it's own terms (say, licensing the BPL under 
the BPL).  I believe the consensus (which I agree) is that that would 
give the lawyers hives, and they could probably find someway to break 
it.

So I think that licenses need to be treated as a separate case, 
-anyway-.

Later,
  Buddha

(again, I've been out of contact for two days.  If discussion has 
already passed this point, I apologise).

-- 
     Buddha Buck                      bmbuck@acsu.buffalo.edu
"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our
liberty depends upon the chaos and cacaphony of the unfettered speech
the First Amendment protects."  -- A.L.A. v. U.S. Dept. of Justice