Bug#460591: Falcon P.L. license (ITP:Bug#460591)
Giancarlo Niccolai <gc@falconpl.org> skribis:
> MJ Ray wrote: [...]
> > In general, I'm disappointed to see this licence proliferation.
> I am too.
>
> There isn't any single open source mainstream programming language or
> even compiler I know, including clisp, gcc, PHP, python, swi-prolog,
> ruby, harbour and xharbour (little known clipper clones OS projects I
> worked in), that isn't distributed under either a propetary
> non-reapplicable license or under a commonly known license with
> exceptions. IMHO, exceptions are much worse than license
> proliferation, as they modify a "lawfully certified" text and
> unbalance it, and their effect isn't always fully understandable by
> the time the exceptions are written.
I disagree. Furthermore, there's nothing preventing 'lawful
certification' of a licence with the exceptions. Instead here, if anyone
wants to obtain such certification of Falcon PL, they've got to pay for
a whole new licence to be examined, rather than an increment.
I'm not convinced that the problem being guarded against here is as
big an interference as it's being made out to be. It seems somewhat
orthogonal to the other licence terms, if done right.
[...]
> Nevertheless, you'll admit that starting a review with such a sentence
> does not suggest a constructive critic attitude towards the object of
> the review...
It wasn't /written/ at the start of the review, if that helps. Drafting
is a wonderful process, allowing bits of text to be added at the start
after one has written the body. If the licence had actually brought
some new benefits, instead of drawbacks, I might not be so unhappy that
it's a new one.
[...]
> > Claiming any copyright over Scripts gives me the heebie-jeebies.
> > More importantly, that seems like an obvious failure of DFSG 9 by
> > contaminating other software.
> To me too.
>
> In fact, the FPLL doesn't claim any copyright on scripts. It just
> *defines* them to state they are *free* from possible copyright claims
> ( ... each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide,
> non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license
> to reproduce, prepare ...)
Well, to be *able* to give such a grant and for that to be meaningful
in any way, surely the FPL is asserting it has an applicable copyright
interest on the Scripts? If it wasn't claiming any copyright, its
language about Scripts would be more like the GPL's description that
running the Program needs no permission from the copyright holder.
Did I miss a bit where the licence disclaims copyright interest in the
Scripts?
Anyway, this is the show-stopper. Contaminates other software. DFSG 9.
It's the parts of FPL sections 1, 2 and 5 about Scripts. Clear enough?
[...]
> More; Apache2 license states the sentence "including but not limited
> to...". In legalese, this means "hey, and also everything else, if we
> forgot to say it here". Following your reasoning, this would be quite
> a massive breaking of DFSG, but it is not.
No, the Apache 2 licence does not talk about things which are not part
of that software.
[...4d...]
> > A new obnoxious advertising clause. Probably won't break DFSG, but
> > I don't like it for practical reasons.
> Which practical reason?
"When people put many such programs together in an operating system,
the result is a serious problem. Imagine if a software system required
75 different sentences, each one naming a different author or group
of authors. To advertise that, you would need a full-page ad."
"This might seem like extrapolation ad absurdum, but it is actual
fact. NetBSD comes with a long list of different sentences, required
by the various licenses for parts of the system. In a 1997 version of
NetBSD, I counted 75 of these sentences. I would not be surprised if
the list has grown by now."
Source: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
[...]
> > Other than that, it differs from Apache 2.0 in missing the How to
> > Apply appendix, which isn't serious, but seems a bit
> > user-unfriendly.
> There is a commentary, which I posted here, that has the same aims of
> the "How to apply" appendix, and hopefully clarifies the license
> without introducing further ambiguities or hiding clauses.
I didn't see it in the web page http://www.falconpl.org/?page_id=license
but that site has poor accessibility anyway. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG1
> Notice that I will double-license Falcon itself as GPL/FPLL, [...]
Great. Thanks.
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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