discuss: Migration process of the existing documents to Wiki
Subject:
Re: [discuss] Migration process of the existing documents to Wiki
From:
Rick Moen ####@####.####
Date:
24 Jul 2008 23:19:48 +0100
Message-Id: <20080724221945.GO21059@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting Frank Lichtenheld ####@####.####
> It is true that there is no canonical list of DFSG-free licenses, not
> for lack of me trying, BTW, but by the opinion of several members of
> debian-legal that a license in itself can't be judged without the
> context of a work it applies, too. Whether that is a reasonable
> opinion should probably not discussed here.
I agree, and join you in respecting the effort.
My personal view is that many of the licence commentaries on
debian-legal, including many that are widely referenced as supposedly
reflecting "the opinion of debian-legal", have in recent years been
painfully misguided, for lack of familiarity with surrounding legal
traditions and gross misreading of licensing terms.
I already mentioned the trademark licensing cluse in CC
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0: Some oft-quoted d-l commentators claimed
that the "Nothing in this licence grants you a licence to the CC logo
trademark" (paraphrased) clause made the licence non-free because
deployment entails use of the logo. However, anyone familiar with
trademark law would know that one does not _require_ specific licensing
to merely make "nominative use" of a trademark. So, the conclusion
about the licence being rendered non-free was non-sequitur.
Likewise, many licences' mandatory-reporting clauses have been objected
to as supposedly non-free as failing the "Desert Island Test" -- a test
that is nowhere in the DFSG. E.g., I remember that one licence
requiring notifying a specific e-mail address of (something concerning)
derivative works was judged non-free for no better reason than the
possibliity that the e-mail mailbox might cease to exist. However,
anyone familiar with contract law would know that a contract obligation
that becomes impossible to achieve would always be deemed unenforceable,
by any judge.
Fair disclosure of vested interest: I'm one of the editors of _Linux
Gazette_, http://linuxgazette.net/ , whose Debian packages were dropped
from the collection a few years ago for several reasons, mainly
technical -- but the erstwhile maintainer also mentioned his view that
_LG's_ use of Open Publication Licence 1.0 without Options A or B made
its materials non-free. If memory serves, the main objection to OPL
concerned this requirement concerning modified (derivative) works:
"The location of the original unmodified document must be identified."
Some... person... on d-l had opined that this clause renders OPL 1.0
non-free because said "location" might no longer exist -- which is
transparent rubbish for the same reason as cited earlier for
notification clauses.
> OTOH, there is a canonical body in Debian for making final decisions
> on license matters and that is the FTP team.
Very astutely stated, yes. In a functional sense, the ftp-masters team
are among the very few people likely to, and capable of, overruling the
judgement of a Debian package maintainer who they believe to have erred.
Likewise, in theory, a passed general resolution, a ruling of the
Technical Committee, an intervention of the Debian Project Leader or
his/her deputies could overrule a package maintainer's judgement -- but
in practice this doesn't seem to happen. (That recounting is from
memory, so I might have missed someone.)
> My classification tries to reflect their policies regarding licensing.
Then, it is probably valuable, to the extent it manages to reflect their
patterns of action. I thank you.
