discuss: Thread: Re: licence problems (anybody can read the start)

For all the discuss list readers :-).
You are probably already lost in this discussion. Don't worry, you can
skip it (and you have probably already done and if so you are right).

I keep discussing with Rick because he's a very smart guy and because
it's better to do this now for future reference - I don't want this
discussion to happen again and again. This is for the archives :-).

we badly need to know what we are speaking on each other :-)
jdd

Let's start with the data:

GFDL:
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the
copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies
to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other
conditions whatsoever to those of this License.

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under
the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
the Modified Version under precisely this License,

You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under
the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
the Modified Version under precisely this License,

GPL (3)
   c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this
    License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.

GPL (2)
    b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
    whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
    part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
    parties under the terms of this License.

I fail to see how it's possible to have dual licencing (on the way you
seems to think) with these terms (but I'm not a lawyer), as each
licence asks to have the entire document on charge "under precisely
this License"

Rick Moen a écrit :

> The upstream creator specified that his work shall be available under
> the terms of either licence G or licence F.  Therefore, those conditions
> continue to apply to his copyright interest in all subsequent downstream
> copies and derivative works.

well. The "or" seems to me very dubtfull here "either" seams to be
one, the other, at the copy maker choice

  Why?  Because only the upstream author has
> legal title to the upstream work.  The downstream recipient _cannot_
> lawfully decide that he's no longer willing to pass along the right to
> use the upstream content under licence F.  Because it's not his property.

but it's clearly allowed by the author!

well, I think the problem between us is now identified.

it's in the manner a dual licencing have to be written. "Dual
licencing" as itself have no meaning. "or" is not sufficient nor
theory of sets :-)

My understanding of dual licencing is the same as
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_license and the referenced works:
it's done to allow subsequent uses to have one of the two proposed
licences, not the same dual licences as the original.

"When software is dual-licensed, recipients can choose which terms
they want to use or distribute the software under. "

your seems to be: "use whatever freedom is allowed by either licence,
but keep the new document under the same licence as the initial one"

it's perfectly nice for me, only a judge could say what is really good
and what is not, and I doubt the jugement will necessarily be the same
in any country.


jdd

-- 
http://www.dodin.net
http://valerie.dodin.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM

Quoting Jean-Daniel Dodin ####@####.####

> GFDL:
> You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
> commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the
> copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies
> to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other
> conditions whatsoever to those of this License.
> 
> You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under
> the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
> the Modified Version under precisely this License,
> 
> You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under
> the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
> the Modified Version under precisely this License,

Notice that the term "Document" refers, here, to the work licensed by
the original licensor.  It does not (and could not) apply to extensions
of that work by others -- seeing that those are not being licensed by
the original licensor in the first place.

> GPL (2)
>     b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
>     whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
>     part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
>     parties under the terms of this License.

GPLv2 clause 3b requires, in effect, that all derivative works of the
original work must be usable under GPLv2 terms.  So, for example,
borrowed code under new-BSD terms is usable under GPLv2 terms, because
the obligations of new-BSD are a proper subset of those of GPLv2.

By the way, you are not the first person to be mislead by the wording of
GPLv2 clause 3b into thinking that it requires that borrowed code be
literally and forcibly relicensed under GPLv2 with or without the
permission of the upstream copyright owner whose work was borrowed.
Some of the BSD guys have at points been so up in arms over the idea
that they wanted to add specific anti-copyleft language to their own
licences.  However, both you and they have misread GPLv2 clause 3b.  It
does not and cannot require literal relicensing.  It only requires that
all of a derivative work of the original GPLv2 code grant must be usable
under (compatible with) GPLv2 terms.

> GPL (3)
>    c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this
>     License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.

Same story with GPLv3 clause 5c, which you've quoted here.

Both versions of GPL were written with rather grandiose, overarching
language that seems at first glance ot prevent creation of derivative
works with borrowings under different licences, but a moment's
reflection will reveal that GPL has no such power.  It is merely an
expression of the licensor's conditions under which recipients may have
access to otherwise-reserved rights to the upstream work such as
redistribution and the creation/distribution of derivatives.  Inclusion
of a new-BSD-licensed fragment, as an example, satisfies those
conditions because satisfying GPL conditions automatically satisfies the
new-BSD ones.

> I fail to see how it's possible to have dual licencing (on the way you
> seems to think) with these terms (but I'm not a lawyer), as each
> licence asks to have the entire document on charge "under precisely
> this License"

It's possible to have dual licensing, first and foremost, because the
_licensor is the copyright owner_.  I am having a difficult time
understanding why this is such a difficult concept for some people to "get".

If the copyright owner elects to say "You may use this work under either
GPLv3 _or_ a proprietary licence of my devising that you can read at
http://example.com/", then that is the case -- and it makes no
difference whatsoever that the proprietary licence and GPLv3 are utterly
incompatible.

The copyright owner can issue whatever code instances he/she wishes,
each under wildly divergent licences, and the incongruity of those
licences, one to the other, doesn't matter a bit.  Why should it?


> Rick Moen a écrit :
> 
> > The upstream creator specified that his work shall be available under
> > the terms of either licence G or licence F.  Therefore, those conditions
> > continue to apply to his copyright interest in all subsequent downstream
> > copies and derivative works.
> 
> well. The "or" seems to me very dubtfull here "either" seams to be
> one, the other, at the copy maker choice

I'm sorry, but you are making the same misreading of the situation as
before, and assigning to downstream users a right available only to the
copyright owner.


>   Why?  Because only the upstream author has
> > legal title to the upstream work.  The downstream recipient _cannot_
> > lawfully decide that he's no longer willing to pass along the right to
> > use the upstream content under licence F.  Because it's not his property.
> 
> but it's clearly allowed by the author!

No, it most certainly is not.  

I suppose it is possible that some author, somewhere, might construct a
bizarre licensing regime that purports to set up _that_ situation, but
that is not what standard dual-licensing purports to do -- and the
wording is in general drafted to make the intention clear.  As, for
example, mine on the WordPerfect for Linux FAQ does.

> it's in the manner a dual licencing have to be written. "Dual
> licencing" as itself have no meaning. "or" is not sufficient nor
> theory of sets :-)

Listen here:  I've been involved in licensing for dozens of years, and
you are simply incorrect in asserting that the term "dual licensing" has
no established meaning.  If you choose to disbelieve me, that's your
prerogative, though, but I will have no further interest in discussion
of the matter, if so.


> My understanding of dual licencing is the same as
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_license and the referenced works:

That Wikipedia entry is badly written, confusing, and misleading --
which is frankly not very surprising.