Re: inquery about "GPL with commercial exception"
Francesco Poli dijo [Wed, Oct 07, 2015 at 11:50:53PM +0200]: > I personally think it is indeed relevant. > > Let me try to explain. > The term "further restrictions" is meant "with respect to the > GPL terms", not "with respect to GPL terms + any terms added by the > copyright holder". > Hence releasing software under "GPL + further restrictions" creates a > self-contradictory license, where anyone willing to redistribute has to > comply with the following conditions: > > • redistribute under the GPL terms > • do not impose any further restriction (with respect to the GPL) > • do not drop the restrictions which are already present (copyright >laws do not allow distributors to drop restrictions) > > One cannot comply with all these conditions at the same time. > The "GPL + further restrictions" license is therefore > self-contradictory. Right. But a content creator (in this case, a software author) is free to choose whatever terms they see fit for their work. In this case, if what they come up with that best describes their intent is "something similar to the GPL, but adding a restriction to it to prevent appropriation in commercial settings", they are entitled to. And yes, expressing it as "GPL + restrictions" is unfortunate; perhaps describing it as a "restricted GPL" is clearer. It legal code were interpretable as software, the "work" object would be restricted before being "blessed" (yes, I'm marked with Perl) as GPL, hence the GPL would not affect its fundamental nature. Anyway, further discussing the matter won't clarify it much. The clear result, /methinks, is that we all agree this is DFSG-unfree. Whether it is distributable in non-free... Is subject to discussion.
Re: inquery about "GPL with commercial exception"
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 2015-10-08 16:32, Gunnar Wolf wrote: > > Anyway, further discussing the matter won't clarify it much. The > clear result, /methinks, is that we all agree this is DFSG-unfree. > Whether it is distributable in non-free... Is subject to > discussion. it's rather obvious that the license in DFSG-unfree, but the exact purpose of my inquery was to check whether the package would be distributable in non-free. in the meantime i was heaving contact with upstream, and here's what they basically say: since changing license (even if it is just changing the license name, without altering the actual terms) requires all authors to accept, and most project members can only commit little time to the project these days, they have not tackled the problem so far. also, they figure that a license "GPL+exceptions" is much easier for their audience to *understand* (given that they are already familiar with the GPL, they only have to parse and understand the additional exceptions) than a new license (even if it is just changing the license name, without altering the actual terms). which all in all keeps their motivation small, to even start a discussion on that topic (again; they've been through that before). after that i suggested that - - they could dual-license the work under "GPL+exceptions" (to spare their happy audience) and under a "Linux Sampler License" (which would be the same but under a different name) - - i could contact the remaining authors myself to get their agreement for this. - - (but only if they are fine with that). that was 1 week ago and i haven't received any further answer. i'm under the impression that i will not receive any more answer on this topic from their side. which throws us back to the question whether software under that license is distributable (in non-free) at or not. fgmasr IOhannes -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJWFoZrAAoJELZQGcR/ejb4YX0P/27mb+/gUdat4uPtxjs9yDbi 4B73MwH0yn1ChR1TN2+0NPuSEY7XzcwlDxS8a2TgtGDMKHx3MefvgCc/SG5YbINI ZGf/q+FwCmCnSNmYbeX4naKurrXej5grT/Tw/nZH2MgH1ov2MJRl0l6aBaVbVHOD +qgSbI1K0Ev3T/8512gHFh9JZllNGphFzrB4BrPjEyMTDekDXr0CSAiekB/DJWRn 8Sj2QR38CEB+mzNO4VoPHZ4+EVVtiAu2S6rCnTu9oa4FMu1rirF7tA8Kt+iFKmkY njbGtHUFi3kpJ/NIlXTyMvPR5dlOPBYH+k9kl/wjwB+/sPSY18eaLct5WDaW/Bn/ mfz8rRRIAFSE9PF6Ge3PR4hPPSX+u8g5aPLCOAOia1dmggJZiMStQf9C9uklwqbD udUmu7ET4W2nG11gfbk3i+PIvA4saJDn1CJeUGtRiRpG1YvlEQc2kqpUTngMLa77 ifklhCmJ8ObJji1kXQ6XhpJvqdhq+hsBhA/pBSZxAeqyezsFrnOGa27BcsH0rKK6 /8uBP5Vmn8LmNkvG3bJcDvJzcn2wdcZk5ACe8CJaSjfsjI5b44iMyrbKJlFnxjq/ jiJ/6X702dj06TVsJn2PKmOk/ZEuQk4e8HiVM49VyATolPwM/ullq3fuTGdEnvas Uw3K4XoWS4jmOiiZhWvs =Lbll -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: inquery about "GPL with commercial exception"
On Thu, 8 Oct 2015 17:06:22 +0200 IOhannes m zmölnig (Debian/GNU) wrote: [...] > which throws us back to the question whether software under that > license is distributable (in non-free) at or not. Just to be clear, my own personal opinion is that "GPLv2 + restrictions" is self-contradictory and thus possibly void: I would not consider software released under such terms as safely distributable. -- http://www.inventati.org/frx/ There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory! . Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE pgp5tiOZDmJkQ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: inquery about "GPL with commercial exception"
Gunnar Wolf writes: > Francesco Poli dijo [Wed, Oct 07, 2015 at 11:50:53PM +0200]: > > One cannot comply with all these conditions at the same time. The > > "GPL + further restrictions" license is therefore > > self-contradictory. > > Right. But a content creator (in this case, a software author) is free > to choose whatever terms they see fit for their work. In this case, if > what they come up with that best describes their intent is "something > similar to the GPL, but adding a restriction to it to prevent > appropriation in commercial settings", they are entitled to. The copyright holder can claim that, and can still distribute the work legally, because copyright law does not restrict them to comply with those license terms. Any recipient of the work, though, has no license in the work except what the copyright holder grants. If the copyright holder's granted terms are incoherent (“GPLv2 plus these restrictions” is not a coherent license grant), then the terms are misleading because the recipient has no valid license under copyright law. > And yes, expressing it as "GPL + restrictions" is unfortunate It's more than unfortunate, it is actively misleading (though whether that is intentional or not is still unknown). It gives the strong impression the recipient has some license to exercise some freedoms from copyright restriction, when in fact they have none. -- \ “Come on, if your religion is so vulnerable that a little bit | `\ of disrespect is going to bring it down, it's not worth | _o__) believing in, frankly.” —Terry Gilliam, 2005-01-18 | Ben Finney
