On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 07:32:52PM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote: > >On Jun 12, 2011, at 13:14, Marc Espie <es...@nerim.net> wrote: > > > >> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 10:13:34AM -0500, Chris Bennett wrote: > >>> I ran into a module on cpan that the author says is licensed as: > >>> > >>> You can use this module freely. (Someone complained this is too vague. > >>> So, more precisely: do whatever you want with it, but be warned that > >>> terrible things will happen to you if you use it badly, like for > >>> sending spam, or ...?) > >> > >> Well, he's not actually forbidding any kind of use, does he ? > >> > >> So it's free. > > > >Not quite. It is the opposite. You have to explicitly disclaim parts if the > >copyright (redistribution, modification etc). > > > >Saying it is free doesn't make it so. > > Marc is incorrect. Marco is correct. > > The word "free" means too little. It may eventually be subject to > interpretation by someone, and they may not come to the same > conclusions that you come to now. > > In the world of copyright, the best way to avoid this problem is by > being exact and clear. This is what we in our own new code: > > * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any > * purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above > * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. > > The words "Permission", "use", "copy", "modify", "distribute" are > very clear. So are others words in the above sentence. Simplifying > it to the word "free" ... is frankly impossible. > > That particular cpan module author is being unclear, and he is attempting > to add morals to his software. Copyright does not understand moral codes. > A judge or jury interpreting it later may believe that it was not free, > after all. To avoid such problems, please mark that code as non-free. > > If that author clearly wants his software to be free in ways we can > clearly identify, he's got to "use the right words". >
That's basically what I thought was correct. I just wanted to be sure I sent the right request to the author. He just responded and said he could either use a perl license or what you suggested, dropping the liability part from the template. Nice to see someone with the right attitude. I bet he goes with the not perl option. Chris Bennett
