Re: Re: Bug #298195: ITP: tinywm -- Ridiculously tiny window manager
(not sure if i can post to this list, but what the hey) > That's not a free license. In fact, it's about as non-free as you can > get, since it's essentially "all rights reserved"; there's no > permission to modify or redistribute at all. We can't distribute this, > even in non-free. > > Here's the text: > > Use of the works is permitted provided that this instrument > is retained with the works, so that any entity that uses the > works is notified of this instrument. > > DISCLAIMER: THE WORKS ARE WITHOUT WARRANTY. > > Usual example of why random people should not be writing licenses. It's the fair license, which is OSI approved: http://opensource.org/licenses/fair.php -- Nick Welch aka mackstann | mack @ incise.org | http://incise.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Bug #298195: ITP: tinywm -- Ridiculously tiny window manager
> Thanks for pointing this out. Now we have a concrete example of just > how screwed up OSI is. That licence does not grant any permission to > modify, redistribute, or otherwise deal in the work in a Free manner. > For it to be judged as satisfying the Open Source Definition is > ludicrous. Interesting. Based on discussions I have seen/been in on OSI's mailing list, the license is basically the same (or intended to be) as the MIT/X or BSD licenses, except that it requires notification of the license terms instead of simple inclusion (i.e. to prevent trying to hide/obfuscate it) http://www.mail-archive.com/license-discuss@opensource.org/msg07011.html http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:msp:9414:kggljgdonepiacdbcied As far as disallowing modification/redistribution/etc., that is not what the license intends to do -- it's basically supposed to just be a minimalist "do what you want with this, but give me credit" license. If the wording implies restriction of modifications and whatnot, then it would seem that there have been some big misunderstandings all around. -- Nick Welch aka mackstann | mack @ incise.org | http://incise.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Bug #298195: ITP: tinywm -- Ridiculously tiny window manager
> This is why random Joe off the street should not be writing licences. >From what I can gather, the license was developed through discussion on OSI's mailing list, and in the end it was OSI who approved it. Quite different from "random Joe off the street" whipping up some homebrew license and slapping it on some code. I will be making another TinyWM release real soon now, and it will be put into the public domain. I'm tired of license drama -- that's partly why I started using this license. I guess the joke's on me. ;) As far as it not being worth packaging for debian, I won't really get involved in that debate except basically to say that it is certainly worthy of debate. It would be useful to have it apt-gettable, but then again.. it's 60 lines of code! :) -- Nick Welch aka mackstann | mack @ incise.org | http://incise.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re:Bug #298195: ITP: tinywm -- Ridiculously tiny window manager
On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 20:51:43 +1100, Matthew Palmer wrote: > The links you gave earlier don't appear to show much useful debate or > input from anyone with the first clue about licence authoring. The internet appears to have swallowed the mailing list messages, but I do remember reading through them in the past, and there was debate and multiple revisions of the license before it became what is on the OSI site. > The MIT licence (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php) > does pretty much what you appear to want the Fair Licence to provide > -- "do what you like, just don't remove the licence". That makes the > Fair Licence doubly pointless. > > Public domain is not going to absolve you from the licence drama, > either -- in many jurisdictions, there is no concept of "the public > domain", so you're in a bit of a pickle. In the past I used the MIT license, but the only reason I used it instead of giving to the public domain was because I had read a paper that, IIRC, basically said that you're less protected legally by doing so. But anymore I realize what the odds are and it seems silly to care. If someone wants to sue me, hah, "bring it on." There seem to be other issues regarding PD, such as what you mention, but a quick look around reveals a number of non-trivial projects released to the public domain. PD-ksh is the most prominent in my mind, simply because of the name. UCLA seems to deem it safe to do so: <http://aixpdslib.seas.ucla.edu/>. DJB also comes to mind. And it appears that Debian has quite a few packages which are classified as public domain. -- Nick Welch aka mackstann | mack @ incise.org | http://incise.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
