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From: John B. Matthews on 20 Sep 2009 20:44 In article <h95v2f$723$1(a)news.albasani.net>, Lew <noone(a)lewscanon.com> wrote: > Lew wrote: > >> Neither the point nor the example are excellent. > > John B. Matthews wrote: > > I will not dispute a matter of taste, but I value the discussion. > > I value the discussion, too, but my judgment was not based on "taste" but on > utility. Excellent. I genuinely appreciate the clarity that you invariably bring to the discussion. > The point was that Sun puts open-source licenses on examples in order to > prevent harm from a competitor. I think this mischaracterizes my point: I did not say "to prevent;" I said, "to reduce the risk." > The point is not excellent because there is no evidence provided that > Sun had that intention, and it's evident that such licenses do > nothing to prevent a competitor from abusing Sun's code to harm Sun, > and I would guess that Sun's lawyers know that. Sun, and all publicly held technology companies whose reports I've read, place considerable value on their intellectual property. Sun's lawyers are ethically obliged to maintain or enhance that value subject to the constraints imposed by the company's business model. > Were it Sun's intention to prevent harm from competitors, they'd've > close-sourced the license. Ergo, because the point is unfounded and > illogical, it is not an excellent point. Indeed, many companies use a combination of trade secret and copyrighted source code to protect the value of their intellectual property. In the case of technologies such as JAXB, Sun must balance the desire to promote the adoption of their implementation of a widely used standard against the greater security of closed source and trade secret. Sun, as well as IBM, Oracle and a host of others, have embraced open source licensing to achieve just this effect. > The example did not speak to that point. It showed that Microsoft > did harm to Sun (or tried to) by comparing similar applications in > C#/.Net and Java. It did not show that Microsoft used Sun's code to > start with, that Sun's code was under an open-source license or not, > how an open-source license would have prevented that harm, or that > that incident was connected in Sun's mind to its purported practice > of open-sourcing example code. Being almost completely irrelevant > and completely non-evidentiary, it is not an excellent example. I am less sanguine defending the example, yet I found it strangely compelling. Having read the Hallowe'en Documents and the Samba sources, I find it too easy to be consumed with antipathy toward the twice-convicted monopolist. > You may call that a matter of "taste". I call it a matter of any > reasonable definition of excellence for explanatory points or > examples in evidence thereof. On reflection, my phrasing was a rhetorically weak attempt to use the old chestnut, "de gustibus non disputandum est." I believe my point has merit whether it is judged excellent or not. -- John B. Matthews trashgod at gmail dot com <http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>
From: John B. Matthews on 20 Sep 2009 22:13 In article <op.u0kx0drl8jd0ej(a)macbook-pro.local>, "Peter Duniho" <NpOeStPeAdM(a)nnowslpianmk.com> wrote: > On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:13:19 -0700, John B. Matthews > <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote: > > > [...] > >> >> The exception text says: > >> >> > >> >> "If you modify this library, you may extend this exception to > >> >> your version of the library, but you are not obligated to do > >> >> so." > > [...] > >> > Note that the text you're quoting isn't actually part of the > >> > exception per se. > > > > I think the quote is the next to last sentence in the yellow > > highlighted section, entitled '"CLASSPATH" EXCEPTION TO THE GPL > > VERSION 2.' Removing the entire highlighted section, as suggested > > in the last sentence, would _not_ extend the exception and would > > preclude one from using the exception to link one's own independent > > work to the modified library. The plain GPL v2 would remain. > > I don't know what you mean. Sorry, Pete; I appreciate your patience. I'm having trouble seeing your interpretation of the exception. > What "last sentence" suggested "removing the entire highlighted section"? <https://glassfish.dev.java.net/public/CDDL+GPL.html> at the bottom of the page, in a section entitled, '"CLASSPATH" EXCEPTION TO THE GPL VERSION 2.' The highlighted section _is_ the text of the exception that has been added to the otherwise unmodified GPL version 2. Similar exceptions for certain runtime libraries, Qt and GNAT Ada are described here: <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html> <http://doc.trolltech.com/4.4/license-gpl-exceptions.html> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNAT_Modified_General_Public_License> Question five of the GNU licensing quiz poses a question using a similar exception in the manner I've outlined: <http://www.gnu.org/cgi-bin/license-quiz.cgi> The suggested answer to question five is selection three. Here is an extensive discussion of a prominent vendor's decision to withdraw an existing exception from a number of popular libraries: <http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ada/browse_frm/thread/d0f6c37e3 c1b712a/19c1a7e66b6f6b73#19c1a7e66b6f6b73> > The word "exception" has a very specific and clear meaning. Just because > someone has highlighted text beyond the actual exception granted doesn't > make that text part of the exception. An "exception" grants a person the > right to ignore some requirement; they are _excepted_ from the > requirement. Any language that isn't granting a person the right to > ignore some requirement is by definition not part of the exception, no > matter how it's formatted. I understand that the highlighting is incidental; it's just a way to identify the added section that contains the text of the exception. I'm just not seeing the language that would support your interpretation. The section's first paragraph specifies the covered source files. The second paragraph is a clear restatement of the relevant terms of the unmodified GPL. The third paragraph goes on to specify the terms of the exception. Removing the entire section restores the license to its original state, which forbids linking proprietary code. > Beyond that, the exception (the right to ignore the requirement to make > one's own code open) clearly applies only when the original code is itself > unmodified, used only by linking. In this particular case, the OP has > made clear that this is not applicable to his scenario, thus the exception > is itself inapplicable and thus has no effect on the OP's rights and > obligations regarding redistribution. I agree. He proposed redistributing a modified version of code covered under the license without including the modified source. Distributing his own original code devised after studying the example would be a different matter. > If you want to insist that the part of the highlighted text that grants > the right to extend the exception is in fact part of the exception, then > it _still_ does not apply, because the exception itself doesn't apply. > You can't have it both ways. I think I follow: The GPL says you can't change the license itself, but you can add your own exception or delete an existing one. If you delete Sun's classpath exception, you can't then turn around and link proprietary code as if it were still present. -- John B. Matthews trashgod at gmail dot com <http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>
From: Peter Duniho on 21 Sep 2009 00:13 On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:27:18 -0700, Arne Vajhøj <arne(a)vajhoej.dk> wrote: > But it is the entire exception that is highlighted and the right > to use the exception for modified work is part of the exception. You and I obviously have different definitions of the word "exception". I use the common dictionary definition; as such, language that doesn't excuse (or "except") someone from some obligation isn't an exception. A person can call that kind of language an "exception" until the cows come home, they can even highlight it in yellow, that doesn't make it an exception. >> If you want to insist that the part of the highlighted text that grants >> the right to extend the exception is in fact part of the exception, >> then it _still_ does not apply, because the exception itself doesn't >> apply. > > The exception applies since it applies to using the code in the > way we are discussing. Why? The OP made it clear he was modifying the licensed code. The exception applies only if one does NOT modify the licensed code. What makes you think the exception applies? Pete
From: Peter Duniho on 21 Sep 2009 00:13 On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:13:16 -0700, John B. Matthews <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote: > [...] >> What "last sentence" suggested "removing the entire highlighted >> section"? > > <https://glassfish.dev.java.net/public/CDDL+GPL.html> at the bottom of > the page, in a section entitled, '"CLASSPATH" EXCEPTION TO THE GPL > VERSION 2.' The highlighted section _is_ the text of the exception that > has been added to the otherwise unmodified GPL version 2. Okay, I see which one you mean. I don't see how it's relevant to the question of whether this exception applies to the OP's situation, but at least I know what sentence you're talking about. > [...] >> If you want to insist that the part of the highlighted text that grants >> the right to extend the exception is in fact part of the exception, then >> it _still_ does not apply, because the exception itself doesn't apply. >> You can't have it both ways. > > I think I follow: The GPL says you can't change the license itself, but > you can add your own exception or delete an existing one. If you delete > Sun's classpath exception, you can't then turn around and link > proprietary code as if it were still present. I agree with your statement, but it's not really what I'm saying. On reviewing the thread (should I have done that several messages ago? :) ), I find that I'm not entirely clear about how this came up. Looking at the quote from Arne to which you originally responded, I see that he seems to have introduced the idea of linking without modification. The OP clearly is modifying the code in question. But if all you and Arne are discussing is the hypothetical situation in which some other person simply links to the licensed code, I agree the exception would apply in that case. If I've misunderstood the point you were trying to make, I apologize, for the misunderstanding and for wasting so much of your time on the question. :) Thanks, Pete
From: Martin Gregorie on 21 Sep 2009 05:06
On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:55:42 -0700, Peter Duniho wrote: > On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:45:31 -0700, Martin Gregorie > <martin(a)address-in-sig.invalid> wrote: > >> If the examples are provided as downloadable source without any >> copyright tag or author attribution in a directory called, say >> 'examples', what copyright, if any, covers them? > > The same copyright protection that would apply by default in any case. > > There is no requirement that a copyright notice, or even attribution, be > provided in order for a work to be copyrighted. Thanks for that. I thought the author had to be identified for an article to be copyrighted - or at least for the copyright to be meaningful. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | Essex, UK org | |