In a web forum about emc2 (often called just emc), a GPLv2only-licensed program, a developer has posted some comments about the GPL that are very surprising from my US-centric viewpoint of the GPL).
The developer, Thomas G., is writing a new GUI for emc2; the source code for the GUI includes some files adapted from the emc2 source distribution, and the compilation process uses header files and libraries from the emc2 binary distribution.
My understanding is that there is no difficulty in releasing the new GUI under the terms of the GPLv2, but Thomas seems to have some reservations that I do not understand:
as we do not have the Gpl- Licence in Europe (mean we have it but it is intended different) i still do not know what licence to provide with the source... In Europe everything that is published has a copyright. Even the emc- example Nc-Code, Hal-Examples etc... So normally i am not allowed to make a copy of emc in Europe... If there is a "real" copyright depends on the code itself. For Example: if i take a "small" Part of external code (lets say 100 lines of code) into a big project (about 80.000 lines of code) and the external code is a code that itself has parts that were taken from other published code-fragments, the external code cannot have a copyright... But you can feel free to copy / modify the source as you want...
http://www.linuxcnc.org/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,20/func,view/cati...
Please help me understand and respond to his concerns, particularly from the standpoint of European or German copyright.
I believe Thomas's first language is German, so if there's someone willing to communicate with Thomas personally in German that might also help here. If you contact me, I can put you in touch with him.
Thanks, Jeff
Hi,
On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 05:01:24PM -0600, Jeff Epler wrote:
In a web forum about emc2 (often called just emc), a GPLv2only-licensed program, a developer has posted some comments about the GPL that are very surprising from my US-centric viewpoint of the GPL).
The developer, Thomas G., is writing a new GUI for emc2; the source code for the GUI includes some files adapted from the emc2 source distribution, and the compilation process uses header files and libraries from the emc2 binary distribution.
My understanding is that there is no difficulty in releasing the new GUI under the terms of the GPLv2, but Thomas seems to have some reservations that I do not understand:
as we do not have the Gpl- Licence in Europe (mean we have it but it is intended different) i still do not know what licence to provide with the source... In Europe everything that is published has a copyright. Even the emc- example Nc-Code, Hal-Examples etc... So normally i am not allowed to make a copy of emc in Europe... If there is a "real" copyright depends on the code itself. For Example: if i take a "small" Part of external code (lets say 100 lines of code) into a big project (about 80.000 lines of code) and the external code is a code that itself has parts that were taken from other published code-fragments, the external code cannot have a copyright... But you can feel free to copy / modify the source as you want...
http://www.linuxcnc.org/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,20/func,view/cati...
Please help me understand and respond to his concerns, particularly from the standpoint of European or German copyright.
He's very mistaken. Many people are confused by the word "Copyleft", but the GNU GPL is built solely upon the principles of Copyright. The GNU GPL was even upheld in court several times in Germany. You should tell him to consult the Freedom Task Force (FTF) of FSFE [1] if he needs further clarificationy.
Best wishes Michael
[1] http://fsfe.org/projects/ftf/
Hi
There is the EUPL, which is an EU translation of GPLv2 and intended to be cross-compatible... http://www.osor.eu/eupl
Not sure if you like it though:
"European Union Public License (EUPL) version 1.1
This is a free software license. By itself, it has a copyleft comparable to the GPL's. However, it allows recipients to distribute the work under the terms of other selected licenses, and some of those-the Mozilla Public License and the Common Public License in particular-only provide a weaker copyleft. Thus, developers can't rely on this license to provide a strong copyleft.
The EUPL is compatible with GPLv2, because that is listed as one of the alternative licenses that recipients may use. However, it is incompatible with GPLv3, because recipients are not given permission to use GPLv3's terms, and the EUPL's copyleft conflicts with GPLv3's. Because of this incompatibility, we urge you not to use the EUPL for any software you write."
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
Peter
-----Original Message----- From: discussion-bounces@fsfeurope.org [mailto:discussion-bounces@fsfeurope.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Epler Sent: 09 February 2010 23:01 To: discussion@fsfeurope.org Cc: chris@timeguy.com Subject: Please help me respond to a German user about the GPL
In a web forum about emc2 (often called just emc), a GPLv2only-licensed program, a developer has posted some comments about the GPL that are very surprising from my US-centric viewpoint of the GPL).
The developer, Thomas G., is writing a new GUI for emc2; the source code for the GUI includes some files adapted from the emc2 source distribution, and the compilation process uses header files and libraries from the emc2 binary distribution.
My understanding is that there is no difficulty in releasing the new GUI under the terms of the GPLv2, but Thomas seems to have some reservations that I do not understand:
as we do not have the Gpl- Licence in Europe (mean we have it but it is intended different) i still do not know what licence to provide with the source... In Europe everything that is published has a copyright. Even the emc- example Nc-Code, Hal-Examples etc... So normally i am not allowed to make a copy of emc in Europe... If there is a "real" copyright depends on the code itself. For Example: if i take a "small" Part of external code (lets say 100 lines of code) into a big project (about 80.000 lines of code) and the external code is a code that itself has parts that were taken from other published code-fragments, the external code cannot have a copyright... But you can feel free to copy / modify the source as you want...
http://www.linuxcnc.org/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,20/func,view/cati...
Please help me understand and respond to his concerns, particularly from the standpoint of European or German copyright.
I believe Thomas's first language is German, so if there's someone willing to communicate with Thomas personally in German that might also help here. If you contact me, I can put you in touch with him.
Thanks, Jeff _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
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Am Donnerstag, den 11.02.2010, 13:31 +0000 schrieb Cruickshank, Peter:
There is the EUPL, which is an EU translation of GPLv2
The EUPL is not a "EU translation" of GPLv2, and there is no need for a "EU translation". The GPL (v2 or v3) is valid in Europe and has been tested multiple times in court.
Thanks, Reinhard
"Cruickshank, Peter" P.Cruickshank@napier.ac.uk
There is the EUPL, which is an EU translation of GPLv2 and intended to be cross-compatible... http://www.osor.eu/eupl
That might have been the intent, but I preferred to summarise it as an "EU-funded waste of brainpower" which "appears to have a shed-load of problems, but the EUPL is trivially upgradable to a number of good free software licences (section 5 and appendix)" in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2009/03/msg00162.html
Among the problems, it seems to be very ambiguous about what is Source and what is Executable, is itself under a restrictive copyright, requires Contributors to identify themselves in multiple ways including geographic and electronic addresses, speaks about websites (so will be silly if websites become obsolete), suggests an "I agree" button and has a choice of venue that discriminates in favour of EU citizens.
Can voters please pressure governments to stop licence proliferation?
Thanks,
On 16 February 2010 01:44, MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop wrote:
Can voters please pressure governments to stop licence proliferation?
More generally: lots of companies think they have to roll their own. What can be done to lead them away from this bad idea? e.g. are there already essays or other resources as to this? Why do they think this is a good idea?
(DWheeler's "GPL-compatible or else" essay springs to mind, but if someone already has qualms about the GPL, for substantive reasons or because they've heard FUD, it would only push them away.)
- d.
David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
More generally: lots of companies think they have to roll their own. What can be done to lead them away from this bad idea? e.g. are there already essays or other resources as to this? Why do they think this is a good idea?
If you don't want to link to his longer papers, David A. Wheeler has "FLOSS License Proliferation: Still a problem" at http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2008/08/20/
I think Netscape are responsible for this, using their own-branded license to be free software but give themselves special privileges, as criticsed by Richard Stallman's On the Netscape Public License http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/netscape-npl.html
This was bundled up with the Open Source Initiative - I think Netscape were at the RMS-excluding Freeware Summit that ultimately led to OSI? So I feel OSI saw the new license and made a clear and overt way for it to approve new licenses. OSI talked about that approval process a lot early on, but has recently acknowledged that license proliferation is bad: http://www.opensource.org/proliferation
Seems a bit irritating that Netscape has been omitted from OSI's history of the issue, though.
debian has been arguing against proliferation for *years*. The Debian Free Software Guidelines FAQ number 5 discourages it. http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq As you know, I think debian usually does the right thing on this.
I've not found anything showing FSF or FSFE advising against writing new licences. Maybe it's there, but it's not prominent. Is this surprising? FSF has produced not only GPLv3, but also AGPL, FDL, SFDL and maybe others while I've not been looking so closely. The FAQ isn't a great help - I have met some people that read http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL as an active encouragement to write a customised licence!
It seems like Ciaran O'Riordan wrote something which was linked from http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/How-GPLv3-tackles-license-proliferat... but clicking "How GPLv3 tackles license proliferation" today just redisplays the same page for me, and not the column. It doesn't seem to be available on the FSFE site, either.
So, personally, I think FSF and FSFE are the weakest groups against customised licenses just now and could do a lot to help by adding prominent essays to their sites.
Hope that helps,
Hi!
Please help me understand and respond to his concerns, particularly from the standpoint of European or German copyright.
Could it be, that he confuses that with "public domain"? TTBOMK many Europeans (at least Germans) can't legally refrain from the rights on their works and put something under "public domain".
Best regards, Alexander
* Alexander Reichle-Schmehl alexander@schmehl.info [100211 14:59]:
Please help me understand and respond to his concerns, particularly from the standpoint of European or German copyright.
Could it be, that he confuses that with "public domain"? TTBOMK many Europeans (at least Germans) can't legally refrain from the rights on their works and put something under "public domain".
Translating legal terms like that does not make much sense. There is no copyright in Germany, no public domain, no licenses, nor any other English term. There are also other legal concepts, but that is not a bigger difference than with other term: translating things word by word just produces gibberish.
So while "Man kann sein Werk nicht gemeinfrei machen." might be a correct (though already in German very formal hair splitting) German sentence that could be correctly translated in some sense to "You cannot place your work in the public domain", that does not mean that you cannot place your work in the public domain.
In the same way one could "mis"translate that you cannot sell copyrights in Germany and still people doing it effectively all the time.
Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link
P.S: I don't think that any insight in Germany can help you understand the original mail. It sounds more like the mail of an U.S. citizen asking for a license of a software because the GPL does not apply to him because he is not member of the communist party. (Or any other equally absurd non-sequitur).