Explaining the GPL to Non-Lawyers?

peddrenth asks: "Software licenses are, we keep saying, difficult to read. The public clicks OK without reading, either implicitly trusting or mistrusting us the software authors. There have been calls recently for companies to clean-up the license, to bullet, section, and colour their licenses, to remove THE UPPERCASE and to draw charts and graphs to explain the license. Anyone who's had to read a 3-page document in a 3"x1" textbox knows how useful this would be. The GPL is one of the most important licenses in the world, and appears on thousands of products. Everything from windows programs to operating systems to people's artwork requires understanding and acceptance of the GNU GPL. Should we, the free software community, take the first step in this effort, and show the world what an easy-to-read license looks like? Would it be useful if long textual software licenses stood out like a sore thumb amongst the cool, pretty, and clear free licenses?" Many may think the GPL Preamble to be clear enough, and this may be true. However there are a lot of people out there that would like to read the entire license so that they know exactly what they may be getting into, before they agree to it. This usually implies being able reading the actual license, and not just the preamble.

"Should we use such a comparison to show the public how they're being manipulated by terms in a EULA they don't read or understand, and encourage other license-writers to include the graphs and tables themselves, showing the public what a license really means?

What would be your ideal license, what poster would you draw to explain the GPL to a child, a PHB, or an artist? Would you stick with the text, or can you think of anything better?"

jamie interjects: The root of the problem is that "intellectual property" is a kludge of a natural human understanding of property rights. Useful, but a kludge. You have to invent many oddball concepts to keep up the pretense that ideas are property. The GPL is a kludge (strict and precise licensing terms) implemented on top of a kludge (copyright law) and, in English or in code, there is no short and simple way to describe complex things.

Comments

Non-lawyers?

[pdh11]

I find it's hard enough to explain to lawyers.

Peter

Re:Non-lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it's hard enough to explain to lawyers.

The main thing you would have to explain to a lawyer is that if they were to take a case defending the GPL, they would have to do it pro bono.

short and simple way to describe complex things

[Lord Omlette]

Give the person Richard Stallman's home phone #. Then tell the person to call up and ask "What's the big deal about the GPL?"

Problem solved.

Re:short and simple way to describe complex things

[Anonymous Coward]

and that would be a Toll Free number right?

Not necessarily, but it would be accompanied by a license granting the recipient the right to freely redistribute the number or any modification thereof as long as the license was included.

Re:short and simple way to describe complex things

[_bobs.pizza_]

Home phone number? How many of us can be reached at home throughout the entire day? Giving out his cell phone number would be much more effective.

Of course, we'd have to have a way to dynamically update the licence as he kept changing his phone number.

All I needed to know, I learned from Pulp Fiction

[Darth RadaR]

I guess you could explain it the same way that John Travolta explained the basics of marijuana laws in Amsterdam, NL to Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.

(Jules and Vincent driving in a car)

Jules: Okay now. Tell me about the GNU GPL.

Vincent: What do you want to know?

Jules: Well, it's about free software, right?

Vincent: It's free, but it has some standards. I mean you can't just write a GNU GPL program and restrict it's usage. You're supposed to provide the source code.

Jules: That's the GNU GPL?

Vincent: Yeah, it breaks down like this: It's legal to copy it, it's legal to have access to the source code and, if you're a programmer that wants to add to it, you can as long as your additions to the code go under the GNU GPL. It's legal to keep the program free, which doesn't really matter 'cause-get a load of this- if a company wants to add to your program and not offer the source code, it's illegal. Taking GNU GPL'd programs and not offering the source code is a right that companies don't have.

Jules:That did it, man. I'm f***ing GPL-ing my program. That's all there is to it.

New Microsoft EULA

[Anti-Microsoft Troll]

REports are that Microsoft is indeed responding to criticism of overly-wordy and/or unclear EULAs. Office XP 2.0, in fact, ships with a draft simplified EULA reproduced below: Office XP 2.0 User Agreement: 1 OWN2 jOO! -B1ll G. [] Ok [] Cancel

GPL as a Haiku

[EccentricAnomaly]

this program is free
give it away or change it
but please keep it free

---

I give you my work
you must let your breath go free
we share the same moon

Micro$offz version will be...?

[paiute]

"What's mine is mine, and what's yours is ours." Press OK to accept. Press CANCEL to accept.

Re:Keep it short

[ThePlague]

GNU Haiku

You may use the source
Change at will, port, give away
But with the new source

BSD Haiku

You may use the source
Change at will, port, give away
With source if you want

Re:All I needed to know, I learned from Pulp Ficti

[mcc]

Oh God.. Wow. This just works way, way too well. I mean, like, you can keep going with it...

-----

VINCENT: You'll dig it the most. But you know what the funniest thing about Open Source software is?

JULES: What?

VINCENT: It's the little differences. A lotta the same shit we got here, they got there, but there they're a little different.

JULES: Examples?

VINCENT: Well, in KDE, you can embed a web browser in your file manager. And I don't mean that you're using the web browser for your file manager like in Win98 either. They give you a plug-in browser, like you can install or remove any browser you like anytime you want, like in Opendoc. And in GNOME, you can embed like Mozilla or drawing apps or whatever into anything. Also, you know what they call their image editing program?

JULES: They don't call it Photoshop?

VINCENT: No, they use UNIX there, they wouldn't know who the fuck Adobe is.

JULES: What do they call it?

VINCENT: The "GIMP".

JULES: (repeating, grinning softly) The "GIMP". What do they call their word processor?

VINCENT: Well, the word processor is still Office, but they call it "OpenOffice".

JULES: What do they call their IDE?

VINCENT: I dunno, I didn't code anything. But you know what they use in Open Source software to configure their webservers instead of preferences dialogs?

JULES: What?

VINCENT: Text files.

JULES: Goddamn!

VINCENT: I seen 'em do it. And I don't mean a couple of extra options, they fuckin' do everything with that shit. Like, they drown you in it. Anything you wanna change about the way the webserver looks, you have to open up this big-ass file named "httpd.conf" and search through the file for the place where they explain what words to put where if you want it to act a certain way.

JULES: Uuccch!

(Cut to shot from inside the G4 tower case as Vincent and Jules open up from the side panel, reach in, and pull out two .45 automatics laying near the back, loading and cocking them.)

JULES: We should have shotguns for this kind of deal.

-----

OK.. obvious, not funny/relevant.. I'm sorry.. I'm sorry!!! I just couldn't resist..!! Please don't hurt me. ^_^

Require all Licences to be in haiku format!

[Avery_Zero]

I'm only mostly joking here. That would keep all licences short and sweet. Case in Point: the GPL in haiku.

What was mine is ours
Add to ours as you see fit
What is ours stays ours

AveryZero