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CeCILL: La Licence Francaise Du Logiciel Libre
News for nerds writes "Researchers at three French government-funded research organizations revealed the new Open-Source license, known as CeCILL (English .pdf here), which they say is compatible with the FSF's GPL. CeCILL is intended to make free software more compatible with French law in two areas where it differs significantly from U.S. law: copyright and product liability. I, for one, welcome our nouvelle overlord of freedom."
French laws are not the same as 'european' laws.
/me should find a job in the france ;)
For example, the intelectual ownership, the 'author' so to say.
In holland this is slightly different. If i am employed for a company, then this company is allowed to claim intellectual ownership about every line of code i write, also for open-source projects. This is because it is hard to distinguish 'personal' knowledge and 'professional' knowledge. In this case, the employer is protected a lot.
So, when employed as programmer, it is necessary to make a good arrangement, at least personal but preferably on paper, that you are allowed to write code in your own time and may publish this under a license chosen by you and that the company will grant you intellectual ownership of your code. However, it may be tough to get this black-on-white.. In practice it is no real problem, but juridical seen it is.
The french have arranged this better: intellectual ownerships is always at the author, as far as i understood.
maybe
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
I noticed recently that there has been an effort to translate the Creative Commons licence into Nederlands...
see: http://creativecommons.org/ for more info.
Waag Society in Amsterdam were having some seminars about this issue (though their site is a bit broken at the moment www.waag.org).
Note: I am neither a lawyer, nor a Francophone. However, after reading the English translation, it looks like a French developer should simply release software under the CeCILL license; the freedoms guaranteed are essentially the same as those guaranteed by the GPL (though the section on warranty is much more complex). If any GPL'ed modifications are made to a CeCILL'ed piece of software, the resulting software can be distributed under the GPL thanks to a clause in CeCILL specifically allowing this.
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow
Anyway, I imagine RMS will have to say a few thing on GPL-compatibility.
We saw him at Toulouse last Saturday, where he gave a speech about free software. Someone asked about CeCILL during the questions part of the speech, and he basically said it was fine (negating other FSF people's comments like these ones (in French).
blah
In other words, if it is indeed non-valid, due to language related reasons or other, then the source is simply a document with copyright applied to it. No need to get all nervous and paranoid.
Hear me out a bit. If I write some code (Not that I am able to) and I put it on a Belgian Server, standing in Belgium living in Belgium and slap the GPL on it, the GPL (if in English) would not be valid. People could download it and implement it in their own projects. Suddenly I realize that the GPL does not apply, so I start asking money or start suing people, because they infinged the copyright. I never gave them permision to use the code, as the GPL did not apply.
It is doen with a LOT of software that originates outside the USofA. A lot of them just have the GPL or point to the English GPL.
This could mean that all code that was written outside of the USofA and implemented in OSS projects, like Linux, is not under the GPL but under copyright. That could mean that somebody who is a kernel developer sells his copyright to, say, SCO.
IF this is possible, then there is all need to get nervous and paranoid.
So what is happening in France is extremely usefull and perhaps should be followed by other countries all over the world. At least people who are lawers should have a closer look at it, before SCO and the like take a look at it.
I surely hope that my reasoning is completely false. I have no idea what would happen if I suddenly would claim my copyright after I put a GPL on it. If I am an individual, I probably get laughed at. If I am a large company, I might get what I want. The proof that copyrighted code is put into OSS illegaly (or at least a lot of FUD).
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Speaking as an American who moved here to France five years ago, I think most perceptions of arrogance on both sides are due more to cultural differences than efforts or non-efforts to speak the language.
The French are more polite than Americans in certain situations and less so in others. For example, have you ever stood in line in France? It's every one for his or her self. Americans would find this very rude, but in France it's normal. On the other hand, in France you say hello and good-bye at least once to everyone you do business with, including the person at the toll booth as you plunk change into her palm while hardly even stopping the car. An American probably wouldn't think twice about never saying a word in such a situation, but a French person would probably find it rude.
There are many other examples of courtesies that are simply different between the two cultures. If an American isn't aware of the differences, he or she may find French people rude and perhaps arrogant, and vice versa.