There is a cowardly tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress
Don't forget the blank line between the copyright lines and the bsd license.
In case you didn't read my comment besides the chunk you quoted, I specifically mentioned the blank line separating the copyright notice from the license notices. And mentioned that copyright notices must be preserved regardless of any interpretations.
I mean if there's a blank line between the names of the owners and the license it may not be related. Right? Or maybe we can look at the spaces between the words, those might separate each word into an individual notice. So to stay in compliance with the GPL the only thing that has to be kept is the three letters "GPL". So maybe this might be a valid interpretation of the license:
Well, you certainly can reduce everything to absurd if you please. But the fact is that aggregate notice text consists of three distinct large parts. My interpretation of the term "notice" as applied here is more plausible than the one you presented in the above quote. By analyzing the structure of a text, we often can see some useful clues to its semantics. I think that empty paras may be such a structural clue here. I'm not saying that your point of view is unconditionally wrong (I even cite an argument supporting it) - I'm just saying that it's subject to legal interpretation.
It's not hard to understand that the notice starts with "Copyright" and ends with "Foundation."
Its "the aggregate notice text" that starts and ends with these words. Whether or not it consists of one notice referring to GPL or several notices one of which refers to GPL, is what IMO has to be interpreted.
Anyway, whoever is right, hopefully this controversy has taught people a lesson on the importance of clear, unambiguous formulation and structuring of license notices.
In addition to my previous post: on the other hand, semantically, a text starting with "Alternatively," looks incomplete - alternatively to what? This is an argument supporting your interpretation.
Well, that's not so clear-cut. The wording is "all the notices that refer to THIS license," where "this" is the GPL. I can argue that there are three notices here. The first is the copyright notice which is to be preserved anyway. The second is the BSD license notice. The third is the GPL license notice. Only the third notice refers to GPL, so I'm keeping it along with the copyright notice. The empty para between the BSD and GPL notices (with BSD one consisting of multiple paras) supports my interpretation of the GPL reference being a separate notice.
However, thanks to your correction I do now see that this is a grey area, and depends on a legal interpretation.
Yes, and removing BSD license notice from the dual-licensed code received under GPL is not relicensing or attempt at relicensing of the original code, and neither is it a violation of BSD license since BSD is not the license that the code was received under. However, copyright notices have to be preserved anyway - this is a requirement of the GPL.
By removing the BSD license notice (which does not apply to him since he chose to receive his copy under GPL), he cannot and does not revoke the BSD license for the original code. It's still there. The situation is as follows: 1) the modified code in its entirety can only be distributed under GPL; 2) however, you can take the pieces of the modified code that were also present in the original code and use them according to BSD license, since you're effectively taking them from the original dual-licensed file.
Dunno about the rest of Office, but speaking as someone who does word processing 8 hours a day, Word allows me to work much more efficiently and comfortably than OOo Writer - even with all those crashes and stupid bugs that the former exhibits, and leaving format compatibility issues completely aside.
I could enumerate Writer's deficiencies point by point if you really want, though I've already done it more than once here (in the form of links to a bunch of OSNews posts)...
Sure they would. Because modern desktop Java is perceived as "slow" primarily because of slow VM launch. After the damn thing started, it feels pretty fast. To check that, try OmegaT computer aided translation program (http://www.omegat.info/). It is coded in Java and is not slow at all. It even starts reasonably fast, especially with the bundled Java runtime.
That said, I don't like Java on desktop anyway. It just looks and feels foreign everywhere.
But didn't the "Alternatively..." part refer to the whole file? If it did, then it's not slapping GPL on BSD but choosing the one or the other, and BSD doesn't ever come into force for the file in question. As for the content that was also available as BSD (the one without GPL-only mods), it still is - you just take it from the dual-licensed parent copy (sounds stupid due to the fact that the copies may not differ at all, but still). Or, for that matter, you can take it from the GPL copy, too, provided you know exactly which content that was - it doesn't matter in practice anyway.
Note that a) it's GPL v.3, not v.2 that has the "Additional Terms" section; and b) the requirement to keep the license notice has to be explicitly added, thus the term "additional" - if you just say "GPL v.3" without further qualifications, no additional terms will apply.
However, I do believe that copyright (not license) notices have to be preserved anyway.
But wouldn't your GPL recipients be free to remove that BSD clause? After all, they received your code on the terms of the GPL which does not require keeping that BSD clause, and moreover, prohibits such additional requirements?
It appears you are not joking. You are trying to apply the terms of the GPL to the license instead of the code.
No this is not what I'm doing. I apply the terms of the GPL to the now GPLed code containing notifications of licenses that do not apply anymore.
When you release code under the GPL, you are confident that the entire GPL applies to the code and the GPL cannot be modified willy-nilly
Yes. Precisely because I put it under one specific license and did not give the recipient a choice of different licenses.
However, the situation at hand is that we have a dual license, which can be seen as a "self-modifying on redistribution" license, if you absolutely must speak in terms of "modification" or "re-write" of a license.
For example, if I release code under a "GPLv2 or latter version" license, no one (expect me) is allowed to strip out the GPLv2 and replace it with the GPLv3. Nor can the remove the words "or latter version".
Quite an interesting interpretation of the word "or". Does FSF confirm this? I would love to see a link where FSF explicitly confirms that one cannot, say, receive a "GPL v.2 or later" file and then redistribute his/her copies of it as "GPL v.3 only".
(Note that in any case, your copy still IS "v.2 or later", because it is indeed only you who can set licensing condition for it. I'm certain however that your recipient's copy may not be, at his/her option, because you expressed the will to allow this in your license by putting the "or later" words there.)
At best, your logic presents a case that it is impossible to dual license GPL code.
No, it is not possible to dual-license code that you received under the GPL license (without the "or later" clause, which is already a dual license), including the case when the GPL was chosen as one of the options in a dual license.
By distributing the code under the terms of GPL, you license this particular copy as GPL, at which point neither author's dual-license nor the first licensing alternative apply to it. There's no way back, and GPL doesn't allow additional restrictions like prohibiting removal of some another license from the code (dunno about copyright notices however - this is different from a license). If the author insists on this restriction, s/he cannot distribute the work as GPL in the first place (regardless of whether there are other licenses for this work).
When a techie and a lawyer argue about technology, the techie is almost certainly right. When a techie and a lawyer argue about technology, the lawyer is almost certainly right.
No rewriting of a license takes place. There are two licenses to choose from - this is clearly indicated by the paragraph starting with "Alternatively,...". A successor chooses one of them for his/her copy, namely GPL, and follows it. The BSD license doesn't apply to this copy anymore, and its restrictions are not in force from this moment. The parent copy remains dual-licensed.
It may well be that the author did not actually mean it when he wrote this "Alternatively..." part, but it's only his fault then that he didn't express his wishes properly.
If you as a copyright owner distribute a work under GPL, you license it under GPL. I fail to see how distribution is not licensing, at least in the specific case of GPL.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a cowardly tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress
There, fixed it for you.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=284555&cid=20423519
What class was that?
The Ruling Class, naturally.
Don't forget the blank line between the copyright lines and the bsd license.
In case you didn't read my comment besides the chunk you quoted, I specifically mentioned the blank line separating the copyright notice from the license notices. And mentioned that copyright notices must be preserved regardless of any interpretations.
I mean if there's a blank line between the names of the owners and the license it may not be related. Right? Or maybe we can look at the spaces between the words, those might separate each word into an individual notice. So to stay in compliance with the GPL the only thing that has to be kept is the three letters "GPL". So maybe this might be a valid interpretation of the license:
Well, you certainly can reduce everything to absurd if you please. But the fact is that aggregate notice text consists of three distinct large parts. My interpretation of the term "notice" as applied here is more plausible than the one you presented in the above quote. By analyzing the structure of a text, we often can see some useful clues to its semantics. I think that empty paras may be such a structural clue here. I'm not saying that your point of view is unconditionally wrong (I even cite an argument supporting it) - I'm just saying that it's subject to legal interpretation.
It's not hard to understand that the notice starts with "Copyright" and ends with "Foundation."
Its "the aggregate notice text" that starts and ends with these words. Whether or not it consists of one notice referring to GPL or several notices one of which refers to GPL, is what IMO has to be interpreted.
Anyway, whoever is right, hopefully this controversy has taught people a lesson on the importance of clear, unambiguous formulation and structuring of license notices.
In addition to my previous post: on the other hand, semantically, a text starting with "Alternatively," looks incomplete - alternatively to what? This is an argument supporting your interpretation.
Well, that's not so clear-cut. The wording is "all the notices that refer to THIS license," where "this" is the GPL. I can argue that there are three notices here. The first is the copyright notice which is to be preserved anyway. The second is the BSD license notice. The third is the GPL license notice. Only the third notice refers to GPL, so I'm keeping it along with the copyright notice. The empty para between the BSD and GPL notices (with BSD one consisting of multiple paras) supports my interpretation of the GPL reference being a separate notice.
However, thanks to your correction I do now see that this is a grey area, and depends on a legal interpretation.
notice referring to the GPL
Not BSD.
Yes, and removing BSD license notice from the dual-licensed code received under GPL is not relicensing or attempt at relicensing of the original code, and neither is it a violation of BSD license since BSD is not the license that the code was received under. However, copyright notices have to be preserved anyway - this is a requirement of the GPL.
By removing the BSD license notice (which does not apply to him since he chose to receive his copy under GPL), he cannot and does not revoke the BSD license for the original code. It's still there. The situation is as follows: 1) the modified code in its entirety can only be distributed under GPL; 2) however, you can take the pieces of the modified code that were also present in the original code and use them according to BSD license, since you're effectively taking them from the original dual-licensed file.
That's why you should always do backups.
Okey dokey here you go.
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17593&comment_id=226219
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17593&comment_id=226313
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17593&comment_id=226315
Dunno about the rest of Office, but speaking as someone who does word processing 8 hours a day, Word allows me to work much more efficiently and comfortably than OOo Writer - even with all those crashes and stupid bugs that the former exhibits, and leaving format compatibility issues completely aside.
I could enumerate Writer's deficiencies point by point if you really want, though I've already done it more than once here (in the form of links to a bunch of OSNews posts)...
Would they? How do you figure that one?
Sure they would. Because modern desktop Java is perceived as "slow" primarily because of slow VM launch. After the damn thing started, it feels pretty fast. To check that, try OmegaT computer aided translation program (http://www.omegat.info/). It is coded in Java and is not slow at all. It even starts reasonably fast, especially with the bundled Java runtime.
That said, I don't like Java on desktop anyway. It just looks and feels foreign everywhere.
But didn't the "Alternatively..." part refer to the whole file? If it did, then it's not slapping GPL on BSD but choosing the one or the other, and BSD doesn't ever come into force for the file in question. As for the content that was also available as BSD (the one without GPL-only mods), it still is - you just take it from the dual-licensed parent copy (sounds stupid due to the fact that the copies may not differ at all, but still). Or, for that matter, you can take it from the GPL copy, too, provided you know exactly which content that was - it doesn't matter in practice anyway.
Note that a) it's GPL v.3, not v.2 that has the "Additional Terms" section; and b) the requirement to keep the license notice has to be explicitly added, thus the term "additional" - if you just say "GPL v.3" without further qualifications, no additional terms will apply.
However, I do believe that copyright (not license) notices have to be preserved anyway.
One question about this I've already asked here:
d =20439181
http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=286149&ci
But wouldn't your GPL recipients be free to remove that BSD clause? After all, they received your code on the terms of the GPL which does not require keeping that BSD clause, and moreover, prohibits such additional requirements?
It appears you are not joking. You are trying to apply the terms of the GPL to the license instead of the code.
No this is not what I'm doing. I apply the terms of the GPL to the now GPLed code containing notifications of licenses that do not apply anymore.
When you release code under the GPL, you are confident that the entire GPL applies to the code and the GPL cannot be modified willy-nilly
Yes. Precisely because I put it under one specific license and did not give the recipient a choice of different licenses.
However, the situation at hand is that we have a dual license, which can be seen as a "self-modifying on redistribution" license, if you absolutely must speak in terms of "modification" or "re-write" of a license.
For example, if I release code under a "GPLv2 or latter version" license, no one (expect me) is allowed to strip out the GPLv2 and replace it with the GPLv3. Nor can the remove the words "or latter version".
Quite an interesting interpretation of the word "or". Does FSF confirm this? I would love to see a link where FSF explicitly confirms that one cannot, say, receive a "GPL v.2 or later" file and then redistribute his/her copies of it as "GPL v.3 only".
(Note that in any case, your copy still IS "v.2 or later", because it is indeed only you who can set licensing condition for it. I'm certain however that your recipient's copy may not be, at his/her option, because you expressed the will to allow this in your license by putting the "or later" words there.)
At best, your logic presents a case that it is impossible to dual license GPL code.
No, it is not possible to dual-license code that you received under the GPL license (without the "or later" clause, which is already a dual license), including the case when the GPL was chosen as one of the options in a dual license.
By distributing the code under the terms of GPL, you license this particular copy as GPL, at which point neither author's dual-license nor the first licensing alternative apply to it. There's no way back, and GPL doesn't allow additional restrictions like prohibiting removal of some another license from the code (dunno about copyright notices however - this is different from a license). If the author insists on this restriction, s/he cannot distribute the work as GPL in the first place (regardless of whether there are other licenses for this work).
When a techie and a lawyer argue about technology, the techie is almost certainly right.
When a techie and a lawyer argue about technology, the lawyer is almost certainly right.
And you are almost certainly self-contradicting.
No rewriting of a license takes place. There are two licenses to choose from - this is clearly indicated by the paragraph starting with "Alternatively,...". A successor chooses one of them for his/her copy, namely GPL, and follows it. The BSD license doesn't apply to this copy anymore, and its restrictions are not in force from this moment. The parent copy remains dual-licensed.
It may well be that the author did not actually mean it when he wrote this "Alternatively..." part, but it's only his fault then that he didn't express his wishes properly.
If you as a copyright owner distribute a work under GPL, you license it under GPL. I fail to see how distribution is not licensing, at least in the specific case of GPL.
Human behavior is not always logical, I'm afraid. That's why logical fallacy can nevertheless correctly describe how people act.
You seem to know math really well factorial Now go study English a little bit factorial
No guessing needed - it always has been > 0! 9/11/2001 is a constant and equals approximately 4.09e-4.