FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) [LWN.net]

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

Posted Aug 24, 2008 13:10 UTC (Sun) by zotz (guest, #26117)
Parent article: FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

Other Options?

I wonder whether it would be possible to give the ability to enforce outside of the ability to relicense.

Could one not make an agreement to give the right to enforce the license, collect for non-enforcement and share any damages?

Also, with the ability to relicense, wouldn't there be a way to constrain this ability to certain parameters so that some wild change would not be possible, but sensible ones in keeping with the original intent of the coders would be possible?

all the best,

drew

(Log in to post comments)

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

Posted Aug 24, 2008 13:44 UTC (Sun) by aseigo (guest, #18394) [Link]

> it would be possible to give the ability to enforce outside of the ability to relicense

This agreement allows KDE e.V. to take on essentially any action that the original copyright holder
could; it's not limited to relicensing, for instance.

> the right to enforce the license, collect for non-enforcement and share any damages?

That's already allowed by this instrument, and one of the reasons (we hope never to have to
exercise) for having it.

> wouldn't there be a way to constrain this ability

Absolutely. When you sign an FLA with KDE e.V., there's another document called the FRA (which
is referenced in the FLA) that defines this aspect of the agreement. This document defines how
KDE e.V. must behave in matters relating to the FLA to keep KDE e.V. in line with its original
mandate and the precepts of Free / Open Source software.

It is a separate document so as to keep it between the signatories only and out of the FLA itself
where it could end up being misused in a court case, for instance, to slow down or derail a case.
The language that sets these parameters is well understood between the signatories, but may
open legal doors for "exploration" by third parties (e.g. an alleged GPL violator's legal council). So
KDE e.V. is regulated by the language in the FRA, but that FRA is not available to be (mis)used as a
legal tool by third parties should such a situation arise.

IANAL, Aaron Seigo.