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The Free Software Act (Groklaw)
Groklaw has published
a draft copy of the Free Software Act. "I noticed an article on
something called the Free Software Act, which is currently being drafted by
the Free Software Consortium Legal Governing Body. I was interested to note
that some brain power is going into figuring out a way to prevent any
future SCO-like events. There is an effort to create something
internationally useful, stronger than the license-on-top-of-copyright GPL,
a law specifically designed to protect free software. I especially noted
the wording on warranty."
(Log in to post comments)
Would BSD license become GPL? Posted Dec 23, 2003 4:49 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] 1d. The right to modify the program for any reasonI wonder what becomes of non-free software derived from BSD-licensed programs, should this act be passed. Either the BSD license becomes equivalent to GPL, or the distibutors will be allowed to "opt out" from free software protection, which would make the Free Software Act useless. The real concern is that any law regulating free software (no matter how well written) will be amended before adoption and may become dangerous to free software instead of protecting it.
Would BSD license become GPL? Posted Dec 23, 2003 7:29 UTC (Tue) by zakaelri (guest, #17928) [Link] It seems at first glance that the Free Software Act would prevent BSD-style licenses from working anymore. However, there is no line in here that prevents derivative works (which is what the proprietary app would be) from using an alternate license. In other words, this seems to be something that is left to the particulars of each license to dictate. It seems to serve the purpose of placing open source licenses in the realm of the Act itself, not in copyright law... or possibly just placing the bulk of most FL/OSS licenses into an all-encompassing law, instead of in the body of the licence itself. Now, of course, if a person or corporation decides to use a license that is contradictory to the terms set forth in section 1: 1. Free software guarantees the following freedoms to its users, copiers, modifiers,
distributors and any other beneficiaries of free software: Then he would not be distributing an application that qualifies under this bill, and then his program (persuant to the terms of whatever license the original program had) would be covered under `normal' copyright law, and (in addition) would not be given the protections listed in section 4: 4. Exemptions from liability:
My hypothesis is further supported by section 5: 5. Users, copiers, modifiers, distributors and any other beneficiaries of free software are bound by the contractual conditions of any licence or licences which apply to the program or programs they use. It would seem that, then, if the license says `I offer this gratis' then you can go ahead and take it (as is done with BSD licenses, if I have my facts straight. While on the surface it seems like a great law to pass, I believe that certain legislatures around the world would not pass this act. Everything that it states is already covered by licenses, so why bother? (This would be their justification, IMHO. I, however, feel it would be awesome if the law was passed.) Furthermore, I can see several companies (and therefore their lobbyists) protesting certain portions of this bill, most notably those that prevent them from enforcing their copyrights as stringently as possible. I do know that the purposes of this Act include exactly what I stated above. I am just pointing out that this is going to make the Act a controversial issue, at least in the US. BTW: IANAL, or a politition by any means... or a spelling wizard, for that matter... and this post was definitely a long one.
Would BSD license become GPL? Posted Dec 23, 2003 9:27 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I think article 2 may prevent opt-out. It could be argued in court that derived software is free software in modified form.
Would BSD license become GPL? Posted Feb 8, 2005 6:16 UTC (Tue) by zakaelri (guest, #17928) [Link] The point I was attempting to illustrate was that the BSD would not beforced to become GPL-esque if the act was passed. By declaring itself "more free" than is stipulated by the act, BSD would forfeit all claims to protection provided by the act.
The Free Software Act (Groklaw) Posted Dec 23, 2003 10:11 UTC (Tue) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link] If Free /OSS software or any parts thereof are used in an commercialapplication then that application should rightly become Open Source software in it's own right until such time as the Free/OSS element is removed . Pete.
The Free Software Act (Groklaw) Posted Dec 23, 2003 15:00 UTC (Tue) by rjw (guest, #10415) [Link] How on earth would this work?All that would happen is that anyone who wanted to release something under a permissive ( LGPL or BSD style) licence would still be able to make a universal grant to proprietary authors. Or do you think that it should actually be illegal for me to allow others to use my work as I see fit? I should be banned from not suing for copyright infringement/ free software act violation? Seems ridiculously onerous on both author and the public. So I doubt that would work. So these things would end up dual licence BSD/GPL or LGPL/GPL, which has the same effect as BSD or LGPL alone. A far more useful set of laws for the progress of Free Software would be this:
The Free Software Act (Groklaw) Posted Dec 23, 2003 17:03 UTC (Tue) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link] I'll comment here, cause the line is shorter. :-)I detect a distinct aroma of "lobbyists who don't know what they're doing", here. It's a bad disease, second only to "legislators who don't know what they're doing". The Law of Unintended Consequences is likely to rear its head here, if they're not stunningly careful, and if RMS is the only person they're talking to, and we've never heard of them before, they're not being careful enough. (No, Ciaran, that's not a dig :-) I agree with most of what people are saying at PJ's forum, so no sense repeating it; go there and look.
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