Rosen also thinks GPL needs "I agree" click-through [LWN.net]

Rosen also thinks GPL needs "I agree" click-through

Posted Jul 27, 2004 22:55 UTC (Tue) by nealr (guest, #23499)
In reply to: Rosen also thinks GPL needs "I agree" click-through by piman
Parent article: Choosing an open source license (NewsForge)

OK.. I agree with that. It would put other down-the-line distributors in a tenuous position....

But, that is somewhat trumped by the fact that only the copyright holder has any standing to enforce a license, and if they are distributing code with multiple licenses that some pointy-headed lawyer decides conflict in some meaningless way.... the down-the-line distributors have nothing to fear (except their own paranoia) since the copyright holders distributed it themselves. (This was your point... but I would say that you are worrying too much).

It's good practice to put in the exceptions.

Which begs the question of why RMS decided NOT to put an exception in the GPL allowing the 4-clause BSD license to be compatible. I think it was his own hubris and personal agenda.

The advertizing clause is hardly an undue burden. If you are writing a paper and you want to reference another, you must properly attribute it. Same concept. As to why RMS decided that proper attribution is against free-software is beyond me.

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Rosen also thinks GPL needs "I agree" click-through

Posted Jul 28, 2004 0:22 UTC (Wed) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

It's not just "good practice", it's legally required for the exception to be there if you don't want to be tacitly infringing upon copyright. And the licenses don't conflict in meaningless ways; the OSL is a shitty license, and imposes way more restrictions than the GPL, it's not nearly as trivial as the BSD advertising clause.

> the down-the-line distributors have nothing to fear (except their own paranoia) since the copyright holders distributed it themselves. (This was your point... but I would say that you are worrying too much).

Let's say 5, 10, 20 years from now, Red Hat goes bankrupt. Someone buys the copyrights off of them, and pulls another SCO. Except this time, they actually own copyrights, and people actually are violating the terms of the licenses. Having the exceptions be explicit protects you from this.

As for the rest of your post, you seem misinformed about what the BSD advertising clause actually involves. The 3-clause BSD license is GPL-compatible, and the GPL actually allows you a far more annoying credit option via 2c. The advertising clause (the 4th clause, if you find an old copy of the license) is about advertising, not about credit. It's also thought that it's probably not legal to include in a copyright license, since it affects entirely unrelated works.

Rosen also thinks GPL needs "I agree" click-through

Posted Jul 28, 2004 0:25 UTC (Wed) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

Actually, I'm wrong; it's been so long since I've seen a 4 clause BSD license that I misremembered the numbering.

In a 4 clause BSD license, the 3rd clause is the advertising clause. The 3 clause BSD license is the 4 clause BSD license minus the 3rd clause. The 2 clause BSD license is the 4 clause BSD license minus the 3rd and 4th clauses.