Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 5, 2016 11:27 UTC (Mon) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640)
In reply to: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice by pabs
Parent article: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

At least madwifi devs were unhappy: https://lwn.net/Articles/247872 . current ath5k code looks like dual licensed so I guess they resolved issues.

Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 5, 2016 20:59 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

My (ianal) opinion is that removing the dual-licence notice is, in fact, a copyright violation.

The copyright owner gave downstream the right to choose which licence THEY wanted to USE. He did not give them the right to change the licence he granted to their downstream.

Think of it as two separate parts - there is a big variety of licences out there - BSD, MIT, (L)GPL 2 or 2.1 or 3 etc. Note I very carefully did not say there was a licence called GPL2+, or any variant of plus. Because that is not a licence, that is a grant. It tells you which licence(s) you can use.

So if I grant you the right to use either BSD or GPL2+, that does not give you the right to take those choices away from your downstream. If you make a substantial edit to my code, and licence yours differently, that may change the terms on which the combined file may be distributed, but it does not change the terms I applied to my code. And deleting (or altering the meaning of) my notice is, as I say, imho a violation in itself.

Cheers,
Wol

Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 5, 2016 21:27 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (3 responses)

You've made this comment before, that there is some legal distinction between the text on a work that informs one of the terms of the licence the work is available under, and any other document of further terms that that text refers to. You call the former a "grant" and the latter a "licence".

That may be a distinction you are unique in drawing, AFAICT. (?)

Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 6, 2016 15:24 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

All I can say is "look at the plus wording for the GPL". If something is licenced GPL2+ you, as the downstream, can distribute under the GPL2. Or you can distribute under the GPL3. The copyright holder has given you the choice, but it's either/or. You can't half-comply with the GPL2, and half-comply with the GPL3.

If you ever were unlucky enough to end up in court over this, you couldn't give the Judge a copy of the "GPL2+" licence. You would have to give him a copy of either/both GPL2 or/and GPL3, and the text that gave you the right to choose between them. And then the Judge would say, "well then, which choice did you make?".

Cheers,
Wol

Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 6, 2016 15:50 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

The licence granted generally by the rights holder is described by the entirety of whatever binding communications they've given on the terms of that licence.

In the normal free software way, those terms are stated in each file, and refer to further terms described in other documents. Those terms can indeed give the licensee choices. E.g. to choose to use the GPLv2, or to use some later published licence by the FSF. Even the GPLv2 text within itself contains "either X or Y or Z" terms.

But, I don't see where you get that one of these descriptions is a "licence" and some other is a "grant"? I think you're mixing up words. A licence is granted by the rights-holder(s), and is done by describing the terms of the licence granted in some sufficient way - and those terms may have conditions, choices and refer to further documents with further terms.

Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

Posted Sep 6, 2016 17:09 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Ok, so... there is one distinction, at least in the english over here - which I usually try to observe, but managed not to in the below. ;) One can distinguish between the act and the documented terms with "license" and "licence". So for the act granted and described, that should have been "license" and the documents are part of the licence, I /think/. Maybe too confusing a distinction to be helpful. ;)