On 2002.07.17 21:44 Tyler Mitchell wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Karl O . Pinc wrote:

> If I'm not mistaken, the point is not that the license is ignored as an
> irrelevant "detail", but chosen so that one is able to code freely, give
> the code away, and not spend time worrying about the implications of a
> restrictive and complicated license.  The BSD license seems to have
> worked
> well in that respect.

I agree.  Unfortunately it's not enough for a coder to simply pick a
license and then nevermore have to think of licensing issues.  Ugly as
it sounds, if you pick up a fragment of code off the street, it's
possible you could jeopardize your whole project if that code has a
restrictive license and you so much as read it.  The generalization is
that you must be aware of the licensing attached to any code before
you use or even read it.  (All you "give me an example" people can
do your own research.  Search for "clean room reverse engineering",
IIRC.)

> 
> [ This is a digression, but IMHO, users should also not have to spend
> much
> time at all thinking about a license.

Look at it this way.  The law is a self-perpuating instrument.  When
enough lawyers are out of work, they run for office and pass more laws.
This keeps them in business after they get kicked out.

> Speaking only of legal liability,
> if a user pays nothing for a piece of software, why should the software
> author be responsible for its effects?  And should commercial software
> manufacturers not be held responsible for a product they sell?

In theory, it doesn't bug me that I can negotiate away my right to sue.
for damages.  In practice, I see no way to require commercial vendors
be liable without requiring _everybody_ be liable.  And I don't want
to be liable.  How would you write the law?  That anybody who sells
something is liable?  How would NetBSD be able to sell cds?  Non-profit
corporations are exempt?  Great.  I have to go through a ton of paperwork
just to distribute free software without losing money.  I don't see
how to get there from here.
]

> 
> >                                             You'll just have to take
> > it on faith that licenses make a real-world difference to some people
> > and so, are worth discussing.
> 
> Yes, licenses make a real-world difference.  Compressing the licenses
> into
> smaller chunks of text is nice, but it doesn't really provide much help
> to
> a user.  Perhaps it will allow them to understand a large portion of a
> license in a short period of time, but it can never be a complete
> substitution for the real license text.  The licenses are long (some of
> them are ridiculously long-winded), but not incomprehensible, even to
> Normal People.  They might have to whip out a dictionary like Foldoc, but
> if they care enough (hah), then they should be able to get through it.

What has happened is that I've gotten pissed off enough at the general
news media and their descriptions of free software.  Forbes was that
last straw, saying that Open Source means that if you modify the code
you must post your changes on the Internet.  I can't believe you're
happy with that characterization of the BSD license.  The problem is,
you can't respond and tell them they are idiots and are mis-informing
the public when the only correct description you have available is a
page long.  The longer the public remains mis-informed, the longer it
will be before free software makes up enough of the computing
infrastructure that our collective will must be taken into account
when structuring communications protocols.  If we take too long
getting to that point, the people won't control how we communicate,
corporateland will.  I'm hoping to shame the media into accurate
reporting, by doing their work for them.  (Really no different from
how any other interest group or corporation feeds the media.  The
media, as an industry, is not interested in reporting.  They are
interested in having something to report so they can attract advertising
dollars.  As it's much cheaper to use somebody else's phrase or
factoid that to come up with your own, especially on a complicated
topic; he who creates the sound bite controls the media.)

Karl <kop@meme.com>