Re: License policy proposal

[David Lawyer <dave@lafn.org>]

   David Lawyer wrote:
> >Unfortunately it doesn't solve the problem.  First, if the doc is
> >modifiable, anyone can just add advertising to it.  Second, one may
> >use frames for displaying it and put flashing advertising in one of
> >the frames.  Another way is to force the reader to look at an ad after
> >reading each page (the "pager" alternates between ads and the doc).  A
> >good license can prohibit this.
> 
On Mon, Sep 11, 2000 at 08:13:06AM -0700, Poet/Joshua Drake wrote:
> What a person does outside of the LDP, is their concern. Not ours. If we
> don't want people framing our pages then we need to only allow mirroring
> of docs, not the site.

Not so.  Only we have the power to prevent this by prohibiting it in a
license (or at lease by recommending such a license).  If we fail to
act, then by our inaction we are allowing all kinds of obtrusive
advertising.

> Sounds like you are now trying to take away "free"dom. People are free to
> make money off of our docs. That is the whole point, the "free"dom to
> do these types of things.
> 
I want to give people who find our docs with search engines the
freedom to view them without obtrusive advertising.  I don't believe in
"freedom" for advertisers to exploit our free docs for advertising
purposes. 

> If a person doesn't like the advertising, then they can leave that site
> and come to the LDP. The LDP will not have advertising.
> 

Easier said than done.  They may not know the url of our site.  It may
be burred somewhere in the doc they are reading but they don't know
how to find it.  It's also some bother for them to switch sites even
if they know our (or a mirror) url.

> >There is another problem too and that's the dual licensing problem.
> >As some of you know, Star Office is to be released under both GPL and
> >another license.  Unfortunately, the other license takes away implicit
> >rights granted by GPL.  In this sense it's a sham since some people
> >think that it grants all the rights given by GPL.  Can one license
> >take away implicit rights granted by the other one?  Well, to find out
> >you would have to go the Star Office's court (the one located near
> >their corporate offices) since it's specified in their license.  GPL
> >is silent on this issue which implicitly implies that the venue is any
> >appropriate court.
> 
> This is not a problem because the licenses will supersede each other. I
> (as an anybody) can choose the license I deem fit to my purpose.

If a doc comes out with two licenses and you accept it, you agree to
both licenses (unless the licenses themselves give you a choice).  The
StarOffice license contains no such provision for a choice in
licenses.  Thus you agree to both licenses and one grants you rights
and the other takes some of these rights away.  If you argue that the
licenses conflict and thus no contract has been made, then copyright
law rules and by default you can't even copy the document.  So the
cards are stacked against the user for dual licenses.

> 
> >There are other rights that are also taken away.  You can't modify the
> >software any way you want.  It may be legal to take away such rights.
> 
> It still doesn't matter. One; we are not talking about software. Two; we
> place a policy that states dual licensing is prohibited.

If one may take away certain modification rights for software, they
could in like manner take away certain modification rights for
documentation.  So this example is relevant.  Yes, we need a license
that states within it that dual licensing is not allowed.

			David Lawyer


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