Re: FLA

On Thursday 06 February 2003 22:21, Richard Moore wrote:
> Marc Mutz wrote:
<snip>
> > 1. FSF (NA) != FSF Europe
>
> The FLA says 'FSF Europe and its sister organisations' so, is that
> actually true? I can't see a definition of what those organisations
> are.

It reads "sister", not "parent", does it? ;-)
The FSFE is completely separate from the FSF(NA). It was funded by the 
original FSF in it's first three months of existence, but is now 
completely independent.

> > 2. Read the FLA before trying to comment on it, _please_. You'd
> > have noticed that you retain all use rights, esp. are free to
> > re-license the code and re-use it anywhere you want. There's
> > nothing that effectively changes for you, except that your code is
> > cared for in court and if you lose interest or die. The contract
> > becomes void if the FSF doesn't act on your behalf, etc, etc.
>
> This says it is an exclusive license, and only grants me the right to
> further non-exclusive licenses. This implies that I don't retain the
> right to defend the copyright when I release it under another license
> (eg one that is closed source and the FSF would not want involvement
> in) - am I misunderstanding this?

In my reading of (the German version of) paragraph 5, you are given all 
rights necessary so that you can license the program in another way. In 
the en version, this is para. 4(2), sentence 3.

> The FLA does not make clear the version of the licenses it talks
> about. Does it mean current as in 'at the time of the agreement'
> or current as in 'at the time the license is being defended'? This
> is highly relevent to my point above.

The GPL and LGPL are in my reading mentioned as examples, indicated by 
the introductory "in particular". IANAL. ;-)

> > 3. The question is not to assign your rights to the FSF(E), but to
> > _KDE e.V._ of which you are apparently a member. That the e.V.
> > delegates the enforcement of the (L)GPL for you to the FSFE would
> > just be a needed workaround for the fact that the e.V. is not yet
> > equipped to enforce it itself. If you don't trust the e.V., then
> > why are you are member?
>
> The fact that I am a member of the e.V. does not mean that I agree
> with everything it decides, neither does it mean that it should gain
> additional rights over my work automatically (or by policy). Does the
> fact you live in a democracy mean that you agree with everything your
> government does? of course not - that is why we have opposition
> parties. If I transfer ownership of my work, then I am saying 'I
> trust the e.V. will act in ways I am happy with from now until the
> end of eternity' - I do not.
<snip>

Look at it from this angle: If you sign a KDE-FLA-variant with KDE e.V., 
you only need to monitor KDE e.V.'s actions for compliance with your 
wishes, which should be pretty easy since you are a member with voting 
rights. OTOH, if you don't contract with KDE e.V., you'll have to 
monitor _every_ single user of your code for compliance, and if you 
find non-compliance, you need to go to court with all the financial 
risk such a step involves. Or you just don't care about the 
infringement, which then begs the question why you licensed your code 
under the GPL and not under BSD in the first place...

Marc

-- 
Ich gegen meinen Bruder.
Ich und mein Bruder gegen unseren Cousin.
Ich, mein Bruder und unser Cousin gegen unsere Nachbarn.
Wir alle gegen den Fremden.
                                      -- Beduinen-Sprichwort

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQA+Qtss3oWD+L2/6DgRAjwXAJ4oahiZTV6JoarnaABXDoydAE1qMACgpSPB
o82tgd+J0m1cJxVKQBRQACQ=
=riEM
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----