RE: hold off until the copyright can be clarified

MJ Ray wrote:
> At the moment, you have contributions under the LGPL-2.1 (I hope...
> my comments at the meeting about program-specific wording apply to
> an earlier LGPL).

Yes, it's LGPL 2.1.

Before I continue, I'd like to say that I've never been entirely happy with
the choice of the LGPL in this case, just from the point of view that it
isn't really intended for a work like the Cookbook.  However, I don't think
it's unworkable, just less than ideal.  See below.

> Clause 1 appears to be pretty clear that a compilation
> would be a derived work, while clause 2c requires that the entire
> derived work be available under LGPL-2.1 too.

The relevant clause is clause 6, which is "an exception to the Sections
above", and permits us to "combine or link a 'work that uses the Library'
with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and
distribute that work under terms of your choice".  In order to do this, we
have to comply with the requirements in clause 6, which are straightforward
in our case.

The "terms of our choice" are a non-free copyright on the compilation, with
the individual contributions necessarily being copyright their respective
authors, and licensed under the LGPL.

> Clause 4 cannot be used
> for a book without very careful agreed definition of source and object
> forms, which you don't have, so how are you planning to take the
> LGPL-covered compilation non-free?

First, as I've pointed out, a compilation under clause 6 does not have to be
LGPL-covered.

Regarding source and object form, the FSF didn't see fit to include
definitions of those in the LGPL.  Industry-accepted definitions would
therefore apply, although I agree that we should state these explicitly, to
avoid any confusion.

However, both are obvious in the case of the Cookbook, and really don't
leave much room for alternative interpretations:

The source form is the source text which the contributor enters into the
TWiki entry form.  It is this source which the contributor provides, and
therefore this is what the contributor is agreeing to license under the
LGPL.  There's nothing else that a contributor could reasonably claim rights
to.

"Object form" is usually defined as being any form that results from
processing of the source form.  For example, the Apache License defines it
as "mechanical transformation or translation of a Source form, including but
not limited to compiled object code, generated documentation, and
conversions to other media types."  In the Cookbook's case, the formatted
output, whether on the web or the pages of a book, is obviously the object
form.

> Perhaps I should be quiet and let $RANDOM_large_contributor start
> threatening you with copyright infringement lawsuits just before you
> try to publish under a !LGPL...

Of course, anyone can sue anyone for anything, but on what grounds do you
see such a suit being brought?  The contributor has agreed to license his
contribution under the LGPL, and the book would be published as a combined
work under clause 6 of the LGPL.

In any case, in the event of such a suit, the publisher could take legal
counteraction, such as suing for an injunction to allow publishing to
proceed.  That would be particularly likely to be granted if it can be shown
that the complaining contributor used a "submarine" strategy of waiting
until his suit would have maximum effect, before filing it.  In the worst
case scenario, the contributor's work would have to be removed from the
book.

> I really can't see many answers which won't scare any
> free-software-copyright-fearing publishers away, so you probably
> still only have free-friendly publishers to choose from.

It's always possible to manufacture scary scenarios in anything except the
most straightforward cases.  If we have contributors who decide they want to
undermine the Cookbook in this fashion, it would be very unfortunate,
certainly.  However, just as Eben Moglen settles most GPL violations out of
court, I think it's highly likely that a similar situation would apply in
this case, because there's no sense in which we would in fact be violating a
contributor's copyright.

Quite frankly, the only entity likely to want to take something like this
all the way to court is the FSF itself.  However, such a lawsuit would
strongly against the FSF's interests, because they'd effectively be arguing
that one of their own licenses isn't usable for the purpose for which it is
explicitly intended, i.e. to allow free works to be combined into other
works that aren't necessarily under free licenses.  That would have a huge
impact on all LGPL'd work.

We're not talking about wanting to deal with a
"free-software-copyright-fearing publisher", we're talking about a publisher
who might want reasonable legal protection on their investment.  That
protection is hardly ever perfect; that's why courts exist.

> > [...] we want to be able to give a publisher some copyright
> > protection.  BSD/MIT/X11 alone won't do that, afaict.
>
> MIT/X11 allows you to use a non-free licence on a derived work if
> you wish. LGPL doesn't. Writing "this is LGPL but we're going to
> make a non-free derived source work" is nonsense.

I don't have a serious objection to switching the license for contributions
(modulo the details!), although presumably we'd have to obtain the agreement
of the contributors so far.

But regarding the LGPL, the whole point here is clause 6.  Your quoted
sentence should be written as "the individual contributions are LGPL, but
we're going to make a compilation as a combined work under LGPL clause 6,
and 'distribute it under the terms of our choice', i.e. a non-free copyright
on the compilation, which in no way affects the individual copyrights or the
LGPL license of the contributions."

If such a combination were not permitted, the LGPL wouldn't work for its
primary purpose, to allow libraries to be combined into other works that
aren't under free licenses.

Anton



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