Re: RFC 211 (v1) The Artistic License Must Be Changed

Perl6 Rfc Librarian <[email protected]> writes:
>=head3 Bruce Perens
>
>Bruce Perens, while a member of Open Source Initiative (OSI), stated:
>
>Section 5 of the Artistic License prohibits sale of the software, 

>yet allows
>an aggregate software distribution of more than one program to be sold. So,
>if you bundle an Artistic-licensed program with a 5-line hello-world.c, you
>can sell the bundle. 

That is one of the things I like about the AL - it does not really 
"prohibit sale" at all.

>=head3 Bradley M. Kuhn
>
>
>One problem is the definition of "Reasonable Copying Fee" given in the
>license.  It is possible the definition means: "You can charge any amount as
>copying fee, if people will pay it".  If this interpretation is correct,
>there is no real legal limit on the fee at all.

That is again my understanding of the AL and again it is a feature I like.

>
>However, there is another interpretation that also seems legally valid.  The
>definition given of "Reasonable Copying Fee" could actually intend to place
>a limit on copying fees that prohibits charging enough to make a profit.

If the licence changes to that intepretation than I will stop using it
for my software. I _want_ people to be able to make a profit from my efforts, 
including, but not limited to, myself.

>So, if some entity were to sell a CD with Artistic-licensed software on it,
>that entity might be in violation of the license if they charge even $1 more
>than someone in "the computing community at large" thinks they should.
>
>Also, the definition of "Freely Available" is not completely clear, with
>regard to the charging of a "handling fee".
>
>For example, if I were to press a CD of an Artistic-Licensed software
>program, and offer to give you a copy if you give me one dollar, would that
>be permitted or not?  Most people would call that charging a fee for the
>item, which is prohibited; but if I simply called it a "handling fee", would
>that make it permitted?
>
>What if a large computer store wanted to distributed this same CD of
>Artistic-License software?  Would that be permitted, or prohibited?  In
>principle, nothing would stop a store from saying they are charging a
>"handling fee" for that item, but computer stores are not accustomed to
>doing this, and might have trouble reprogramming the cash register to print
>"Handling Fee" instead of "Price" for this particular CD.
>
>=head2 What About Simply Contacting the Copyright Holder?
>
>
>The problem here, I believe, is one of scale.  Consider John Q. Hacker, who
>got a copy of thirty Artistic-licensed programs (each with a different
>copyright holder).  He got his copy of these programs on a CD, which he got
>from a local user group, who in turn got their first copy from a large
>redistributor of free software (such as CheapBytes).  CheapBytes got their
>copy directly from each author's website.
>
>Now, John Q. Hacker wants to run a side business installing these software
>programs for his clients, charging a "copying fee".  He does not plan to
>modify the software at all, so he must only charge what the license calls a
>reasonable copying fee.
>
>He isn't able to justify his fee to the entire computing community at large,
>just to his client.  So, he's left with section (4d); he has to email each
>of the thirty copyright holders, and ask them for permission to do what he
>wants.  They will likely give it, but it is a lot of work for him to do
>that.  

So what - if he is doing it for profit then he has to do something for 
his money, if not then it is very unlikely that the "community at large"
would have a problem with it.

>
>That totals to the same question being asked ninety times.  Even if the
>answer was "yes" every time, that is still a lot of wasted effort, simply
>because some wording of the original license was confusing.

I would be fascinated to see how a "reasonable fee" could be better
defined. Media cost may not be the issue, it may be fuel cost to 
fly across Australia to deliver it, or a large fee may be "reasonable" 
just for the expertise to providing it on RTX11 8-inch floppies.

-- 
Nick Ing-Simmons <[email protected]>
Via, but not speaking for: Texas Instruments Ltd.