Re: I think the AL needs a rewrite

Chris Nandor <[email protected]> writes:

> The Package must ALWAYS be distributed under the same licensing terms as
> the original.  Unless it is public domain or you are the copyright
> holder, you cannot change the licensing terms.

Not true, as far as I know.  I believe that in general, you can distribute
under any complying *subset* of the licensing terms.  For example, I could
distribute Perl exclusively under the Artistic License if I choose,
explicitly not allowing anyone using my copy to do any of the things the
GPL would let them do but the AL would not (such as use Perl as part of a
GPL'd work).

This is normally a pointless endeavor, though, since they could always go
get the original copy with the original licensing terms.

> It does not attempt to define it.  It attempts to say what shall be
> construed as distribution, not what will be defined as distribution.
> And it can do that, and does do that.

That's defining distribution.  I don't see what difference you see between
saying "what shall be construed as distribution" and definiting
distribution apart from games with words.

> No, Larry is the Copyright Holder:

> 	"Copyright Holder" is whoever is named in the copyright or
> 	copyrights for the package.

Licenses can't redefine what "copyright holder" means.

Like it or not, Larry hasn't required copyright assignments and therefore
no longer holds full legal title to all of Perl.  This will, in any sane
universe, never actually cause problems, but it does mean that this idea
of getting a private agreement with the copyright holder is nebulous at
best.

It's quite possible that a major contributor to Perl could come along
later, disagree with something Larry gave someone permission to do, and
insist that they stop or remove their contributions to Perl from the code
that they're using.  I don't think any major contributor to Perl would
ever actually do that, but this again makes it a "trust me" license, and
if the AL should be applicable to more than just Perl, it's a potentially
large problem.

This is *why* the FSF requires copyright assignments.  They don't do it
just to annoy people, as much as it feels like that's the case sometimes.
(Says someone who still hasn't managed to push a copyright assignment
through the bureaucracy here and needs to go work on it again.)

-- 
Russ Allbery ([email protected])             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>