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On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 06:48:06 +0000 Peter Lloyd-Jones <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi Neil > > Thanks for your letter, yes I am aware that you have been in contact with Bob. > However what I fail to see is why this is relevant in this case. The licence is always relevant because it is *only* the licence that can prevent these kinds of things from happening and *only* the licence that determines how violations are handled. Nothing else can protect JMRI - nothing at all. Bad licence, poor protection and that's about it, overall. The licence for JMRI is just too vague. It doesn't protect JMRI against KAM and it fails to provide any reasonable framework to stop KAM from doing what they want to do. A licence that does not do those things is worse than useless - as shown by the statement by the FSF on the Artistic Licence. No package should use the Artistic Licence as used by JMRI - it is as simple as that. JMRI has chosen the wrong licence and there is almost nothing that can now be done to protect JMRI. Their choice of licence was, frankly, reckless. (There is a modified Artistic Licence that has resolved the issues but AFAICT it is only at draft stage.) Ignorance of the law is no defence - ignorance of licencing gives you no defence either. > (I am not > implying your input was not important, but I do not think it has to do with > the current problem). Surely the problem is that KAM industries is claiming > that they invented the system used (by both them and JMRI) to talk between > the computer and the command station. And they go on to say that Bob must > pay them a royalty for every free copy of JMRI which has been distributed. No, the problem is that the licence doesn't provide a good enough foundation to either put KAM off this strategy in the first place or to allow JMRI to defend itself against this action. Note: The Artistic Licence - as used by JMRI - isn't even clear that what KAM have done is against the licence in the first place. It is that vague. When KAM claim the JMRI licence is flawed, I have to agree with the FSF that KAM do have a case. JMRI seem to be onto a loser here, sorry. The licence that JMRI chose has bitten them on the bonce. JMRI should have used the Lesser General Public Licence or the MIT Licence and attributed at least some of their copyright to the FSF. That would have made JMRI free software AND given them the financial and legal backing of the FSF. It may have been possible for JMRI to use the GPL, I don't know, but I seem to remember something about JMRI needing to link against certain libraries that makes me think the LGPL would have been a possible licence when JMRI was first distributed. It's too late for all that now. :-( > What worries me is that as we in this country seem only to import the bad > things from the US, so it will happen here. Come on, that's just FUD. Tabloid headline FUD. It's nowhere near as black and white as you claim. GNU is based in the USA, a huge amount of free software is developed by teams based principally in the USA. That is why software patents in the US are such a problem for free software - free software crosses international boundaries with ease due to it's internet foundations. > One then has the vision of > anyone of us, sitting at home, writting a bit of code to solve a problem, > perhaps giving copies to friends, and then being hit by a big player. I'm sad to say that JMRI, IMHO, brought this upon themselves by choosing a poor licence. That is a lesson to everyone else but it cannot help JMRI now. Personally, I'm not sure that there is anything that can protect JMRI because of their choice of licence. > (And > it appears that most of us end up paying up and shutting up, the risks of > taking on a large "whatever" are just to great for most of us. Not true. Not true at all. Many members of this GLUG have fought against bigger threats. The GNU community does not pay up or shut up - SCO learnt that lesson. > I hate M$ bashing but they have (a something) which is buying up software > patents and ideas and registering them. (Using the broadest possible > language). As is their remit - it is not a new problem. What matters is that the US patent system must *not* be imported into Europe and that the European Patent Office and UKPO are lobbied into ensuring that software patents cannot ever be enforceable in the UK or EU. That may provide the impetus for US authorities to review their system. All we can do is support the fight in the EU, support our colleagues in the US who are trying to change that system and ensure that we keep our own house in order. That includes ensuring that packages are legal (complete copyright information, adherence to licence requirements etc.) and making sure that new packages choose a decent licence at the start. It is incredibly difficult to change a licence once a package has been distributed. Free software licences have to be permissive and non-exclusive and this means that once published, even if the licence for future versions is changed, that package at that version is always going to be around under the original licence. If that licence is weak, the foundation of the package is weak until such time as further development moves the code so far from it's original release as to make that release redundant. It's a double edged sword because it also means that free software remains free which is vitally important. > I feel the ramifications of the JMRI case will be felt throughout the US and > also here. If he looses I think it will be a great blow to free software. JMRI is NOT free software. This only highlights the difference between open source and free software. Open source software can be a minefield - some open source licences are horrendous. I'm not kidding when I say that I would prefer a Microsoft EULA to some of the Open Source Certified licences out there. Even the Microsoft Open Source style licence is better than the Artistic Licence that JMRI use, if only because it is legally cohesive. (You can bet your bottom $ that MS will have had an army of lawyers scrutinising *their* licences.) Too many OSI licences have not been vetted by anyone with any level of legal knowledge. Some appear to have been written on the fly and some are self-contradictory. It just isn't worth releasing new code as "Open Source" anything - release it as free software and be done with it. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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