Talk:Free software licence

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[edit] copyleft

a "copyleft" license is not a concept made up by ESR or the open source community. Infact, quite the opposite. The name is however an obvious one coined by a particular stoner hippy with the initials "ESR". For this matter, they have no right to claim credit for inventing the concept. newspapers have done that for centuries. they buy articles from other papers and circulate them with the attached copyright. but anyways, I find it absolutely annoying that people say a term is accepted in the community simply by its use. People quote other people all the time but that does not mean they accept the term. And just because someone already has fame doesn't make everything they do or say famous automatically.

Very unencyclopedic. Fsdfs 09:38, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article title "license" or "licenses"?

It seems that this article should be about "licenses". I'm not sure what exactly the content should be when the word is singular. Any objections if I move it? (the old name will become a redirect, nothing will be lost or become broken, it just clarifies the article's subject.) Gronky 17:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

After thinking about this for a while, using "license" in the singular is simply bad grammar, so I'll just move it. Gronky 01:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
In your move message, you say: "singular without a preceding article is just ungrammatical". Can you explain what you mean? The rest of Wikipedia uses singular titles without preceding (grammatical) articles; what makes this article any different? --Piet Delport 07:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Consider a musical group - a band called "Bandy". An article about the band would be called "Bandy", but an article about the members could be called "Bandy members", not "Bandy member". This article is about the licences, not the concept. Description of the concept is in free software. No? Gronky 11:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, to me, free software licence is a separate concept to free software: one is a kind of legal agreement, the other a kind of computer software. :)
To use the "member" analogy, i think the situation is more similar to cast member, aircrew member, ranking member, Member of Parliament, and so on. Unlike the hypothetical "Bandy members" example, and like this article, they describe a general concept which stands on its own as a singular, as opposed to an arbitrary finite collection of things which are only notable when considered together.
The relevant Wikipedia guideline, by the way, is here: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals). Would you care to review it, and share your thoughts?
--Piet Delport 22:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. It seemed so clear to me at the time, but now I don't feel so decisive. I've no objection if you(s) want to rename it. Gronky 08:13, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I would lean towards calling it "Free software license" and starting the article off with a sentence along the lines of "A free software license is..." Alternatively, perhaps make it "List of free software licenses" and reformat it slightly to fit in with the other lists. We have Automobile rather than "An automobile" or "Automobiles", so I don't really see why the same shouldn't apply here. NicM 07:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC).
Hmm, I do see Gronky's argument, however: an article about Ford's automobiles would probably be called Ford automobiles not Ford automobile. I think either would work here, a free software license is both a singular entity and a member of a collection of free software licenses, neither are ungrammatical. It depends on which one the article discusses, which isn't really clear: the article covers both the definition of a single free software license and also some discussion of them as a group. NicM 07:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC).
I think that what matters is what type of group the thing in question is:
  • Ford automobiles would be plural because it's pretty much an arbitrary, fixed, finite collection of specific cars, which don't necessarily have anything in common (aside from their brand). It's only the group itself that is notable, and not anything about the individual cars.
  • Off-road vehicle, on the other hand, is singular, because it discusses a certain kind or class of car. What's notable are the features and capabilities that define an off-road car, and not anything about the collective group, itself.
Further examples:
--Piet Delport 13:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Alright, I agree, move it back to Free software license. I think the lead-in may need a little work to better reflect that title. NicM 13:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC).

[edit] the license list needs help

I've added all 62 licenses from the FSF license list page. Unfortunately, FSF's page doesn't always use the exact license name, sometimes they use a descriptive reference such as "License of Whatever". If anyone can fix some license names, that would be great. Gronky 02:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Duplicates "List of software licenses"

This article duplicates material at list of software licenses. The material on that article should be merged to this article, no? --71.241.128.118 16:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Abandonware" Licenses

im suprised that no one has metnioned in this article the "abandonware" licanse (otherwise known as the "DWTFYWWI license")

Can you provide a link to the licence text? There are probably many "abandonware" licences which are non-free purely because the copyright holder has not thought the licence through properly. Gronky 11:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major-ish improvements to the page

I've added a new section on "Challenges for licences". I don't like that name, but I can't think of a better one right now. The idea is to explain what's evolving in the free software licence world, what problems are appearing, etc.

I've also gotten rid of the list of FSF approved licences. It was boring, and half the links were red, and it was a list, so I moved it to List of FSF approved software licences.

The general direction is that I'm trying to move the article in the direction of having less filler and more content. Comments sought. Gronky 22:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Unacceptable restrictions

Not everyone regardes SLUC or HESSLA as "non-free", as they not only protect the developers, but also the users or ... targets of their software from having their freedom impaired. While these licences may have no observable legal impact in certain jurisdiction (like, the People's Liberation Army), they nontheless make a strong statement against free software supporting military, spyware and similar morally ambigious uses. The FSF is not the only authority to decide what freedom constitutes, even if they like to see themselves as such. --MushroomCloud 16:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Who, other than their authors and friends, regards those licences as free software licences? FSF is the primary authority, and the next closest authorities (Debian, OSI, and the *BSD folk) agree with FSF on this. These licences have not managed to spread in any notable way outside of their group of origin. Whether they make a strong statement against supporting one group of people over another group of people is irrelevent to whether they are free software licences. Gronky 16:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, give them some time. SLUC is at most 2 month old, and HESSLA doesn't seem to have more than a year. And regarding the statement they make: it is probably one of the most freedom-embracing ever made. After all, it is rather intended so no one can say "you made a program which you allowed to be used to slaughter peaceful protesters" – as with the GPL. I find this a bit disturbing.
Anyway, I do agree with the current phrasing of the paragraph. --MushroomCloud 20:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright grants rights?

The intro has been changed to say that FS licences grant rights in addition to those granted by copyright law. AFAIK, it is incorrect to say that copyright law grants rights. AFAIK, copyright law restricts some things, and doesn't restrict other things. The things it doesn't restricts are not "granted rights", they are just rights that weren't taken away. Can someone explain if I'm wrong? Gronky 21:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. Technically free licences don't "grant rights"; they simply allow one to ignore certain parts of copyright law. In the absence of copyright law you wouldn't need free licences. Chris Cunningham 14:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article is in British English

This whole article is in British English. The title should be fixed, but this has to be done by an admin due to some technical limitation in MediaWiki. If you think it is essential for the title and article to agree, then we could ask an admin to change it. Would that be ok with you? Gronky 15:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think it matters. mako (talk•contribs) 16:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok. ...I should clarify that I was addressing User:Thumperward when I said "you". Your opinion is good to hear, but I just wanted to clarify that - in case you're thinking this was a disproportionate response to your edit. Gronky 18:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I think it is silly to use "licence" in the text of this page when every Wikipedia page has "license" at the bottom. --JWSchmidt 18:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Unless there is a good reason to change, the existing style wins. See WP:ENGVAR. GNU Free Documentation License is the official name of the licence and names appear unaltered regardless of the document style, so it is silly to draw any conclusions from the fact it appears on every page. NicM 21:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC).
I can't understand what point you are making about "style". Are you claiming that it somehow makes sense to have a page called License use the spelling "licence" to describe what Wikipedia spells as "license" on every page of the encyclopedia? As far as I can tell, the article was started by using "license". It never should have been changed to use "licence". --JWSchmidt 23:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
The spelling of the name of any particular licence has no impact on this discussion. Names are not changed in dialects of English, so it would be wrong to change them and nobody is suggesting that. The noun is spelled differently in different dialects. The article that was started with this name doesn't exist anymore, the content and focus of the current article are different, and the current article was written in British English. Currently, the title is out of sync with the article, so the title should be fixed. There's no reason to Americanise the article because of a legacy title. Gronky 08:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Several good reasons (the inherent US-ness of the subject, the original dialect used, parity with the current title) have been raised. I had previously taken you at your word when you asserted that the article was originally BrE and dropped it, but now I see that it was you who changed this in the first place. I'm changing this back. Chris Cunningham 08:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
This is a global subject, and the WP:ENGVAR says to "consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub)". This article has never had a stub tag on it, but here's what was on the page before I editted it: [1] (a stub), and here's what was on the page after a string of uninterrupted edits by me: [2] (not a stub). I previously thought I that was only the main contributor to this page *in it's current form*, but now that I check the history, it seems I'm also the first major contributor. So I will again undo the blanket americanisation of what was written in British English, and I hope I can get back to work on the article page instead of the Talk page. Gronky 22:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Rather than participating in a lame edit war, you could take the time to get an admin to move the page title. The contradition is jarring. Next time this article needs edited (and it still neads heavy work) it's probably going back to US if the page title hasn';t changed. Chris Cunningham 08:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I'll get an admin to fix it. Gronky 20:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Regardless of the other arguments for each spelling in this article, you cannot use the fact that the text "GNU Free Documentation License" appears on each Wikipedia page as an argument that Wikipedia uses American English. This is a proper name and appears with this spelling in any dialect, and the MoS makes it clear that there is no set preference for one style or the other. NicM 09:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
Use a REDIRECT to fix the title? Lentower 00:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Richard Stallman is the original author of the first, as well as, the most used free software licenses. They are written in American English, and a product of American Culture. Under WP:ENGVAR, this is sufficient to rewrite the article in the American variant of English. The American spelling is also used in most, if not all of the free software licenses. I also agree with the above argument, that "license" should be used, as it is on each WP page. Lentower 00:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
RMS did not write the first free software licence (and he doesn't claim to have). Software freedom is a global issue, and so are free software licences. If this article is moved to "Free software licence", the useful redirects will be created automatically. Gronky 08:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • But... I thought the USA had given us Freedom, Culture, and all the Good Things that start with capital letters!! Now seriously, I think that any UK or US citizen should refrain from giving her opinion on this subject, as per WP:COI. I am neither, so I can give mine, which is that actually I prefer the American spelling :^) However, I understand that WP:ENGVAR should hold, so keep the British spelling (I shudder at the word "licence", but... oh, well). — isilanes (talk|contribs) 09:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hyphenation seems wrong

Nobody hyphenates "free software licence". A web search I just did showed 2 pages from the top 100 results used a hyphen. I suggest changing it back, but I don't feel strongly about this. Gronky 18:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Good English style suggests that compound adjectives (here "free software" is used as a compound adjective) should be hyphenated. This removes the ambiguity regarding whether "free" modifies "software" or "license". Many native English speakers don't know how to use hyphens properly, unfortunately, but Wikipedia benefits from the additional clarity. —Steven G. Johnson 20:51, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the info! However, "free software" is not an adjective (free) plus a noun (software). Free software is a noun in itself. A piece of stuff that happens to be software does not qualify as "free software" for being free (for example, you do not call freeware "free software"). Something qualifies as "free software" for being free software, which is a more complex definition than a mere adjective applied to a piece of "software". For example, if you live like a drunk loser, you lead a "drunk-loser lifestyle", but if you live like a polar bear, you do not lead a "polar-bear lifestyle", but rather a "polar bear lifestyle". If you write a license that applies to red balloons, you wrote a "red-balloon license", but if you write one that applies to the Republican Party you do not call it "Republican-Party license". — isilanes (talk|contribs) 21:14, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I believe you are mistaken regarding the the guidelines for hyphenating compound modifiers. A compound modifier is simply a phrase of two or more words that are used to modify another noun, as in "free software" modifies "license" or (in your example) "polar bear" modifies "lifestyle". The question to be answered in hyphenation is whether, without the hyphen, there is a significant possibility of ambiguity. If not, the hyphen may be omitted, e.g. "Republican Party platform" is not hyphenated because the open compound "Republican Party" is instantly recognizable (especially when capitalized to indicate it is a proper noun) so there is no likelihood of confusion with a Republican platform on parties, and in any case one does not generally hyphenate proper nouns. On the other hand, in "free software license," because the term "free software" is used in the narrow sense we are referring to only by a relatively small community (relative to all English speakers), there is a significant possibility of confusion regarding whether "free" modifies "software" or "license". Hence a hyphen is a good idea. (Whether "free software" is an open compound, when functioning as a noun phrase, as opposed to a noun "software" modified by an adjective "free" understood with a specific technical meaning, is irrelevant here: the same compound can be open when used as one part of speech and closed/hyphenated when used as another part of speech.) —Steven G. Johnson 16:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
(Oh, and by the way, I would argue against your claim that "free software," when used as a noun phrase, is a compound, i.e. functions as a single unit rather than an adjective-noun combination. Evidence for the latter can be found in the fact that the two words are often split: e.g. it is not hard to find examples of people talking about "free, open-source software" or wanting "software to be free" or "free and non-free software" and so on. Not that this matters for whether it is hyphenated when used as a compound adjective. —Steven G. Johnson 16:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC))
  • Obviously you are more knowledgeable than I am, and your arguments sound reasonable. I bow to them ;^) — isilanes (talk|contribs) 19:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
For reference, here is what the Chicago Manual of Style says about hyphenating compounds when they are used to modify a noun:
7.86 Compound modifiers before or after a noun
When compound modifiers (also called phrasal adjectives) such as open-mouthed or nicotine-free come later in a phrase than the noun they describe, ambiguity is unlikely and the hyphen dispensable (though not incorrect). When such compounds precede a noun, hyphenation usually makes for easier reading. With the exception of proper nouns (such as United States) and compounds formed by an adverb ending in ly plus an adjective (see 7.87), it is never incorrect to hyphenate adjectival compounds before a noun. Hyphenated adjectival compounds that appear in Webster (such as well-read or ill-humored) may be spelled without a hyphen when they follow a noun. (To avoid repeated “either–or” suggestions, the comments in 7.90 generally recommend hyphenation only before a noun.)
—Steven G. Johnson 17:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Free software: FS licences is now the selected article

Just to let you know. The purpose of selecting an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain on the portal for a week or so. The previous selected article was Darwin (operating system), the free OS that underlies the proprietary MacOSX system.

For other interesting free software articles, you can take a look at the archive of PFs selectees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gronky (talk • contribs) 14:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Time goes by, as usual. The new selectee is Global File System, a networked file system with an interesting history of freedom, proprietaryness, and refreedom. --Gronky (talk) 10:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger proposal

Suggest merging Permissive free software licences with this article. Paalman (talk) 01:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

  • oppose - this article is already quite big and still has topics that should be expanded. --Gronky (talk) 10:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • oppose - I don't understand why those 2 pages should be merged, they are about different topics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Argento3 (talk • contribs) 14:22, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
It's been a month and support for this merge isn't apparent, so I'll remove the tags. --Gronky (talk) 13:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

I added this section: "Criticism

Free-software licences can be seen as paradoxical, since there are no free-software licences which remove the copyright restrictions of a software unconditionally.

Detractors of free-software licenses argue that true free software is only software which is released to the public domain."

But it was removed with the reason: "a license presupposes copyright law. there is no paradox here."

Can someone explains how is this relevant?

Was it not clear that a licence grant rights conditionally, thereby placing restrictions, which are the opposite of freedom, hence the paradox? 89.139.232.142 (talk) 10:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyright law reserves rights for the copyright holder. A F/OSS license is used to regrant some of those rights to others. It does not add any additional restrictions on top of those that exist due to copyright law. Furthermore: in many locales, it is not possible to release something into the public domain.
The section seems to be your personal opinion. It is uncited and I think that it is uncitable. Please see WP:V and WP:OR. --Karnesky (talk) 14:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I was not talking about restrictions on top of copyright law, but about conditional restrictions or requirements due to use of licenced software. Examples: requirement to attach licence, requirement to release source code, requirement to credit authors, restriction of use in commercial software, and so on. A software that is released under a free-software licence is freer than a copyright work, but is not as free as a work in the public domain. In a sense, this argument is on what falls under the definition of "free", or where to set the criterion for free. A free software is a no pay software, or is it software with no restrictions whatsoever?
While I agree with this criticism, it is not my original opinion. There are detractors to software licences, free and non-free. There was a small symposium about Internet Law in HUJI a few weeks ago, where some panel members debated this perspective. I can't cite authoritative sources, yet. As a software developer who had to use the services of a lawyer in order to use "free" software, I felt the word "free" was somewhat misleading. I'm not trying to overthrow this article, just add a perspective which is important.
Will this section be ok with a "citation needed" tag? 89.139.232.142 (talk) 17:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
No. As an editor, the burden of attribution is already on you. If you can't find citations, I think it is unlikely that others can find them for you. If I thought that that the section was verifiable, I would have marked it as such. If you do find sources to list, consider rewording the section. Labeling this a 'paradox' is a bit biased, I think. --Karnesky (talk) 17:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
How would you have it reworded to remove the bias? 89.139.232.142 (talk) 18:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BSD Protection

Couldn't the old 4-clause BSD licence be used to stop the GPL from being used, while still allowing use for closed source projects? - 68.228.40.112 (talk) 01:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Error in "Free Software License" ?

This page states: "Code licensed under the BSD licence can be relicensed under the GPL (is "GPL-compatible") _without securing the consent of all original authors_." <my emphasis>

The consent of all copyright holders must be obtained, surely? See Software Freedom Law Center's publication at http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-collaboration.html

82.69.28.59 (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I've discussed this with a lawyer or two and the answers they gave me seem illogical (to me, a layperson). So I don't know which way to swing it, but just a heads up that this mightn't be clear. I'll reword that sentence to be less assertive - if you want to also reword it (or other parts of the article), jump right on in! --Gronky (talk) 08:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)