Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/20/compliance-advice.html

For ten years, I’ve been building up a bunch of standard advice on GPL
compliance. Usually, I’ve found myself repeating this advice on the
phone, again and again, to another new GPL violator who screwed it all
up, just like the last one did. In the hopes that we will not have to
keep giving this advice one-at-a-time to each violator, my colleagues and
I have finally gotten an opportunity to write out in
detail our
best advice on the subject.

Somewhere around 2004 or so, I thought that all of the GPL enforcement
was going to get easier. After Peter Brown, Eben Moglen, David Turner and I had
formalized FSF’s GPL Compliance Lab, and Dan Ravicher and I had taught a
few CLE classes to lawyers in the field, we believed that the world was
getting a clue about GPL compliance. Many people did, of course, and we
constantly welcome new groups of well-educated people in the commercial space
who comply with the GPL correctly and who interact positively with our
community.

However, the interest in FLOSS keeps growing, rapidly. So, for every
new citizen who does the research ahead of time and learns the rules,
there are dozens who don’t. The education effort is therefore forever
ongoing because the newbies always seem to outnumber the old hands. It’s our own copyleft version of Eternal September. The
whole space is now big enough that one-by-one education in our
traditional way can no longer scale.

Hopefully,
publishing some guidelines for GPL compliance will help the education effort
scale. If you redistribute GPL’d software commercially in any way, or you
are a lawyer who represents people that do, please spend the time to
familiarize yourself with this information. If you have ideas on how we
can expand this document, we would of course love
to hear from you.

Update (on 2008-08-26): Thanks for all the feedback we’ve gotten from the community. We’ve been glad to update the document to incorporate your suggestions.

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)

Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/08/16/artistic.html

There has
been much
chatter
and coverage
about the court decision related to the Artistic License decision last
week. Having spent a decade worrying about the Artistic License, I was
surprised and relieved to see this decision.

One of the first tasks I undertook in the late 1990s in the world of
Software Freedom licenses were issues surrounding the Artistic License.
My first Software Freedom community was the Perl one, but my second was
the licensing wonks. Therefore, I walked the line for many years, as I
considered the poor drafting of the Original Artistic License. As the
Perl6 process started in 2000, I chaired the Licensing Committee, and
wrote all of the licensing RFCs
in the Perl6
process, including
RFC 211, which collected all the historical arguments about bad drafting
of the Artistic License and argued that we change the Artistic License.

Last year, I was silent about the lower court decision, because I’d
known for years that the Original Artistic License was a poorly drafted
and confusing license. I frankly was not surprised that a court had
considered it problematic. Of course, I was glad for the appeal, and that
there was a widely supported amicus brief arguing that the Artistic
License should be treated appropriately as a copyright license.
However, I had already prepared myself to live with the fact that the my
greatest licensing fears had come true: the most poorly drafted FLOSS
license had been the first for a USA court to consider, and that court had
seen what we all saw — a license that was confusing and could not be
upheld due to lack of clarity.

I was overjoyed last week to see
that the
Federal Circuit ruled that even a poorly drafted copyright license
like that must be taken seriously and that the copyright
holder could seek remedies under copyright law. Now that I have
seen this decision, I feel confident that the rest of our licenses will
breeze through the courts, should the need arise. We’ve been arguing for
a decade that the Artistic license is problematic, and even Larry Wall
(its author) admitted that his intent wasn’t necessarily to draft a good
license but to inspire people to contact him for additional permissions
outside the GPL. Nevertheless, he drafted a license that the USA courts
clearly see as a valid copyright license. The bottom bar has been set,
and since all our other licenses are much clearer, it will be smooth
sailing here on out.

(Please note, if you are a fan of the Artistic
License, the
Artistic License 2.0 is a much better option and is
recommended. Despite the decision, we should still cease using the
Original Artistic License now that we have 2.0.)