The FSF in the United Kingdoms

Ciaran O'Riordan | 6 Jun 2007 13:13

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GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links


The fourth-and-last discussion draft of GPLv3 was released last week.  The
plan is to continue the public consultation until June 29th and then finally
release the official GPLv3.  So, if you might have a comment, take a look
asap.

The text of discussion draft 4 can be seen here:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/gplv3-draft-4.html

And that's also the page where you can make a comment.  You first make an
account, and then you can highlight a piece of text, press 'c', and enter
your comment in the box that appears.

For an explanation of what's changed, here's one of Stallman's
presentations:
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/brussels-rms-transcript

And here's a FAQ explaining some parts, such as the exception to
tivoisation, in more detail:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/dd3-faq

And some other links, in case the above isn't news.

Creative Commons look to have dropped some of the licences so that the
remaining licences all permit non-commercial redistribution:
http://creativecommons.org/retiredlicenses

Xandros seem to have made a very stupid patent deal with Microsoft:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070604183519938
(It's like the Novell one, but Xandros are dumber since the dated clause in

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Dave Crossland | 6 Jun 2007 13:25

Re: [Fsfe-uk] GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

Hi,

I think this is an important free culture milestone 

On 06 Jun 2007 12:13:26 +0100, Ciaran O'Riordan <ciaran <at> fsfe.org> wrote:
>
> Creative Commons look to have dropped some of the licences so that the
> remaining licences all permit non-commercial redistribution:
> http://creativecommons.org/retiredlicenses

--

-- 
Regards,
Dave

Jon Grant | 10 Jun 2007 18:57

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

Does anyone think any "trademark torpedo" prevention clauses should be
added? The trademark issue being the one that allows a company (e.g. Red
Hat) to prevent redistribution "as is" of their offered packages.
Requiring any distributor (e.g. CentOS) to spend time hunting through
documentation and images for any trademarks, re-branding the package and
then retesting it.

I should add that with the example of CentOS, they mentioned this was
taking them weeks, but Red Hat have moved trademarked items into one
place now, which simplifies the task somewhat. The task does still exist
though, and is probably expensive to ensure its done completely each time.

Should the GPL protect against companies using trademarks to prevent
redistribution "as is" ?

Kind regards,
Jon
--

-- 
Weblog: http://jguk.org/

Alex Hudson | 10 Jun 2007 21:11

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

On Sun, 2007-06-10 at 17:57 +0100, Jon Grant wrote:
> Does anyone think any "trademark torpedo" prevention clauses should be
> added?

Personally, no, although I do have sympathy with the viewpoint you put
forward. A trade mark is, fundamentally, something unique you can use to
identify yourself as the supplier of something. That's basically
incompatible with a copy of free software, which could come from
anywhere, and even if it's identical to your version the supplier is
still different.

It does seem pretty clear to me that trade marks can be used to make
modifying/distributing free software more difficult, but I'm not sure
how you can get around that. Trade marks don't have to be registered;
you could be sued for passing off (though the standards are a fair bit
higher to meet). You'd essentially be asking people to commit to not sue
you under those rights, but I'm not sure how that could be enforceable
without a proper contract. 

There are any number of ways an original author can make license
something as free software but essentially make it difficult/impossible
to redistribute or modify. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it that
much - it's only really a problem if third parties can impose those
kinds of restrictions. In the case of the original author, they're not
bound by the license and can therefore do what they please anyway.

Cheers,

Alex.

(Continue reading)

Ciaran O'Riordan | 11 Jun 2007 20:17

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Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links


I think the reason GPLv3 isn't tackling trademarks is that they haven't
become a big problem, and there aren't clear signs that they will.

The problem might even regress.  When I was at the Ubuntu conference last
month, one of the workshops focussed on what needed to be done to make
Ubuntu more easily re(/de)-brandable (to help the gNewSense folk).

--

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org

Jon Grant | 11 Jun 2007 23:06

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

Hi.

Thanks for the reply.

On 11 Jun 2007 19:17:25 +0100, Ciaran O'Riordan <ciaran <at> fsfe.org> wrote:
>
> I think the reason GPLv3 isn't tackling trademarks is that they haven't
> become a big problem, and there aren't clear signs that they will.

That's good then. It seemed possible trademarks could be used to exert
some "control".. in the same sense that a software license ensuring
source code is useless if the code is all covered by software parents
which are enforceable. A clause would prevent trademarks being used in
the same way, It'd be a shame to have to say "I told you so" in the
future.

Imagine if a toolkit vendor said all the "Zt" had to be removed, and
all the classes have the trademark "Z" name prefix removed on anyone's
redistributed copies. It might be practically not worth the effort in
attempting the task!

Kind regards, Jon

Robin Green | 11 Jun 2007 23:11

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:06:20 +0100
"Jon Grant" <jg <at> jguk.org> wrote:
> Imagine if a toolkit vendor said all the "Zt" had to be removed, and
> all the classes have the trademark "Z" name prefix removed on anyone's
> redistributed copies. It might be practically not worth the effort in
> attempting the task!

As I understand it - correct me if I'm wrong - Red Hat isn't requiring
people to remove trademarks from GPL-covered source code, which would be
against the GPL. Rather, they are requiring people to remove trademarks
from images, banner files and such things, which have not been released
under the GPL.
--

-- 
Robin

Jon Grant | 13 Jun 2007 21:08

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

Hi Robin,

> As I understand it - correct me if I'm wrong - Red Hat isn't requiring
> people to remove trademarks from GPL-covered source code, which would be
> against the GPL. Rather, they are requiring people to remove trademarks
> from images, banner files and such things, which have not been released
> under the GPL.

good point about the images.

is it really against the GPL to make people remove trademarks from the code?

I seem to remember that Red Hat said they would always bee a free
software developer, in which case I'm not sure why the images and
banners not released under the GPL.

The Firefox trademark issue people have highlighted is a good example
too, I had forgotten about all that.

Regards, Jon

MJ Ray | 12 Jun 2007 10:08

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

"Jon Grant" <jg <at> jguk.org> wrote:
> On 11 Jun 2007 19:17:25 +0100, Ciaran O'Riordan <ciaran <at> fsfe.org> wrote:
> > I think the reason GPLv3 isn't tackling trademarks is that they haven't
> > become a big problem, and there aren't clear signs that they will.
>
> That's good then. It seemed possible trademarks could be used to exert
> some "control".. [...]
> Imagine if a toolkit vendor said all the "Zt" had to be removed, and
> all the classes have the trademark "Z" name prefix removed on anyone's
> redistributed copies. [...]

More than possible - it's already happened.  As one example, to get
trademark permission to call a Firefox-based browser Firefox, IIRC you
have to:
- include proprietary graphics, which is a problem for debian;
- use their approved configuration that points at a site which offers
to install proprietary plugins for you, which is a problem for GNU; and
- obey some MozCorp release policies, which is a problem for both.

I'm surprised if GPLv3's authors are ignorant of the problems this has
caused for the GNU and debian projects, or think it's not worth
addressing when the more limited (at present) problem of swpat is.

The functional name problem is possible (but not necessary) in both
the Open Font License and the PHP License (again IIRC).

Hope that explains,
--

-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/

(Continue reading)

Ciaran O'Riordan | 12 Jun 2007 12:23

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Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

MJ Ray <mjr <at> phonecoop.coop> writes:
> I'm surprised if GPLv3's authors are ignorant of the problems this has

Of course there're not.  Fixing those problems with Firefox was one of RMS's
checklist items for gNewSense, so he knows about it.  And the GNU project is
working on Gnuzilla:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
so the GNU project knows about these problems.

> caused for the GNU and debian projects, or think it's not worth
> addressing when the more limited (at present) problem of swpat is.

The only reason that swpat is such a limited problem, at present, is that
people worked from 1998 until 2005 to prevent a directive that would have
made 50,000 software patents valid.  All those software patents are still
sitting around, and more are still being granted, and there are new
proposals for how to validate them all (EPLA, Community Patent, etc.).

Swpat is a huge potential problem, and requires ongoing work at present as
well as planning for the future (as GPLv3 does).

I'd say their trademark activities are hurting Mozilla more than helping
them, and rather than it spreading, Mozilla may eventually see sense and
start behaving like other members of the community.

There're enough signs to justify a wait and see approach.

--

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3

(Continue reading)

rob | 12 Jun 2007 11:44

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

Quoting MJ Ray <mjr <at> phonecoop.coop>:

> "Jon Grant" <jg <at> jguk.org> wrote:
>> On 11 Jun 2007 19:17:25 +0100, Ciaran O'Riordan <ciaran <at> fsfe.org> wrote:
>> > I think the reason GPLv3 isn't tackling trademarks is that they haven't
>> > become a big problem, and there aren't clear signs that they will.
>>
>> That's good then. It seemed possible trademarks could be used to exert
>> some "control".. [...]
>> Imagine if a toolkit vendor said all the "Zt" had to be removed, and
>> all the classes have the trademark "Z" name prefix removed on anyone's
>> redistributed copies. [...]
>
> More than possible - it's already happened.  As one example, to get
> trademark permission to call a Firefox-based browser Firefox, IIRC you
> have to:
> - include proprietary graphics, which is a problem for debian;
> - use their approved configuration that points at a site which offers
> to install proprietary plugins for you, which is a problem for GNU; and
> - obey some MozCorp release policies, which is a problem for both.

This is different from the case that was being discussed.

Debian's refusal to distribute Firefox because of trademark issues is  
different from if they were being prevented from distributing  
unmodified versions of Firefox by trademark misuse.

> I'm surprised if GPLv3's authors are ignorant of the problems this has
> caused for the GNU and debian projects, or think it's not worth
> addressing when the more limited (at present) problem of swpat is.

(Continue reading)

Jon Grant | 13 Jun 2007 21:03

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

Hi Rob,

<snip>
> Trademarks exist to protect consumers by marking products as having
> come from an identified source. Debian taking Firefox and hacking on
> the code but still releasing it under the Firefox trademark clearly
> breaks this. And it breaks it for the consumer, not for the Mozilla
> Foundation.

I'd say we should be allowed to redistribute as they did under the GPL
(with their trademarks included). Our only obligation should be to
differentiate the version number and release, perhaps adding a suffix
to it, each time it occurs visibly on the presentation of the software
to the user.

> You cannot use trademarks to prevent modification of software in the
> same way as copyright or as patents. Trademarks are therefore not the
> same potential or actual threat as patents. You can remove them,
> although it may be very inconvenient to do so.

I definitely see it is possible to remove Trademarks, patented
algorithms, and copyrighted code from a software package. The question
is (as I see it), should anyone be allowed to ship a package under a
GPL software license which allows people to say you're excluded from
using certain parts of code, certain trademarked graphics and the
compression algorithm which is patented -- I think the license should
protect/allow all 3 freedoms for the user.

This isn't my ideal solution, but it would allow for GPL
redistribution of trademarked code, and at the same time allow vendors

(Continue reading)

Jon Grant | 16 Jun 2007 14:07

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

Hi.

Going back to Red Hat distro. CentOS highlighted to me a while ago that 
as well has having to remove the Red Hat log from packages, they are not 
allowed to remove the logo from the Red Hat documentation created under 
the OPL!

http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/docs/html/rhel-ig-x8664-multi-en-4/legalnotice.html

CentOS told me it took them 3 months for CentOS-3 beta, and another 3 
months for the real release. CentOS 4 took about 6 weeks. So it does 
seem more than trivial to de-brand a distro before you are allowed to 
redistribute it.

Cheers, Jon

Jason Clifford | 16 Jun 2007 15:37

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007, Jon Grant wrote:

> Going back to Red Hat distro. CentOS highlighted to me a while ago that
> as well has having to remove the Red Hat log from packages, they are not
> allowed to remove the logo from the Red Hat documentation created under
> the OPL!

So what? That's a simply matter of using grep to replace the logos and 
references to RH during the building of the RPMs and then only on a small 
number of them.

I have experience of this myself. I produced a RH deried distro from 1997 
to 1999 and it is not hard to do this - in fact it is a lot easier now as 
RH put the branding into specific packages so as to make it easier for 
derived distros to rebrand.

> CentOS told me it took them 3 months for CentOS-3 beta, and another 3
> months for the real release. CentOS 4 took about 6 weeks. So it does
> seem more than trivial to de-brand a distro before you are allowed to
> redistribute it.

Those are meaningless measurements without knowing 3 months from when. The 
only value that really indicates whether it is a problem is how long after 
RH officially release they are able to follow with their own version.

Checking I see that RH announced the release of version 5 on March and 
Centos did their release on April 12th. That doesn't say how much of those 
4 weeks delay was down to rebranding and how much was down to rebuilding 
and testing all the packages in the final build and getting it distributed 
to the download sites before the release was announced.

(Continue reading)

MJ Ray | 12 Jun 2007 13:03

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

rob <at> robmyers.org wrote: [...]
> Trademarks exist to protect consumers by marking products as having  
> come from an identified source. Debian taking Firefox and hacking on  
> the code but still releasing it under the Firefox trademark clearly  
> breaks this. And it breaks it for the consumer, not for the Mozilla  
> Foundation.

That isn't a reasonable argument because that the debian project
changes the code less than other people who are still allowed to
release under the Firefox trademark.  If debian breaks it for the
consumer, it is also broken by others.  See Mike Hommey's analysis
"Facts about Debian, Mozilla® Firefox® and Ubuntu" http://web.glandium.org/blog/?p=99

But the debian project released in the past with some important
patches from Mozilla quicker than Mozilla themselves, offered support
for longer than Mozilla offer support for their editions and used to
be allowed to release as Firefox, before MozCorp replaced MoFo.

At one point, some people (I forget their affiliations) were
suggesting that the trademarks mean debian should not include a
/usr/bin/firefox (or /etc/alternatives/firefox or similar), which
would mean patching more things.

But this is merely a specific case to illustrate: trademarks are
used to interfere with the permissions granted by GPL.

> You cannot use trademarks to prevent modification of software in the  
> same way as copyright or as patents. Trademarks are therefore not the  
> same potential or actual threat as patents. You can remove them,  
> although it may be very inconvenient to do so. [...]

(Continue reading)

Alex Hudson | 12 Jun 2007 14:01

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

On Tue, 2007-06-12 at 12:03 +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> Patents cannot be used on software at all here.  It's disappointing
> if software patent problems are being exported to us by GPLv3.
> 
> Why is one a licence issue when the more widespread problem is not?
> I feel that GPLv3 should be a copyright licence, not an IP one.

Why should freedoms be partially severable along the fault lines of the
underlying laws? Surely that should just be an implementation detail?

"Copyright" alone is a loaded term which could refer to a variety of
different laws and rights, any of which may or may not apply. The GPLv3
is quite specific in being vague about this in some places; e.g.
"Propagation includes copying, [.. other specific acts ..] and in some
countries other activities as well." Depending on the work, the right to
lend it (for example) could be grounded on the basis of a couple of
different laws within the EU.

Granted, copyright-type laws are vastly more similar than dissimilar,
and patents are not so, but I'm not sure why limiting the boundaries of
the GPL to specific sets of laws would be a good thing?

Cheers,

Alex.

Ciaran O'Riordan | 12 Jun 2007 13:30

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Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

MJ Ray <mjr <at> phonecoop.coop> writes:
> Patents cannot be used on software at all here.  It's disappointing
> if software patent problems are being exported to us by GPLv3.

The patent related requirements in GPLv3 only exist in a region to the
extent that software patents exist in that region - so if your first
sentence is right, then your second is null.

Unfortunately, software patents can be used in the UK.  They probably can't
to win a court case, but until we have undisputed legislation saying they're
invalid, they can still be used for their primary purpose: FUD.

GPLv3 aims to assure recipients of GPLv3'd software that their distributor
will not sue them, and it assures further downstream recipients that they
are as safe as the person they received the software from.

I haven't seen any good argument for why GPLv3 shouldn't give users these
assurances.

--

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org

Jason Clifford | 12 Jun 2007 13:14

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007, MJ Ray wrote:

> While not as restrictive as copyrights, trademarks have been used to
> prevent modification of configurations and to tie Free-copyright
> software to proprietary-copyright software.  Submarine trademarks like
> Firefox, Ion and maybe others, where the terms are changed after the
> name gets popular, are a growing problem.  Sometimes you can remove them
> only if you remove other things as well as the name.

Trademark law is not copyright law. Given how much effort it expanded by 
FSF, AFFS and others in making this point I am surprised to see people in 
the Free Software movements arguing that copyright licenses should seek to 
impact upon trademark.

The fact is that trademark law requires the registrant of a mark to 
enforce it or loose it. Perhaps more effort on educating the lawyers who 
advise companies on trademark would be more beneficial.

Jason
--

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MJ Ray | 12 Jun 2007 14:18

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

Jason Clifford <jason <at> ukfsn.org> wrote: [...]
> Trademark law is not copyright law. Given how much effort it expanded by 
> FSF, AFFS and others in making this point I am surprised to see people in 
> the Free Software movements arguing that copyright licenses should seek to 
> impact upon trademark.

I'm seeking the opposite.  As I wrote, "I feel that GPLv3 should be a
copyright licence, not an IP one." After all, patent law is not
copyright law either, but can be used to restrict free software.

Maybe we need GPL3patent and GPL3trademark too, but why this GPL3IPR?

> The fact is that trademark law requires the registrant of a mark to 
> enforce it or loose it. [...]

  "It is worth noting that some countries, in particular the United
  States, also provide trademark rights for unregistered trademarks.
  The mere use in commerce of a particular sign can turn that sign
  into a trademark, which others may not use for the same types of
  goods and services." --
  http://www.iusmentis.com/trademarks/crashcourse/procedure/#Unregisteredtrademarks

I think the UK is less strict than the US, but they do seem to exist.

Hope that explains,
--

-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op.
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

(Continue reading)

Dave Crossland | 12 Jun 2007 09:35

Re: GPLv3 last days for comment, and other news links

On 11/06/07, Jon Grant <jg <at> jguk.org> wrote:
>
> Imagine if a toolkit vendor said all the "Zt" had to be removed, and
> all the classes have the trademark "Z" name prefix removed on anyone's
> redistributed copies. It might be practically not worth the effort in
> attempting the task!

We have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions for that 
I think whats happened with Mozilla's Firefox(TM) and Debian Iceweasel
is as bad as it gets.

--

-- 
Regards,
Dave

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