Advertising Clauses in Licenses

[Karsten M. Self]

on Sun, Jan 20, 2002 at 12:07:53PM -0800, Lawrence E. Rosen (lrosen at rosenlaw.com) wrote:

> The FSF website (http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/bsd.html), specifically
> discussing the "obnoxious" BSD advertising clause, argues that
> advertising clauses in licenses potentially lead to long lists of
> acknowledgements in derivative works.  RMS wrote that in 1997 he
> counted 75 such sentences that needed to be included in one version of
> NetBSD.  
> 
> I am unmoved by this perceived threat to free or open source software.
> The individuals and communities who create free and open source
> software deserve to receive credit for their contributions.  Is it
> asking too much to require the authors of derivative works to
> acknowledge the contributions through simple notices?
> 
> Suppose the list of contributions grows long.  Is it expecting too
> much for the authors of derivative works to include a text file
> listing those contributions along with the software?

These comments are meant to amplify Bruce's comments.

It depends on where this text must be kept, relative to the software.

I worked with RMS and Tom Oehser of Tom's Root Boot (TRB), a 1.77 MiB
formatted floppy disk with a live GNU/Linux system on it.  In this
particular instance, space (and project management) are at a premium --
the obligation to carry license on the disk itself means that software
would be displaced.  TRB is a study in code compaction and squeezing the
most functionality out of every available byte.  

In this case, both license and source obligations were managed by
keeping files separate.  A downside is that the previous symmetry of TRB
was broken -- there's a component which must be distributed separately
of the distribution's working files, where previously it was possible to
create an archive from the floppy, and a floppy from the archive.  The
result is the following clause in TRB's license file:

      Caveat Emptor
     *******************************************************************
     * This license file must be included with tomsrtbt whenever it is *
     * redistributed.  If components are redistributed, the respective *
     * portions must be included, that is, the GPL, LGPL, BSD, and the *
     * programs they cover, must always be distributed together.  This *
     * means it must certainly be a violation of license to distribute *
     * the tomsrtbt floppy to anyone without including these licenses! *
     * These licenses ARE NOT included on the floppy itself, it breaks *
     * the license terms if you do not include it ALONG WITH the disk! *
     * If you really want to be safe, distribute tomsrtbt as a double- *
     * diskette set, with this file being the contents of diskette #2. *
     *******************************************************************

TRB is hardly unique in this regard.  Various bootable media (Trinux,
muLinux, LNX-BBC, the Linuxcare BBC, Knoppix, etc.) are both
increasingly popular, and damned useful (I literally never leave home
without at least two), and we'll likely see migration from floppies and
CDs to memory sticks and DVDs in the next year or so.  For embedded
systems (watches, PDAs, various devices) similar size constraints exist.  

Free software must be careful about thousand-cuts practices.  There are
requests which seem reasonable in the single instance which become a
prohibitive burden in aggregate.  Close-binding obligations (e.g.:  the
obligation follows directly with the software, and can't be satisfied on
secondary media or means) not directly related to software performance
runs this risk.  Multiplied out 8,776 times (the number of packages
listed in my Debian packages list today), they become a nightmare --
that's 8,776 cuts.

Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?              Home of the brave
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