Advertising Clauses in Licenses

[Lawrence E. Rosen]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Stallman [mailto:rms at gnu.org] 
> Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 1:40 AM
> To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com
> Cc: brian at collab.net; license-discuss at opensource.org; bruce at perens.com
> Subject: Re: Advertising Clauses in Licenses
> 
> 
> I think you have identified three separate questions:
> 
> * Requiring credit notices in derivative works.
> * Requiring credit notices in manuals.
> * Requiring credit notices in advertisements.
> 
> It is only the last of these which, we argue, causes a 
> practical problem.
> 
>      3. The end-user documentation included with the redistribution,
> 	if any, must include the following acknowledgment:
> 	"This product includes software developed by the
> 	Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/)."
> 	Alternately, this acknowledgment may appear in the 
> software itself,
> 	if and wherever such third-party acknowledgments 
> normally appear.
> 
> This is not the advertising clause, and I have never argued 
> that this is harmful.
> 

I now understand and appreciate the distinction you are drawing.  Thanks
for the clarification.

But I still have a concern.  I have always argued that we should review
and approve licenses according to a published standard.  This prevents
us from being (or appearing to be) arbitrary and capricious.  So where
in the OSD, or in the GPL, do we make it clear that potentially
burdensome license requirements (however those are defined) are not
allowed?

/Larry Rosen

--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3