RPL 1.5 discussion

[Lawrence Rosen]

Philippe Verdy wrote:
> So any licence should tolerate these mandatory legal attributions, because
> not accepting them would make the licence completely invalid and not
> enforceable in many countries (where the legality of publications in the
> "public domain", without a protected signature, i.e. anonymously, is also
> highly questionable, and the destruction of these identifiable signatures
> is illegal).

I don't understand all that. But if you want to make sure that appropriate
attribution is protected in your special jurisdiction, then I suggest that
AFL, OSL and Non-Profit OSL 3.0 already take care of that. They provide for
an "Attribution Notice" of your own composition that must be retained in the
source code of licensed software. (See section 6 of both licenses.)

The issue about whether executable copies must display notices is different
from this. I doubt seriously that any jurisdiction in the world requires a
visible attribution notice identifying the licensor on the screens of users
of executable software in order to afford copyright protection to the
software code itself or to enforce the open source license for that
software.

/Larry Rosen


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philippe Verdy [mailto:verdy_p at wanadoo.fr]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 7:12 PM
> To: 'Matthew Flaschen'; 'License Discuss'
> Subject: RE: RPL 1.5 discussion
> 
> Matthew Flaschen [mailto:matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu] wrote:
> > Now that I have considered the license, I have several comments.  Most
> > importantly, I object to the attribution clause in its current form.  It
> > has the same issues as earlier drafts of CPAL, but without the
> > compromises (e.g. only on one screen, 10 words, etc.) OSI agreed to.  I
> > would be reluctant to support any more attribution licenses until CPAL
> > has been out for a while (say a year).
> 
> I also don't like long required attribution notices. However there are
> some
> conditions where this is unavoidable, not because of the licence itself
> but
> about legal requirements for correct attribution of authors (that have
> unconditional, mandatory, exclusive, non transferable and irrevocable
> rights
> and obligations in many countries, notably those with a legal system based
> on Civil Code, instead of Common Law.)
> 
> So any licence should tolerate these mandatory legal attributions, because
> not accepting them would make the licence completely invalid and not
> enforceable in many countries (where the legality of publications in the
> "public domain", without a protected signature, i.e. anonymously, is also
> highly questionable, and the destruction of these identifiable signatures
> is
> illegal).
>