Re: Fwd: reiser4 non-free?

[MJ Ray <mjr@dsl.pipex.com>]

On 2004-05-04 18:47:02 +0100 Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com> wrote:

> Our licenses are free and not plagiarizable.  GPL V2 is plagiarizable 
> in the 
> view of folks at debian who felt free to remove the credits.

Can someone give a conclusive statement of what actually happened? The 
bug report 152547 looks like someone moved an advert into the docs 
accompanying, rather than removed any attribution. Now, if you call 
that advert "the credits" then I think you have a different view to 
many people.

> Assault is the wrong analogy, lying is what plagiarism is.

Sure, but you've not shown any of these by debian yet.

> Having a license 
> that prevents lying about who did what is not a restriction on 
> freedom any 
> more than laws against fraud restrict freedom of speech.

Yes, that seems true and saying "you must attribute this to me, not 
you" would be fine, if redundant. Putting in the licence "you must 
include this report of a conversation between Hans Reiser and his 
lawyer" would not really prevent lying about who did what.

>> I agree.
> So support those who do something to stop plagiarism.

I do. I also support those who do things to promote free software.

>> In case you missed it, the problem which makes XFree86's latest 
>> licence 
>> definitely non-free (not just GPL-incompatible) is independent of 
>> their 
>> advertising clause.
> What problem do you speak of?

Their new condition clause 4, which says you cannot use their name, 
even for accurate reporting. Normally, this would just be a false 
statement, but this licence makes it a condition of the grant. I've 
not seen that mistake committed by anyone else yet.

> And call it a credit clause, not an advertising clause.  
> Advertisements sell 
> products, credits describe who made the project happen.

No, it is advertising for the XFree86 Project, Inc. In addition to 
acknowledging their copyright (the credit), that advert may have to 
appear.

-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know.
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing