On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Richard Fontana <fontana@sharpeleven.org> wrote:
On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 04:40:03PM -0500, Pamela Chestek wrote:

> Para. 5: "When distributing a Covered Work, You may not impose further
> restrictions on the exercise of [rights in] _the grants given for_ the Covered
> Work [granted under this License]."  Just tightening up the language a little.
> It was the word "rights" that bothered me, I don't think the licensee has
> "rights" but rather has permission to do what otherwise he or she could not do
.

Any 'rights' language in copyleft-next (there are actually several
uses of it) is basically a holdover from GPLv2/GPLv3. I assume your
botheredness would extend to those other uses too -- I admit that I've
been bothered by the uses of "rights" myself and have toyed with
replacing them with "permissions" in all cases.

Then again, I believe I've seen "rights" used similarly in certain
'plain-English' proprietary software consumer-oriented licenses; there
may be a view that it's a more natural way of expressing something
that technically isn't really a "right".

The use of "rights" in the GPL also clearly reflects a kind of natural
law theory of software freedom. One sees this particularly in the
various GPL Preambles which express the view that proprietary software
licenses take away freedom that software users would otherwise
have. This view is understandable when you consider the legal and
cultural origins of the GPL.
 
Yes, all of those reasons make sense. I don't have strong feelings one way or the other, but mentioned it out of a desire to attain rigor in language. But sometimes rigor only introduces confusion, which might be the case here.  I don't think "rights" will be misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Pam