[copyleft-next] copyleft-next 0.2.0 released

Pamela Chestek pchestek at gmail.com
Sun Feb 24 02:21:13 UTC 2013


On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Richard Fontana <fontana at 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
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