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From: brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: While we're flaming about copyrights...
Message-ID: <435:May611:29:3590@stealth.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 6 May 90 11:29:35 GMT
References: <=X833-ggpc2@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Organization: IR
Lines: 52

In article <=X833-ggpc2@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
> ... anyone care to make suggestions for improvements to, or point out problems
> in, the following?

Obviously I'm biased towards the more comprehensive alternative that I
just posted to alt.sources.

``Permission to use... is granted'' incorrectly implies that you have
the power to restrict that right. Mention this in a side explanation
instead.

``With or without fee'' is also useless; it has no legal effects and is
better relegated to explanatory paragraphs.

Someone can modify the software without putting in any notices of his
changes, and without telling the recipients where to get the original.
This is dangerous.

Someone can sell the software without asking you first. Sure, this just
reflects a different philosophy, but it's wiser to distribute a notice
making the choices that most free software distributors will agree with.

Someone can sell the software without letting the recipients know before
purchase that the original source was free. The GPL shares this problem.
My new copyright notice allows no such trickery.

You don't require that your disclaimer of warranty be reproduced in
redistributed copies. This is dangerous.

You don't cleanly separate the concise, precise, incomprehensible legal
stuff from the ambiguous but helpful explanations. This is dangerous.

You don't mention that at least a one-line warranty disclaimer should be
included in each file.

``Stricter license'' and your examples of it are not defined. What if a
license is stricter in some respects but looser in others?

``Such as'' should be ``including but not limited to'' in legal text.

It's a bad idea to leave off ``all rights reserved.''

Derivative.

I wonder about some of the phrases included in (and omitted from) your
warranty disclaimer. (The implied warranty of fitness? Gee, Peter, how
much can your programs benchpress?) Many of the usual phrases are purely
customary, but some of them have specific legal meaning. Ask a lawyer.

The recipient doesn't get a question-and-answer file like my WHY file.

---Dan