[xsd-users] License and Portability

[Peter Backes]

Benjamin,

On Thu, Jul 07, 2011 at 01:18:05PM +0200, Benjamin Schindler wrote:
> Reread what I said - I never said you're wrong. I said you are not in a
> position to make an informed statement and you just confirmed this by
> saying "I may be wrong".

Everyone may be wrong. I am as much in a position to make an "informed" 
(what does informedness matter anyway; what counts is the truth of what 
I say) statement as anyone else.  Lawyers, experts, etc, they have no 
privileged access to the truth. Truth is absolute and the same for 
everyone, and I can only regard statements of the contrary as 
authoritarian.  You provide no arguments and reject mine purely based 
on the claim that some people can make informed statements and some 
cannot, and I am among the latter.  You are not in a position to make 
an informed statement on matters concerning the status, necessity and 
relevance of informed statements, to speak in your language.

> Yes, you tried and failed. Boris does not intend to change the license
> of the generated code. So the only option you have is to force him
> change it by means of going to court. Or you just ignore it and wait for
> him to sue you. But if you loose, you have a big problem

Boris cannot give a license on the generated code because he doesn't 
have copyright on it in the first place. I quoted the GPL FAQ, which is 
unabiguous in this respect. Anyone who denies this is denying the 
obvious.

I do not want to force Boris to do anything, I merely want to argue 
that his copyright claim has no basis. What consequences he draws from 
this is up to him. I cannot sue Boris because he has not done something 
illegal--"copyfraud" (claiming a copyright you don't have) is legal. 
Even if I could sue Boris I wouldn't do it. I am not a copyright troll.

Boris has no way to sue me. There is freedom of speech. If I want to 
attack Boris' claim of copyright, I can do this. It's completely legal.

> You're mixing "independent from legal" and copyright in one sentence?
> This is ridiculous. We're dealing with copyright so it's by definition a
> legal matter.

I don't like to quarrel about words. But there is a difference between 
what is legal and what you should do. Even if Boris is right about his 
copyright claim, it doesn't mean he should make it.

> I cannot tell whether the way Boris deals with it is the best way. But
> he has made a decision and doesn't seem willing to change this. So
> please just accept that?

There is nothing to accept, I am merely stating the facts that Boris 
has no copyright claim on the generated code and doesn't need one. What 
Boris does because of that is up to him.

XSD is Free Software, so there is no fundamental problem. But:
- IMO, nobody should rely on the FLOSSE. People should release their 
software under GPLv2+ if they are using XSD, such that the FLOSSE is 
not needed.
- Unclear and too-clever legal constructions like the FLOSSE should not 
be used. Simpler and more practical solutions should be used instead.
- Nobody should and nobody ever needs to claim copyright on generated 
code, nobody should try to exploit such grey areas of the law, 
especially not Free Software.
- Code should always be licensed "or any later version" for practical 
reasons, at least using a proxy (see GPLv3) if there are reservations 
against the FSF.

XSD is great software and it's Free Software. Please don't read my 
statements as a *fundamental* criticism. There is no problem with using 
XSD.

Regards
Peter

-- 
Peter Backes, rtc at cdl.uni-saarland.de            Office 403
Compiler Design Lab, Saarland University         Campus E1 3
Phone: +49-681-302-2454, Fax: -3065              66123 Saarbruecken
http://rw4.cs.uni-saarland.de/people/rtc.shtml   GERMANY