[Freepats] Re: De: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>

[Mark Constable]

On Wednesday 12 April 2006 06:40, Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
> On 4/11/06, Marcos Guglielmetti Gmail <marcospcmusica at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi, RMS told me this:
> >
> > "I would use this modified version of that exception."

Yes, what an excellent initiative to contact RMS directly.

Excuse my absence as I am out of town for up to another 2
weeks and only have access to 56k dialup.

> I'm glad to see an opinion from Richard Stallman here. He is usually
> busy, so I am thankful for his message.

I would have thought him to be too busy to respond.

> He proposes a slightly 
> modified exception. By comparing both I've notice he uses the word
> "composition" instead of "document",

Very good.

> substitutes "a" by "the", and adds the words "as a whole".

 "these patches do not by themselves cause the entire composition
 "as a whole to be covered by the GNU General Public License."

This is correct and better then the original exemption clause
which, I think, was partly or completely borrowed from the FDL
license.

 "the entire composition as a whole"

This means exactly what it says and leaves room for parts of a
composition, like the samples it uses, to be under a different
copyright or redistribution license than the "composition as a whole".

> Since I am not a native English speaker, I am probably not the best
> person to analyze the meaning of changes; in my humble interpretation,
> "as a whole" addition has an important effect: the individual samples
> contained in a composition remain copyrighted and GPL, even when they
> are mixed.

Yes, a simple addition that enhances the meaning of the exemption.

> Mark, what do you think?

Totally excellent.

I am amazed how a few different words can make such a difference!

> Notice that it can be difficult to change things by now. Even in case
> Mark does agree with the modification, it can't be directly applied to
> existing samples; they are copyrighted by their respective authors,
> and it is needed their aproval to make any change to their given
> license.

That is true but in the case of the current set of freepats that
should not be too difficult because it mainly involves just two
people.

However, I don't think that is a high priority because the current
freepats are a rather mediocre step towards having a complete set
of usable samples.

Marcos, to finalize the issue of a default license, assuming Roberto
is happy with a non_public Domain default(?), would you care to
write to RMS again with these questions...

"Would this exemption clause be suitable to include within
 the context of the GPL v3 or should we stick to the GPL v2?"

"Would it be appropriate to assign the copyright to the FSF?"

***

Also, if you check out http://ccmixter.org you will notice a
large number of mainly Creative Commons licenses available as
options for contributors to chose from. I am thinking of using
this software for opensrc.org as a management tool for content
in general and freepats in particular.

A question; should we allow contributors a range of license
options or should we "demand" that any set of sample/soundfonts,
resulting from our efforts, use the one license we decide upon ?

I personally would like to see one definitive and complete GM/GS
sf2 soundfont, licensed as strictly as the GPL will allow, as a
singular objective. That includes the raw samples it is based on.
After that objective is reached I don't care what license any
future projects are under as long as there is at least one usable
GPL'd GM/GS soundfont available on the planet somewhere.

--markc