On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 12:16 PM Richard Fontana <rfontana@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> But this would be like the Apache License saying "derivative works
> can't have the consecutive letters 'AP' in their name".
I disagree. First "uw" is how the foundry is identified. The Apache
Software Foundation doesn't use "AP" to identify itself, as far as
I've seen. Second, the word "word" is meaningful here. If the
University of Washington, as an example, used "UWash-ttyp0" as the
name, that wouldn't violate the restriction. In other words, it's not
that the letters u and w appear consecutively, but they're used as a
word.
> It could be that the traditional view has been that any arbitrarily
> restrictive renaming provision is okay from a libre standpoint. I'm
> not sure why that should be correct though.
>
I'm not sure this is a well-explored area, but I think authors have a
fundamental right to disclaim association with derivative works. Just
as a license can require attribution, we should be able to require
dis-attribution (for lack of a better term). So I'm inclined to accept
most "you can make derivatives so long as you don't try to make it
sound like it's from or endorsed by me" scenarios. Where I'd draw the
line is more arbitrary restrictions. Like if GNOME had a license that
restricted calling a derivative work "dwarf" because Merriam-Webster
says they're synonyms. But saying "you can't call it 'GNOME-ish'"
would be acceptable because it uses the word "GNOME".
I'm not entirely sure that one-letter words are automatically out of
bounds. I think there's some room for context. Like if I make a font
called "c-font" that's part of a larger ecosystem of "c-*" packages, I
think it's reasonable to say "you can't use 'c' alone in your
derivative work" ("bc" would be fine, but "remade-c" wouldn't). On the
other hand, if "c-font" is the only "c-" name package, then I agree
that it's arbitrarily restrictive.
I hope this makes sense. It's a philosophy I've not hitherto given a
lot of explicit thought, so the explanation is probably a bit rough.
Maybe it'll be a conference proposal at some point?
--
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
_______________________________________________
legal mailing list -- legal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe send an email to legal-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/legal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure
