Talk:Free-software license/Archive 1

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Archive 1

copyleft

a "copyleft" license is not a concept made up by ESR or the open source community. Infact, quite the opposite. The name is however an obvious one coined by a particular stoner hippy with the initials "ESR". For this matter, they have no right to claim credit for inventing the concept. newspapers have done that for centuries. they buy articles from other papers and circulate them with the attached copyright. but anyways, I find it absolutely annoying that people say a term is accepted in the community simply by its use. People quote other people all the time but that does not mean they accept the term. And just because someone already has fame doesn't make everything they do or say famous automatically.

Very unencyclopedic. Fsdfs 09:38, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Article title "license" or "licenses"?

It seems that this article should be about "licenses". I'm not sure what exactly the content should be when the word is singular. Any objections if I move it? (the old name will become a redirect, nothing will be lost or become broken, it just clarifies the article's subject.) Gronky 17:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

After thinking about this for a while, using "license" in the singular is simply bad grammar, so I'll just move it. Gronky 01:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
In your move message, you say: "singular without a preceding article is just ungrammatical". Can you explain what you mean? The rest of Wikipedia uses singular titles without preceding (grammatical) articles; what makes this article any different? --Piet Delport 07:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Consider a musical group - a band called "Bandy". An article about the band would be called "Bandy", but an article about the members could be called "Bandy members", not "Bandy member". This article is about the licences, not the concept. Description of the concept is in free software. No? Gronky 11:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, to me, free software licence is a separate concept to free software: one is a kind of legal agreement, the other a kind of computer software. :)
To use the "member" analogy, i think the situation is more similar to cast member, aircrew member, ranking member, Member of Parliament, and so on. Unlike the hypothetical "Bandy members" example, and like this article, they describe a general concept which stands on its own as a singular, as opposed to an arbitrary finite collection of things which are only notable when considered together.
The relevant Wikipedia guideline, by the way, is here: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals). Would you care to review it, and share your thoughts?
--Piet Delport 22:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. It seemed so clear to me at the time, but now I don't feel so decisive. I've no objection if you(s) want to rename it. Gronky 08:13, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I would lean towards calling it "Free software license" and starting the article off with a sentence along the lines of "A free software license is..." Alternatively, perhaps make it "List of free software licenses" and reformat it slightly to fit in with the other lists. We have Automobile rather than "An automobile" or "Automobiles", so I don't really see why the same shouldn't apply here. NicM 07:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC).
Hmm, I do see Gronky's argument, however: an article about Ford's automobiles would probably be called Ford automobiles not Ford automobile. I think either would work here, a free software license is both a singular entity and a member of a collection of free software licenses, neither are ungrammatical. It depends on which one the article discusses, which isn't really clear: the article covers both the definition of a single free software license and also some discussion of them as a group. NicM 07:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC).
I think that what matters is what type of group the thing in question is:
  • Ford automobiles would be plural because it's pretty much an arbitrary, fixed, finite collection of specific cars, which don't necessarily have anything in common (aside from their brand). It's only the group itself that is notable, and not anything about the individual cars.
  • Off-road vehicle, on the other hand, is singular, because it discusses a certain kind or class of car. What's notable are the features and capabilities that define an off-road car, and not anything about the collective group, itself.
Further examples:
--Piet Delport 13:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Alright, I agree, move it back to Free software license. I think the lead-in may need a little work to better reflect that title. NicM 13:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC).

the license list needs help

I've added all 62 licenses from the FSF license list page. Unfortunately, FSF's page doesn't always use the exact license name, sometimes they use a descriptive reference such as "License of Whatever". If anyone can fix some license names, that would be great. Gronky 02:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Duplicates "List of software licenses"

This article duplicates material at list of software licenses. The material on that article should be merged to this article, no? --71.241.128.118 16:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

"Abandonware" Licenses

im suprised that no one has metnioned in this article the "abandonware" licanse (otherwise known as the "DWTFYWWI license") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.53.216 (talk • contribs) 06:22, 19 May 2006

Can you provide a link to the licence text? There are probably many "abandonware" licences which are non-free purely because the copyright holder has not thought the licence through properly. Gronky 11:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Major-ish improvements to the page

I've added a new section on "Challenges for licences". I don't like that name, but I can't think of a better one right now. The idea is to explain what's evolving in the free software licence world, what problems are appearing, etc.

I've also gotten rid of the list of FSF approved licences. It was boring, and half the links were red, and it was a list, so I moved it to List of FSF approved software licences.

The general direction is that I'm trying to move the article in the direction of having less filler and more content. Comments sought. Gronky 22:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Unacceptable restrictions

Not everyone regardes SLUC or HESSLA as "non-free", as they not only protect the developers, but also the users or ... targets of their software from having their freedom impaired. While these licences may have no observable legal impact in certain jurisdiction (like, the People's Liberation Army), they nontheless make a strong statement against free software supporting military, spyware and similar morally ambigious uses. The FSF is not the only authority to decide what freedom constitutes, even if they like to see themselves as such. --MushroomCloud 16:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Who, other than their authors and friends, regards those licences as free software licences? FSF is the primary authority, and the next closest authorities (Debian, OSI, and the *BSD folk) agree with FSF on this. These licences have not managed to spread in any notable way outside of their group of origin. Whether they make a strong statement against supporting one group of people over another group of people is irrelevent to whether they are free software licences. Gronky 16:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, give them some time. SLUC is at most 2 month old, and HESSLA doesn't seem to have more than a year. And regarding the statement they make: it is probably one of the most freedom-embracing ever made. After all, it is rather intended so no one can say "you made a program which you allowed to be used to slaughter peaceful protesters" – as with the GPL. I find this a bit disturbing.
Anyway, I do agree with the current phrasing of the paragraph. --MushroomCloud 20:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Copyright grants rights?

The intro has been changed to say that FS licences grant rights in addition to those granted by copyright law. AFAIK, it is incorrect to say that copyright law grants rights. AFAIK, copyright law restricts some things, and doesn't restrict other things. The things it doesn't restricts are not "granted rights", they are just rights that weren't taken away. Can someone explain if I'm wrong? Gronky 21:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. Technically free licences don't "grant rights"; they simply allow one to ignore certain parts of copyright law. In the absence of copyright law you wouldn't need free licences. Chris Cunningham 14:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is in British English

This whole article is in British English. The title should be fixed, but this has to be done by an admin due to some technical limitation in MediaWiki. If you think it is essential for the title and article to agree, then we could ask an admin to change it. Would that be ok with you? Gronky 15:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think it matters. mako (talk•contribs) 16:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok. ...I should clarify that I was addressing User:Thumperward when I said "you". Your opinion is good to hear, but I just wanted to clarify that - in case you're thinking this was a disproportionate response to your edit. Gronky 18:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I think it is silly to use "licence" in the text of this page when every Wikipedia page has "license" at the bottom. --JWSchmidt 18:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Unless there is a good reason to change, the existing style wins. See WP:ENGVAR. GNU Free Documentation License is the official name of the licence and names appear unaltered regardless of the document style, so it is silly to draw any conclusions from the fact it appears on every page. NicM 21:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC).
I can't understand what point you are making about "style". Are you claiming that it somehow makes sense to have a page called License use the spelling "licence" to describe what Wikipedia spells as "license" on every page of the encyclopedia? As far as I can tell, the article was started by using "license". It never should have been changed to use "licence". --JWSchmidt 23:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
The spelling of the name of any particular licence has no impact on this discussion. Names are not changed in dialects of English, so it would be wrong to change them and nobody is suggesting that. The noun is spelled differently in different dialects. The article that was started with this name doesn't exist anymore, the content and focus of the current article are different, and the current article was written in British English. Currently, the title is out of sync with the article, so the title should be fixed. There's no reason to Americanise the article because of a legacy title. Gronky 08:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Several good reasons (the inherent US-ness of the subject, the original dialect used, parity with the current title) have been raised. I had previously taken you at your word when you asserted that the article was originally BrE and dropped it, but now I see that it was you who changed this in the first place. I'm changing this back. Chris Cunningham 08:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
This is a global subject, and the WP:ENGVAR says to "consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub)". This article has never had a stub tag on it, but here's what was on the page before I editted it: [1] (a stub), and here's what was on the page after a string of uninterrupted edits by me: [2] (not a stub). I previously thought I that was only the main contributor to this page *in it's current form*, but now that I check the history, it seems I'm also the first major contributor. So I will again undo the blanket americanisation of what was written in British English, and I hope I can get back to work on the article page instead of the Talk page. Gronky 22:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Rather than participating in a lame edit war, you could take the time to get an admin to move the page title. The contradition is jarring. Next time this article needs edited (and it still neads heavy work) it's probably going back to US if the page title hasn';t changed. Chris Cunningham 08:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I'll get an admin to fix it. Gronky 20:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Regardless of the other arguments for each spelling in this article, you cannot use the fact that the text "GNU Free Documentation License" appears on each Wikipedia page as an argument that Wikipedia uses American English. This is a proper name and appears with this spelling in any dialect, and the MoS makes it clear that there is no set preference for one style or the other. NicM 09:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC).
Use a REDIRECT to fix the title? Lentower 00:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Richard Stallman is the original author of the first, as well as, the most used free software licenses. They are written in American English, and a product of American Culture. Under WP:ENGVAR, this is sufficient to rewrite the article in the American variant of English. The American spelling is also used in most, if not all of the free software licenses. I also agree with the above argument, that "license" should be used, as it is on each WP page. Lentower 00:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
RMS did not write the first free software licence (and he doesn't claim to have). Software freedom is a global issue, and so are free software licences. If this article is moved to "Free software licence", the useful redirects will be created automatically. Gronky 08:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • But... I thought the USA had given us Freedom, Culture, and all the Good Things that start with capital letters!! Now seriously, I think that any UK or US citizen should refrain from giving her opinion on this subject, as per WP:COI. I am neither, so I can give mine, which is that actually I prefer the American spelling :^) However, I understand that WP:ENGVAR should hold, so keep the British spelling (I shudder at the word "licence", but... oh, well). — isilanes (talk|contribs) 09:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Hyphenation seems wrong

Nobody hyphenates "free software licence". A web search I just did showed 2 pages from the top 100 results used a hyphen. I suggest changing it back, but I don't feel strongly about this. Gronky 18:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Good English style suggests that compound adjectives (here "free software" is used as a compound adjective) should be hyphenated. This removes the ambiguity regarding whether "free" modifies "software" or "license". Many native English speakers don't know how to use hyphens properly, unfortunately, but Wikipedia benefits from the additional clarity. —Steven G. Johnson 20:51, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the info! However, "free software" is not an adjective (free) plus a noun (software). Free software is a noun in itself. A piece of stuff that happens to be software does not qualify as "free software" for being free (for example, you do not call freeware "free software"). Something qualifies as "free software" for being free software, which is a more complex definition than a mere adjective applied to a piece of "software". For example, if you live like a drunk loser, you lead a "drunk-loser lifestyle", but if you live like a polar bear, you do not lead a "polar-bear lifestyle", but rather a "polar bear lifestyle". If you write a license that applies to red balloons, you wrote a "red-balloon license", but if you write one that applies to the Republican Party you do not call it "Republican-Party license". — isilanes (talk|contribs) 21:14, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I believe you are mistaken regarding the the guidelines for hyphenating compound modifiers. A compound modifier is simply a phrase of two or more words that are used to modify another noun, as in "free software" modifies "license" or (in your example) "polar bear" modifies "lifestyle". The question to be answered in hyphenation is whether, without the hyphen, there is a significant possibility of ambiguity. If not, the hyphen may be omitted, e.g. "Republican Party platform" is not hyphenated because the open compound "Republican Party" is instantly recognizable (especially when capitalized to indicate it is a proper noun) so there is no likelihood of confusion with a Republican platform on parties, and in any case one does not generally hyphenate proper nouns. On the other hand, in "free software license," because the term "free software" is used in the narrow sense we are referring to only by a relatively small community (relative to all English speakers), there is a significant possibility of confusion regarding whether "free" modifies "software" or "license". Hence a hyphen is a good idea. (Whether "free software" is an open compound, when functioning as a noun phrase, as opposed to a noun "software" modified by an adjective "free" understood with a specific technical meaning, is irrelevant here: the same compound can be open when used as one part of speech and closed/hyphenated when used as another part of speech.) —Steven G. Johnson 16:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
(Oh, and by the way, I would argue against your claim that "free software," when used as a noun phrase, is a compound, i.e. functions as a single unit rather than an adjective-noun combination. Evidence for the latter can be found in the fact that the two words are often split: e.g. it is not hard to find examples of people talking about "free, open-source software" or wanting "software to be free" or "free and non-free software" and so on. Not that this matters for whether it is hyphenated when used as a compound adjective. —Steven G. Johnson 16:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC))
  • Obviously you are more knowledgeable than I am, and your arguments sound reasonable. I bow to them ;^) — isilanes (talk|contribs) 19:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
For reference, here is what the Chicago Manual of Style says about hyphenating compounds when they are used to modify a noun:
7.86 Compound modifiers before or after a noun
When compound modifiers (also called phrasal adjectives) such as open-mouthed or nicotine-free come later in a phrase than the noun they describe, ambiguity is unlikely and the hyphen dispensable (though not incorrect). When such compounds precede a noun, hyphenation usually makes for easier reading. With the exception of proper nouns (such as United States) and compounds formed by an adverb ending in ly plus an adjective (see 7.87), it is never incorrect to hyphenate adjectival compounds before a noun. Hyphenated adjectival compounds that appear in Webster (such as well-read or ill-humored) may be spelled without a hyphen when they follow a noun. (To avoid repeated “either–or” suggestions, the comments in 7.90 generally recommend hyphenation only before a noun.)
—Steven G. Johnson 17:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Free software: FS licences is now the selected article

Just to let you know. The purpose of selecting an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain on the portal for a week or so. The previous selected article was Darwin (operating system), the free OS that underlies the proprietary MacOSX system.

For other interesting free software articles, you can take a look at the archive of PFs selectees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gronky (talk • contribs) 14:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Time goes by, as usual. The new selectee is Global File System, a networked file system with an interesting history of freedom, proprietaryness, and refreedom. --Gronky (talk) 10:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal (2007)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Suggest merging Permissive free software licences with this article. Paalman (talk) 01:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

  • oppose - this article is already quite big and still has topics that should be expanded. --Gronky (talk) 10:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • oppose - I don't understand why those 2 pages should be merged, they are about different topics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Argento3 (talk • contribs) 14:22, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
It's been a month and support for this merge isn't apparent, so I'll remove the tags. --Gronky (talk) 13:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Criticism

I added this section: "Criticism

Free-software licences can be seen as paradoxical, since there are no free-software licences which remove the copyright restrictions of a software unconditionally.

Detractors of free-software licenses argue that true free software is only software which is released to the public domain."

But it was removed with the reason: "a license presupposes copyright law. there is no paradox here."

Can someone explains how is this relevant?

Was it not clear that a licence grant rights conditionally, thereby placing restrictions, which are the opposite of freedom, hence the paradox? 89.139.232.142 (talk) 10:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyright law reserves rights for the copyright holder. A F/OSS license is used to regrant some of those rights to others. It does not add any additional restrictions on top of those that exist due to copyright law. Furthermore: in many locales, it is not possible to release something into the public domain.
The section seems to be your personal opinion. It is uncited and I think that it is uncitable. Please see WP:V and WP:OR. --Karnesky (talk) 14:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I was not talking about restrictions on top of copyright law, but about conditional restrictions or requirements due to use of licenced software. Examples: requirement to attach licence, requirement to release source code, requirement to credit authors, restriction of use in commercial software, and so on. A software that is released under a free-software licence is freer than a copyright work, but is not as free as a work in the public domain. In a sense, this argument is on what falls under the definition of "free", or where to set the criterion for free. A free software is a no pay software, or is it software with no restrictions whatsoever?
While I agree with this criticism, it is not my original opinion. There are detractors to software licences, free and non-free. There was a small symposium about Internet Law in HUJI a few weeks ago, where some panel members debated this perspective. I can't cite authoritative sources, yet. As a software developer who had to use the services of a lawyer in order to use "free" software, I felt the word "free" was somewhat misleading. I'm not trying to overthrow this article, just add a perspective which is important.
Will this section be ok with a "citation needed" tag? 89.139.232.142 (talk) 17:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
No. As an editor, the burden of attribution is already on you. If you can't find citations, I think it is unlikely that others can find them for you. If I thought that that the section was verifiable, I would have marked it as such. If you do find sources to list, consider rewording the section. Labeling this a 'paradox' is a bit biased, I think. --Karnesky (talk) 17:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
How would you have it reworded to remove the bias? 89.139.232.142 (talk) 18:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

BSD Protection

Couldn't the old 4-clause BSD licence be used to stop the GPL from being used, while still allowing use for closed source projects? - 68.228.40.112 (talk) 01:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Error in "Free Software License" ?

This page states: "Code licensed under the BSD licence can be relicensed under the GPL (is "GPL-compatible") _without securing the consent of all original authors_." <my emphasis>

The consent of all copyright holders must be obtained, surely? See Software Freedom Law Center's publication at http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-collaboration.html

82.69.28.59 (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I've discussed this with a lawyer or two and the answers they gave me seem illogical (to me, a layperson). So I don't know which way to swing it, but just a heads up that this mightn't be clear. I'll reword that sentence to be less assertive - if you want to also reword it (or other parts of the article), jump right on in! --Gronky (talk) 08:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

According to the SFLC document, consent only needs to be obtained if the permissive license is to be retained. Re-licensing of work already covered by a permissive license can be done without consent (and is indeed done all the time; Microsoft didn't ask anybody when they appropriated the BSD TCP stack and relicensed it as part of Windows.) I'm skeptical that it even needs to be done in the cases the SFLC describes, as that sounds more like a GPL-induced requirement than one pertaining to permissive licenses, which are far less restrictive. --Sapphic (talk) 02:13, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Article rename (2009)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Shouldn't the article name be changed to "Free software license", instead of licence? CoolingGibbon (talk) 12:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

British vs. American spelling. See WP:SPELLING. —Steven G. Johnson (talk) 02:42, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

"Special feature"

"As a special feature, if GPL code is used but not shared or sold, the code is not required to be made available and any changes may remain private."

That's not a special feature, that's patently obvious. There would be no way for the GPL to legitimately require changes to be publicised if the person making them had no intention of sharing anything otherwise - unless I horribly misunderstand this sentence (in which case, it should probably be changed anyway) this is referring to personal, private use, yes? I'm going to go ahead and remove the "As a special feature" because I think that's pretty misleading. Leushenko (talk) 13:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 1

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. WP:SNOW and WP:ENGVAR: we keep the article at the British spelling if that is where it started. No point in continuing this discussion. Ucucha 12:00, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Free software licence → Free software license — Mistake in the article's name — Neustradamus (✉) 17:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

You can see on official website of license and license page on wikipedia — Neustradamus (✉) 21:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
No, both "licence" and "license" are valid and equally acceptable spellings of the noun. Some users of certain varieties of English prefer one spelling over the other, but, as a matter of policy on Wikipedia, that is not a good enough reason to change the spelling in an article. Once an article is written in one variety of English, it stays that way, per Wikipedia's WP:ENGVAR, and nobody can change it. Have you read WP:ENGVAR? Your reversion is against Wikipedia policy.   Please do not revert the article again.   91.187.66.243 (talk) 22:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
The problem is that all licenses is a license, no licence (english license). So I will wait a debate with other people about this problem — Neustradamus (✉) 22:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Look, you've already brought this to WP:AN and been rebuffed there, and now you seem to be ignoring Rodhullandemu's and my advice to heed WP:ENGVAR and WP:RETAIN. There simply isn't a debate here about the Wikipedia policy. Maybe I have misunderstood what you meant. Your reply is not clear at all because of its poor English — I don't know if English is your first language, but it would help if you could rewrite it more clearly in grammatically correct English. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 23:04, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Remark : you reverted good license pages you can see — Neustradamus (✉) 23:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I cannot understand your reply. What do you mean? 91.187.66.243 (talk) 23:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
You can see the license pages and see the real name of licenses, after your revert it is not good, before a revert always see the change of the person and think why the person change.
you can see here for examples : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_licenses ... — Neustradamus (✉) 23:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I still cannot understand you. Your reply is written in very poor English, and it doesn't make sense to me. Please could you try again? 91.187.66.243 (talk) 00:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
What are the names of license ? and on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license I see : "A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage) is a legal instrument (by way of contract law) governing the usage or redistribution of software." — Neustradamus (✉) 00:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I still do not understand your reply. I really don't think your English is good enough to be editing English Wikipedia. Why don't you edit the Wikipedia in your own language? 91.187.66.243 (talk) 00:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
It is clear for me : "A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage) is a legal instrument (by way of contract law) governing the usage or redistribution of software" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license — Neustradamus (✉) 00:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Neustradamus, are you trying to point out that there is an inconsistency in the way software articles are titled? If you look at Category:Software licenses and its sub-categories there are only three, this one, Permissive free software licence and European Union Public Licence, that use licence while all the others use license. Of course that does not mean that this one or the other two need changing. As Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Retaining the existing variety point out this article should stay the way it is. Neustradamus, there are other examples of this sort of thing. If you look at Category:Color most are color but there are a few that are colour. Category:Labor has an even great mix of labour and labor. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 00:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose There is no problem or mistake, the article happens to use the British English variation of the word. As has been pointed out by RodHull and the anon. editor above, there are precedents in place for leaving well enough alone. Kindly do so. Someoneanother 23:14, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment Free software license already redirects to the current title, Free software licence, so there should be no problem for people finding this article, whatever spelling they are comfortable with. 80.135.28.86 (talk) 01:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose This issue has nothing to do with the ability of people to find the article they are looking for. as pointed out, Free software licence and Free software license point to the same place. WP:ENGVAR notes that the existing variety should be retained unless there are strong regional / national ties to the topic.--Labattblueboy (talk) 12:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose There doesn't appear to be any specific Brit english words in here other than the spelling for "licence". I understand Wiki has no preference whether it's british english or american english. It's a global concept, so just leave it be. Naluboutes,NalubotesAeria Gloris,Aeria Gloris 13:51, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose per WP:ENGVAR. Someone snowball close this request please. – ukexpat (talk) 16:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose It is not a mistake; it's just different from what you expect. Both are valid though, and should not be changed without good reason. Reach Out to the Truth 21:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
For the links to license articles ? the better solution is the good license name no ? — Neustradamus (✉) 19:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
"Free software license" is not the name of any specific license. Neither is "Free software licence". If we were referring to a specific license then we refer to it by the correct name, but that's not the case here because it's not the name of a specific license. This rename request has nothing to do with names or links to other licenses. It's about the name of this page .Reach Out to the Truth 21:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Ok but if I edit pages which have not the good license name (in the text) ? it is good or not ? — Neustradamus (✉) 22:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
There is a very clear explanation in WP:ENGVAR. It should answer your question. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 22:48, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Neustradamus do not change the spelling in any article just because you think it is wrong. It is obvious that English is not your first language and your continued efforts to try and change licence to license is disruptive. You have already been blocked once and to continue in this way will only lead to longer blocks. It's time to accept that consensus is against you and drop the matter. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 09:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Remarks on 'licence/license' spelling controversy

Now I am very sorry to have missed the discussion above, but I want to at least remark a few things that crossed my mind while reading the above discussion, and that I saw while digging through history.

Point 1: The original title and spelling.

- The original spelling variant was 'license'. In fact, the first time 'licence' was used was in this edit of May 29,2006, when the article was already well-established. If anyone, the editors who edited the article using 'licence' from that point on, should be accused of violating WP:ENGVAR.

Point 2: Change of spelling in an already established article and subsequent requested move.

- From this point on, editor Gronky significantly expanded and improved the article, using the English variant 'licence' at all times. Now improving and expanding Wikipedia articles is not something I object to, but then the inevitable happens: at May 3rd, 2007, Gronky remarks that This whole article is in British English. The title should be fixed [...].. How surprising that the article is in British English, given that he hasn't been adding anything except for the British English spelling variant.

- In the ensuing discussion, there are few (if any) supporters for moving the article to 'licence' but Gronky remarks that since he is the article's first major editor, he has the right to choose the spelling. But I disagree here. Even while he made edits before, the spelling variant 'licence' did not appear up to May 29th, 2006 at which time this article was already well-established. And in any case, no one owns this article, anyways.

Point 3: There are no free software licences/licenses which use 'licence'.

- There are many different free software licenses, and none, I repeat, NONE of them, use the spelling variant 'licence'. If this article describes free software licenses, why would it use a spelling that differs from the spelling used by any of the free software licenses it describes?

Wrong. European Union Public Licence - 193.152.199.59 (talk) 18:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Conclusion:

While I admit that the last move discussion has obviously ended with a strong consensus, I believe the consensus was reached based on a couple of unjustified assumptions made by the commenters. In addition, it was reached by assuming previous consensus on changing the page title into the current variant, while (1) consensus never really existed and (2) the lack of opposition seems based on the flawed assumption that the British English spelling had been the standard throughout the history of the article. Andreas Willow (talk) 14:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I think there is a valid point here: nearly all free software licenses (with rare exceptions like European Union Public Licence), and all of the most popular ones (GPL, BSD, MPL, X11, ...) use the US spelling. Given that the sources on this subject exhibit such a strong spelling preference, it is the context of the article subject that should determine spelling, not the history of what editors happened to work on this article — Steven G. Johnson (talk) 23:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

OSI-approved "open source" licences section

The FSF maintain the definition of "free software" and state that it is not the same as "open source". So, arguably, an "open source" licences section shouldn't be on a "free software licences" page at all. If OSI-approved "open source" licences are to be mentioned, shouldn't there, at the very least, be some explanation that they are not the same as free software licences? edam (talk) 14:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Image of relicensing options

I've made an image showing relicensing paths, which we might like to (eventually) include in the article. I'd really like it to be checked for accuracy, and for any other comments.

You might like to comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Software/Free Software#Relicensing options among free software (or just comment here if you prefer). --h2g2bob (talk) 23:38, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Open source licence missing from lead

The lead should mention Open source licence and how they relate to the article, and in what way they differ. Belorn (talk) 18:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 2

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: uncontested move. The opposition to the change in spelling was immediate last time, so I think a week is long enough to judge new consensus. DrKiernan (talk) 20:09, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Free software licensing → Free software licence – The move to Free software licensing was contrary to other similar articles (Open-source license, Proprietary software, Creative Commons license, Broadcast license and so on). licensing is the act of using an license, and this article is not about that act but about the licenses themselves. The spelling variant of licence vs license was discussed previous on this talk, and any change would require reopening that discussion first before doing such move. Belorn (talk) 13:20, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Debian

The Debian section needs an initial sentence to establish why the license requirements of the Debian project are notable (e.g. could appeal to Debian's age, importance as a Linux distribution, etc., preferably with citations). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atomice (talk • contribs) 11:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 3

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Nathan Johnson (talk) 17:41, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


Free software license → Free software licence – Using "licence" (with "c") was discussed and agreed here: Talk:Free-software license/Archive 1#Requested move 1. I don't know how the article later got moved to "license" (with "s"). A broken link in the article also indicates that the spelling in the article was changed with an unchecked search&replace, which I've undone now by hand. Gronky (talk) 19:15, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Oppose. The version of the article from 2001 uses license. Vegaswikian1 (talk) 20:18, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The license spelling seems to be where this article has been most despite numerous page moves. Zarcadia (talk) 20:33, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Every year or two someone changes it to license because they think there's a spelling mistake, or because they think it should be the same as GNU General Public License. Changing it back isn't an urgent priority, so it stays that way for a while each time, but repeatedly changing it to license doesn't make it right. Gronky (talk) 21:02, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose most occurrences of the word in this article were "license(s)" before this edit. Peter James (talk) 22:50, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment. This is sort of a Brit/US issue,[3][4] except that s can be used in both. Apteva (talk) 23:45, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
    • "except that s can be used in both" only in names of specific licences, and maybe in very old books. The search links on those pages don't link to searches for different varieties of the language so it isn't clear how accurate they are - the first page of "licence" search lists 6 books from UK publishers, 3 from US and 1 international, for "license" 9 out of 10 on the first page are from the US and 1 from a US/UK publisher. Peter James (talk) 23:59, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:ENGVAR/WP:RETAIN. It was stable at the American license spelling 2001–2006, then jumped around some. No case has been made for the British w.r.t. these guidelines; the previous linked RM was obviously a mistake, as one can tell by looking at the actual history and by reading the post-close comments that point that out. Furthermore, the current nominator seems to have been the same who caused most of the previous churn, so it seems disingenuous of him to complain that "the spelling in the article was changed with an unchecked search&replace" and "Every year or two someone changes it to license because they think there's a spelling mistake, or because..." Dicklyon (talk) 03:27, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Richard Stallman is American -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 07:53, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
    • If the original English spelling is preferred, License should be moved to Licence. Peter James (talk) 16:16, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
      • Stallman is not an Englishman, so no Englishman coined this term. And the original spelling is licentia, a corruption borrowed from the French. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 04:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the above IP (who is not me). The terminology is Stallman's, and he has always spelled it the American way. Moreover, the article started with that spelling and has spent most of its time using that spelling. There's no proper argument for adopting a derivative British spelling. 168.12.253.66 (talk) 14:47, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Poor sentence?

The article contains the sentence:

When it comes to copyleft software licenses, they are not inherently compatible with other copyleft licenses, even the GPLv2 is, by itself, not compatible with the GPLv3.

That sentence seems badly phrased – it is trying to convey that GLPv3 code cannot be used in a GLPv2 project. Do others agree that the sentence needs reworking? Best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 09:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

this sentence tries to explain that copyleft licenses are in general not compatible with each other... only if special care is taken that they are compatible. As surprising example the gpl was chosen: even the GPLv2 is not comaptible with the GPLv3 (only with the upgrade clause which is optional). Proposals for an alternative text? Shaddim (talk) 10:10, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
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