Re: Is admin/unidata/copyright.html a free software license?

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Monday, August 21, 2023 at 10:49 PM
> From: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> To: "Ulrich Mueller" <ulm@gentoo.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Is admin/unidata/copyright.html a free software license?
>
>
>
> > Sent: Monday, August 21, 2023 at 10:42 PM
> > From: "Ulrich Mueller" <ulm@gentoo.org>
> > To: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > Subject: Is admin/unidata/copyright.html a free software license?
> >
> > [I'd have expected a previous discussion on this, but I failed to find
> > one in the archives of this mailing list. Sorry if this is a duplicate.]
> >
> > File admin/unidata/copyright.html (also at [1]) contains the "Unicode
> > Terms of Use" which say in section H.2:

Look here,

https://www.unicode.org/license.txt

> > | Unicode, Inc. shall have the right to modify this Agreement at any
> > | time by posting it to this website.
> >
> > This allows the copyright holder to unilaterally revoke the freedoms,
> > which I believe fails the free software definition [2]:
> >
> > "In order for these freedoms to be real, they must be permanent and
> > irrevocable as long as you do nothing wrong; if the developer of the
> > software has the power to revoke the license, or retroactively add
> > restrictions to its terms, without your doing anything wrong to give
> > cause, the software is not free."
> >
> > IMHO it also fails Debian's "Tentacles of Evil" test [3] which says:
> >
> > "To be free, the license cannot allow even the author to take away the
> > required freedoms."
> >
> > I am also surprised that these lists in admin/unidata/ or, in general,
> > a character set can be copyrightable. (For example, everyone uses ASCII
> > without thinking about copyright of the underlying ANSI X3.4 standard.
> > The same applies to several much larger CJK character sets.)
>
> Correct, they are not covered by a free license.
>
> > [1] https://www.unicode.org/copyright.html
> > [2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en
> > [3] 
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines#debian-legal_tests_for_DFSG_compliance
> >
> >
>
>