FSFE’s Fiduciary License Agreement Is No Panacea

Submitted by Dolores Parker 2007-02-13 Open Source 11 Comments

This week FSF Europe announced the release of its Fiduciary License Agreement, a form of copyright assignment in which a free software project can place its collective copyright under the control of a single organization or trustee. The agreement is designed to reduce the problems in managing copyrights in large projects, and to reconcile differences in copyright worldwide. However, exactly how important, useful, or necessary the FLA is depends upon whom you talk to in the free software community. To some extent, FSFE even seems to be operating contrary to the advice of the original Free Software Foundation in the US.

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11 Comments

2007-02-13 4:09 pm

frik85

2007-02-13 4:26 pm

ciaran
That article contains mistakes. Two things that should be clarified are that FSFE’s FTF _does_ have lawyers, and lawyers did work on this draft of the FLA.

I’m not sure how the mistakes were made, but these things happen.

2007-02-13 4:38 pm

sbergman27
The article was reporting what Moglen said.

I found his statement interesting:

“””

Moglen’s greatest concern is “my impression that the Freedom Task Force of FSF Europe, which is not led by any lawyers and which does not have any lawyers, may begin to promote [the FLA] as a do-it-yourself legal technology — and it isn’t.”

“””

Heaven forbid that mere mortals accomplish anything without purchasing the services of an attorney.

It seems that even Friend Eben hangs together with his colleagues on that front.

2007-02-13 5:44 pm

Morin
> Heaven forbid that mere mortals accomplish anything without

> purchasing the services of an attorney.

I could say the same about people with absolutely no programming experience who mess with business-critical scripts because “programming isn’t that hard”… and I’m not even in business yet

EDIT: So, even with a laywer’s natural negative aura, I think Moglen has a point here.

Edited 2007-02-13 17:46

2007-02-13 6:06 pm

sbergman27
“””

I could say the same about people with absolutely no programming experience who mess with business-critical scripts because “programming isn’t that hard”… and I’m not even in business yet

“””

But in the computing world we do have applications that make some things easy for nonprogrammers.

Normal mortals *can* accomplish things without hiring a programmer.

Would Eben be against the legal equivalent of Visicalc, I wonder?

Another analogy: Self serve gasoline pumps.

I remember back when they were a new thing. There were plenty of statements along the lines of “People can’t fill their own gas tanks! They’ll blow themselves up!”

Didn’t happen. (Well… not *much* anyway.)

2007-02-13 6:46 pm

b3timmons
Heaven forbid that mere mortals accomplish anything without purchasing the services of an attorney.

It seems that even Friend Eben hangs together with his colleagues on that front.

Why must your habit of smearing free software leaders depend on fallacies or ignorance?

What you hope people do not realize is that Moglen’s point in your quote is that the FLA is not DIY legal technology and should not be promoted as such. His referral to DIY legal technology presupposes his belief in its possible existence. Therefore, he is implicitly recognizing that mere mortals may not rely on lawyers, thus contradicting your insult.

Of course, you are also relying on guilt by association here. Sadly, misconceptions will multiply thanks to not merely poor reasoning, but poor reasoning used to attack people who strive to preserve the freedom of software, including that which enabled the internet. You know, the internet that you were so idealistic about on LWN recently? Regain your conviction, man!

Edited 2007-02-13 19:00

2007-02-13 6:58 pm

sbergman27
“””

His referral to DIY legal technology presupposes his belief in its possible existence. Therefore, he is implicitly recognizing that mere mortals may not rely on lawyers, thus contradicting your insult.

“””

It was not an insult. Just an observation.

Anyway, you’re reaching.

Then again, I would never expect you, b3timmons, to allow a criticism, of any sort, of Eben, Richard, the FSF, or the GPLv3 to go without some sort of retort, however feeble.

Edited 2007-02-13 19:01

2007-02-13 7:58 pm

b3timmons
If exposing in your “observation” a contradiction and guilt by association fallacy is reaching and feeble, then what standard of truth do you suggest for these discussions?

2007-02-14 1:06 pm

SReilly
One that does not involve an attempt at belittling a fellow FOSS believer/contributor’s opinion on the matter at hand in a poor attempt at oneupsmanship for whatever self deluding reason.

Pretty pathetic.

[Edit: Stupid typo! Vanity will always be my favorite sin.]

Edited 2007-02-14 13:09

2007-02-13 9:55 pm

B. Janssen
sbergman27: Heaven forbid that mere mortals accomplish anything without purchasing the services of an attorney.

The quote you picked is rather unusual for Eben Moglen, who usually refrains from assumptions. Still, Moglen probably wrote/said that and like it has been said — before your post — the FTF has lawyers and the FSFE and the FTF are not marketing the FLA as a DIY legal document. TFA quotes Shane M. Coughlan saying exactly that. It would have been Mr. Byfields job to point out this inconsistency, unfortunatly he didn’t.

Still, it leaves the question what your statement has to do with a mistake made by Eben Moglen? Moglen is not blasting non-attorneys, he is (mistankenly) concerned about a specific deployment of the FLA document.

2007-02-13 10:32 pm

b3timmons
From TFA:

Asked to comment about Moglen’s position, Coughlan acknowledges that “if people need legal advice they should consult a lawyer.” However, in the next sentence, he says, “If people are confident that they already know what they require” then they have the option of using the FLA.

Note that Coughlan qualifies the need for legal help here. Moreover, Moglen’s concern is that they may begin to promote the FLA as DIY, not that they are presently doing it. Since what is at stake is not merely the moral rights of any arbitrary software project but possibly nasty precedents, I would prefer that Moglen be too concerned rather than not enough. If anything, his concern seems understated, IMHO.

So is there any inconsistency other than what ciaran already pointed out?

Edited 2007-02-13 22:42