Lovely Public Community License (LPCL)

[osuf oboys]

I'll try to rephrase the version so that things should be clearer without clarifications. Any tips? I will make the distinction between copyright and trademark clearer and that there are no restrictions on the former.

Could you tell me what will happen when this occurs:
Project Foo under LPCL -> forked as Project FooBar under GPL -> Project FooBar is renamed to Project Foo.
Is this actually prevented by the LPCL or is that outside the scope of the license?

I would like to hear how you interpret it.

[bartbes]

Well, basically it works exactly the same as when someone creates a new project with the same name. You can't do anything about that in the license (as it isn't applied to the GPL version in your example). Maybe you can try something with trademark, but I guess that's just.. bad luck.

[Robin]

Well, basically it works exactly the same as when someone creates a new project with the same name. You can't do anything about that in the license (as it isn't applied to the GPL version in your example). Maybe you can try something with trademark, but I guess that's just.. bad luck.

But wouldn't that defeat the whole point of the license? Because the license is so permissive, the community has only the power to vote which derived projects are "official" and may use the original name. Is it still useful if a simple renaming tactic makes this license practically Public Domain with some powerless bureaucracy attached to it?

[osuf oboys]

Well, basically it works exactly the same as when someone creates a new project with the same name. You can't do anything about that in the license (as it isn't applied to the GPL version in your example). Maybe you can try something with trademark, but I guess that's just.. bad luck.

That's not how I understand it. Even if you release a project under zlib, you retain the trademark rights (to some extent even if you do not state any such rights) and may hold such a project for trademark infringement. These issues certainly needs to be stated clearer in LPCL.

How I want it to work and what I believe LPCL indicates is that noone has the right to use the name of the project unless permitted by the holders. LPCL says that you can use the name if you make a derivative of the product and state that it is a derivative. You can make Foo Bar a version of Foo, however, by taking an arbitrary version of Foo and edit it so that it is like Foo Bar, call it a new version of Foo, a derivative of the old version, and add the required clauses about marking derivatives to the license of the new version. The community does, after this, possess the right to force it to be named something other than Foo.

[Robin]

I read CAMERA's Community File (which I consider the de facto standard for LPCL community files) more closely, and found some details I though were odd.

1. A valid vote is any post in this thread made by a member of
   the LPCL development team which
2. contains "yes." or "no.", but not both, as a subword of any
   capitalization(1),
3. does not have any other valid vote cast by the same member of
   the same(2) or a newer time,

• Shouldn't (1) be "as a subword or any capitalization"?
• Why no capitalization?
• And lastly, I believe (2) causes a paradox (or at least an infinite loop) if two votes are made at the same time by the same member:
  1. Check validness of post#1
  2. posted at the same time as post#2
  3. Is post#2 valid? (If so, post#1 is not.)
  4. Check validness of post#2
  5. posted at the same time as post#1
  6. Is post#1 valid? (If so, post#2 is not.)
  7. Check validness of post#1
  8. posted at the same time as post#2
  9. Is post#2 valid? (If so, post#1 is not.)
  10. (etc...)
  I know the way out is that one should be considered valid and the other not (it does not matter which, since they're the same anyway), but the file does not specify that.

I propose changing it to:

• A valid vote is any post in this thread made by a member of
  the LPCL development team which
• contains "yes." or "no.", but not both or as a subword,
• does not have any other valid vote cast by the same member of
  a newer time,

(...)

• If two valid votes exist by the same member of the same timestamp, one of them will be declared unvalid.

[bartbes]

(1)=Means you can write: Yes, yes, YES, yEs, yeS, yES (or any other, same goes for no)
(2)=Well, since you can't really cast another vote at the same time.. (unless they are in one post, but that makes the post invalid)

EDIT: Oh.. almost forgot, you can do anything with the community file for your project.

[Robin]

(1)=Means you can write: Yes, yes, YES, yEs, yeS, yES (or any other, same goes for no)

Ow . I see. I thought it meant something completely different. My bad.

(2)=Well, since you can't really cast another vote at the same time.. (unless they are in one post, but that makes the post invalid)

Yes, I thought so to, but then I remembered that sometimes, an (accidental) double click on "Submit" causes the post to be listed twice, with the same time stamp. I'm not sure whether phpBB has this problem, though.

[bartbes]

Well, if you do double-post that way, the post contain the same message, so that shouldn't be a problem either.

[Robin]

Well, if you do double-post that way, the post contain the same message, so that shouldn't be a problem either.

Not really, it's just that the original file is ambiguous on that point. But that would be only be a problem for machines, which get stuck in an infinite loop, trying to determine which post is valid (see my earlier post).

[bartbes]

You're calling us machines now?