Rights; yours, mine, and ours. 

                 Linux/GNU/unix generally	

cLIeNUX is an assemblage of works by various individuals, groups and
organizations. These various authors release thier works to the the public
under various terms of release of copyrights. Very few items in cLIeNUX
are totally unencumbered or plain public domain. The preponderance of
cLIeNUX Core and most of it's most crucial and major components are
released under the terms of the GNU General Public License or the GNU
Library General Public License, GPL and LGPL in this / directory. These
licenses were created by Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU Project and
the Free Software Foundation, and the licenses themselves are copyrighted
in the name of the Free Software Foundation.

The Linux kernel that runs everything in cLIeNUX was released to the
public by Linus Torvalds using the terms of the GPL. His comments on the
matter are included as a preamble to /GPL. Most user-space commands in
cLIeNUX Core are also released under the terms of the GPL or very similar
terms, by various authors including the GNU Project.

From a from-bootup perspective, rather than historically, the next most
crucial work in cLIeNUX is libc, the "C" linking library. Almost all
user-space programs in cLIeNUX, and the Linux world in general, are linked
to "libc" for pre-compiled utility subroutines like ascii-to-integer
conversion, square roots, process memory allocation maintenance routines,
network socket manipulations and many other things that lend themselves to
a standard routine library such as the ANSI C standard library
specification, which is implemented in "Linux libc", which is based on the
GNU C library. Linux libc is released in accordance with the terms of the
GNU LGPL. This license was created so that subroutine libraries that are
normally linked to arbitrary programs do not effect the redistribution of
those programs. When a program is linked to a library, a single program is
created, usually temporarily in the case of dynamic linking. The LGPL was
created so that authors of programs that aren't libraries can link to
libraries without being required to assume the same release terms as the
library.

In general, although verbose, the GPL and LGPL are reasonable and
intuitive. If you didn't write something, you not only don't have the
right to claim you did, which you never do, but under the GNU-style
licenses, you don't have the right to obscure someone else's work by
failing to redistribute the sourcecode for it. 


                            cLIeNUX

cLIeNUX doesn't actually contain sourcecode for things that are widely
available otherwise. cLIeNUX only supplies sourcecode for widely available
GPL'ed works in cases where they have been materially modified for
cLIeNUX. This is simply a matter of not wasting bandwidth and other
resources, mine in particular being relatively limited, and satisfies the
pertinent licenses, which have clauses for such situations.

cLIeNUX now contains a substantial amount of work I did specifically for,
and which is original to, cLIeNUX. Much of that work is not released as
per the GPL or LPGL, but rather terms like the following (from "see C",
/help/see/C.0.html)...

   RIGHTS
   Copyright 1999 Richard Allen Hohensee
   This file is released for redistribution only as part of an entire
   intact cLIeNUX Core.

This release is substantially more encumbering that GPL-style licenses.
Works released under terms such as these are scattered throughout cLIeNUX
user-space. The point of this type of licensing is to preserve cLIeNUX as
a distinct and coherent work, and as a distinct economic entity. However,
this license does not impinge on other works in cLIeNUX by other authors.
There is no overall "cLIeNUX license". However, this is the most
restrictive license in cLIeNUX, and thus defines what you can do with
cLIeNUX as a whole, without "parting it out", so to speak. Modifications
to existing works are of course included in cLIeNUX under the release
terms of the original works, as in the case of the cLIeNUX variants of the
Linux kernel, GNU Bash, GNU ed, XPaint and so on. (These modifications are
mostly minor.) 

There are also some contributions specific to cLIeNUX from others, but the
release terms of such items recieved and included so far are
non-problematic. C-Kermit and other major and minor public works in
cLIeNUX Core and the X Window System in cLIeNUX XCORE have licenses
similar to or less encumbering than the GPL.

cLIeNUX is intended to serve as a basis for a membership model of
obtaining modest revenue directly from open source works, as opposed to
offering and charging for warranties on such works, or for "the cost of
copying" such works. (cLIeNUX has no guarantees what so ever.) cLIeNUX is
intended to make this possible while keeping the sourcecode available to
the user, and for compensating authors of such works, while making a
profit on the process. Because cLIeNUX is composed largely of
independantly licensed works, membership fees, or any other fees, are not
required to download and use cLIeNUX. Other Linux distributors can even
redistribute cLIeNUX Core, but *only in it's entirety*. Otherwise you can
go through it yourself and remove and not redistribute everything licensed
like the "see C" example above.

It has been pointed out to me that users of cLIeNUX works with release
terms like `see C' cannot modify them and freely redistribute them, even
with proper authorship credit. I'm not entirely happy about that myself,
but that is what is required for a distinct entity. Modifications of
cLIeNUX works are of course strongly solicited as submissions to cLIeNUX.

I can't reasonably expect other distributors to look at cLIeNUX and say,
for example, "oh, we can't have a `man C' because that KleeNUKES thing
does". I do expect your `man C' to be substantively different from mine,
and I do recommend proper authorship credit in cases of mere ideas.

Rick Hohensee
June 2000
rick@clienux.com

(I pronounce cLIeNUX with vowel sounds as in "fly bucks".)
