Debian rejects APSL?
Andrew Greenberg
werdna at mucow.com
Tue Jun 14 19:09:13 UTC 2005
I am a lawyer, but you may not rely upon the following as advice,
because these issues simply cannot be resolved in a vacuum. Only in
particular cases can advice such advice be meaningful, and in
general, it is rarely worth more than you have paid for it. This is
particularly so when the advice is free.
Copyright in works of authorship vest upon creation in the author,
except when the work is a work-made-for-hire (don't ask), in which
case it vests in the person who commissioned the work. Nothing more
is necessary to create a copyright than the fixation of the work.
More is necessary to adequately protect it.
The copyright may be dedicated to the public domain, in which case,
no person holds exclusive rights in or to the work. There is no
meaningful impediment to the use of public domain works, although it
is useful to have evidence that the work has been so designated.
A notice actually given can suffice to constitute an abandonment or
dedication, but must be somewhere in a writing signed by the owner to
be effective. Note that this is an eggs-in-baskets issue -- each
person must decide for himself whether they are willing to rely on
the evidence they have. For example, what proof do you have that a
given piece of source code REALLY was licensed under GPL, simply
because you have a copy of the source code with text that says so?
In other words, there isn't anything terribly special about dedicated
works that makes them more or less "touchable" than any other code,
open or proprietary, however licensed. There are always issues that
distinguish these three categories of works, but nothing that usually
is a show-stopper.
So, in response, neither silence nor noise matters in deciding
whether to use code. You need to make sure (for sufficiently large
values of sure, determined on an indvidual basis based on
circumstances and needs of the parties) that you have rights that
flow from its owner, or its abandonment thereby, however you receive
that information.
To credit Jimmie, I sense he is saying he wouldn't "touch" an
undocumented piece of code without knowing its origin and by what
rights it is being used. For sufficiently large values of sure,
including many small ones, I agree. The lack of documentation in the
code, however, does not preclude sufficient amounts of certainty,
even for very large values of sure. On the other hand, the presence
of documentation in the code, does not grant sufficient amounts of
certainty, even for modestly small values of sure.
On Jun 14, 2005, at 12:37 PM, Jimmie Houchin wrote:
> Chris Muller wrote:
> >>No one will touch code without a copyright declaration.
> >
> > ...
> >
> >>Code without copyright no one will *touch*.
> >
> >
> > A copyright declaration increases the restrictions on a piece of
> code; wouldn't
> > no copyright be less-restrictive? What do you mean by "touch"?
> >
> > I don't understand this..
>
> IANAL but... :)
>
> Copyright exists regardless of declaration.
> Declaration of copyright simply makes ownership and rights
> understood and known by all parties.
>
> Copyright and "copyrights" are distinct and separate from licensing
> rights and obligations.
>
> Copyright asserts ownership of creation.
> Licensing asserts rights of what can and cannot be done with said
> creation by non-owners of said creation.
>
> As others stated the best route IMO is simply to use MIT/BSD which
> declare both copyrights and licensed rights in a very well
> understood way by individuals and business.
>
> An individual may also place their works in the public domain.
> But this too must be done in a declarative manner. Once in the
> public domain, the creation may be used by anyone for any purpose.
>
> Silence, is a very dangerous area to enter into with regard to
> copyrights and licensing.
>
> Declarations of intent are much better.
>
> A business should not touch, use, reuse, distribute, etc. items
> they have no documentation of rights for. Leaves far too much room
> for liability.
>
> My 2+cents. :)
>
> Jimmie
>
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