Disclaimer: IANAL, IANRMS, and I don't like copyright to start with. On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 01:14:19AM +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > NH>> or X license... People seem to be forgetting that free software > NH>> was meant to free you from needing to consulting lawyers before > NH>> you can see/use some software's code...). > > Huh. You wish. If you are not in GPL/GPL situation, you better go for > some MS-EULAs - at least after you paid them money, you probably would > know what happens out there and won't have to rely on 20 different > opinions from each and every person who touched the code :)
If you write free and GPL-compatible software, you're free from the burden of lawyers. If you want to be a smartass and to try tricks and limitations so that you could take advantage of GPL code in more limited software, against the GPL's explicit purpose, then get a lawyer -- don't complain that the GPL is tricky. . . > NH>> commercial computer game (add levels, add cheats, etc.). This > NH>> might be a violation of some crappy anti-reverse-engineering law > NH>> (DMCA?) but not a copyright violation in the traditional sense. > > DMCA *is* based on copyright and copyright violation laws. That's what 'C' > means there. The DMCA extends copyright. Were the original copyright law strong enough to achieve the purpose, the DMCA would not be needed. We are still talking about at least two separate laws here. > And yes, many game makers, if not all of them, would be not > too happy for you selling patches to their game without their consent. The closest case I know of involves a company that packed some 300 user-created Duke Nukem levels on a CDROM and sold it. The Duke Nukem original company sued them in the US for copyright infringement for publishing a derivative work. The judge ruled that the levels were NOT derivative work but that the company was forbidden from distributing the CDROM anyway because the CD cover art was derivative work of the original Duke Nukem. I used to have a URL to the final verdict, but I can't find it now. It was fun to read because it was clear from the Judge's phrasing that he was rather amused by the idea of the game. In any case, the judge ruled that a "derivative work" has to meet two conditions: it has to be in fixed form, and it has to incorporate substantial parts of the original work. The "fixed form" requirement was interesting but not relevant here (among other things, it said for the first time that a MIDI file can be considered derivative work of the original song, for example.) The other requirement is more interesting and more open to interpretation; in the "gone with the wind" case, the sequel obviously incorporated substantial enough parts from the original book (characters, plot, etc.) Whether the same could be said about MOSIX is really, really fuzzy. An additional point is that since MOSIX is really computer code that relies on loading itself into address space of the original work, MOSIX incorporated Linux in such a fundamental way that description of its API is irrelevant. This is Eben Moglen's (the FSF's lawyer) opinion, and he seems to be doing very well with it, but I am not aware of this point ever being presented in court. > NH>> There's one exception to what I just said, though, and I'm not sure if it > NH>> applies to the GPL (I think it doesn't). If when you, as the end user, got > NH>> the copyrighted work (kernel, book, etc.) agreed never to insert other > NH>> stuff (patches, pages, etc.) into it, then you'll need to abide by that > NH>> agreement. > > Copyright law controls distribution, not usage, AFAIK. If I remember > right, the copyright laws got into usage domain when some smart*** lawyer > learned that when you run the program you create a memory copy of it, and > this can be called copying - ergo distribution. But I may be mistaken on > this. This would be a clear-cut example of fair use. > NH>> any kind of patch you want, but never distributing the result). > NH>> If "private patching" is not forbidden, then someone can > NH>> distributed patches, users are allowed to apply the patches to > NH>> their own copy of the software, and there is no copyright > NH>> violation. > > Again, seems like some people think otherwise. And again, it's too easy to > make any GPL-like license almost completely void - just disassemble the > program into GPL-core and non-GPL "patches" and make whatever tool that > finally assembles it at the destination. This is how law is different from programming. Courts, unlike computers, are not too happy when people try to get around laws by fuzzy definitions. Just like you can't evade income tax by letting your poorer friends receive the money and let you eat the food they buy with it. The court will consider the spirit and not only the letter of the law, the contract or the license. If you try such a trick, I'm sure any court will consider all of your program's parts a single program. If I reckon correctly that was also the problem with MOSIX originally. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
