Yes at last some sense about copyright ; one of 3 major topics that are stifling QL viability.
If David Gilham is willing to release his work as freeware & he and others honesty believe and with reasonable justification i.e. emails, or letters or well recalled conversations that Freddie Vaccha has also agreed that the work (specifically perfection and related support programmes) to which he (FV) actually holds intellectual rights and has been assigned as freeware then this "betatest" version may also be passed on as freeware. If the holders of this version are still concerned about their responsibility to FV and cannot contact him all they need is the agreement of the individual or group (e.g. Quanta) to whom the software is released that the recipient or group will assume responsibility for any and all individually or collectively, financial compensation to the intellectual property holder that might arise out of any putative loss of profits to the copyright holder as a result of the release. Dont forget that copyright is basically about ideas as money which depends on the existence of a market. How many copies of Perfection have you sold in the last 5 years, DP, Roy or Jochem or Darren or D&D or DJPD or Quanta ??????? My estimate for profits for perfection sales for 2003 to 2004 is ?000000.00p I have the idea that no one sold it since digital precision stopped trading in 1993 or there abouts and there has been no commercial effort by the copyright holders since DP stopped trading to sell DP programmes, or in any other way to assert copyright, so in any practical sense rights to costly financial compensation have been forfeit as a result of no commercial loss through the personal choice of the copyright holders especially as they have indicated their wilingness to release this programme as freeware, presumably in recognition of the poor market 10+ years ago and profits already realised. Copyright laws exist to protect the developers ( and their assignees) intellectual rights to a profit. Where a theoretical market exists without a possibility of a current commercial profit but where profits have been milked to satisfaction in the past copyright holders have a logical responsibility to the market to release their grip on profits to allow the market to redevelop into a position where they might again realise aspirations of intellectual copyright financially. Simply put they have a legal and moral obligation to their customers if they continue in business. If they do not continue in business they have no obligation to their previous customers but as they are no longer in business they have no legal, commercial or moral right to assert ownership of material where any commercial or any other market no longer exists. Basically same as if you are dead in the UK. Thoughts for the day Duncan -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Wolfgang Lenerz Sent: 08 October 2004 17:53 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [ql-users] Perfection: my take on it On 8 Oct 2004 at 9:44, David Gilham wrote: > (...) >. For what its worth Perfection has not been released as > freeware or public domain and I would need permission from Freddy Vaccha > to relase the binary let alone the sources to the general QL community. Hmm, Darren stated: "Freddy gave permission for the original version to be released, ie. the one he created". If that's so, and if YOU agree to do the same with the modifications you've made, there shoudln't be ny problem to release your version! I don't know whther FV also released the sources (Darren?) but at least you could release the compiled version! Wolfgang ---------------------------------------- www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.quanta.org.uk/mailing.htm _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.quanta.org.uk/mailing.htm
