> I find this interesting- wasn't it you (beside Martin) telling us that Google > Earth can't be used anymore for scenery models due to legal issues?
Yes. The Google Maps/Google Earth license is not compatible with the GPL. If you are interested in this OpenStreetMap has a good discussion of the legal problems with the use of Google Maps imagery. That is one of the rare instances where we have been able, as a community, to figure out what we can or can't do legally and apply the reasoning consistently. There is a big distinction with the trademark issue here and the copyright issue presented with FlightProSim. With the trademark issue, you have a whole spectrum of opinions but none of the opinions are geared toward working to a final solution. There's a general "we should avoid litigation" vibe here, but part of avoiding litigation is being smart and understanding our rights as software developers. It's quite frustrating because I don't think we are consistently achieving being smart and understanding our rights as a community, and we have been blundering along as a result. > What's so bad about discussing legal issues? Nothing, except when the discussion breaks down because no one really knows what OUR rights are. We need to be working toward achieving concrete solutions on these problems, figuring out how we handle these issues as a community when they arise, and also working to minimize the threat of litigation while still maximizing the usefulness and realism of our program. I've made proposals in the past based on my understanding of copyright law and the Lanham Act. For instance, there is no reason why we shouldn't have a prominent disclaimer saying FlightGear is not associated or endorsed by any companies possibly represented in the program, either in the base distribution or through add-ons. There is no reason why there is no umbrella copyright notice anywhere within the executable file, except some people seem to think there is no copyright on GPL software - but then what does the GPL protect? > Repainting liveries is a big grey zone- it always have been, and unless the > laws will change, it will. So why not make it easier on ourselves if someone whose livery is in our database takes umbrage? I'm just very frustrated, I'm still going to use the software, I'm probably still going to contribute to the scenery database because that is a very small pool of developers all of whom seem to understand what the legal limits are in that area, but I've got better things to do than to not get anywhere arguing about the law on this list. Cheers John ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Software Download: Index, Search & Analyze Logs and other IT data in Real-Time with Splunk. Collect, index and harness all the fast moving IT data generated by your applications, servers and devices whether physical, virtual or in the cloud. Deliver compliance at lower cost and gain new business insights. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
