On Mon, 2012-07-16 at 17:58 -0700, Grant Robertson wrote: > This is a generic answer to all those people who jump in on EVERY question > about open-source licensing and just say, "go see a lawyer": > > SERIOUSLY? I'm just a guy who is thinking about writing some software in a > popular programming language. But before I get started I need to go find a > lawyer who specializes in open-source licensing and pay some serious bucks > just so they can give me what will essentially be a guess as to what would > happen if any of this went to court. SERIOUSLY? REALLY?
Yes seriously. You asked a question about the law. A bunch of programmers are not the people who will have the answer to your question, they'll just have a collection of anecdotes about their own experiences. If you are guy thinking about writing code then be a programmer and write code. You only need to worry about licences if you are a sales person, or on the board of a company, or a sole trader about to sell code. Then you have a problem. Having been round this loop three times as CTO/Director of startups, and as expert witness in a number of cases relating to copyright and licencing I can tell you that programmers generally do not appreciate how the law actually works – as opposed to how they would like it to work. This makes programmer's anecdotes bad base data on which to formulate a guess about a legal opinion. If you have a question about your health, you see a medic not a lawyer. If you have a question about legal documents and the law, you see a lawyer not a medic. > There are a lot of people writing a lot of Java code. The people who > started this Google Group claim to actually know a lot about it. Someone > HAS to actually know the answers to my questions. My questions are more > about policy than about law: No they are not. You asked about the applicability of legal licences in a given situation. Do you ask a lawyer or a medic whether to use Merge Sort or Quicksort, no you ask someone well versed in analysis of algorithms – which sadly excludes many programmers as well as medics and lawyers. Of course all programmers should know analysis of algorithms, but they don't. > - Does Oracle require people to register as Licensees just to distribute > their own Java Code? The statement on Oracle's web site is confusing > because they appear to have used the word "compatible" when they meant to > say "functionally identical"? Either do whatever you want, i.e. just get on with writing software, or get a legal opinion to a legal question. > Seriously, not a single soul in here knows the answer to that one? Or they > know, but I have to go have a lawyer tell me what Oracle's policy is? > Fortunately, other people elsewhere have given me a clean and unambiguous > answer. (Which I will NOT reveal here, because actual information is > apparently forbidden in this group.) The people who gave you a clean and unambiguous answer are either Oracle lawyers or fooling themselves. Which authorities did they quote in order to back up this claim to clean and unambiguous answer. If the answer was clean and unambiguous, why come back to this forum to slag off members of the email forum? > My other question was about the accuracy of documentation: > > - Now that Oracle has rolled (or is planning to roll) "commercial > features" into non-commercial (supposedly free) distributions of Java, > will > it be easy for me to spot those features so I can avoid using them? > > Again, not a single response that even addresses the actual question. Just > calls to "go all open source all the way" and "go see a lawyer." Do you > guys go see a lawyer before you go to the bathroom? Why do you even respond > at all? Do you sit down and think, "How can I obfuscate information and > frustrate people as much as possible today?" I think you failed to read the answers that were given. If I am executing a binding legal contract then I see a lawyer. If I am going to worry about issues to do with selling and distribution of code where GPL, ASL, etc. are involved then I get a legal opinion – and yes I have done this in the past, twice. If I need to go for a piss, I just go for a piss. Why did you not read the answers given to you instead of replicating your questions in ever increasing aggressive tones. People on this list were trying genuinely to help you, your approach to the list and members of this list have just made you look like a disrespectful trolling a######. > If someone had just said, "I'm sorry, I don't know." that would have been > better than all the time-wasting, rabbit-hole digging, obfuscation. > > Needless to say, I will not be participating in this group again. Good as it seems all you have done is slag of people trying give you genuine and reasonable advice. People have spend a good few dollar/pounds of time giving you free and sensible advice, and you are just dissing them. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:[email protected] 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: [email protected] London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
