begin quoting Paul G. Allen as of Wed, May 02, 2007 at 10:42:43AM -0700: > On Wed, 2007-05-02 at 09:27 -0700, Stewart Stremler wrote: [snip] > > By whom? > > > > The ninety-two contributors, some of which are rather difficult to > > reach? > [snip] > However, I can see where if 91 of the contributors say it's OK, and 1 > says revoke it, there could be a court battle to determine who owns what > portions, etc. This is one more reason why, when working on a project > with multiple programmers, each one should put their initials and date > in the comments wherever they make a contribution.
Good point. > > I still wonder if the "we'll distribute the source code -- just not > > right now -- it'll be a couple of years before we get that set up" approach > > would work. > > That's when the threats, suing, etc. usually starts. Maybe they don't have to tell anyone. Stand up a tiny little server on unstable hardware using a dial-up modem line and accessed via some really obnoxious flash/javascript/activeX web-pages... Better still if your ISP had some obscenely low bandwidth usage limit, and all the images, CSS, and flash on your website would consume nearly all of that limit. Blame the slashdot effect. > > > It happens all the time in courts. Someone says, "I gave it to them as a > > > gift." > > > > > > The judge says, "Then you gave up all your rights to it." > > > > Yup. Which is why the lack of a consideration with GPL software might > > well turn it into a gift. > > It hasn't yet happened and I'd think that if a Microsoft thought it > could, they would have tried it in court by now. Nah. _Evil_ does not imply _stupid_ as well. Were I evil enough to work for M$, I'd recommend that we get "forced" to make "gifts" to an/the open-source community, and then see if we couldn't arrange a precedent *against* us where "gifts of software" implied no legal right to control over the gifted work. If they don't at least have multiple contingency plans in place, I'd be disappointed. > > > I don't think they have honest and meaningful disagreements about > > > anything most of the time, let alone about this. :) > > > > I think they do. Any group of intelligent people will. > > I've never met an intelligent lawyer, only lawyers that thought they > were. :) I've met enough intelligent lawyers that I've lost my taste for lawyer jokes. :-/ > > > The only reason it appears to be murky is because of the hidden agendas > > > behind those lawyers and corporations that are making it murky. > > > > It's hidden agendas all around, friend. > > Which reminds me, I need to make sure mine is still in hiding. <laugh> -- Making fun of classes of people is getting less funny as I get older. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
