Maurizio DE CECCO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Michael Stutz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Yes, but you don't delete a name from the list of people worked
> on a project, also if the project now have a different direction.
You're right -- so if the project splits and some people make it do
something you don't like, you can't control that. It works that way
with open source software right now (Emacs/XEmacs). I don't know of
any extreme cases -- like you would be free to take the Emacs editor
and add just a tiny bit of code so that it starts, looks like a normal
Emacs, but then when you press a key it randomly erases your files. I
don't know of any programmers who've done something like that to open
source software, but anyone is free to do that.
(The reason nobody's done something like that, besides that it's a
dumb thing to do, is because license like the GPL require you to
document your changes. If someone made a "ZEmacs" that did such a
thing, and did it in such a way so that the reputation of FSF/GNU was
at stake, they would be breaking the license terms.)
> > Plus there are libel and slander laws. If someone does
> > something like this to you they can end up in federal court. It is
> > illegal.
>
> Sorry, i don't know these laws :-< .. can you elaborate ?
It's "defamation of character" -- anything that falsely makes claims
about someone or something they said.
Here's a google search with lots of hits:
http://www.google.com/search?q=defamation+libel+slander&num=100
> My question is, are you sure that putting a text under a explicit licence
> don't grant the rights to do that ?
If Bob modifies Alice's copylefted work to make it look like _Alice_
authored something which she didn't, that would be libel. AFAIK,
claiming authorship for someone else's work is not permitted in any
copyleft (or open source?) license. (You're allowed to _share_, and
_build upon_, but you can't take credit for someone else's work.)
> > Also while anyone can make a modified work based on yours, they must
> > document their changes, and can't claim that you authored them (nor can
> > they claim that they authored what you did). Finally, they have to
> > retitle the work so that it can't be confused with yours.
>
> This is why i have some doubt that software like licences well apply
> to text; since we are talking politics, and not technics, things are
> a little bit less clearly defined; i can modify a text, document
> the fact that i modified it, include the documentation of the changes,
> and still leave a lot of confusion in the reader about which ideas
> are mine and which ideas are of the original author; for example,
> i can include the diffs of the latex sources of the two version
> of a book, and almost no reader will understand them.
It's hard, even as tools like sdiff keep getting better, and make it
easier to show the differences. I think that if you want to see the
ideas of the original author, you will always have to refer to the
original text.
> What i mean is that concepts that cover very well a technical, byte by
> byte, reality don't cover as completely an abstract domains like ideas
> paternity ...
>
> Note that i am not against this kind of licences for text, i am just
> wondering which kind of consequences this can have.
It gets clearer once you step away from the categories. (That was in
part why I wrote it -- with the new documentation licenses I saw that
the GPL was only going to be used or designed for software, and I felt
that we needed one that was comprehensive and not
specialized. Specialization leads to extinction; I want this libre or
free or open movement to evolve and become as generalized as possible,
useable by as many people on as many kinds of works as possible, and
not to become specialized and then extinct.)
Michael Abrash once put it so well: "Code is data." Computer software
source code is data just like any other data; it's also communication
or speech -- a human expression of an idea. Nothing different from a
symphony or painting or a novel. All are equally "technical" and all
are equally the expression of an individual's ideas and thoughts.
> > This license makes no discriminations against who can access a
> > work. So if you didn't want a certain party to perform, exceute or
> > otherwise use a work, this would not be the license to use.
>
> This is not the point; the point is that for the european laws,
> the moral rights of an author *cannot be* given up; whatever licence
> i use, or fee i receive, european laws protect my right to stop
> an use of my work that i don't like, *even* i formally give
> up this right with a licence.
>
> Don't know if this is right or not, but it is the (local) reality.
How do they work it out now, with free software? Do the European laws
protect authors to stop use of their software works right now -- like,
can you tell someone that you don't want someone to use your software
program?
