On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, The Mage wrote: > very useful. So my question is: what obligations do I need to fulfil to > the coders of the platforms I've built upon or modified?
Legal obligations: see the licenses. (Yes, I know you said you don't want to locate and read them, but as you don't say where the bunch of code you borrowed (your words) comes from, there's no way I could do that for you, even if I could spend the time and felt like it.) Also, see below my answer to "do I *have* to?". Moral obligations: That's for you to decide. (I would be inclined to share it if it were mine, but YMMV.) (Snipped a (partial?) list of contributions.) > My original code contribution consists of a bunch of database verbs > that grew around the seed provided by the $note object that was > implemented in the database I received. Almost no other parts of the > database are *required* to interface with this new code (although I use > player objects a lot in some of my uses of my code). E_WEB, however, is > crucial. When my site goes live, do I need to release the source code > for my new database objects and verbs? Many licenses (including the GPL) don't actually require you to redistribute your code. They only restrict the conditions you can put on it *if* you redistribute it. So you probably don't *need* to (in the "legal obligation" sense). > I probably wouldn't mind doing > this, in fact I would consider it pretty good protection against ever > being locked out of using my own tools by anyone who might want to > invest in my company. If I can't hide it, they can't either. I might > even release my code under the GPL if I'm not required to, for just > that very reason. IANAL, but if that's what you're worried about, putting it in the public domain might work better than releasing it under an open source license. -- "I'd ask if you'd found the right sort of isolated wasteland for your citadel of dread yet, but that would be a silly question; you're in Utah, after all." --ESR to Darl McBride (Chief Excessive Ossifier of Squandered Clues Obstination), in http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/mcbride.html ############################################################# This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
