At 6:36 PM -0400 on 7/23/99, Alain Farmer wrote:
>>>Alain: YES and no. There could be some bickering. A
>>>difference of opinion concerning the importance of the
>>>contribution made by someone that wishes to be cited
>>>as one of the authors.
>
>Anthony: Alain, in that event we would have the list decide on what to
>do.
>
>Alain: OK, but what kind of decision-making process are you
>envisionning? A voting CGI in order to establish the opinion of the
>majority and act accordingly? This could lead to Majority-Rule.
>Bottom-line is that we are going to have to discuss the (political)
>issue of decision-making, as part of the Collaboration section of our
>group, before, during and after we decide which licencing terms to
>adopt.
I'm afraid that if we vote, it'll be arbitrary. And if we make arbitrary
decisions, we will not be liked, to say the least. And if we have enemies,
we're more likely to answer in court.
>
>Anthony: Our choice would be to reject or accept the patch...
>
>Alain: Exactly. The Copyright Holder decides whether patches will be
>integrated into the Standard Distribution, or not.
>
>Anthony: ... because the author owns the rights to it.
>
>Alain: Unless he decides that he wants to contribute it and we decide
>to integrate it into the Standard Distribution. From then on, it is the
>OC licence prevails. The author cannot change his mind afterwards and
>retract his contribution.
We'd need a signed agreement from anyone who submits a patch. That'd get
tedius... and we'd need a way to make sure it was actually the author who
signed. I know the FSF does it, but I'd like to get around such.
>
>Anthony: If we reject it, we can't add it in.
>
>Alain: Right. We cannot add his instance of the idea, as-is or only
>slightly modified. But it should be noted that ideas are not
>copyright-able. Only the expression of that idea is copyright-able.
>
>Anthony: Now imagine if that was a small fix to a long-standing
>annoying bug that we rejected. We could _never_ use that code to fix
>the bug! Even if it were inserting a few lines, we could get hauled
>into court for using it (or re-writing it after having seen his fix).
>
>Alain: If you use his source, then you are infringing his copyright
>but, on the other hand, if you are merely engineering something
>similar, then that is perfectly legitimate. If it wasn�t, we would be
>in big trouble with Apple, eh!
The reason we're not in trouble is because we've never seen HyperCard
source. If we had, and Apple cared, they could not doubt make us answer in
court. I don't know who'd win, but it'd be a fight.
But a short patch is so easy to remember. The author of the patch, having
become our enemy, if sufficently made -- and if we then patched it with
anything like his code -- might claim infrigement. And we would have to
defend ourselves. In court.
You must understand that it's not like a novel. It's a small snippet, maybe
a few lines long. And once we read it, we would be unable to implement it
ourselves, because it would probably be infringement. We'd have to go
through proper procedures -- writing up a description of the idea in
English, giving that description to someone who has never seen the patch,
and having him implement it. And that's time consuming and, possibly,
expensive. And that'd only be a defence in court -- it would not stop a
suit.
Consider: A person finds a bug -- works on it for a while -- and submits
a patch. We then, for whatever reason, reject it. We then
implement the same bug fix. This person is _mad_. We denied him
his rights in OpenCard and yet (essentially) used his work. If this
person happens to be litigation-happy, we're sued. Or if this
happened to be someone trying to get voting rights on licencing
decisions, we're sued. Or if it is a corporation doing that.
When people contribute, they will expect to get the right to vote (as
suggested above, by you). And if they don't get it, they will be mad. And
if it was signifgicant work -- and expecially if we make some money off of
OpenCard -- he may sue.
I want as little possibility of lawsuits as possible. Hell, we've already
got to deal with the people who have their nice 20-year patents on
algorithms. Do you know that due to Unisys we can't use GIF until 2002,
when their LZW patent expires? We can't use MPEG until 2013 or so --
because (and you get to picket this group, Uli) Franhaufer(sp?) IIS holds
patents on it. These people claim they own a mathematical algorithm, and
have exlcusive rights to its use, regardless of independant discovery, for
twenty years. Recently, a patent on -- get this -- displaying a cursor with
XOR expired (or is it still in effect?). The patent office does not do its
job, and instead expects the courts to do it for them. Unfortunately,
getting a frivelous patent thrown out costs around $1.5 million.
Lastly, the voting itself is a problem. Is there someone to tell me that I,
having written Interpreter, accept a patch, I owe to the patch-writer equal
control over Interpreter? Or that I have to fight him for control, at all?
That is what the voting will turn into: Any person who writes a function
gets the same rights as the person who really wrote it. Or do we attempt to
give different voting weights? But what sillyness is that?! Who decides? A
vote?! By whom? Can we reduce another person's share -- as splitting it
with another party would -- without his consent; is that not theft?
I think I must support one person being the copyright holder. Maybe two or
three, but even that's pushing it.
I say: I will not enter into any arrangement that may endanger my right to
and rights in Interpreter -- by democracy, dictatorship, or otherwise. If
someone wishes to give me a patch, fine. But all they get is the guarantee
of the Artistic that they may distribute the program and its sources, and
the chance that I may integrate and maintain their code for them. And if
anyone does not like what I do with Interpreter, and proves unable to
convince me through reason to act otherwise, I'll tell him one thing:
"Fork!"
>>Trouble is, what if someone leaves OpenCard without
>>leaving a new address? We should make sure that we're
>>not stalled then.
>
>Alain: What do they do in the case of books written by several authors?
> I doubt that the editor or distributor are obliged to track down the
>authors if they change their address. And a missing author would not
>prevent the book from being sold.
All the authors sign an agreement with the publisher to allow the publisher
to have it published. And the publisher would be obliged, no doubt, to
track down an author were it contractually obligated to pay him royalties.
But three authors (you seldom have more than that) is _far_ better than 300.
>
>Anthony : Hah! I'd call that spam. We'd be sending out thousands of
>messages a day. Everytime someone sends a message, a hundred copies go
>out... great.
>
>Alain: No ... no ... The Open Source licencing does not require that
>the authors be contacted. You said so yourself. They would only need to
>be contacted when someone would like to negotiate licencing terms that
>are not already provided for ( e.g. an infrequent exception that the
>Perl Artistic Licence already provides for). Bottom-line is that there
>is very little need to contact the authors, so there will be very
>little mail received in this regard.
I guarantee you this: Most people will _not_ want email because they
happened to contribute to OpenCard. And if we require them to allow us to
send mail, many will not contribute.
I will say that I will have no part in the mailing, because if I did, I
would have to deal with my ISP, which has a tough policy on SPAM
(thankfully!). And presently, I'm on good grounds with Rosie [the Erol's
Abuse Guy], and don't intend to change that.
>
>Alain: Incidentally, SPAM is �unsollicited junk E-mail that wants you
>to part with some of your money�.
Not neccisarily. Spam is _any_ unsolicited, mass-sent email.
>Inquiries and licencing negotiations
>with the authors are not spam, despite the fact that commercialization
>is the probable goal of parties that are seeking an exception to the OC
>licence, at the very least because this E-mail is not UN-sollicited.
I'm sure they did not ask for it. And if we did make them ask for it, we'd
be turning away contributions.
>
>Alain: I may have mis-attributed the above paragraphs. They are either
>by Anthony or by Uli or a mix of the two. Does not change my comments
>in any way.
I hope my comments will.
