On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 12:50 PM, Michael Torrie <torr...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 06/09/2013 11:18 AM, Mark Janssen wrote: >> You actually do not. Attaching a legal document is purely a secondary >> protection from those who would take away right already granted by US >> copyright. > > You are correct, except that the OP has already stated he wishes to have > his code distributed. Without granting a license, the code cannot be > distributed beyond the people he personally gives the code too. PyPi > cannot legally allow others to download it without a license.
That's not entirely correct. If he *publishes* his code (I'm using this term "publish" technically to mean "put forth in a way where anyone of the general public can or is encouraged to view"), then he is *tacitly* giving up protections that secrecy (or *not* disclosing it) would *automatically* grant. The only preserved right is authorship after that. So it can be re-distributed freely, if authorship is preserved. The only issue after that is "fair use" and that includes running the program (not merely copying the source). Re-selling for money violates fair-use, as does redistribution without preserving credit assignment (unless they've naively waived those rights away). I will have to take a look at PyPi. But if you are *publishing*, there's no court which can protect your IP afterwards from redistribution, unless you explicitly *restrict* it. In which case, if you restrict terms of re-use, you're putting the court in jeopardy because you making two actions opposed to one another. The only thing the court can easily uphold is your authorship and non-exploitation from a violation of fair-use (note again the key word is "use", nor merely copying the code). But then if you waive *that* right away, you put the court in jeopardy again. > Here's how the GPL puts it, and of course this applies to any and all > licenses, even proprietary ones: > > "However, nothing else [besides the License] grants you permission to > modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions > are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by > modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the > Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all > its terms and conditions for copying..." Well this is where one must make a distinction with fair-use -- if I re-publish my modifications then the code is still subject to the terms by the original author. If I make a copy for myself and run the problem for personal, non-commercial use, then I am in the domain of fair use and have no other obligations. -- MarkJ Tacoma, Washington -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list