Re: [gentoo-user] Doubts about how to create a free software project
If you're not looking for a patent yourself, but want to make sure that nobody else pulls one on you, you may want to look into the USPTO's Statutory Invention Registration program. It basically creates a public domain patent of your invention so nobody else can "invent" it and claim priority. And it's cheap (something like $100 IIRC). Sean Crandall Uwe Thiem wrote: On 16 September 2005 04:31, Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales wrote: Hi everyone, I work with biotech and for about an 1 year I've been working on a web interface for genome/proteome data analysis. And I'd like to make it free software. But I still have doubts about legal problems I might face and about intellectual property. Basically, I don't want to restrict people on using and contributing with source or whatever, but don't want anyone taking credit for my work or pateting it and sending me a cease-and-desist letter. If anyone has any insight, references or links on this subject, please let me know. 1. Step You make sure the stuff is your. So you stamp a copyright message all over it. Basically, you put a copyright notification in each and every file. Now you have made clear it is *your* intellectual property. 2. Step You have to put it under an OSS license that suits you best. I guess the two most widely used OSS licenses are the General Public License (GPL) and the BSD license. There are quite some differences between them. In a nutshell: The GPL does not allow to include any of your stuff in a piece of software that is not under the GPL. In other words, Whoever wants to build software based on yours has to make the result OSS under GPL as well. The BSD license basically allows any use of your software as long as the copyright remains unchanged (which prevents anyone from patenting it) and the result credits you. All that said, if someone with a lot of money grabs your stuff an - say - patents it you still have to challenge them in court which can take considerable time and money. The GPL has a slight advantage in this case because the Free Software Foundation (FSF) will help you legally. You should read through the available licenses even if they are a boring read. ;-) Uwe -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Doubts about how to create a free software project
Cool, thanks for the help everyone. 2005/9/17, Uwe Thiem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On 16 September 2005 19:40, Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales wrote: > > You mean something like this? > > > > /** > >* * Copyright (C) 2005 by Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales > > * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > * * > > * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify > > * * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by > > * * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or > > * * (at your option) any later version. > > * * > > * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, > > * * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of > > * * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the > > * * GNU General Public License for more details. > > * * > > * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License > > * * along with this program; if not, write to the > > * * Free Software Foundation, Inc., > > * * 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. > > * > > *** > >/ > > > > On the top of every file? > > Yup. > > Uwe > > -- > 95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software > developers. - Linus Torvalds > > http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004) > -- > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list > > -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Doubts about how to create a free software project
On 16 September 2005 19:40, Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales wrote: > You mean something like this? > > /** >* * Copyright (C) 2005 by Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales > * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] > * * > * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify > * * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by > * * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or > * * (at your option) any later version. > * * > * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, > * * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of > * * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the > * * GNU General Public License for more details. > * * > * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License > * * along with this program; if not, write to the > * * Free Software Foundation, Inc., > * * 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. > * > *** >/ > > On the top of every file? Yup. Uwe -- 95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software developers. - Linus Torvalds http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004) -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Doubts about how to create a free software project
You mean something like this? /*** * Copyright (C) 2005 by Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify * * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by * * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or * * (at your option) any later version. * * * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of* * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * * GNU General Public License for more details. * * * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License * * along with this program; if not, write to the * * Free Software Foundation, Inc., * * 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. * ***/ On the top of every file? 2005/9/16, Uwe Thiem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On 16 September 2005 04:31, Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > > >I work with biotech and for about an 1 year I've been working on a > > web interface for genome/proteome data analysis. And I'd like to make > > it free software. But I still have doubts about legal problems I might > > face and about intellectual property. > > Basically, I don't want to restrict people on using and > > contributing with source or whatever, but don't want anyone taking > > credit for my work or pateting it and sending me a cease-and-desist > > letter. > >If anyone has any insight, references or links on this subject, > > please let me know. > > 1. Step > You make sure the stuff is your. So you stamp a copyright message all over it. > Basically, you put a copyright notification in each and every file. Now you > have made clear it is *your* intellectual property. > > 2. Step > You have to put it under an OSS license that suits you best. I guess the two > most widely used OSS licenses are the General Public License (GPL) and the > BSD license. There are quite some differences between them. In a nutshell: > The GPL does not allow to include any of your stuff in a piece of software > that is not under the GPL. In other words, Whoever wants to build software > based on yours has to make the result OSS under GPL as well. The BSD license > basically allows any use of your software as long as the copyright remains > unchanged (which prevents anyone from patenting it) and the result credits > you. > > All that said, if someone with a lot of money grabs your stuff an - say - > patents it you still have to challenge them in court which can take > considerable time and money. The GPL has a slight advantage in this case > because the Free Software Foundation (FSF) will help you legally. > > You should read through the available licenses even if they are a boring > read. ;-) > > Uwe > > -- > 95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software > developers. - Linus Torvalds > > http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004) > -- > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list > > -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Doubts about how to create a free software project
On 9/15/05, Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi everyone, I work with biotech and for about an 1 year I've been working on aweb interface for genome/proteome data analysis. And I'd like to makeit free software. But I still have doubts about legal problems I might face and about intellectual property.Basically, I don't want to restrict people on using andcontributing with source or whatever, but don't want anyone takingcredit for my work or pateting it and sending me a cease-and-desist letter. If anyone has any insight, references or links on this subject,please let me know.Thanks for the attention,RaphaelAlso if you did this on company time you need to make sure they are OK with you open sourcing it as there is probably a clause in your employment papers someplace that makes anything you do on company time theirs. In which case open-sourcing it is liable to get you fired. At least thats the case where I work. -Mike-- Michael E. CruteSoftware DeveloperSoftGroup Development CorporationLinux, because reboots are for installing hardware."In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?"
Re: [gentoo-user] Doubts about how to create a free software project
On 16 September 2005 04:31, Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales wrote: > Hi everyone, > >I work with biotech and for about an 1 year I've been working on a > web interface for genome/proteome data analysis. And I'd like to make > it free software. But I still have doubts about legal problems I might > face and about intellectual property. > Basically, I don't want to restrict people on using and > contributing with source or whatever, but don't want anyone taking > credit for my work or pateting it and sending me a cease-and-desist > letter. >If anyone has any insight, references or links on this subject, > please let me know. 1. Step You make sure the stuff is your. So you stamp a copyright message all over it. Basically, you put a copyright notification in each and every file. Now you have made clear it is *your* intellectual property. 2. Step You have to put it under an OSS license that suits you best. I guess the two most widely used OSS licenses are the General Public License (GPL) and the BSD license. There are quite some differences between them. In a nutshell: The GPL does not allow to include any of your stuff in a piece of software that is not under the GPL. In other words, Whoever wants to build software based on yours has to make the result OSS under GPL as well. The BSD license basically allows any use of your software as long as the copyright remains unchanged (which prevents anyone from patenting it) and the result credits you. All that said, if someone with a lot of money grabs your stuff an - say - patents it you still have to challenge them in court which can take considerable time and money. The GPL has a slight advantage in this case because the Free Software Foundation (FSF) will help you legally. You should read through the available licenses even if they are a boring read. ;-) Uwe -- 95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software developers. - Linus Torvalds http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004) -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] Doubts about how to create a free software project
Hi everyone, I work with biotech and for about an 1 year I've been working on a web interface for genome/proteome data analysis. And I'd like to make it free software. But I still have doubts about legal problems I might face and about intellectual property. Basically, I don't want to restrict people on using and contributing with source or whatever, but don't want anyone taking credit for my work or pateting it and sending me a cease-and-desist letter. If anyone has any insight, references or links on this subject, please let me know. Thanks for the attention, Raphael -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
