Scott Moore wrote:
Frank Heckenbach wrote:
This adds to the complication if we don't even know who the authors are. Just hypothetically, suppose one of them now works for Borland, Microsoft or another such company, and they later decide to take an opportunity to crush competition (if they ever see it as such), or just for a PR stunt to display free software authors as "pirates" (not unheard of, see the SCO debacle and other indicents)
With all due respect, no. A work openly and widely distributed with full consent and knowledge of the authors, free of restriction, constitutes public domain. The only precedent in the courts for a work being the basis of a suit after it was freely distributed were where the author did not consent or did not know. For an author to go to court and try the argument that he/she changed his/her mind and now wants the rights back, is legally ridiculous and has never happened.
The SCO incident involved code that SCO claimed was copied from software they never gave permission to copy, and did not freely distribute.
I wasn't referring to the specifics of the SCO case, just using it as an example that some companies will take any means, even if their case is absurd, and even after they've repeatedly lost in court before. Or in other words: Who's going to pay the lawyers if someone does decide to sue, even if their case has no merit? All they have to achieve is that the case isn't rejected beforehand, for which a somewhat unclear copyright situation might suffice, and the "victim" will be faced with enormous legal bills.
My late friend and lawyer advised me on the matter, and confirmed that all that is required to be considered a public domain work is that a document has been distributed with the authors knowledge (not even consent) without charge or restriction.
I don't think that's true as stated. Your own web site is distributed (to any web browser that requests it) without charge and without restrictions (at least I didn't find any on the pages I checked). So do you hold your web site (at least those pages that don't state otherwise) to be in the public domain? (Meaning that anybody can do anything with it, such as incorporating parts of it into their own web sites, without mentioning the source.)
We had a similar discussion in 2003, and I hope you don't mind me quoting from it. You wrote (after researching about copyright law a bit):
: The bad news is the Berne convention completely trashed the good : idea in the USA law concerning public domain. Prior to Berne, the : USA law clearly stipulated that publishing a work without a : copyright notice was effectively placement in public domain. After : Berne, a work can be published, placed on the web, and still retain : copyright. : : [...] : : B. Putting a statement on all my public domain works (online) is : probally necessary, such as "these works are in public domain" [...]
So unless you changed your views, I think we can agree that the situation under Berne is not nice (I'd also prefer otherwise), but we have to live with it (or start a revolution).
The reason the original code bore no such notice is that it was written in a time when the authors saw no need for such a note.
That's probably true, but unintented consequences can occur -- assuming it happened under Berne (which would be case if it was written, even partly, in Switzerland).
Having text within the work does not improve this situation. Any claim or statement on the text could have been faked, or demanded at gunpoint, etc., if you want to be very technical. A court would not absolve you of guilt if you read a release of rights on a document that was not true, any more than it would hold you innocent of theft charges from breaking and entering a house if someone had placed a "free stuff" sign on the door.
We should probably ask a lawyer about this, but I suppose it's something to do with burden of proof etc. A written contract signed at gunpoint in invalid, too, but that doesn't mean that all written contracts are dubious and people would stop demanding signatures in general.
Again, with due respect, none of this is the issue with respect to GNU and GPC. GNU wishes to produce software that cannot be legally used for paid work, or the basis for paid work.
Sorry, that's absolutely untrue (and we had this discussion before).
- See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
- You might have heard of a company called Red Hat and others ...
- As I stated before, most of my development work in GPC *was* paid, and the resulting compiler was *used* for paid work. Also recent work I did (not GPC related) was paid and GPL'd.
- Others have written in this thread about their paid work using GPC (e.g. Pascal Viandier, Martin Liddle) or Linux (Steven D'Aprano).
If you reject all of these examples (and there are more), you must deny my existence because what I do is impossible then. I'm getting used to it (Robert Hodges did so in this thread as I use Linux outside of academia and the entertinment industry), but as a ghost I'd have to stop talking with mortals. ;-)
I would agree that passing any software to the GNU group that has been derived in any way, shape or form from public domain work would probably be politically impossible.
Not at all, because of the following:
However, the status of P5 as public domain does not restrict its being covered by the GPL (indeed, public domain gives no restrictions whatever). The only issue vs. the GPL is that anyone could use the public domain parts of the code without falling under GPL restrictions. Indeed, they could simply get the code elsewhere and avoid even visiting a GNU distribution point.
The GPL would cover only the changes in the code. However, during the adaption of the code to GPC purposes, it would be changed in such detail as to be useless outside of its GPL covered sections. In any case, there would be little incentive, since the entirety of the non-GPL code could be found elsewhere.
Sure (provided the PD status is clear, which is my point above).
The FSF has always stated that the GPL only covers the changes made under it. This applies when incorporating PD work as well as work released under a GPC compatible license (e.g., the revised BSD license). The, say, BSD licensed part of the work can be used under its original license (whether it's extracted from a GPL package where possible, or obtained elsewhere, which is just a technical detail -- sure, usually it's easier to get it from elsewhere, but even if other sources disappeared, as long as the original work can be clearly separated, it keeps it license).
Of course, the FSF prefers GPL to PD, and therefore generally requires GNU projects to use the GPL, but for 3rd party code that is incorporated where they have no say over the license, any GPL compatible license or PD is fine.
Note: I'm not saying using P5 is likely to get one sued, but even a very remote possibility can be disastrous, considering the enormous legal costs one has to afford (especially in the USA), even if one wins in the end.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.
Frank