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From: Bent C Dalager on 22 Jun 2010 05:50
On 2010-06-21, Arne Vajh�j <arne(a)vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>
> That is a theory.
>
> But does SQLite distribution seem to have been restricted
> due to being declared public domain?

This is impossible to say of course.

In an attempt to unravel the latest series of posts: my point is that
open source projects that choose a copyright license rather than
"public domain" may very well have done so because they are familiar
with, and care about, the legal situation surrounding those choices.
They may not particularly /want/ to own a copyright but they realize
that as a point of legal reality they are forced to do so, and they
make the best out of a bad situation by choosing some very permissive
license. Therefore, the decision to have a license is not in itself an
indication that a project team feels it needs or even desires
copyright protection of their work.

Others may choose to pretend that the public domain is in fact a valid
choice for a work newer than 75 years (or so) but an examination of
the legal climate surrounding the issue would seem to indicate that
this is basically wishful thinking.

Cheers,
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd(a)pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
From: Bent C Dalager on 22 Jun 2010 06:10
On 2010-06-21, Arne Vajh�j <arne(a)vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 21-06-2010 06:45, Bent C Dalager wrote:
>>
>> I don't see that this is the case. What I do see is that there exist a
>> number of people who would /like/ public domain software to be
>> achievable, and there are some who act as if it is. You might say that
>> these people, at least, have de facto recognized public domain softare
>> but what is the benefit of this? Copyright is governed by copyright
>> law and I cannot see that the law recognizes the public domain in any
>> useful fashion when it comes to software (primarily because there is
>> no significant body of software from before 1930-ish).
>
> Public domain software is very recognized.

If you mean that the existence of the public domain is recognized,
then certainly. What does not appear to be recognized is the power of
an author to place his own works into the public domain, other than by
dying then waiting 75 years (or whatever).

> Software by US government employees have always been public domain
> and recognized as such.

Yes, I believe there is specific provision for this in US law. Can you
point to similar provisions for the public domain for privately
developed software?

>>
>> Well, that is basically the point under debate: It's not clear that
>> one "can" choose public domain in this context.
>
> Some people are choosing public domain.
>
> These people could certainly have done the same.

By all appearances, choosing the public domain makes about as much
sense as choosing to put your software in blue. That is, it makes no
sense at all. Which, of course, doesn't actually in itself /prevent/
people from saying "I place my software in blue".

> Most of the legal issues are centered about the fact that the
> law in many countries does not mention such a concept.
>
> But unless the law explicitly prohibits disclaiming copyright
> (which is also does in some countries), then I would expect
> it to be possible - the fact that something is not explicit
> approved in the law should not mean that it is prohibited.

A central point in modern copyright law is that all works are
copyrighted by default. In order to opt out of such a scheme there
would need to be provision in the law for an author to do so. There
wouldn't appear to be any.

>>>> Why is it that software which has the most generous license term
>>>> possible under the law (that is, no conditions), cannot be "open
>>>> source"? Surely if it were /possible/ to release source code into the
>>>> public domain then this would be just as open as an open source
>>>> license is?
>>>
>>> Because the open source license gives some rights.
>>
>> What rights are these, and who benefits from them?
>
> It varies between licenses.
>
> But the general purpose is to give the users certain rights.

Can you give an example of one such right that would not also
automatically be available were the software to be in the public
domain?

>> The material change would be that any source code you could get your
>> hands on would be yours to use as you wish, unless of course you
>> obtained it through industrial espionage.
>
> If it is sufficient that you did not do the industrial espionage
> yourself to be allowed to use the code, then I think industrial
> espionage would be a very profitable business.

I do believe that it is, yes.

Trade secret laws vary widely between jurisdictions so the extent to
which a third party not involved in the actual espionage is affected
will vary.

> If it need to be clean all the way, then it would be very
> challenging to use software, because without any license
> information how do you know where the code came from.

This is little different from the current situation: if code has no
license or copyright information you do not know its legal status and
so you cannot use it.

Chances are that under a pure trade secrets regime you would have an
easier time of it since unless you yourself were party to espionage
you will be seen to have acted in good faith. Conversely, under the
current default copyright regime you should know that all code is
always copyrighted except under rather special circumstances and so it
is much harder to claim good faith.

>> To the extent that this possibility appears as an asset at all, if it
>> is given a realistic value it must be very very small indeed. From
>> what I have seen, in-house software projects tend to be completely
>> unsuitable for distribution to any other than the primary client and
>> would take gargantuan effort to change into a sellable product.
>
> Often it is.
>
> But the companies does not think so.

If this is the case, then removing copyright would be doing them a
favour.

>> I expect the GPL resistance has very much to do with some fundamental
>> misunderstandings about how the GPL actually works. Surprisingly many
>> people seem to think that if they develop a GPL application then they
>> are automatically required to distribute it to the world and provide
>> support for it to anyone who asks. An accountant who actually believes
>> this will quickly point out that it effectively amounts to unlimited
>> liability and advise strongly against going anywhere near such a
>> license.
>
> I think you are underestimating the corporate lawyers.

In my experience lawyers often do not get involved in matters of
specific open source licenses: The idea gets killed long before a
lawyer is involved.

In the cases were lawyers actually /are/ involved on a per license
basis I would expect GPL to see much higher adoption as many of the
popular myths are likely to be dispelled by an educated reading of the
license.

One question it appears many corporate lawyers are asked is along the
lines of "can we use open source licensed software" to which a lawyer
is basically forced to answer "no" because in general you cannot: you
need to examine each individual open source license on its own merits
and cannot make a blanket statement about the set of all possible such
licenses except to reject the idea. Hence, perhaps, the "no open
source" policy in many companies.

Cheers,
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd(a)pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
From: John B. Matthews on 22 Jun 2010 14:40
In article <slrni21khf.co6.avl(a)gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at>,
Andreas Leitgeb <avl(a)gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:

> Lew <noone(a)lewscanon.com> wrote:
> > Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> >>> They lawyers may find it very problematic.
> > Andreas Leitgeb wrote:
> >> IANAL, but sometimes playing devil's advocate:
> >> A company could write some useful code, and donate it to
> >> public domain. Later, when others have started using it,
> >> the company could be taken over, and the new owners may
> >> point out, that that previous act of pd-izing was illegal
> >> from the beginning and furtheron demand license-fees ...
> > They would lose. Adverse possession.
>
> Your word in ${user.preferred.deity}'s ear. :-)

Just in: "Terrible News: Court Says It's Okay To Remove Content From The
Public Domain And Put It Back Under Copyright."

<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100621/2320049908.shtml>

Discussion: "Court Takes Away Some of the Public Domain."

<http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/22/1724254/>

--
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>
From: John B. Matthews on 23 Jun 2010 09:30
In article <hvs4hk$44p$1(a)news.albasani.net>, Lew <noone(a)lewscanon.com>
wrote:

> John B. Matthews wrote:
> > Just in: "Terrible News: Court Says It's Okay To Remove Content From The
> > Public Domain And Put It Back Under Copyright."
> >
> > <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100621/2320049908.shtml>
> >
> > Discussion: "Court Takes Away Some of the Public Domain."
> >
> > <http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/22/1724254/>
>
> That article discusses Congress pulling something out of the public
> domain, and doesn't address the points raised in this thread about
> whether the copyright holder could have put the stuff in the public
> domain in the first place, nor whether the copyright holder could
> have done it without the weight of the legislature.

To me it suggested how readily a motivated legislature and judiciary
might act to vitiate the applicability of adverse possession, which you
cited.

<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/msg/8060d9d24cc32fcd>

From the recently overturned opinion: "In the United States, that body
of law includes the bedrock principle that works in the public domain
remain in the public domain."

<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090403/1619494384.shtml>

--
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>
From: David on 23 Jun 2010 11:50
There seems to be a lot of good (and woefully ill-informed) comment on
this thread.

If you want to make money from GPL software then all you have to do is
start selling it. Just like propriatary software.

If you redistribute GPL covered binaries you are expected to attribute
this and point people to the source (you don't have to host it).

If you are 'mere aggregation' then that's all you have to do. For
example - you can redistribute Apache Tomcat in a binary bundle if all
your software consists of is a set of JSP/HTML files in a WAR file.

If you modify an existing product, then you should host the source
code and make it available in some way. Again, that all you have to
do. You can even cover reasonable costs in doing this. As has already
been pointed out in this thread, the source code is usually worth very
little - it is the support and expertise a company supplies that
provided the draw.

Finally, try to ignore the hysteria. The GPL is not viral, it isn't
dangerous and it doesn't violate copyright. It is a very simple
license based on a clear understanding of copyright law. There are
numerous products using it (and similar licenses) that make plenty of
money.


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