So. If I publish source

Post #1,125 by imric 7/8/01 9:19:41 PM Reply	So. If I publish source without any attached license agreement, what use can be made of it? Can it be considered 'public domain'? Internet users who downloaded free software from a Web site were not bound by a license agreement that appeared on the site, a New York federal judge has ruled. In a case of first impression, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein found that because the users did not have to agree to or even review the license agreement before downloading the software, the requisite assent was missing, and thus no agreement was reached. WHY does this not apply to those GPLed projects that do not contain the text of the GPL in the source code? If I hold the copyright, and make a project under the GPL via FTP, say - and the GPL is contained in a README in the same directory as the source code, and "the users did not have to agree to or even review the license agreement before downloading the software" then I would think that "the requisite assent was missing, and thus no agreement was reached" and that users of the source code "were not bound by a license agreement". It seems like a straitforward concern to me... Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
Post #1,126 by admin 7/8/01 9:21:04 PM Reply	But with copyright... The default "license" is that you can't copy the material unless given permission. The license file given with the code grants that permission. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #1,127 by imric 7/8/01 9:34:16 PM Reply	Fair enough - so why didn't that apply to the Netscape product? I wouldn't think that compilation turns off copyright. It's all information, after all. Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
Post #1,131 by admin 7/8/01 10:25:42 PM Reply	No idea IANAL, etc. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #1,137 by Andrew Grygus 7/9/01 12:45:00 AM Reply	IANAL, but my interpretation is . . . The GPL License modifies copyright. The Netscape case has nothing to do with copyright but deals with a very specific license. The "License" is a contract specifying specific conditions, points of law and jurisdiction. These points could not be known without reading this particular license. Copyright can be a default because it is simple, well known, and national / international law. The creator of the work has all distribution rights and everyone else has none unless specifically given by the creator (except within the conditions of "fair use"). The GPL simply loosens copyright restrictions, so if you hven't read it, your presumption would be copyright applied and that would be well within the GPL. Now if the GPL had a clause that said the jurisdiction for all disputes was the court of Boise, Idaho, then there must be informed consent to that condition, and the ruling in question here would apply to that condition. Distribution of GPL'd source would have to be much more formal. [link\|www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #1,457 by mhuber 7/11/01 12:40:42 PM Reply	Without an explicit statement of rights or license, (IANAL) I would assume basic copyright restrictions apply. A work is copyrighted when it is fixed in tangible form, regardless of whether you put the little C thing on it or whatever. The only exception is if you specificaly say it is public domain. So if there isn't anything to agree to, you can probably do pretty much anything with the code as long as you don't pass it on to someone else. Disasembling, reverse engineering, ridiculing in public, etc. are OK. Posting it on your own web site is not. I haven't read the details of the case, but I'm assuming that the license terms that were violated weren't things that are covered by copyright, or Netscape would have nailed them for copyright violations. Probably what Netscape was objecting to was reverse engineering of some kind. Something that is legal under copyright but against the license terms. I don't see any impact on GPL at all. You don't agree to GPL when you download or use or reverse engineer (which wouldn't, hopefully, be neccessary, although I've seen some source code that...) the product. You agree to the GPL when you are doing things that would be illegal if there were no license at all. If you say "I didn't read the license" for a GPL violation, you are admitting to violating copyright laws. White guys in suits know best - Pat McCurdy

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