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cc-bizcom - Re: [Cc-bizcom] Dual Licensing

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Subject: A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

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  • From: Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>
  • To: cc-bizcom AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Cc-bizcom] Dual Licensing
  • Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 20:45:08 +0100

On 26 Aug 2004, at 17:38, Andrea Glorioso wrote:

"Rob" == Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com> writes:


The FSF announced a little while ago that they would release
their (legal) tools for supporting this process,

References?

From the horse's mouth:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/sco/subpoena.html

and Linux now requires a better audit trail IIRC.

My impression is that the tools the FSF wants to put in place won't be
very useful, since they are based on copyright assigment and the whole
mess about SCO and the Linux kernel was that (in SCO's opinion) the
developers who contributed code didn't have the copyright in the first
place.

In their own projects, the tools have been in place for ages. Other projects are free to use or ignore them.
The FSF's procedures *would* help avoid unauthorised contributions by individual employees, but not by entire corporations as in SCO's fantasy. And they would allow a unified defense against a SCO-style lawsuit

All of this boils down to the simple fact that either we read people's
minds (so that we can know whether a particular piece of software was
copied from a copyrighted work or was a "creation") or everybody put
their code in the open (not necessarily under a Free Software license)
so that real accounting can be made.

I agree that public review is the best way of catching plagiarism.

All the other options, as far as I can tell, are either too difficult
to achieve or dangerous for everybody but big, bad companies with a
lot of money to spend in court.

The FSF's procedures avoid employers later claiming rights over contributed work. And they allow better defense of GPL infractions. And they raise a simple psychological barrier to unauthorised contributions (and possibly help prove malice). So IMHO they're better than nothing and not as bad as too much.

- Rob.





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