On 1/17/06, Michael Dinowitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If someone took a piece of software I wrote that did not have a specific > licensing agreement, they are still stealing my good name. They are still > stealing the time I put into the project. They're also screwing themselves > in the community by doing so. Yes, they may be quasi-legally allowed, but > there's one thing I hate and that's people not being civil. I passed on a > job because the people were not civil to the person who originally offered > it to me. Civility is what makes a community.
I'm not completely sure why the discussion keeps getting moved to CF-OT, since the issue seems pretty *on*-topic by the traffic, but that aside.... While I totally agree in *principle* that someone taking software that doesn't have a specific license agreement and "rebranding" it as their own is not a good thing to do, it is not "quasi-legal" -- it is simply legal. That's why software licenses exist. If you do not license your software and just throw it out there, you're encouraging this practice. I'm *NOT* condoning or encouraging stealing, but I work with open source a lot and have for quite a while. When you publically release source code, you either license it using one of the many standard licenses, ranging from the ubiquitous GPL, BSD, and Apache licenses through the Creative Commons and so-on. There is *another* entire issue of copyright, which the creator implictly owns (unless that's been transferred through a work-for-hire or similar agreement) and can be used to protect the intellectual property. This is separate from licensing, which is why all the open source licenses I deal with have a clause about who owns copyright and what uses are granted. > > "steal" as in violate the license agreement. In the care of BlogCFC, > > it's not stealing, just being a bastard, because (according to Joe > > Rinehart, whom I'm inclined to trust), it's not explicitly licensed. > > But if you took something that was GPL and released a closed-source > > derivative, that'd be stealing. > > cheers, > > barneyb > > Which also happens far more often than the OSS world would like (embedded consumer devices keep popping up with this problem -- routers, etc). In most cases the letter of the law can be simply met by posting links to the OSS software used in the product. > > On 1/17/06, Bryan Stevenson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I'm curious how someone can steal an open-source app? By definition it's > >> free > >> to use and modify. > >> > >> I could see how someone could try and re-brand it as their own.....but > >> steal??? Yes, steal. A great example of GPL abuse is NuSphere's attempt to take over MySQL a couple years back. That got *really* ugly. MySQL was explictly *not* free to use and modify with no restrictions -- the GPL is very specific that any modifications *must be contributed back* (aside: that's not the case with some other licenses like Apache and especially BSD and MIT). Among other crappy things, NuSphere created a new table handler for MySQL and refused to release the source... -- John Paul Ashenfelter CTO/Transitionpoint (blog) http://www.ashenfelter.com (email) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:229796 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
