On Oct 16, 2006, at 9:02 PM, Jeffrey Thompson wrote:
"Roy T. Fielding" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 10/16/2006 03:44:20 PM:
On Oct 16, 2006, at 3:38 AM, Joe Orton wrote:
An argument has been made that the third-party MD4/MD5 code in APR
(specifically, APR-util) is licensed such that it is not
permissible to
distribute modified works.
AIUI, copyright law has separate restrictions on "to make ...
derivative works" from the restrictions on reproducing works, and
thus the text is merely reflecting each of the permissions needed
in turn. In other words, if you have a license to copy and a license
to make derivative works, then you have a license to redistribute
the derivative works as well, since the derivative work is
covered either by the original's license-to-copy or by the new
copyright of the entity that created the derivative work.
The intent of this "licensed" interpretation is further evidenced
by the requirement that derivative works contain a notice that they
are "derived from ...", since such a notice would serve no useful
purpose if the person was not allowed to make copies.
Roy, but the issue here isn't copies, its distribution. Remember that
copyright was originally designed for books where the copying step was
separate from the distribution step and was usually performed by
someone
other than the distributor. Just because I'm allowed to make an
unlimited
number of copies of a piece of software, that does not mean that I'm
allowed to provide a single one of those to another party.
Ouch! You are, of course, quite right -- I completely missed that
"copy and use" was not equivalent to distribution. For others, you
can see the distinction in
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106
It didn't occur to me that they might only be licensing personal
use copies. Blech.
So, that leaves us with a situation where, if the text presented is
the
only means of getting the right to distribute, we may have a problem.
There may be another license somewhere that covers this code. Then
again,
there may not. A clarification from RSA might be in order.
The origin is
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1321.txt
which may or may not help.
....Roy
