Not a lawyer either, etc.
On 28 September 2011 13:17, Joe Vornehm Jr. <joe.vorn...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> The Mathworks cannot sue anyone for copyright infringement for using
> your code, no matter where they got it from.
No, but they can attempt to take action for breaking the terms of use
of their website. I don't know if they can sue for that, but they can
easily forbid you from using their site. Matlab Central's terms of use
are under contract law. For example, Sony was able to successfully
legally bully Geohotz under the argument that breaking terms of use is
a breach of contract:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use#Violation
I'm not exactly sure if the contract is between whoever registers and
uploads files to the website, or us casual users. They have the
lawyers and the money, though, so if they ever want to, they'll
probably be able to successfully argue for whatever suits them.
> I contacted The Mathworks some time ago about that line in their
> Terms of Use being a in conflict with the BSD license, and they said
> their legal department would look into it.
It's not in conflict with the BSD license Matlab Central coerces users
to use. The BSD license allows you to add additional restrictions like
that. It would be in conflict with the GPLv3 (maybe version 2 as well,
not sure).
Basically, the users gave the Mathworks the code, under the BSD
license. The Mathworks redistributes the code and adds additional
restrictions, which the users' original license allows. The users
*think* they're giving their code to the world under the BSD, but by
uploading it to Matlab Central,they're giving it to the Mathworks, who
then decides to give it to the world, under their terms. This is why
the Mathworks wants the BSD, in order to be able to further restrict
it. After all, Matlab Central expelled all GPLed code for precisely
this reason.
- Jordi G. H.
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