[Bf-committers] Blender Foundation - softwarefreedom.org
Hi devs, Blender Foundation has signed up an agreement with The Software Freedom Law Center, so they can officially help or advice us for any future cases when legalities might arise. This is also related to my investigation of developer agreements. I'm reviewing the Harmony Agreements project and discuss with them what it would possibly benefit Blender. http://harmonyagreements.org/overview.html You probably know I'm a very relaxed and non-paranoid person. I don't think we're being at much risk, nor am I afraid for lawyers ever, nor do I like it much to force our contributors to give up the rather informal freedom here and make them sign complex agreements. On the other hand, it's the Foundation's responsibility to ensure Blender developers can safely and happily work, and to ensure Blender itself and its future is protected in the best way possible. With Blender becoming a more relevant alternative for commercial products, it's only a matter of time for some zealot to try out how to harm our project legally. Here's some tips I've learned sofar for developers to avoid; - Be careful with referring to commercial products. All of these typically have EULAs that forbid to investigate the products for any other reason than to use them. - If you refer to products or technology, ensure it's public and free info. Include the links to such docs or web pages. - Always document your progress and designs and publish it in the earliest possible stage. - Don't mention (nor do) investigation of public patent databases ever, unless you already evidently knew it had to be done. - If you're in doubt whether your work might get risky industry attention, arrange with me to have it published and committed under BF copyright. Even though that won't waive your liability from flagrant violations, it'll at least makes the BF position more clear in a future. - If you ever get contacted by a company or laywers firm about patents or IP issues, contact me individually immediate, and I'll hook you up with softwarefreedom.org. :) Thanks! -Ton- Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation t...@blender.orgwww.blender.org Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] Blender Foundation - softwarefreedom.org
- Don't mention (nor do) investigation of public patent databases ever, unless you already evidently knew it had to be done. Thanks! -Ton- Why? What is wrong with looking at public info? Thanks! -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] Blender Foundation - softwarefreedom.org
Hi, I'm not talking about looking at info, but mentioning it implies you take responsibility for that. -Ton- Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation t...@blender.orgwww.blender.org Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands On 24 Jul, 2011, at 16:26, Knapp wrote: - Don't mention (nor do) investigation of public patent databases ever, unless you already evidently knew it had to be done. Thanks! -Ton- Why? What is wrong with looking at public info? Thanks! -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] Blender Foundation - softwarefreedom.org
Hi Douglas, Ehh, let me rephrase -- tricky bizz this :) -- simply said: Although law demands you to know the law (you cannot claim ignorance of it), the law doesn't demand you to know all patents or all registrations of IP. Unless you evidently investigated it, or should have known by common publications in your area of interest. Etc. I'm not a lawyer! Just stay away from it! -Ton- Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation t...@blender.orgwww.blender.org Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands On 24 Jul, 2011, at 18:04, Ton Roosendaal wrote: Hi, I'm not talking about looking at info, but mentioning it implies you take responsibility for that. -Ton- Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation t...@blender.org www.blender.org Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands On 24 Jul, 2011, at 16:26, Knapp wrote: - Don't mention (nor do) investigation of public patent databases ever, unless you already evidently knew it had to be done. Thanks! -Ton- Why? What is wrong with looking at public info? Thanks! -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] Blender Foundation - softwarefreedom.org
Hi, Not sure who here read the Harmony website. Here's an interesting critic of it: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2011/07/07/harmony-harmful.html In short - my impression too - the agreement has a very high and complex rate of statements to solely protect and serve the organization. It's quite disputable what a developer benefits from it... The much more friendly readable Sign off from Linux kernel is something too: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.commits.head/33254 Not that I like to see this overhead for each of our commits; will study further :) -Ton- Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation t...@blender.orgwww.blender.org Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands On 24 Jul, 2011, at 14:04, Ton Roosendaal wrote: Hi devs, Blender Foundation has signed up an agreement with The Software Freedom Law Center, so they can officially help or advice us for any future cases when legalities might arise. This is also related to my investigation of developer agreements. I'm reviewing the Harmony Agreements project and discuss with them what it would possibly benefit Blender. http://harmonyagreements.org/overview.html You probably know I'm a very relaxed and non-paranoid person. I don't think we're being at much risk, nor am I afraid for lawyers ever, nor do I like it much to force our contributors to give up the rather informal freedom here and make them sign complex agreements. On the other hand, it's the Foundation's responsibility to ensure Blender developers can safely and happily work, and to ensure Blender itself and its future is protected in the best way possible. With Blender becoming a more relevant alternative for commercial products, it's only a matter of time for some zealot to try out how to harm our project legally. Here's some tips I've learned sofar for developers to avoid; - Be careful with referring to commercial products. All of these typically have EULAs that forbid to investigate the products for any other reason than to use them. - If you refer to products or technology, ensure it's public and free info. Include the links to such docs or web pages. - Always document your progress and designs and publish it in the earliest possible stage. - Don't mention (nor do) investigation of public patent databases ever, unless you already evidently knew it had to be done. - If you're in doubt whether your work might get risky industry attention, arrange with me to have it published and committed under BF copyright. Even though that won't waive your liability from flagrant violations, it'll at least makes the BF position more clear in a future. - If you ever get contacted by a company or laywers firm about patents or IP issues, contact me individually immediate, and I'll hook you up with softwarefreedom.org. :) Thanks! -Ton- Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation t...@blender.org www.blender.org Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] Blender Foundation - softwarefreedom.org
Knowingly violating IP is a worse then doing so by accident (if you're getting sued for IP infringement), given the state of US software patents, blender probably violates loads of patents - which themselves are probably invalid or could be shown to have proof of prior art. So the worst thing you can do is to find patents blender violates and post them on this list - because then we cant claim ignorance. According to Bradley Kuhn this happened to GCC and was a real pain because once posted they could not publicly ignore it. +1 for Just stay away from it! On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 2:16 AM, Ton Roosendaal t...@blender.org wrote: Hi Douglas, Ehh, let me rephrase -- tricky bizz this :) -- simply said: Although law demands you to know the law (you cannot claim ignorance of it), the law doesn't demand you to know all patents or all registrations of IP. Unless you evidently investigated it, or should have known by common publications in your area of interest. Etc. I'm not a lawyer! Just stay away from it! -Ton- Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation t...@blender.org www.blender.org Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands On 24 Jul, 2011, at 18:04, Ton Roosendaal wrote: Hi, I'm not talking about looking at info, but mentioning it implies you take responsibility for that. -Ton- Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation t...@blender.org www.blender.org Blender Institute Entrepotdok 57A 1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands On 24 Jul, 2011, at 16:26, Knapp wrote: - Don't mention (nor do) investigation of public patent databases ever, unless you already evidently knew it had to be done. Thanks! -Ton- Why? What is wrong with looking at public info? Thanks! -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers -- - Campbell ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
