Re: MP3 decoder packaged with XMMS
On Mon, Jul 18, 2005 at 09:27:55AM +0100, Daniel James wrote: Hi Steve, We're certainly all well aware of the patents that are being enforced against mp3 encoders, and Debian does not ship any mp3 encoders. So it's OK for Debian users to 'consume content' in MP3 format but they can't make and distribute their own music in the same format? It's not really in the spirit of free software, particularly if you consider that an encoder is to an internet-using musician what a compiler is a to developer. But that's hardly an argument grounded in concerns of legality, now is it? We seem to have wandered far astray from your original concern -- and far away from the topic of this list. In any case, I don't think denying our users access to files they have every legal right to use is an appropriate way to try to kill off the mp3 format. Even if it were, would you really have us do so by treating unsubstantiated patent claims about mp3 decoding as if they were valid? This would mean not only that Debian wouldn't support mp3 players, but also that we wouldn't support mp3 *converters* for extracting legacy data. Is that really helping anyone? I'm actually not aware of *any* CD's over mp3 decoding/playing that have actually stuck That's because it doesn't suit the patent holder's agenda to clamp down on the non-commercial distribution of decoders. It's more important to them that MP3 remains the de-facto standard among end users than that every single user pays up - and they know chasing Debian for payment probably won't be cost effective. Are you speculating, or do you have oracular insight into the validity of the respective patents that the rest of us lack? I share your suspicions regarding the patent holders' motivations, but this explanation is plausible whether or not the patents themselves are valid, so offers no guidance to us. the absence of some concrete support for the claim that mp3 *players* are patent-encumbered. I think Debian is in denial here. And I think you're engaging in FUD. The claim comes from exactly the same patent holders that you have removed encoders to satisfy. They don't make the distinction between encoders and decoders you have, and we've got away with it until now is not a great legal defence. The fact of the matter is that encoding and decoding are two *very* different operations, and if the same patent holders do have patents covering both, they are most likely separate patents. Moreover, encoding is invariably a more complex process than decoding, and consequently lends itself much better to patent protection in general. You simply haven't presented any evidence that the mp3 decoders Debian ships infringe valid, enforceable patents. Debian's standard for handling patent infringement claims is a quite reasonable one, and it has served us just fine for years. We're not about to start rolling over every time someone, somewhere, makes a vague claim that some bit of software we distribute infringes an unspecified patent -- we'd have no software left to distribute by the time we were done. What if a commercial distributor of Debian code gets sued, then drags Debian and SPI into the case? I'm not used to thinking of Debian's redistributors as being under the control of rat bastards of such caliber. I suppose it's possible, and I suppose that if such a thing came to pass, we would need to take steps to ensure they didn't redistribute Debian in the future. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: libdts patent issue?
Software patents are not legal in Europe. Period. The European patent convention from 1972 explicitly excludes software from patentability. Attempts to pass legislation that would have allowed software to become patentable have failed. The worst thing we could do now is give in to the patent scare tactic and stop developing and distributing software that might infringe patents that might have some validity. Ditto, for Brasil. Software patents are explicitly excluded in our Industrial Property (= Patents + Trademarks) Act (Law 9279/96), section 10, V: 10. It shall not be considered invention or utility model: I - discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods; II - purely abstract conceptions; III - schemes, plans, principles or methods of commerce, accounting, finance, education, advertising, lottery or fiscalization; IV - literary, architetonic, artistic, scientific works or any aesthetical creation; V - computer programs by themselves; VI - information presentation; VII - game rules; VIII - surgical techniques or methods, as well as therapeutic or diagnosis methods for application both in human or animal bodies; IX - all or part of natural living beings and biological materials found in nature, even if in isolation, including the genome and germoplasma of any natural living being and biological natural processes. Obviously, only inventions (or utility models) can be patented. -- HTH, Massa -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MP3 decoder packaged with XMMS
On 7/18/05, Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/18/05, Michael K. Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/18/05, Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you suggesting that the use of time - frequency domain mapping is not ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents? If you want to know what I am suggesting, with regard to a particular patent from the Fraunhofer suite (which I have looked at _very_ quickly and remember that in any case I am not qualified to judge), read http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00141.html . This seems tangential, and does not answer my question. If the question is, is it remotely plausible that Fraunhofer claims to have patented the Discrete Cosine Transform or its application to music compression, the answer is no. How's that? Or, perhaps that all other such techniques which have been in use for quite some time (such as favoring frequencies which the human ear is sensitive to) are all not ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents? [more non-answer elided.] If you don't have a simple answer for these questions, please don't imply that you have. Where, exactly, did I imply that? Either you're using the word covered in some way that has nothing to do with the claimed scope of the patent (in which case you are IMHO engaging in empty rhetoric), or you have been grossly misinformed as to the claimed scope of the Fraunhofer patents (and others claimed by reputable players in multimedia compression). I'm guessing both. Cheers, - Michael
Re: libdts patent issue?
On 7/18/05, Humberto Massa Guimarães [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ditto, for Brasil. Software patents are explicitly excluded in our Industrial Property (= Patents + Trademarks) Act (Law 9279/96), section 10, V: [snip] Obviously, only inventions (or utility models) can be patented. Now that Arnoud has explained how the no patents on mathematics, software, or business methods premise works in Europe -- indistinguishable in my eyes from how it works under current law in the US, except that EPO's examiners may or may not be on average more competent, less captured, or less overwhelmed than the USPTO's -- I would not be at all surprised if it works similarly under the statute you quote. Humberto, can you give me some kind of pointer to the primary literature (i. e., what judges cite in their opinions as interpretive guidance) in your legal system? Cheers, - Michael
Re: MP3 decoder packaged with XMMS
On 7/18/05, Michael K. Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/18/05, Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you suggesting that the use of time - frequency domain mapping is not ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents? If you want to know what I am suggesting, with regard to a particular patent from the Fraunhofer suite (which I have looked at _very_ quickly and remember that in any case I am not qualified to judge), read http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00141.html . This seems tangential, and does not answer my question. Or, perhaps that all other such techniques which have been in use for quite some time (such as favoring frequencies which the human ear is sensitive to) are all not ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents? [more non-answer elided.] If you don't have a simple answer for these questions, please don't imply that you have. Thanks, -- Raul
Re: MP3 decoder packaged with XMMS
On 7/18/05, Steve Langasek [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [consistently sane and well-judged things about MP3 and patents generally] It does, however, strike me that it would be prudent for someone appropriately qualified (as I am not) to look closely at the claims of US #5,579,430 and, generally, the history of the OCF process described in WO 88/01811. (That's a published international patent application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and as I understand it a practitioner can get its full text including diagrams from several sources including Dialog.) I haven't tracked that application down; but a competent-looking survey of the prior art from an interested observer aware of that document may be found at http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP511692 . Basically, Debian is distributing close cousins to things whose patent infringement status has been brought into question by attempts to enforce those patents on other distributors. I have no idea at what point Debian has actual notice but I would think that it likely that a duty of due care has been triggered under at least one of the world's legal systems. None of the MP3 issues -- even encoders, if you ask me -- seems to be an open-and-shut case of drop it unless competent counsel is optimistic (which I would say that libdts is), but IMHO the question warrants some competent attention. Personally, I would kind of like to see a negotiated outcome with the current Thomson people, whose public record appears reasonable to me. But as it seems very unlikely to me that Debian can scrape together enough good will towards an 3vi1 pat3nt h01d3r to take an olive branch if it were offered with respect to (say) LAME and ffmpeg, let me at least suggest obtaining opinion of competent counsel. Cheers, - Michael (IANADD, IANAL, TINLA, and I don't have any affiliation with Dolby or Fraunhofer)
Re: MP3 decoder packaged with XMMS
On 7/15/05, Michael K. Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/15/05, Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I very carefully made a distinction between technology described by the patents and patented technology in the message you're responding to. One example of technology where this distinction should be clear is the use of time - frequency domain mapping. Mr. James was obviously referring to the scope of the inventions ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents in the Fraunhofer (and possibly Sisvel) suites. Are you suggesting that the use of time - frequency domain mapping is not ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents? Or, perhaps that all other such techniques which have been in use for quite some time (such as favoring frequencies which the human ear is sensitive to) are all not ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents? Thanks, -- Raul
Re: Public Domain and Packaging
On Monday 18 July 2005 11:07 am, Brian M. Carlson wrote: What we *don't* want, is software that is copyrighted (which PD software isn't) and then without a license, because that gives us almost no rights whatsoever. There is no such thing as software that isn't copyrighted. All original expression that is fixed in a tangible form is immediately copyrighted (at least, that's the U.S. rule). There is still lots of debate as to whether it is possible to disclaim that copyright... but there is no question that it is, at the moment of creation, copyrighted. Mr. Crowther is better off accepting he has a copyright and simply attaching a COPYING file that says I grant anyone and everyone an irrevocable license to copy, modify, distribute, perform, display, or engage in anyother act requiring my permission with this software. Yes, there are a host of legal questions with that as well, but it gets us way closer to the pale than attempts to disclaim the copyright. -Sean -- Sean Kellogg 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law Graduate Professional Student Senate Treasurer UW Service Activities Committee Interim Chair w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
Re: MP3 decoder packaged with XMMS
On 7/18/05, Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you suggesting that the use of time - frequency domain mapping is not ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents? If you want to know what I am suggesting, with regard to a particular patent from the Fraunhofer suite (which I have looked at _very_ quickly and remember that in any case I am not qualified to judge), read http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/07/msg00141.html . I do not submit that I have gotten the _presumptive_ scope of the patent straight, in terms of the rules for how you apply dependent vs. independent claims, since in any case the patent was granted by administrative staff who were woefully confused at the time by both the state of the appellate law and the state of the prior art. AIUI a court of fact has the discretion to more or less completely rewrite the claims of a patent when it is litigated, based on the complete record of what was reduced to practice when by both the inventor and other workers in the field -- although the effect is almost always to retain the idiom of the patent's claims, striking some clauses and merging others to form narrower independent clauses. When I find a reasonably classic and comprehensible opinion at district court level I'll cite it. I will say this, though: all patent agents and attorneys are expected to be well versed in the procedures for prosecuting a patent application through the examination system and in the administrative standards patent examiners apply. They generally attempt to establish the widest possible perimeter as well as a set of more or less defensible fall-back positions. There may well be many patent attorneys that also attempt to explain to their clients what is likely to survive after a patent's claims have been evaluated by a court with the assistance of an interested competitor, competent expert witnesses, and a budget three to five orders of magnitude higher than the examiner's -- but they do so under the seal of attorney-client privilege. Or, perhaps that all other such techniques which have been in use for quite some time (such as favoring frequencies which the human ear is sensitive to) are all not ostensibly covered by the presumptively valid patents? The US number for the patent commonly cited as the MP3 patent is 5,579,430, which I have not yet examined closely. But if 5,924,060 is any indication, Karlheinz Brandenburg and his colleagues informed the patent examiners of the existence in the prior art of telephony-oriented audio compression techniques (such as ADPCM) which model a waveform in the time domain and are quite poorly suited to the signal content of recorded music and the way that the ear and brain process it, as well as closer relatives like Zelenski's Adaptive Transform Coding. They didn't claim to have invented the DCT or its application to recorded sound. They did claim to have reduced the quantization of DCT coefficients to practice according to at least one formula that is both psycho-acoustically and computationally efficient. I don't know enough about the state of the prior art at the time of foreign appl. No. P3629434.9, filed Aug. 29, 1986 (the basis for priority of 5,924,060) to say whether Herr Doktor Brandenburg was correct in his belief that this invention met the non-obvious part of the standard or that it deserved the breadth of claims stated (note that the German patent office granted it first). Note, in particular, his acknowledgment that it differs from ATC principally in the use of a single quantization level across the spectrum in a given block, which is then iteratively adjusted to fit within a bit-rate limit. But to me it sounds like patentable subject matter in all the world's major patent systems, and you'd have to fight it by focusing on the prior art and the scope of the claims rather than shout mathematical method! software patent! Cheers, - Michael (IANAL, TINLA)
Re: libdts patent issue?
Summary: it looks to me like current US and European law on the patentability of math, software, and business methods are already very, very closely aligned. Gripe, if you like, about the USPTO's ignorance of the prior art in software-intensive fields, and about the unholy alliance between patent agents with big thesauruses and corporate assignees who are more interested in obtaining ammunition for FUD than an accurate statement of the extent of the novelty in their invention. But don't blame Congress or the Federal Circuit, and don't believe everything you read in the funny papers. IANAL, TINLA. On 7/17/05, Arnoud Engelfriet [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As such. Art. 52(3) EPC. It's actually easier to make sure you don't claim math as such than software as such. Just state a practical application in the claim. Here's a claim that would _not_ be maths as such under European law: A method of encrypting a bitstream A using a key B that is the same length as A, comprising computing A XOR B. Of course this method is long known, but that's question number two. That is precisely the distinction applied under current law in the US as I understand it (IANAL). The latest word on the topic appears to be ATT Corp. V. Excel Comm. Inc. [50 USPQ2d 1447, 1452 (Fed. Cir. 1999)] at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/Fed/981338v2.html . ATT had patented a method of identifying whether both ends of a long distance call were in the same network that used simple Boolean algebra. The district court invalidated the patent on the grounds that it was not statutory subject matter, for lack of any physical limitations (as required under the older Freeman-Walter-Abele test). Judge Plager's appellate opinion points out that, subsequent to In re Alappat (a 1994 decision of the Federal Circuit en banc), it applies a useful, concrete, tangible result test instead: our inquiry here focuses on whether the mathematical algorithm is applied in a practical manner to produce a useful result. The circuit court reversed and remanded, with a reminder that the ultimate validity of these claims depends upon their satisfying the other requirements for patentability such as those set forth in 35 U.S.C. 102, 103, and 112 -- and sure enough, on remand the patent was invalidated for the right reasons, anticipation and obviousness. I occasionally see courts dealing with the computer program exception, but I've never seen caselaw about maths as such. Probably because me and my colleagues know that you must claim a practical application of the mathematics, and fortunately that's usually easy. And it limits the scope of the monopoly granted to the cited application(s). US Patent law appears to apply a criterion not dissimilar from the copyright law doctrine of merger -- the Supreme Court, in Diamond v. Diehr [450 U.S. at 175, 209 USPQ 1 (1981)], confirmed that abstract ideas are excluded from patentability and hence any invention which constitutes an obvious application of an abstract idea is denied patent protection. I think it's fair to say that an abstract idea in the form of an algorithm, applied to the making of a machine that executes it (those absurd register means, processor means, and storage means of the 80's and 90's), isn't really applied yet. It becomes patentable subject matter when it is applied to a concrete problem domain in which that algorithm is not an obvious solution and produces a useful result; and it doesn't really matter whether it can be built with commodity hardware or has to be realized as an ASIC to be commercially competitive. Hence it is essentially also true in the US that software is not patentable as such, only its application to a concrete problem domain. The fact that this distinction is widely misunderstood or misrepresented (IMHO, IANAL) by commentators, especially those with a nest to feather or an axe to grind, is not the Federal Circuit's fault. The USPTO isn't helping much, as they haven't fully understood this opinion either as far as I am concerned. See discussion of the continuing relevance of the Koo patent case http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/pbmethod/trangmaterials.ppt (Google will convert it to HTML for you). The storage in computer-readable memory shibboleth from the mid-90's had to do with uncertainty about whether concrete, where signals were concerned, meant must be a machine instead of a process (the claim formulas are different in USPTO guidance), and AFAICT this has also been superseded by ATT v. Excel. Try it. I'm able to kill business methods[1], but I would not advise my client to oppose a European patent on the ground that it's a computer program as such. Not even if I had Knuth as expert witness. [1] See the lowermost example on my webpage http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/businessmethods/epoexamples/ Note that the relevant decision in the US, State Street v. Signature ( http://laws.findlaw.com/fed/961327.html ), would not authorize business
Re: Public Domain and Packaging
On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 11:45 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote:
On Monday 18 July 2005 11:07 am, Brian M. Carlson wrote:
What we *don't* want, is software that is copyrighted (which PD software
isn't) and then without a license, because that gives us almost no
rights whatsoever.
There is no such thing as software that isn't copyrighted. All original
expression that is fixed in a tangible form is immediately copyrighted (at
least, that's the U.S. rule). There is still lots of debate as to whether it
is possible to disclaim that copyright... but there is no question that it
is, at the moment of creation, copyrighted.
False. You, as a lawyer-to-be, should know better than to be imprecise.
U.S. Government software is not copyrighted, and cannot be so,
excepting, of course, the United States Postal Service, which is granted
an exception under 19 U.S.C.
Mr. Crowther is better off accepting he has a copyright and simply attaching
a
COPYING file that says I grant anyone and everyone an irrevocable license to
copy, modify, distribute, perform, display, or engage in anyother act
requiring my permission with this software. Yes, there are a host of legal
questions with that as well, but it gets us way closer to the pale than
attempts to disclaim the copyright.
As for non-government software, no one can force a monopoly upon another
person if that person does not want it. What Mr. Crowther can do is
simply disclaim the copyright and never enforce it, even if he does have
it under some theory of law. If his heirs attempt to enforce it, they
will be dilatory under the doctrine of laches.
--
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MFUL+F=Y/@H)2QA8F-D969G:EJ:VQM;F]P7)S='5V=WAYBQN=V]R8FMC
5:75Q96AT9V1YF%L=G-P;6IX9BP)
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Public Domain and Packaging
On Monday 18 July 2005 03:13 pm, Brian M. Carlson wrote: On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 11:45 -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: On Monday 18 July 2005 11:07 am, Brian M. Carlson wrote: What we *don't* want, is software that is copyrighted (which PD software isn't) and then without a license, because that gives us almost no rights whatsoever. There is no such thing as software that isn't copyrighted. All original expression that is fixed in a tangible form is immediately copyrighted (at least, that's the U.S. rule). There is still lots of debate as to whether it is possible to disclaim that copyright... but there is no question that it is, at the moment of creation, copyrighted. False. You, as a lawyer-to-be, should know better than to be imprecise. U.S. Government software is not copyrighted, and cannot be so, excepting, of course, the United States Postal Service, which is granted an exception under 19 U.S.C. Sigh. The original paragraph had a little parenthetical note about how some software is not actually copyrighted. In addition to U.S. Government works, software that does not comprise expression is also non-copyrighted, as was discussed in the Lexmark case (more famously known for limiting the extent of the DMCA). I foolishly took that note out because I hoped people would grant a bit of wiggle room so that I could get straight to the posters question. Mr. Crowther is better off accepting he has a copyright and simply attaching a COPYING file that says I grant anyone and everyone an irrevocable license to copy, modify, distribute, perform, display, or engage in anyother act requiring my permission with this software. Yes, there are a host of legal questions with that as well, but it gets us way closer to the pale than attempts to disclaim the copyright. As for non-government software, no one can force a monopoly upon another person if that person does not want it. What Mr. Crowther can do is simply disclaim the copyright and never enforce it, even if he does have it under some theory of law. If his heirs attempt to enforce it, they will be dilatory under the doctrine of laches. Are you certain? Obviously I can chose not to enforce my monopoly... but I don't see why the government cannot force me to have one. I have a whole host of rights under Tort law that I think are really extreme (like... if you give me a pat on the back and I haven't given you permission, I have a suit. Damages might be non-existent, but you have still violated my rights). Even though the rights are extreme, I cannot say that I don't have them... I can only chose not to enforce them. As for whether disclaiming is a better route to the Public Domain than an explicit license is... well, something that I think will have to be resolved by a judge someday, because the arguments on both side are plentiful. But laches... you know, laches is a strange doctrine that is perhaps not the best doctrine to wave around in the IP world. I've heard it invoked, but its not the kind of thing I'd want to hang my hat on. -- Sean Kellogg 3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law Graduate Professional Student Senate Treasurer UW Service Activities Committee Interim Chair w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com So, let go ...Jump in ...Oh well, what you waiting for? ...it's all right ...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
Re: Public Domain and Packaging
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Sean Kellogg wrote: On Monday 18 July 2005 11:07 am, Brian M. Carlson wrote: What we *don't* want, is software that is copyrighted (which PD software isn't) and then without a license, because that gives us almost no rights whatsoever. There is no such thing as software that isn't copyrighted. All original expression that is fixed in a tangible form is immediately copyrighted (at least, that's the U.S. rule). There is at least one copus of work that is not copyrighted in the US; that's work created by the government. There are other classes of uncopyrightable works as well, and ways to abandon the rights granted by copyright. Don Armstrong -- This space for rent. http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Public Domain and Packaging
On 7/18/05, Sean Kellogg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sigh. The original paragraph had a little parenthetical note about how some software is not actually copyrighted. In addition to U.S. Government works, software that does not comprise expression is also non-copyrighted, as was discussed in the Lexmark case (more famously known for limiting the extent of the DMCA). I foolishly took that note out because I hoped people would grant a bit of wiggle room so that I could get straight to the posters question. And in fact the US Government is not prohibited from seeking to register and enforce copyrights abroad. See Florian's citation from the House Report in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00169.html and my discussion at http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/06/msg2.html of whether the US Government could copyright its works in, say, Italy. IANAL, TINLA. Are you certain? Obviously I can chose not to enforce my monopoly... but I don't see why the government cannot force me to have one. I have a whole host of rights under Tort law that I think are really extreme (like... if you give me a pat on the back and I haven't given you permission, I have a suit. Damages might be non-existent, but you have still violated my rights). Even though the rights are extreme, I cannot say that I don't have them... I can only chose not to enforce them. Precisely. But you can issue a binding promise not to attempt to enforce a given right in court, subject to limitations in statute and common law which may vary by subject matter. The vehicle for such a promise is called ... wait for it ... a contract. And as copyright infringement is a statutory tort, it is no surprise that copyright license is, always and only, a term in a contract. As for whether disclaiming is a better route to the Public Domain than an explicit license is... well, something that I think will have to be resolved by a judge someday, because the arguments on both side are plentiful. But laches... you know, laches is a strange doctrine that is perhaps not the best doctrine to wave around in the IP world. I've heard it invoked, but its not the kind of thing I'd want to hang my hat on. Basically, do you want your licensees to have a real license agreement to work with, or do you want them to be stuck with some lame equitable estoppel argument based on a unilateral declaration of intent? Keep in mind that, when ongoing forbearance is needed and there is a serious defect in contract formation, reliance to one's detriment will only save you insofar as you _have_ relied to your detriment prior to the attempted revocation of grant and it really _would_ be an undue burden to cease and desist. AIUI neither one will give you an escape clause from statutory limits on what promises can be held against a copyright holder (such as the 17 USC 203 termination language). Note, however, that one of the consequences of treating a copyright as intangible property is that _ownership_ of a copyright can be given as a gift with no need for continuing performance and hence no possibility of revocation (except if fraudulently induced, etc.). This isn't quite bulletproof; the statutory termination clause also applies to assignments; but otherwise it can be used to construct a pretty thorough self-straitjacket, at a non-trivial cost in money and hassle. Does it _matter_ to you that the world know it's safe to treat your work as public domain? Charter a non-profit trust to hold copyrights on the public's behalf, write it into the charter that it will never seek to enforce a copyright it holds, fund a trusteeship annuity with the full-service bank of your choice, assign the trust your copyright, reaffirm the assignation in your will. Done, except for the loophole in the termination loophole: you can't be prevented from changing your will to remove the reaffirmation, leaving your personal heirs with the termination interest. To go any farther, you need to set it up so that your non-profit uses your own money to hire you to do the work. Sound absurd yet? I for one would just as soon live under a legal system where that sort of sham exchange is discouraged. The cult leaders and rip-off artists out there will _always_ be better than the mere altruists at designing dodges around legal limits on how badly one can screw oneself by accepting an unwise contract. As for laches, I agree 100% that it is not to be relied on as a defense against a sincere plaintiff. It's basically an escape clause for judges faced with plaintiffs who are trying to game the legal system and its potential for near-infinite delay, thereby parlaying an opponent's peccadillo into a huge windfall. Cheers, - Michael (IANAL, TINLA)
Re: Bug#318204: ITP: php-simpletest -- Unit testing and web testing framework for PHP
Licence text included at end of mail. I'll go over the licence part by part. Preamble: Belive it or not a preamble is not legally a no-op. It establishes intent which is sometimes more important than the actual wording. Definitions: There is nothing important in this section. The relevence of this text come into play only in the numbered sections. 1. OK 2. The words public domain in this clause are very interesting. Does this mean that I can make any changes at all that I want as long as I disavow copyright? Public domain is usually thought of as works that are not eligable for copyright, have expired, or have had copyright disavowed. 3. Requireng the changes to be noted in-file is problematic.The rest is even more problematic seeming. Requiring naming changes may not be DFSG-Free. The clause in the guidelines seems to refer to package names, not executable names. Requiring inclusion of the Standard Version is probably Non-Free. 4. This clause is confusing. It implies that I must distribute the Standard Version along with the modified versions, but the latter part about documenting where the standard version can be obtained, imply that I do not. 5-9. Clauses similar to these appear in other free licences. Realisticly the licence is intended to be free. The licence was designed to ensure that people did not run non-standard tests thinking they where standard tests. However requiring the inclusion of the Standard Version is probably going too far. So I vote for not including the package. IANADD, IANAL, TINLA -- Preamble The intent of this document is to state the conditions under which a Package may be copied, such that the Copyright Holder maintains some semblance of artistic control over the development of the package, while giving the users of the package the right to use and distribute the Package in a more-or-less customary fashion, plus the right to make reasonable modifications. Testing is essential for proper development and maintenance of standards-based products. For buyers: adequate conformance testing leads to reduced integration costs and protection of investments in applications, software and people. For software developers: conformance testing of platforms and middleware greatly reduces the cost of developing and maintaining multi-platform application software. For suppliers: In-depth testing increases customer satisfaction and keeps development and support costs in check. API conformance is highly measurable and suppliers who claim it must be able to substantiate that claim. As such, since these are benchmark measures of conformance, we feel the integrity of test tools is of importance. In order to preserve the integrity of the existing conformance modes of this test package and to permit recipients of modified versions of this package to run the original test modes, this license requires that the original test modes be preserved. If you find a bug in one of the standards mode test cases, please let us know so we can feed this back into the original, and also raise any specification issues with the appropriate bodies (for example the POSIX committees). Definitions: a.. Package refers to the collection of files distributed by the Copyright Holder, and derivatives of that collection of files created through textual modification. b.. Standard Version refers to such a Package if it has not been modified, or has been modified in accordance with the wishes of the Copyright Holder. c.. Copyright Holder is whoever is named in the copyright or copyrights for the package. You is you, if you're thinking about copying or distributing this Package. d.. Reasonable copying fee is whatever you can justify on the basis of media cost, duplication charges, time of people involved, and so on. (You will not be required to justify it to the Copyright Holder, but only to the computing community at large as a market that must bear the fee.) e.. Freely Available means that no fee is charged for the item itself, though there may be fees involved in handling the item. It also means that recipients of the item may redistribute it under the same conditions they received it. 1. You may make and give away verbatim copies of the source form of the Standard Version of this Package without restriction, provided that you duplicate all of the original copyright notices and associated disclaimers. 2. You may apply bug fixes, portability fixes and other modifications derived from the Public Domain or from the Copyright Holder. A Package modified in such a way shall still be considered the Standard Version. 3. You may otherwise modify your copy of this Package in any way, provided that you insert a prominent notice in each changed file stating how and when you changed that file, and provided that you do at least the following: rename any non-standard executables and testcases so the names do not conflict with standard executables and
Re: RFS: libopenspc -- library for playing SPC files
On Monday 18 July 2005 11:12 pm, you wrote: FWIW, I would not touch SNEeSe or any fragment derived from it with a ten-foot pole unless they can tell you where sneese.dat came from and what's in it. Well file(1) said it is an allegro datafile, so I apt-get'ed liballegro-dev and try extracting it using 'dat -x SNEESE.DAT *'. It contains two images. One is the startup screen the other is the image of a joypad used presumably in keyboard setup. Ryan, unless there are other legal issues I think it is safe to proceed. (resending to the lists, whoops) Yes, just a few hours ago I got a response from upstream saying the same thing, using almost exactly the same process too :- ) Not sure how some images got confused with a core from another emulator. -- Ryan Schultz - floating point exception: divide by cucumber pgpCDadZiAOWH.pgp Description: PGP signature
