Re: Warranty

[Forrest J. Cavalier III]

 Sure.  Take a look at http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6155.
 

So, how does someone with sense or conscience redistribute software
and offer a warranty of non-infringement for software they acquired
or is a combined work?

Relying on a cascade of breach of warranty lawsuits back through
the distribution chain doesn't sound like a reasonable business
risk.

Is there an insurance industry around this?  (And if there were,
is it as risk averse as the underwriters for all other lines of
insurance have become in the last 13 months?)

I think the best to reasonably expect from a licensor of
software at reasonable, or little. or no cost, is:
   For materials exclusively authored by Provider, Provider
warrants that the listed licenses apply to You. Provider
warrants that all licenses and disclaimers that Provider
is aware apply to You as of this date are as follows:

[list here]

   

And providing the second part of that warranty is a stretch for
most OSS distributors.

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Re: Procedure for using an approved license

[John Cowan]

Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. scripsit:

 There is also the questionable premise that a software license may
 lawfully extinguish the floor and ceiling of derivative works...i.e. under
 copyright law some modifications need no permission from the copyright
 holder because they are fair uses, other modifications need no permission
 from the copyright holder because they are transformative and somewhere
 between those two extremes you'll find derivative works.  

I suppose you mean infringing (absent a license) derivative works.  This
terminology is very clumsy, but at least it gets fair use etc. into the
right part of the picture: defenses against infringement.

But in any event, the statutory definition of derivative work employs
the term modifications as primitive:

A derivative work is a work based upon on or more preexisting
works, such as a translation, [other examples omitted] or
any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or
adapted.  A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations,
elaborations, or other *modifications*, which as a whole,
represent an original work of authorship, is a derivative work.
[Emphasis added.]

 a software license uses the term modification to tread on the shoulders of
 transformative works or to control what is or may be viewed as fair uses,

In these cases, the question is not whether the unauthorized-by-the-license
derivative work is really a derivative work; it is whether it infringes or not.
If it is fair use, including transformative use, it does not infringe.

IANAL, TINLA, obviously.

-- 
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that cooks with lard and goose fat, the partwww.ccil.org/~cowan
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