A Software License That's Libre But Not Gratis?

duncan bayne writes "My company is developing some software using Ruby. It's proprietary software — decidedly not free-as-in-beer — but I don't want to tie my customers down with the usual prohibitions on reverse engineering, modification, etc. After all, they're licensing the product from us, so I think they should be able to use it as they see fit. Does anyone know of an existing license that could be used in this case? Something that gives the customer the freedom to modify the product as they want, but prohibits them from creating derivative works, or redistributing it in any fashion?"

Comments

No license necessary

[morbiuswilters]

IANAL, but if you are not imposing a EULA, you shouldn't need any kind of license. End-user licenses restrict what can be done with the copy of the software that is owned. Licenses like the GPL restrict what can be done when redistributing the software, but impose nothing on the end-users. If you are not wanting to permit your end-users to redistribute, simple copyright is enough to protect your rights without the need for an additional license. If the software is not being redistributed and you aren't requiring a EULA, then the end-users are free to modify the software as they see fit (or do anything with it, except redistribute) under existing copyright law. So it seems copyright law as-is protects you from redistribution and permits your users the ability to modify the software, without the need of any license.

Re:No license necessary

[gnick]

Officially I think you're right. I deal with several vendors who license their stuff to us. We are often trying to work beyond what their out-of-the-box COTS customers want, so we often ask for a little bit of flexibility (APIs for developing our own aps - nothing fancy). They usually ask for a NDA, which may be a good idea in this case too, but nothing fancy.

IANAL.

Re:No license necessary

[Brian Gordon]

I would hesitate to rely on copyright law. Since you're a developer you (should) know that everything gets copied everywhere a zillion times in the natural execution of the application code. This may be trivial but file formats and proprietary network protocols or APIs greatly complicate the issue. The way I understand it is that the idea of "licensing out" software instead of just selling it under existing contract of sale law is that you're granted a license to do all that copying and to freely copy created files in proprietary (new) formats across networks and on their hard drives.

Re:No license necessary

[Brian Gordon]

Plus of course to effect the control that Microsoft etc and (ahem) the GNU project etc want over what people can do with their IP.

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

IANAL, but if you are not imposing a EULA, you shouldn't need any kind of license. End-user licenses restrict what can be done with the copy of the software that is owned. Licenses like the GPL restrict what can be done when redistributing the software, but impose nothing on the end-users. If you are not wanting to permit your end-users to redistribute, simple copyright is enough to protect your rights without the need for an additional licenseIf the software is not being redistributed and you aren't requiring a EULA, then the end-users are free to modify the software as they see fit (or do anything with it, except redistribute) under existing copyright law. So it seems copyright law as-is protects you from redistribution and permits your users the ability to modify the software, without the need of any license.

This is 100% incorrect. Copyright law does not allow some to create a derivative work without the consent of the copyright owner. And when I say derivative, I mean modification. The author of the summary is confused because he or she does not understand that a modification is a derivative work (assuming modification uses the original aspects of the work that the original author created himself.) You are assuming that copyright protects only from redistribution. That is wrong. Here is what the statute says:

15 USC 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106

As you can see, derivative and distribution are two separate rights granted to the copyright holder.

Re:No license necessary

[grantek]

Depending on how valuable the source actually is, you could go the TrueCrypt/Firefox route and allow redistribution and modification, but use trademarks to protect your "official" version that has monetary value.

Re:No license necessary

[sowth]

Since you're a developer you (should) know that everything gets copied everywhere a zillion times in the natural execution of the application code.

How is this different than people use textbooks? People "copy" them into not only their notes, but their brain, "a zillion times." Or music? Any CD player which has skip protection copies the data to a RAM buffer to carry out its function. Any MP3 player copies the data to a decoder chip which probably also is copied to a RAM buffer before it is copied to the D/A converter. I could go on, but if you don't get it at this point, you are either screwing with me or are really stupid.

In fact, "copyright" law should have been named distribution rights law because that is what it does. It doesn't really try to enforce copying like you claim it does. It enforces the authors right to control redistributing the material so he or she can make a profit off of his / her work as if that work were a real physical object. If someone copies a work they purchased for their use (as long as they have the material in their possession), that is within the spirit of copyright law. If someone gives (distributes) a copy to someone else while not assigning them the original copy they procured, this is breaking the spirit of copyright law.

...and file formats and APIs don't really complicate anything, at least with US law. (Your jurisdiction my vary) Last time I checked the US Copyright Office site, it said names, recipes, numbers and the results of math and the like were not copyrightable. Computer algorithms are the same as "math." Function names and calling them would apply to this category, would they not?

Obviously anyone can claim what copyright is supposed to be, but this is the way I see it.

I would also like to point out the constant asinine claims where many "businessmen" say they can micromanage, demand payment, and otherwise control something they have sold to another are an affront to the basic concept of property. Once you sell something, it isn't yours to control!

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

What about fair use? Unlike math theorems, laws aren't necessarily true statements in isolation.

Re:No license necessary

[belmolis]

This isn't really accurate. Although it is true that copyright law appears to prohibit the mere creation of a derivative work whether or not it is distributed, in fact some kinds of derivative work are not considered infringing so long as they are not published. If your interpretation were correct, annotating your own copy of a copyrighted book would constitute copyright infringement, which is not the case. You are perfectly free to annotate your books - you are not free to publish your own annotated edition of someone else's book. Similarly, it is infringing to publish a translation of a copyrighted work, but you may make your own translation and keep it for your own use.

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

Fair use may apply to some personal or educational uses but according to the summary, this is concerning a commercial use. Although those sometimes qualify for fair use, it is quite rare.

Re:No license necessary

[scientus]

yep, copyright law does all of this, the user can use the software in any manner, but not create copies beyond what is required to use it, nor distribute it, its all very clear and easy.

The user can create derivative products in the strictest sense, but without permission is unable to distribute them unless the part he is distributing has none of the original copyrighted material. (or gets permission)

Re:No license necessary

[scientus]

thats specifically not what the poster wants, the creator wants to ensure getting paid, therefore the licence within firefox and truecrypt that permits copying (under certain restrictions) is not acceptable in this case.

Also trademark stuff is valid for all software or anything even without copyright law even if things are in the public domain. Firefox etc all do more which is to copyleft it, making sure that people have to let each next user also view the original source, AND the contributions that any other developer makes, if they distrobute it.

Re:No license necessary

[scientus]

its the best the person can do, the only way to make this stronger if to have some soft of death clause in a pre-agreed contract before buying that states that if the user distrobutes the software they breech contract and have to pay consequences above and beyond copyright law.

However illicit copying of some types of software is much less prevelent than mega-apps. Also Businesses are less likely to do such a thing, and if the software was custom, there are few with the source so it would be fairily easy to establish evidence against the infringer and eill likely be easier to determine damages.

Re:No license necessary

[scientus]

it depends how deritive works are defined, in this instance modifications of the souce could be considered a use of the software and the main way of using it.

of course copyright law was not created for practical tools. it was designed for art that is largely static after creation, and has been strung in interesting ways to apply to source code and object code. It might be necicary to make clear some rights that copyright law does not in the pre-arraged pre-purchace aggreement.

Re:No license necessary

[Cyberax]

WRONG!!!

You are free to create a derivative work of copyrighted material. However, you are NOT free to distribute the end result of your work.

If you keep modifications in-house then you're OK.

Re:No license necessary

[grantek]

Depends who your customers are - most companies I've seen are scared shitless of using anything that doesn't have a brand name.

The only way you can "ensure getting paid" is by not giving the client any freedom (or source) at all - the whole point of the open business models is that the customer can pick up your code and go pay someone else to support it, and that's ironically why you can charge a premium.

Really, this "licensed codebase" is something different, and it's done all the time (like licensing a game engine to create your own game), all you need is a suitable NDA to keep anyone leaking the code to the public.

Re:No license necessary

[vux984]

As you can see, derivative and distribution are two separate rights granted to the copyright holder.

1) It doesn't really matter. If the copyright holder is ok with them creating a derivate work, then he won't sue them. Its not like the police will intervene and stop anyone from creating a derivative work.

2) While the author may hold the rights to derivate works, fair use could be used as a defense for a modified/derivative work used within the company made from a legitimately purchased copy.

So its perefectly ok to buy a book, and highlight the passages you like, and cut out the pages you don't like, creating a derivative work, regardless of what the original author wants.

(Its not ok, to turn around and start renting those copies out... however, as the blockbuster case determined, but that is a separate issue.)

Re:No license necessary

[KDR_11k]

The law has special provisions for that kind of "copying".

Re:No license necessary

[KDR_11k]

1) It doesn't really matter. If the copyright holder is ok with them creating a derivate work, then he won't sue them. Its not like the police will intervene and stop anyone from creating a derivative work.

A company won't do it without written permission though, otherwise the copyright holder could change his mind at any time.

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep them "in house" on the computer of the person who created it. It may constitute distribution if you distribute it internally to other users, install it on a computer where they can reach it...

Re:No license necessary

[Ed Avis]

you may make your own translation and keep it for your own use.

Do you have a citation for that? It does seem odd that copyright law prohibits making translations, even if you don't distribute them, but that's always what I've read. Perhaps this was an oversimplification.

Re:No license necessary

[dotancohen]

This is 100% incorrect. Copyright law does not allow some to create a derivative work without the consent of the copyright owner. And when I say derivative, I mean modification. The author of the summary is confused because he or she does not understand that a modification is a derivative work (assuming modification uses the original aspects of the work that the original author created himself.) You are assuming that copyright protects only from redistribution. That is wrong. Here is what the statute says:

As you can see, derivative and distribution are two separate rights granted to the copyright holder.

So, how is it that I can bolt a 750 CFM Holley double pumper and an Edelbrock hirise manifold on my Chevy without GM's permission?

Re:No license necessary

[moderators_are_w*nke]

IANAL either, but as far as I am aware, if you don't license your software, your users cannot download or install it as to do so requires them to make a copy.

This is fine for an old NES game where its always used off the original media but on PCs most people expect to run stuff off their hard disk.

Re:No license necessary

[Nuskrad]

In UK law there's a specific exception that allows modification of software (but not other copyrighted works) unless expressly forbidden in a EULA or other agreement:

50C.-(1) It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to copy or adapt it, provided that the copying or adapting-

(a) is necessary for his lawful use; and
(b) is not prohibited under any term or condition of an agreement regulating the circumstances in which his use is lawful.

(2) It may, in particular, be necessary for the lawful use of a computer program to copy it or adapt it for the purpose of correcting errors in it.

The law also provides permission to make back-up copies of software, to decompile software for the purpose of interoperability and the study and observe the underlying mechanism of software even where the EULA forbids it (any such term being void in the eyes of the law)

Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

Re:No license necessary

[RichardJenkins]

A machine like your Chevy is not copyrighted. The design documents are, but not the device itself.

Re:No license necessary

[tomhudson]

Not to pick a fight, but,

• Parent poster's theory: "The only way you can "ensure getting paid" is by not giving the client any freedom (or source) at all - the whole point of the open business models is that the customer can pick up your code and go pay someone else to support it, and that's ironically why you can charge a premium."
• Actual practice: "They wrote it, so it's probably cheaper + safer (fewer bugs will creap in alongside the new features wo want to add) for us to get them to modify it than to get someone who has to get up to speed on it."

Only source that's widely distributed and used will get 3rd-party support. Otherwise, customers are pretty much married to the devs.

Re:No license necessary

[tomhudson]

Every time you load the program into memory, you're creating a derivative work. The copy in memory is NOT an exact binary copy of what's on the disk - in the case of binaries, the loader patches addresses (hence modifying a copy of the "original work"), links to libraries, etc; in the case of scripts, the interpreter creates a modified, derived work when it creates the parse tree from the script, before script execution.

As you can see, you *have* to have the ability to create derived works, or the program is without use or purpose.

Just wanted to point out that not all modifications are also derivations, in the practical sense. This was decided with the Game Genie case, where it was held that the sale of a tool that allowed the user to alter the copy in memory did not in fact violate copyright law:

The introduction of the original NES Game Genie was met by fierce opposition from Nintendo. Nintendo sued Galoob in the case Galoob v. Nintendo, claiming that the Game Genie created derivative works in violation of copyright law. Sales of the Game Genie initially stopped in the U.S., but not in Canada. In many gaming magazines of the time, Galoob placed Game Genie ads saying "Thank You Canada!" However, after the courts found that use of the Game Genie did not result in a derivative work, Nintendo could do nothing to stop the Game Genie from being sold in the U.S. Sega, on the other hand, fully endorsed the product with their official seal of approval. Before the lawsuit was filed, Galoob offered to make the Game Genie an officially licensed product but was turned down by Nintendo.

It's clear that the Game Genie does create a derived work. It's also clear that derived works are not necessarily banned by copyright. Where it would stop is with redistribution of the work (in the case of Nintendo, a bin of the moddede game), as apposed to the Game Genie itself.

That being said, I think this whole discussion is a tempest in a tea-pot. Simply put, you sell them the script along with an agreement saying that it is protected copyright, that the customer has the NON-TRANSFERRABLE right to use the software, as well as create enhancements or modifications for their own internal use, but does not have the right to redistribute the software.

Make sure you make it non-transferrable - with the waves of bankruptcies and amalgamations going around, you don't want to see your work get a "Second Life" well beyond the intended scope of the original agreement.

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

I am not sure where you are getting this idea. The Act says "to prepare derivative works" not "distribute derivative works."

But hey, if you want to subject yourself and your company to the $250,000 statutory damage per violation, go right ahead.

And before you say it, a derivative work is considered a copy, so 106(3) covers distribution of derivatives as well.

Re:No license necessary

[akac]

"but this is the way I see it" means nothing. What matters is how the courts see it, not you.

As for the last paragraph - that's patently wrong too. Its not the computer code or math that you are copyrighting, it is the entire product of that. Just like nobody can copyright words, but you can copyright a book. It is the collection of words put together that make specific thoughts, ideas, in a particular way.

And you cannot copy a book or be liable. So you cannot copy a piece of software. That software contains mathematical algorithms put into specific ways, designed with artwork, and more that make it copyrightable.

Re:No license necessary

[j0nb0y]

And this is why it's not a good idea to get legal advice on slashdot...

let's review:

The exclusive rights granted in copyright law are detailed in 17 USC S 106:

17 USC S 106 Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: ... (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

The statute uses the word prepare. You will be in violation even if you don't distribute your derivative work. For a case dealing with this specific subject, see Walt Disney Productions v Filmation Associates, at 628 F.Supp. 871. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a copy of it online.

IANAL

Re:No license necessary

[nine-times]

Well the complicate issue is that copyrights aren't meant to inhibit a person's right to distribute things. Whether or not something is distributed may be legally meaningful, but what the laws are really meant to inhibit is copying (and therefore also the creation of derivative work).

I agree that it seems like a strange thing these days, when digital copying is so simple. We copy things all the time without thinking of it, so the idea that making copies would be the illegal thing seems crazy. But if you think back to something like books-- if you own two books, why shouldn't you be able to sell them? It didn't make sense to legally prohibit people from selling or giving away books that they already had. The issue was as to whether people had the right to create a new copy or create a new derivative work in the first place.

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Techically, no, someone cannot make derivative works without violating the statute. Will the copyright holder be aware of this action before distribution? Probably not.

I am not sure where everyone here is getting the idea that only distribution of derivatives is not allowed. That simply is not the case. Creation of derivatives is a right limited only to the copyright holder.

And by the way, the copy into ram issue is something that is covered by fair use.

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

There is a specific statutory provision that covers copies that are loaded into memory. Courts have also ruled this to be fair use.

And I am pretty sure the Game Genie case was ruled to be a fair use. Fair use doesn't come into play until there is an actual violation. It's been awhile since I've read that case but there is a string of cases that say you are allowed to copy a part of software that is original in order to get to the non-original and non-protectable idea that is behind it, as long as you delete that copy once you discover that "idea." (Ideas are not copyrightable btw). The reason this is fair use is because not allowing someone to do so would techically give the copyright holder protection for the idea as well. Copyright law was not meant to do that. This is why reverse engineering is allowed by copyright law and why so many EULAs specifically prohibit it.

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

1) It doesn't really matter. If the copyright holder is ok with them creating a derivate work, then he won't sue them. Its not like the police will intervene and stop anyone from creating a derivative work.

That's my point. Creation of a derivative work is limited to the copyright holder and a right that must be licensed out in order for someone else to do so.

Re:No license necessary

[mysidia]

You might need a EULA to protect against frivolous implicit warranty claims. Most free software licenses disclaim all warrantise; as seller of the software, you should probably include some sort of warranty, but you don't want your customer to believe the warranty includes costs beyond the price of the software; i.e. incidental, consequential damages that arise from malfunction of the software, and poor planning by the user (such as database corruption, and the user failed to have a backup of the DB).

If you don't make some sort of document explaining they are free to modify it, to set their mind at ease, there may be customer confusion.

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

(The above anon post was me. I must have accidentally checked the anonymous box before I clicked submit.)

Techically, no, someone cannot make derivative works without violating the statute. Will the copyright holder be aware of this action before distribution? Probably not.

I am not sure where everyone here is getting the idea that only distribution of derivatives is not allowed. That simply is not the case. Creation of derivatives is a right limited only to the copyright holder.

And by the way, the copy into ram issue is something that is covered by fair use.

Re:No license necessary

[jbolden]

There is the original materials clause regarding derivative works. You can utilize materials to produce a derivative work since that doesn't involve copying and thus isn't subject to copyright law.

Re:No license necessary

[ral8158]

He's licensing the software; not selling it. In this case they would not necessarily have the right to transfer the license to someone else as they see fit.

Re:No license necessary

[jbolden]

Copyright law doesn't apply if no copy is made. It is the act of copying that triggers the act in the first place.

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

A work that consists only of materials that aren't original to the first author is not a derivative work.

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the Centric public license for the CentricCRM package now called concursive suite. Their community is a joke because sharing improvements is basically forbidden

www.concursive.com

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

What is the point you are trying to make here?

Re:No license necessary

[nabsltd]

As a previous poster has said, despite the wording of copyright law, it's all about distribution.

If you buy a book, you can make a thousand copies of it and store them in your basement without infringing on copyright. As soon as you pass one of those copies along to someone else (distribute it), you are infringing copyright.

Likewise, you could re-write parts of the book to make it more to your liking (the hero doesn't die, etc.). As long as you did this for personal use and did not distribute it (no posting to your blog, no passing out copies to friends), you have not infringed copyright.

The gray area with software in a business situation is the "personal use" part, along with the fact that despite how any of us feel about EULA, we all pretty much understand and accept "licensed per user". So, for software that is intended to be installed on an individual machine and run by a single user, modifying it to place one copy on the network and allowing multiple users to run it is definitely copyright infingement, even though you haven't increased the number of copies. Modifying "single-user" software that doesn't increase the number of simultaneous users would almost certainly be OK under the "personal use" idiom.

Otherwise, it comes down to whether a copy of "server" software being sold to a company allows that company to be treated as a person for "personal use". In other words, if the software is "server" software and intended to be used by multiple people simultaneously, and there is only one copy purchased, then the company might be able to make changes to it under the "personal use and not redistributed" fair use copyright defense.

Re:No license necessary

[jbolden]

No what I'm saying is you may use materials from the original copy of the work given to you by the author.

So A creates a piece of software and gives B one copy.
B creates a derivative work which uses the copy directly (for example uses the actual files on disk).

No law is broken because no copy has been created.

Re:No license necessary

[Reivec]

Computer algorithms are not "the results of math". The result would be what the computer outputs. To me (and again courts may see this different) that means you can write a program with the intent to duplicate the function of another legally, however you can not legally just rip off the same code.

Re:No license necessary

[Simetrical]

In fact, "copyright" law should have been named distribution rights law because that is what it does. It doesn't really try to enforce copying like you claim it does. It enforces the authors right to control redistributing the material so he or she can make a profit off of his / her work as if that work were a real physical object. If someone copies a work they purchased for their use (as long as they have the material in their possession), that is within the spirit of copyright law.

I don't know about the "spirit" of copyright law, but that certainly isn't what copyright law says (at least in the United States). In general, making any copy of a copyrighted work without permission is illegal, pursuant to 17 USC Â 106(1), whether or not you distribute it. So is preparing any derivative work.

There are, of course, a broad array of exceptions to these basic principles. All the transient copying that occurs in the course of execution of a computer program is specifically exempted from copyright, by 17 USC Â 117. Copies of a computer program (I imagine judges would take this as applying to any digitized work) may be "created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine".

According to the selfsame section, you're also allowed to create copies for archival or backup purposes if you destroy them when you no longer lawfully own the work. (A good thing, or else installing software on RAID1 would be illegal!) But I'd suspect that that exemption does not extend to, for instance, installing the software on a second machine. That might be fair use or something; IANAL.

Re:No license necessary

[The Snowman]

Not only is specialized software with restricted access to the source, but the person selling the software needs to have an actual contract in place, not rely on copyright law. My company does this: we develop highly specialized software, and our customers have the option of either using it in binary form, or having access to the source so they can customize it on their own (this costs more). Either way we have contracts in place written by our corporate lawyers that basically say "whatever you do, you are not allowed to sell it, redistribute it, etc." and the contract is specific to that business relationship. It names the two companies and the specific terms of the sale that is occurring, and the terms of the contract.

Relying on copyright law would likely not work very well in this case, as it is ambiguous enough that to this day people are arguing about it in court.

Re:No license necessary

[Simetrical]

Â

That was entered as U+00A7 SECTION SIGN. Guess Slashdot hasn't figured out what Unicode is yet? Good job, guys.

Re:No license necessary

[nine-times]

But why do you need a license? You need a license to copy. There really isn't a law that says "software use needs to be licensed". The reason why have software licenses is because you need a license to copy software, and installation is a form of copying. Even running software might be considered a form of "copying", since it requires copying some of the software into RAM.

IANAL, but that's how it's been explained to me in the past.

Re:No license necessary

[howlatthemoon]

You must work for Disney. You would have us believe that all use must be sanctioned by the rights holder and that is simply not the case. You fail to mention fair use exceptions. It may not apply in this case, but any person who states that the rights holder has exclusive control of a work without the exception of where that use is fair should get a slap along side the head.

Re:No license necessary

[MobyDisk]

I don't see how the section you outlined contradicts what the original poster says. Copyright law does not make it illegal to highlight the naughty words in the dictionary, or to scratch out sections you don't like, to write in the margins, or to tear-out pages.

Considering point (2) in the above excerpt: Technically, those things are derivitive works. But until you distribute them, they don't fall under the scope of copyright law anyway.

Re:No license necessary

[j0nb0y]

Aren't we talking about software here? What does Disney have to do with software?

Fair use is complex. Is there a fair use right to modify software? I have no idea. I am aware of no case law on the subject. My gut instinct is that it depends on what modifications are done. I highly doubt that a court would find that there is a blanket fair use right to modify software.

Even law concerning derivative works is complex. I really wasn't trying to address what is and what is not a derivative work. I was just trying to correct the misstatement that derivative works can be created at will, and there will not be copyright infringement as long as there is no distribution. That's just not true. It doesn't reflect the law, and it doesn't reflect the cases. If a court finds that a derivative work has been created, there will be liability for copyright infringement unless fair use or some other affirmative defense applies.

Please note that neither this post nor my previous post reflect my own personal views. I am just trying to explain the law.

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it sounds like the Aladdin Free Public License is what he is looking for. It has most of the dressing of open source but with heavy restrictions on redistribution and re-packaging. Warning despite the name it is not really a free license or even open source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_Free_Public_License

Re:No license necessary

[DustyShadow]

Please point me to the source that told you that copyright law only restricts distribution because it is spreading false information. Writing in the margins of a book or highlighting things in it is covered by fair use. Furthermore, copyright does not restrict someone from buying a work and defacing it or writing on it or destroying it. That is what is called a "moral right" and we in the U.S. don't have that. (We actually have a very limited version of it that isn't even worth addressing. See 15 USC 106A).

Read 106(2) again. It says "to prepare derivative works;" not "to distribute." Distribution is an entirely different right. For example, I can license you a piece of software and within the license you could have the right to make derivatives but no right to distribute. Without this grant in the license, you would be infringing on my right to create derivatives if you did create derivatives and I could sue you. By making your derivatives without my consent, you would be encroaching on my economical rights that copyright law grants me. After all, it is called COPYright law, not DISTRIBUTIONright law. A derivative IS a copy.

Re:No license necessary

[TheoMurpse]

If the software is not being redistributed and you aren't requiring a EULA, then the end-users are free to modify the software as they see fit (or do anything with it, except redistribute) under existing copyright law.

That is absolutely, categorically false, and this is yet another example of what Slashdot featured as an article a week or two ago: nerds acting like they know the law and giving bad advice.

A derivative work is an infringement on copyright, and a modification of source code is a derivative work. See derivative work at 17 U.S.C. 106(2) and infringement at 17 U.S.C. 501(a).

Perhaps what you meant to say is that, without redistributing the code, the vendee is likely not to be caught. This is, of course, also not true because vendors include in contracts the ability to audit vendee machines in many cases.

Or so I learned in my software licenses class in law school.

More discussion:
http://openacs.org/about/licensing/open-source-licensing

Re:No license necessary

[TheoMurpse]

copy them into their notes

Transformative work that does constitute a derivative work infringement

copy into their brain

not in a fixed, tangible means of expression (as for the brain-as-a-tangible-means argument, implied license)

CD player . . . RAM buffer

implied license

"copyright" law should have been named distribution rights law because that is what it does

Never mind public performance, derivative work, reproduction, or public display rights.

Re:No license necessary

[TheoMurpse]

It's a novel and interesting argument, that private modification for private use ought to constitute fair use. I like this argument, and if I weren't already preparing an article on copyright for publication, I think I'd start researching this and writing a paper on it. Attention any law students interested in paper ideas: private modification of software for private use as fair use would be an excellent research paper topic.

Although I don't think most courts would currently be amenable to the argument without some legal scholarship in the arena and a damn fine appellate argument to shift the weight of copyright from the creator's interests back to the public's interests.

Re:No license necessary

[TheoMurpse]

[citation needed]

A Circuit Court in the US once held that buying a copyrighted work, affixing it to another copyrighted work, and reselling them was copyright infringement. The precedent (which many legal scholars criticize) is still on the books. And don't be confused: it's a huge precedent. And you'll note that no copying occurred there.

Lee v. A.R.T. Co., 125 F.3d 580 (7th Cir. 1997).

But when you modify software and save it, you are making a copy. So your discussion is merely tangential to the current topic.

Re:No license necessary

[mdmkolbe]

The way I understand it is that the idea of "licensing out" software instead of just selling it under existing contract of sale law is that you're granted a license to do all that copying...

16 USC 117 gives you the right to make any copies that are essential to the utilization of the program. No extra license is necessary.

Re:No license necessary

[mdmkolbe]

I think that legal theory goes out the window once you consider 17 USC 117 which gives you the right to make copies that are essential to the running of a program.

Re:No license necessary

[TheLink]

"Likewise, you could re-write parts of the book to make it more to your liking "

It does get blurry with the DMCA though...

So far in practice it seems you're not allowed to tell others how to rewrite parts of the book to make it more to your liking - especially the parts of the book which prevent you from making your own copies of the book (not necessarily for distribution).

Re:No license necessary

[mpe]

The gray area with software in a business situation is the "personal use" part, along with the fact that despite how any of us feel about EULA, we all pretty much understand and accept "licensed per user". So, for software that is intended to be installed on an individual machine and run by a single user, modifying it to place one copy on the network and allowing multiple users to run it is definitely copyright infingement, even though you haven't increased the number of copies. Modifying "single-user" software that doesn't increase the number of simultaneous users would almost certainly be OK under the "personal use" idiom.

It's actually very "gray" given that many businesses are "legal people". As are many software vendors. It could be quite risky for a software supplier to persue this in court as a copyright, rather than a contract, violation. Because it's only the concept of "corporate personhood" which allows companies to be copyright holders...

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

That he's in denial?

Re:No license necessary

[mpe]

Copyright law was not meant to do that. This is why reverse engineering is allowed by copyright law and why so many EULAs specifically prohibit it.

It can be more accurate to say that "EULAs claim to forbid it". The likes of an EULA (together with terms and conditions, etc) are subservient to the "law of the land".

Re:No license necessary

[nine-times]

Not quite. At least not completely out the window.

Copyright says you need a license to create additional copies someone else's creative works. There are laws and legal precedents that give exceptions, providing the right to copy works under other specific circumstances, but that doesn't mean that copyrights don't apply to software anymore, nor does it mean that installation isn't considered "copying".

Also, a lot of issues are settled in court, where the intent of the law is considered as well as the letter of the law. I don't know how 17 USC 117 is being interpreted, but I doubt the intention was so bold as to say, "installation of software does not constitute 'reproduction' of a work and therefore isn't subject to licensing." I think it was more aimed at making it so you generally can't get sued for making backups of software or installing software in cases where there isn't a EULA that clearly and explicitly grants you that right. I think it still imagines, however, that you're talking about cases where you have a legitimate copy and are using the software in ways that are also legitimate.

So what I'm saying is, I wouldn't feel confident that it gives me a blanket right to install software in terms expressly forbidden by the license agreement under which the software is sold. I would expect instead that it's protecting a sort of "fair use" of installing the software and even modifying it during the normal install procedure as in line with what the developer had envisioned, though perhaps under circumstances the developer had not imagined.

Re:No license necessary

[TrebleMaker]

A Circuit Court in the US once held that buying a copyrighted work, affixing it to another copyrighted work, and reselling them was copyright infringement.

Uh... didn't they say the exact opposite, that it was not infringing? Or did I misunderstand your point?

Annie Lee creates works of art,...
One Deck the Walls store sold some of Lee's notecards mounted...
Lee contends that these tiles are derivative works...
Her position has the support of two cases holding that A.R.T.'s business violates the copyright laws. Muoz v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 38 F.3d 1218 (9th Cir. 1994), affirming without published opinion 829 F. Supp. 309 (D. Alaska 1993); Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341 (9th Cir. 1988). Mirage Editions, the only full appellate discussion, dealt with pages cut from books and mounted on tiles; the court of appeals' brief order in Muoz concludes that the reasoning of Mirage Editions is equally applicable to works of art that were sold loose. Our district court disagreed with these decisions and entered summary judgment for the defendant. 925 F. Supp. 576 (N.D. Ill. 1996). ...
Affirmed

Re:No license necessary

[TheoMurpse]

You're correct. I actually meant to cite Mirage Editions (which is mentioned in Lee v. ART), the other A.R.T. case.

There is a circuit split, where some follow Mirage and some follow Lee. I meant to cite Mirage, but got confused since they both implicate A.R.T. Co.

My apologies. Here is a link and citation to the case I meant to cite: Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341 (9th Cir. 1998). The relevant quote comes at the end of the case (facts were similar to Lee v. ART:

As we have previously concluded that appellant's tile-preparing process results in derivative works and as the exclusive right to prepare derivative works belongs to the copyright holder, the "first sale" doctrine does not bar the appellees' copyright infringement claims.

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that and yet there's this little thing called Fair Use that is protected and is, in fact, a derivative work. Again, another reason not to take any legal advice here on slashdot.

Re:No license necessary

[jbolden]

That you can make derivative works under certain conditions regardless of license.

Re:No license necessary

[mcrbids]

IANAL, and you should get one.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, and I'll probably get modded down for this. But seriously, if your enterprise is going to go anywhere, you need competent legal representation from the get go. If you don't have a lawyer on staff or as a partner, you should hunt around and find a decent lawyer who is willing to partner with you for a minority equity stake. Find a reasonably guy who's able to see the long-term potential of your company and is willing to invest the time that it takes to ensure a strong legal foundation, and you won't regret your equity loss even one day. (I'd say that in a startup with 2-4 partners, a %10 stake is probably about right, YMMV)

Slashdot is littered with condescending posts about business majors who thought that what programmers do is just simple and who tried to do it themselves, and did a total WTF stupid in the process. Things like trying to write enterprise, thousand-user software in FileMaker Pro. Or secure a website with javascript-based access control. Or passed passwords via telnet over the plain-Jane Internet. Or any of a thousand other obvious stupids that only somebody completely clueless about technology might think is a good idea.

And when it comes to anything legal, you are just as dumb, just as clueless, and just as likely to do a serious WTF that leaves your fledgling company high-and-dry, or worse, in deep liability doo-doo. Lawyers go to school and learn the meanings of all kinds of "almost-English" words like "good faith" and "collateral estoppel" that mean almost nothing to you or I, but have real implications when brought up in court or on contracts.

You are an expert in your field, you expect (and deserve) to get paid well for your time. Lawyers are in the same boat, in a different industry.

At the very least, see sites like Legal Zoom or Nolo Press and have some reasonably decent quality documents to start with. That is, until you can get some reasonable legal representation.

The bottom line: if you don't get legal representation, you are going to be legally representing yourself. And you'll probably muck it up just as bad as the idiot who thought that writing a high-quality 3D FPS game in Perl was a good idea.

Re:No license necessary

[im_thatoneguy]

A good specific example of this is Apple's Shake compositor.

For $10,000 you get access to unlimited licenses and the source code. But you're bound by an NDA and contract to not release any code modifications or even publicly state what modifications have been made.

You'll read interviews where a VFX supervisor will say. "We used a proprietary 64bit compositor to do the IMAX work." What they're trying to say is. "We recompiled shake for 64bit but we aren't allowed to name the application due to NDA."

If the OP wants to read what such a contract would look like I would just reference the Shake source code license.

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

you cannot copy a book

Yes you fucking can. Cease and desist from spewing this authoritarian MAFIAA filth. You are degrading yourself and the internet.

There is absolutely no repercussion for copying a book. You can copy a book a million times. You can set up a whole goddamn counterfeiting operation inside your own house without doing a single illegal thing. It becomes copyright infringement the second you give your copied book to someone else. Distribution. Copyright controls distribution. Get this into your thick head.

captcha: ferocity

Re:No license necessary

[profplump]

You missed the part about fair use. See Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. -- "Having paid Nintendo a fair return, the consumer may experiment with the product and create new variations of play, for personal enjoyment, without creating a derivative work."

Now, that's just one circuit court case, and it's possible it wouldn't stand up in the supreme court, or that it isn't generally applicable to all software, but in general fair use *does* grant exemptions to title 17, and the right to modify a program which you have license to use may well be such an exemption.

Re:No license necessary

[j0nb0y]

How often do you think that fair use is going to apply to software modification? Do you have any case law that even discusses this issue?

Do you even realize that fair use is an affirmative defense against copyright infringement? Do you even know what that means?

I fill you in. It means that if you are accused of copyright infringement, you will have to prove, in court, that fair use applies by preponderance of the evidence.

Do you have the money that it would take to mount such a defense? Is it really worth it?

Sorry, the term "fair use" gets thrown around here a lot. Most /.ers, including you, have no idea what it actually means. Unless you are working in an area with well settled case law, it is going to be very expensive to prove fair use. Software is not such an area.

Furthermore, I highly doubt that most software modifications will fall under a fair use defense even if you are willing to spend the money to get to that point.

There's a reason I didn't mention fair use in my post. It's because I didn't particularly feel like writing a book. The parent of my post was wrong. I corrected him. I'm fairly certain that fair use doesn't apply in the situation we are talking about, so I didn't bring it up.

If you think it does apply, you are going to have to do more than simply scream 'Fair Use!' A court would ask you to prove it. I pointed out a statute and case law in my post. What do you have?

Re:No license necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably technically correct but not enforceable.

Re:No license necessary

[mjm1231]

So how many years do you think I could get for those coloring books I colored in when I was a kid?

Re:No license necessary

[MobyDisk]

...Please point me to the source that told you...

You got me there, IANAL, so I can't. I'm just applying logic, so please fill me in here:

I've never heard of anything in copyright law that restricts how the product is used, only how it is distributed. I acknowledge that the text you highlighted seems to indicate otherwise - but I don't think it was meant that way.

When I write in the margins of a book, is Fair Use even relevant here? Any time I've heard discussions about Fair Use, it always involves copying.

Are you saying that copyright technically does forbid you from writing in the margins of a book? And that Fair Use considers that an exception? If so, how is writing in the margins of a book different from modifying a piece of software?

Re:No license necessary

[steveg]

Businesses are less likely to do such a thing

Huh? I guess that means BSA will be going out of business soon?

The number of businesses whose installed base of proprietary software exceeds their licenses by a large margin is enormous. Larger companies may fit the profile you suggest (their lawyers probably insist) but the BSA makes their living nailing small to medium size companies for all the unlicensed copies of MS Office, etc that they are running.

I've fought that battle myself. Upper level managers in many companies don't always take their IT department's warning seriously about the importance of licenses. "Just install it already. We'll buy more licenses when we can afford it."

Re:No license necessary

[scientus]

why would people install unlicenced office? Openoffice is basically the same thing, but not only are there no licences, but also LGPL. Have less Microsoft breathing down your neck. Its so compatible with Microsoft's format that Microsoft had to create another lock-in format just to try to slow them down.

Also that type of piracy you talk about is differn't, its standard software that already has illegal versions in the wild, its differnt that a piece of software that is customized for that company, is bought not by workstation but as a full licence (perhaps), and it is minir sofware, only licenced to a few firms. But yeah, it could happen.

Re:No license necessary

[Brian Gordon]

Microsoft had to create another lock-in format just to try to slow them down

The fully-documented XML-based format that they tried to get adopted as a fully Open standard was created to slow them down?

Re:No license necessary

[WNight]

I think it was more aimed at making it so you generally can't get sued for making backups of software or installing software in cases where there isn't a EULA that clearly and explicitly grants you that right.

You don't need a license, because 117 says you don't. Thus there's no assumption that licenses are needed and EULAs must be valid to fill this niche. Therefore, as was always obvious, software is sold, not licensed, by default - like all other products.

I think it still imagines, however, that you're talking about cases where you have a legitimate copy

The owner of a work has a legitimate copy, the one they own.

I wouldn't feel confident that it gives me a blanket right to install software in terms expressly forbidden by the license agreement under which the software is sold.

You said it yourself, the software was sold. Under a sale there are no further conditions upon the software's use.

[...] and are using the software in ways that are also legitimate.

Fascist asshole. Whose business is it how you use a product you own?

Re:No license necessary

[nine-times]

You don't need a license, because 117 says you don't.

No offense, but maybe you should actually read things before you respond? You need a license to copy software, and 117 does not say that you don't need a license to copy software. That's the deal with copyrights. You can't copy the work unless you're the copyright holder or you've been given license by the copyright holder. 117 also does not say that installing software doesn't constitute "copying". It spells out a particular circumstance: you're allowed to do what's necessary to get software installed or to create backups.

But then notice that it still puts restrictions on what kind of copying you can do and what you can do with those copies? How could they do that if, otherwise, installation wouldn't be copyright infringement.

It's because this is essentially spelling out an instance of what people around here typically call "fair use". It's not saying that you don't need a license to copy, not saying that that installation isn't copying, and not granting you unfettered rights to copy however you want.

The owner of a work has a legitimate copy, the one they own.

Sorry, I forgot I was talking to people who don't know jack about software. Ok, so let me explain. Sometimes when you buy software, you want to actually use it in some way other than not-using it. In order to do that, we do what's called "installing", where we make one copy from another copy. Sometimes, in the case of something called "volume licensing", we may use one copy to make lots of other copies. Many people would call that "copying", and we have something called a "copyright" which says that you're not allowed to make copies without a license.

You said it yourself, the software was sold. Under a sale there are no further conditions upon the software's use.

No, the software was not sold. The particular copy of the software was sold. So yeah, if you buy a CD with copyrighted software on it, then the vendor can't control what you do with that CD. You can use it as a frisbee or coaster or however you want-- just so long as you don't copy any copyrighted contents from that CD at all. As soon as you're copying the copyrighted contents, you have to deal with the idea that what you're doing might not be legal.

Re:No license necessary

[WNight]

You are ferociously dumb. I'll reply to you largely in hopes that someone with an open mind reads this.

The owner of a work has a legitimate copy, the one they own.

"volume licensing",

Volume licensed software clearly isn't purchased at retail, where software with EULAs is sold. Do you understand the difference between the two?

You said it yourself, the software was sold.

No, the software was not sold. The particular copy of the software was sold.

Sigh, yes. I know that. Everyone knows that. It's only the title of the fucking section I'm quoting.

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.

Owner of a COPY.

[...] it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner

Sometimes when you buy software, you want to actually use it in some way other than not-using it. In order to do that, we do what's called "installing", where we make one copy from another copy.

Which, amazingly enough, being what you do when you want to actually use it in some way, is considered an essential step. And you might notice from that quoted section above, that essential steps in utilization of the program are, get this: not an infringement.

100%. That is the amount of wrong you are. There is not a single thing, except perhaps the spelling of your nickname about which you are not in grievous error. Not only are you wrong, you're arrogantly wrong ("Sorry, I forgot I was talking to people who don't know jack about software.")

But then notice that it [117] still puts restrictions on what kind of copying you can do and what you can do with those copies? How could they do that if, otherwise, installation wouldn't be copyright infringement.

One more try...

It would be copyright infringement to just copy the software and give it to someone, yes. But if in the process of 'utilizing the software' it is essential to copy it to HD (it usually is - known as installing as you so helpfully point out), or to RAM, etc, you may do so.

Ditto backups. Backups are fine, but claiming something as a backup and selling it is not. The 'restrictions' are not restrictions, but rather the limit on what will be considered backups.

Re:No license necessary

[nine-times]

You are ferociously dumb.

Ah, yes, that's quite a great demonstration of how right you are. Name calling. Please, tell me more.

Sigh, yes. I know that. Everyone knows that. It's only the title of the fucking section I'm quoting.

All the more unfortunate that you don't seem to understand the concepts. You do not own the software. You do not own rights to the software when you buy a copy. What you own is the copy, can you can legally do whatever you want with it so long as you don't make other copies. If you want to make other copies, there are certain things that the law is particularly spelling out that you are permitted to do. Any other copies you wish to make are forbidden unless you have some kind of license agreement.

Just because you bought the copy doesn't give you a blanket right to copy it however you like. You are given set boundaries. The law you yourself quotes gives you two explicit rights, which are to install the software and to make backups. That law does not give you the blanket right to make any modifications you choose or install it under any/all circumstances. It simply doesn't. I don't know how to say it more explicitly or explain more explicitly.

The law by default says you can't copy without a license. So the default is that you can't copy. Then there are laws that spell out circumstances when you can copy. All other copying is still forbidden. That's how law works. Does that make sense to you, or do you have questions about that?

But if in the process of 'utilizing the software' it is essential to copy it to HD (it usually is - known as installing as you so helpfully point out), or to RAM, etc, you may do so.

Ok, maybe I'll explain a little more about law then, in case this helps you understand. That law is meant to provide a general blanket scenario in which you are given the right to copy in spite of copyrights. But the process doesn't stop there. It then falls to the court system to interpret laws in their execution for particular cases. What I'm saying is, there's no sign to me in that law that the intention of the law is to specifically to permit people to circumvent the need to have a copyright license in order to copy software. I doubt a judge would interpret it as a blanket right to subvert any and all other license agreements. Consider this emphasis:

that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner

So what it's saying is that installation is an assumed right of software, and so you can't generally be sued for just installing software. Though installation almost always modifies the copy, those modifications are legal since they are part of the installation procedure. However, it doesn't give you any particular rights to do anything with the software other than to install it under those normal circumstances.

If you made massive modifications to a program and you said, "Oh, well, those were changes that I had to make in order to make it work for me," that would most likely be ruled to not be the intention of the law you're citing. If you went around installing software on other people's computers and said, "But I own this copy, and all copying was done as part of an essential stop in the utilization of the program in conjunction with a machine," then I find it unlikely that a judge would accept that interpretation.

So sorry, no, this doesn't do away with the idea of licenses. If you don't believe me, then ask a competent lawyer.

Re:No license necessary

[WNight]

Ah, yes, that's quite a great demonstration of how right you are. Name calling.

Considering the derogatory comments were your addition I thought you'd like them. I'm not really surprised you're slimy enough to complain about them as if you didn't do the same thing seconds ago.

Please, tell me more.

I keep trying. As I mentioned, you're dumb, it's taking a long time.

All the more unfortunate that you don't seem to understand the concepts.

Oh, do tell.

You do not own the software. You do not own rights to the software when you buy a copy. What you own is the copy,

Yes. I know. You know that bit of my earlier post where I used the words "Owner of a COPY"? I said that because I was specifically trying to say that the OWNER owns a COPY.

The words I wrote. If you read them, they would enlighten you.

you can legally do whatever you want with it so long as you don't make other copies. If you want to make other copies, there are certain things that the law is particularly spelling out that you are permitted to do. Any other copies you wish to make are forbidden unless you have some kind of license agreement.

Yes, again. You can't copy the software for anything other than an "essential step" for the "utilization of the program". I used those words earlier, if you look for them you can figure out what you missed.

The law you yourself quotes gives you two explicit rights, which are to install the software

Wrong.

[...] owner of a copy of a computer program [...] making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such [...] is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program

The right is not limited to installing, it's good for ANY step that would violate copyright, provided that it's required to using the program. If the program didn't require being installed to the HD, that would not be allowed. If the program DID require install, it would be allowed.

So the default is that you can't copy.

Yes, and the default doesn't apply because this (hypothetical scenario) is software that needs to be installed to work, thus 17-117a1 overrides default behavior.

That's how law works. Does that make sense to you, or do you have questions about that?

It's comments like this that make me treat you rudely. Do you have any questions? Yes, I am rude to you, but you're stupid and I am funnier than you so it's a victimless crime.

What I'm saying is, there's no sign to me in that law that the intention of the law is to specifically to permit people to circumvent the need to have a copyright license in order to copy software. I doubt a judge would interpret it as a blanket right to subvert any and all other license agreements.

Well duh. 117a1 only applies to things required to use the software. You couldn't use it to justify giving your friend a copy.

But you could copy it from your CD to your HD, provided you follow those restrictions, which roughly amount to not transferring the original without transferring or destroying the backup/installed copies.

This installing and running of software is all most people ever do, and 117a explicitly says that for uses in paragraph 1, no license is required.

However, it doesn't give you any particular rights to do anything with the software other than to install it under those normal circumstances.

Wrong again.

an essential step in the utilization of the computer program

I don't think anyone would agree that expected utilization stops at install. If it was going to stop there, why include an exception at all.

And indeed, the word "install" i

No

[stinerman]

Anything that allows someone the ability to modify and distribute your stuff automatically means it will be gratis.

With demand being static and supply being essentially infinite, the price will fall to $0.

Re:No

[stinerman]

And I should have read the story. It's late on the east coast.

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[Toonol]

If it is an interesting question, more than just the poster can benefit from the answer.

slashdot legal advice?

[drDugan]

um, like, hire a real lawyer. really, dude.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[Cadallin]

um, like, hire a real lawyer. really, dude.

^ ^ That. Seriously. But secondly, You're asking about EULAs. The GPL is not a EULA. None of the libre/Open Source licenses are EULAs.

What you want is purely the domain of contract law. The conditions under which you license software you own are between you and the licensee. Plus whatever court has jurisdiction if either of you decides to sue. Hire a lawyer if you're not confident on what provisions are likely to hold up under a judges scrutiny.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[seanadams.com]

um, like, hire a real lawyer. really, dude.

That's real brilliant advice, but the problem is there are astonishingly few lawyers who will have the slightest clue how to answer this question.

I would suggest that a techie's best bet is to get as informed as possible before taking this to a lawyer, because it's really treading new ground. Can you tell I've been there?

Slim Devices, and subsequently Logitech, wanted to pursue this kind of license for our firmware, so that we could allow customers to have certain benefits of open source, without enabling competitors to make knock-offs of our hardware products with no effort beyond soldering down the parts.

Ages ago I came up with the Slim Devices Public Source License, which later got rolled into the Logitech Public Source License. Only recently did we actually ship a major firmware product based on it, which is the SqueezeOS platform that underlies the (imminently hackable, linux based) Squeezebox Controller. Customers can see the source code, learn how it works, customize it to their needs, etc, but they are not allow to redistribute without permission. It's not "Open Source" by the official definition, but it's a great compromise IMHO which met our business constraints.

I searched far and wide for lawyers who understood these technicalities, and even at a major multi-B corporation with an awesome legal team, this was new ground. So educate yourself and check out as many examples as possible, and then find a good IP specialist to help you craft a license, but be prepared to prescribe exactly what you want that license to do.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[rleibman]

Dude... you absolutely rock, I love my duet and will be buying a boom soon. A very happy customer

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[seanadams.com]

Dude... you absolutely rock, I love my duet and will be buying a boom soon. A very happy customer

Kind words, thank you! :)

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[duncan bayne]

Definitely - I don't think there's anyone around who'd argue that Ask Slashdot is equivalent to quality legal advice :-)

At the same time though I'm very happy to discuss the issue with people who are interested in it, and perhaps get some tips from people who've BTDT. Hence I posted it to Slashdot anyway ...

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[Secret Rabbit]

Treading new ground... not so much. I had a friend do this in the late 90's/2000. And unlike someone else said higher up on this page, you most certainly DO need a license. It will be a separate and different license from the one the original authors hold (obviously). But, it most certainly is necessary.

To the "asker": I'd recommend looking at the GPL and other restrictive licences to look through things that you both want and don't want. Once complete, take a look and see if you want anything else in that list. Then *after* that, go to a lawyer, consult and get something drawn up. You're going to want to make sure to explicitly state that the licensee will get the code, be able to make modifications, BUT those modifications will not be supported by your company and doing so will also limit your ability to provide help otherwise. It should also be explicitly stated that they cannot create derivative works or otherwise sell or use your product (directly or indirectly) in any part of a product that they may sell beyond the original agreement.

But, you DO need a lawyer. So, stop being a dumbass asking slashdot about legal advise and go get one.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[uvajed_ekil]

um, like, hire a real lawyer. really, dude.
That's real brilliant advice, but the problem is there are astonishingly few lawyers who will have the slightest clue how to answer this question.

That's why I'm going back to school for a law degree and focusing on intellectual property. This is clearly a niche that is growing and will continue to grow but definitely lacks enough "experts," or even many trained practitioners. You are very right, and I hope to capitalize on the fact few lawyers have any software knowledge at all, and few have any interest or experience with IP. This is a rapidly evolving field, which is the kind of thing that scares attorneys who are used to being able to refer to their text books for long standing, well-settled precedents. Granted, my own programming abilities are rudimentary, at best, but a good grasp of the basic concepts and issues in question should prove very useful. Being lumped into a category with slimy litigators and ambulance chasers is certainly not appealing, though I don't anticipate finding any shortage of clients once I pass the bar. Professional legal advice is a must for any serious software company, but finding knowledgeable, affordable counsel can be quite difficult.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[uvajed_ekil]

There's your license right there (see above). Find a lawyer who isn't afraid of IP to translate it into legalese. That could be the hard part, depending on where you are located, but knowing what you have and what you want to allow is the key. As someone posted earlier though, copyrighting your work but not requiring a restrictive EULA could accomplish what you want, if that is to allow the purchaser to use the product as they see fit (modifying it as needed, perhaps in ways that limit your liability to provide support), without permitting redistribution.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[X0563511]

There is no reason the licence needs to be in 'legalese' instead of plain english. Just be careful that there are no loopholes in interpretation.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[julesh]

That's real brilliant advice, but the problem is there are astonishingly few lawyers who will have the slightest clue how to answer this question.

I would suggest that a techie's best bet is to get as informed as possible before taking this to a lawyer, because it's really treading new ground.

That's very strange, because I've seen this kind of license several times in my experience as an IT consultant. Your license seems to differ a little from what I've seen before, so I suspect your goals were slightly different. The terms of your license allow for redistribution of modifications, which I don't think is something the original poster was looking for, and would have substantially complicated the licensing terms.

What the OP wants is a standard license grant, with the additional term "you are permitted to prepare derivitive works of the Software for your own internal use; this does not give you a license to distribute derivitive works or modifications to the Software." Seriously, this is simple stuff that any remotely competent lawyer should be able to handle and is likely to have seen hundreds of times before.

even at a major multi-B corporation with an awesome legal team this was new ground

Don't expect a corporation's legal team to have experience in anything that corporation has never done before. Look at independent copyright lawyers who have worked for many companies; they'll be much more widely experienced. Most major cities should have several firms of copyright lawyers who have plenty of experience in this field.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[WindBourne]

It is interesting, but I think that you have missed a HUGE market. Built-in devices.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[Thundersnatch]

That's real brilliant advice, but the problem is there are astonishingly few lawyers who will have the slightest clue how to answer this question.

What a load of crap. I regularly participate in negotiations with lawyers who specialize in software licensing, and every single one I've met would be capable of constructing an equitable agreement to address the OP's situation.

Believe it or not, techies are not the only people who can be are smart, or competent at their chosen profession. And not all lawyers are "history major potheads who somehow got into law school".

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[Anonymous Coward]

If your programming abilities are "rudimentary, at best," what exactly is your techie claim to be an IP attorney? Many of the trademark and copyright practitioners are primarily patent practitioners, and patent practitioners have their own prerequisites for admission to the patent bar (which requires no law school, unlike the far more difficult admission to most state bars).

Most of the patent attorneys I work with have at least a master's degree in their engineering field, and usually a Ph.D. if they're in one of the biotech or chemical areas. If your area of practice is going to be software, and your understanding of software is rudimentary, you will find yourself at a severe disadvantage in the field.

Yes, it's a niche, and there are very few of us active attorneys with PTO registration numbers, but the ones getting all the business are the ones that are intimately familiar with the technology.

The niche doesn't "lack" enough "experts" ... the niche is *entirely composed of* experts. Now, just like with everything, there are bad patent attorneys ... but unless you know your technology space really well, and not just better than you think some ambulance chaser might know it (rather than looking at your actual competition), you may be destined to become one of the bad ones.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[str8edge]

I like the fact that the license Slimdevices/Logitech uses for the Squeezebox products is slightly more restrictive. I like the fact that for my personal use, the software is open source, and I can play around with it to my hearts content. I also like the fact that other corporate entities cannot exploit the code with out Logitech permission. I love open source software, but I can also understand the need to prevent other corporate entities from competing with you by directly copying your work. I am a very happy Slimdevices customer with a Classic, and a duet. I was not a happy Roku customer when I tested their digital Music Player that was powered by the Slimserver software. The Roku was more money for what felt like a cheap knock-off.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[tverbeek]

A competent contract lawyer who works in the field of software licensing can easily help with this. All the OP needs is a business-to-business software license with a provision that the client gets the source code to modify for their own use as needed. It's something that's been done since long before the GPL or BSD license came along. But a tech looking for an off-the-shelf license to modify and use is a bit like a lawyer downloading the Linux kernel source and trying to hack it to run on his homebrew hardware.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[Taxman415a]

There is no reason the licence needs to be in 'legalese' instead of plain english. Just be careful that there are no loopholes in interpretation.

That's what legalese is: removing the loopholes in interpretation from plain English when it is interpreted by the law. Well that and an agreed upon lexicon that the courts and other lawyers have agreed on.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[noidentity]

Ages ago I came up with the Slim Devices Public Source License, which later got rolled into the Logitech Public Source License. Only recently did we actually ship a major firmware product based on it, which is the SqueezeOS platform that underlies the (imminently hackable, linux based) Squeezebox Controller. Customers can see the source code, learn how it works, customize it to their needs, etc, but they are not allow to redistribute without permission. It's not "Open Source" by the official definition, but it's a great compromise IMHO which met our business constraints.

Why the need for any kind of license, then? Just include the source code along with the product, and default copyright law makes it illegal for him to redistribute the source, modified or not. This is no different than the manuals and other information included with a product, also covered by copyright law.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[TheoMurpse]

I was going to post the same thing, but instead I'm just going to say that, just for once, Slashdot should trust the AC poster's content. What he said is very true.

In the IP arena, I'm solely interested in copyright practice, but I still couldn't get more than a handful of interviews with IP firms. The interviews were all basically over once they found out I had the one natural science degree that didn't qualify me to sit for the patent bar (abstract math).

To even take the patent bar, you have to have a degree in a certain science or engineering field or have a substantial number of hours in a particular field (it's like 28 hours of physics, for example, and maybe 32 of chemistry as an alternative). The only exception to this rule is basically if you're on the level of Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein, you can sit for the patent bar. I've talked with several patent attorneys, and not a single one has ever heard of a person being granted this exception by the PTO.

Two of the top IP firms, Fish & Richardson and Knobbe (pronounced like Obi-Wan) both have gobs and gobs of Ph.D.-level scientists licensed by the PTO who also have law degrees.

What AC said is true: the IP law field is staffed by more brainpower than you can possibly imagine. My friend was a science Ph.D. candidate (leaving information out to protect his identity in case the firm is reading) working on his dissertation before dropping out to go to law school. He's extremely brilliant. He went to an interview with Knobbe in Orange County and he said that they'd "open a door" and there would be like 15 bio Ph.D.-holding patent attorneys in a meeting behind the door. Then they'd go to another room, and there were 20 chem Ph.D.-holding attorneys in another meeting.

I'm not trying to shit on your dreams. Just be aware that there isn't a lack of IP attorneys unless you're looking at some small field like in the realm of software licenses. One professor I know told me there are only about five good software licenses attorneys in the US. The rest are all "dumbasses" according to him. But I really hate classifying software licenses as an IP field.

In any case, good luck, man. You're going to need it.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[TheoMurpse]

Whoops. I forgot to mention why I brought up my friend's credentials. He was at the #1 school in the country for his particular Ph.D. field. He talked to the attorneys in the office and many of them knew more about his particular field than he did.

If that's at one firm (albeit a major one), what must the entire field be like?

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[Anonymous Coward]

"legalese" is simply source code executed by the interpreter(s) called "lawyers" using code libraries from "law" running in a distributed but linked virtual machine called "court".

Just be aware that everything is based on what came before and that everything can change without rhyme or reason.

Much like how most software works these days.

Re:slashdot legal advice?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a given that anyone asking questions on the internet that are really the domain of professional legal advice, are not financially equipped to seek that advice. Even bad lawyers are prohibitively expensive for people that squirm at the cost of a Windows license.

Further, if you actually require a competent lawyer as opposed to a "cut and paste" cowboy, you can raise that prohibitive cost by an order of magnitude. Far beyond the affordability even for a relatively successful small company.

An incorrect foundation

[dyfet]

Like many people, you seem to assume incorrectly that copyright law, as defined historically, can be used to artificially control what people do with something they have received and use in their own privacy in the first place. You actually do not have to do anything outside of existing copyright law as it is historically understood and intended to accomplish what you desire. This is why the GNU General Public License, as a copyright license, has to explicitly offer the right to sub-license (distribute) original or derivative works.

Now some evil companies try to attach additional restrictions using common contract law to claim additional rights they do not actually have under copyright to deprive people of their existing and even constitutional rights (and what can in many situations be considered contracts of adhesion), and the results of these bastardizations are what is often called things like eula's.

Re:An incorrect foundation

[Brian Gordon]

as it is historically understood

Why is it that you couldn't just say "as it is currently understood"? Obviously because it's not understood that way anymore. Copyright today bears very little resemblance to old copyright law. IANAL, but I read a book once.

They're paying for it but can't give it away???

[Daemonax]

I'm I understanding this correctly? They've paid you to write some software for them. I would assume that they would then be the owners of the software, but this doesn't seem to be the case here, as if they were the owners they could give it away as they please. Is this common? I thought that when a client paid for customer software to be written for them, they ended up owning all the rights to the program, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Re:They're paying for it but can't give it away???

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you're understanding the situation, sounds like they're distributing a product rather than working contractually with a single client. In other words, people are paying them for software that they already wrote.

Re:They're paying for it but can't give it away???

[sumdumass]

It depends on what their employment contract states. By default, works for hire end up being the person who hired the work but if his contract states that he retains the copyright for what he made, then he does.

More then likely, he is a small start up or something that he works at as well as owns or manages. In that case, he is both, the employee and owner which gives him the said control.

Re:They're paying for it but can't give it away???

[pavon]

It is unlikely that the person licensing the software is their sole customer, or that they paid for all or even a majority of the software development. When you are a small company who has any interest in building some "equity" from the work you get, you will be constantly be operating in a mode that is neither simply selling shrink-wrapped software or being paid to write software as work-for-hire but a mix of the two. I've never been directly involved in this sort of work, but from what I've seen on the outside, the terms and rights appear to be handled more through contracts than licenses.

Re:They're paying for it but can't give it away???

[duncan bayne]

You'd be right, if they were hiring us to write software for them.

In this case though it's shrinkwrap software that's licensed not purchased. I want to offer the product with full source, and allow the customers to modify it however they want (although, obviously, free support for modified products will be limited).

Essentially the only thing I want to stop them doing is distributing it. Imagine a normal EULA, but instead of the typical prohibitions on reverse engineering and modification, the only significant restriction is on redistribution of the software.

Re:They're paying for it but can't give it away???

[jamesh]

It can work any way you want it to, as long as both parties agree. I would assume that if the software developer wants to retain copyright of the software then the fee would reflect that.

If someone approached us to develop a product that they needed, and we could see a market for the product, then an arrangement like a greatly reduced fee or a royalty split would definitely be a possibility.

Re:They're paying for it but can't give it away???

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of our engineering software is offered with almost complete source (in Mathworks Simulink block diagram language). A few core routines are compiled for three reasons: the user shouldn't need to modify them (they only contain basic physics), they run much faster compiled, and, we have protected them with a dongle--without the dongle everything runs normally except the answers are all zeros... Our customers (there are not many--very specialized market) seem to be happy with this compromise, they happily modify the source to add features as needed. The "licence" we use is just a restatement of the basics of copyright law, as noted above, which grants permission to modify but not distribute, and also states that we don't support their modifications (unless they want to pay for consulting).

this sounds like "Shared Source"

[Anonymous Coward]

which was the name of Microsoft's family of "not quite open source" licenses a few years back. Several products allowed you to examine the source code but do little else. I don't think they even allowed you to modify and recompile it in those days, but they've since replaced it (IIRC) with the "Microsoft Permissive License" which might be less restrictive.

One product I remember was Rotor, a sample implementation of the .Net Common Language Runtime (similar to Mono but not as comprehensive). Another was the WTL Win32 GUI framework, which was an alternative to MFC based on ATL (Active Template Library).

Slashdot was even more heavily anti-MS a few years ago and there used to be withering sarcasm at any mention of "Shared Source"... not so sure about today.

Re:this sounds like "Shared Source"

[Brian Gordon]

Slashdot was even more heavily anti-MS a few years ago and there used to be withering sarcasm at any mention of "Shared Source"... not so sure about today.

That's because it was a pathetic attempt to Extend to the free software community and gain some brownie points with the snowballing number of people who think they're evil. In this case it's someone legitimitely interested in giving freedom and flexibility to his clients but not giving up his business by just giving his product away.

Re:this sounds like "Shared Source"

[dotancohen]

Several products allowed you to examine the source code but do little else.

That product was Windows Vista.

Re:this sounds like "Shared Source"

[moosesocks]

That's because it was a pathetic attempt to Extend to the free software community and gain some brownie points with the snowballing number of people who think they're evil. In this case it's someone legitimitely interested in giving freedom and flexibility to his clients but not giving up his business by just giving his product away.

I thought it was for 'academic' purposes, to demonstrate how real operating systems worked.

Sure, it might be somewhat nefarious to indoctrinate the youth and academics... however, the Extend/Embrace/Extinguish accusation always struck me as being completely paranoid, as the same logic could just as easily be applied to any good deed, regardless of what the motivation might have been.

Occam's Razor would most naturally lead to the conclusion that Microsoft wanted to clean up its image by making a few small concessions that wouldn't hurt its overall business.

Re:this sounds like "Shared Source"

[wrook]

legitimitely interested in giving freedom and flexibility to his clients but not giving up his business by just giving his product away.

I just want to modify that statement (I hope you don't mind modification and redistribution of your comment :-) ).

by not giving up his business plan by just allowing redistribution

While it is true that there are some businesses who haven't figured out that they need to charge for their work, I think they have mostly died out. Charging for your product is one way to make money. Using this method you must create artificial scarcity of your product so that you can charge for making a copy (which is virtually free). Thus you must restrict your customers from making their own copies and distributing them.

Another way to make money is to charge for your work. Someone pays you to do some programming. You do it. You give them the software. They do whatever they want with it (including redistributing it). Notice how you are paid in the first step. There is no need for artificial scarcity and no need to restrict your customer from distribution.

You can make money using both business plans. Thus "giving away your product" is not equivalent to "giving up your business". But if you do it, you obviously must change your business plan. In other words, you better make sure that you are getting paid for the work you are doing. Setting up your business this way can be quite challenging if you aren't used to it. But there are also some pretty serious advantages to doing so (the primary being that you don't need a lot of capital up front).

Re:this sounds like "Shared Source"

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, this sounds like exactly what Microsoft was doing: giving its clients the flexibility to modify, debug, etc the software but not giving up business. What is the difference again? Microsoft is intrinsically evil?

Re:this sounds like "Shared Source"

[Brian Gordon]

The problem is that it doesn't work when selling to multiple clients. At first the software doesn't exist and your client needs to pay to make it exist. But then the client can do whatever they want with the product including giving it away or even selling it to bolster their profits a bit, easily undercutting your prices. Yeah a new customer needs to buy from you if it wants custom work done on it, but that doesn't happen for a lot of types of software.

Re:this sounds like "Shared Source"

[Brian Gordon]

flexibility to modify, debug, etc the software

Like my AC parent above I don't know about the current "Permissive License" but the shared source licenses only allowed you to look at the source to "educate" yourself on how certain components of Windows worked (and lots of it was too secrety to release); you couldn't change it and recompile it. So no flexibility, only education that Microsoft would sue your children out of their inheritance for if you tried writing competing systems code after looking at theirs.

Not much needed

[Zerth]

Slap a big "You can't distribute our code or your modifications" on it.

Seriously, though, you don't need much of license to cover "hack it, don't share it". It is the copyright/patent crazies that add the "can't decompile, modify, etc". The default state of copyright is you buy it, you can bang on it, you can set fire to it, but you just can't make copies or derivative works.

All you really need to make clear is that you consider patches, mods, etc to be derivative works and remind them that they can't share them.

That will last until somebody makes the first User Group list, but at least you tried. Make sure you get enough money up front, because your consulting money will dry up after enough users feel overcharged that one gets into the fixit business.

Re:Not much needed

[duncan bayne]

I'm not even sure that distributing modifications would be verboten ... of course, I can see how that could be gamed, simply by distributing a very large patch :-)

Re. the consulting ... the idea is to rely on licence sales, rather than consulting. Think shrinkwrapped software; if people want to make money by customising my product, I'm okay with that (at least I think I am; I honestly haven't given it much thought).

If I wanted to focus on consulting I'd just release it under the LGPL. The thing is, consulting doesn't scale very well. The most money you can make consulting is rate x # of consultants - whereas the shrinkwrapped software model scales very well indeed.

Re:Not much needed

[ralphdaugherty]

That will last until somebody makes the first User Group list, but at least you tried.

      The model of selling source code with the product has worked for decades on IBM computers. On the other hand, the computers have serial numbers and a portion of the licensed code without source code checks for the serial number, so there is more than trust going on in stopping redistribution of the source code. (Obviously attempts can be made to bypass that.)

      The billions of lines of COBOL and RPG code that is mentioned occasionally in language discussions stems as much or more from products shipped with source code and modified extensively as code written from scratch. In fact much code written inhouse is commonly based on architectural guidelines and code standards of a major customized package the company is running.

      In 20 years on the IBM midrange AS/400 iseries and following industry news closely, I can't recall hearing about any vendors having to sue because of unauthorized redistribution of their product source code or derivatives. While most of those package software vendors have gone out of business, their products have been bought up by a few cash cow vendors milking the licenses, and they would sue if they needed to.

      There was never any controversy in licensing the product source code, or any particular name for it that I recall, it was standard procedure in our industry. I've only dealt with home grown for last five years though with a multi-billion dollar company, and lots of shakeout and consolidation of vendors since then, so can't speak to what a few large remaining cash cow vendors may be doing now.

  rd

And your company is going to take advice from

[nedlohs]

random slashdot posters???

I'd suggest asking a damn lawyer, and maybe looking for a job with company that won't be either being sued out of business or having their code redistributed by someone else who did consult a lawyer next week.

What you are asking for would not be libre.

[zotz]

You have been able to buy dBASE based accounting software that comes with source code for years. Some even allowed you to sell modules you developed based on this source - I don't know the details of that... perhaps you paid more for the license which allowed the selling of said modules, perhaps you paid per copy sold. I imagine a little research would turn up the info.

You can probably easily do what you wish, but you are not likely to (let's say you will not) find a Free license as Free licenses are defined by the Free Software Foundation which will let you do what you want.

Nothing makes you give copies away gratis, but the libre side prevents you from placing such restrictions on people who get code from you. If they want to make copies of Free code away gratis, the libre part will let them do so. If it didn't, it would not be libre.

all the best,

drew

Re:What you are asking for would not be libre.

[duncan bayne]

drew,

I've been assuming that the FSF wouldn't support a licence that didn't allow redistribution. The Free Software Definition specifies the following freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

What I'm looking for is a licence that allows all freedoms except 2 (the freedom to redistribute). That's because freedom 2 is utterly incompatible with the production of commercial software, except where that software is consultingware, or tied to expensive hardware in some way.

As an aside: in his article Why Software Should Not Have Owners, Stallman completely misunderstands the point of the voluntary interaction between individuals that underpins a free society:

Whether you give a copy to your friend affects you and your friend much more than it affects me. I shouldn't have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should.

In fact, if you want to use software, then the owner of the software may nominate the terms under which you use it. Obviously you are free to accept or decline, but once you've accepted, you must abide by the terms of the agreement.

Everyone should have the power to set the terms of an agreement - and the power to accept or decline that agreement.

Re:What you are asking for would not be libre.

[vrmlguy]

Duncan, I've used the GPLv2 for over twenty years for software that I've written for customers. 99% of it was in the form of shell or other scripts, which meant that withholding the source wasn't an option. The primary change that I make is to not use the words "Gnu Public License", because that tends to scare people.

The first two freedoms that Stallman lists are important to anyone. The remaining two are more theoretical. My customers have the ability to redistribute the code as they see fit. However, they just paid a lot of money for something that gives them a competitive advantage. Why would they give that advantage to their competitors for free? They could sell it, but they aren't in the software business. Selling it would be a bigger hassle than it's worth. Finally, the software is licensed to the company, not its employees or contractors. I generally add a preface to the license that says, "This software is the property of Blue Sun Corporation, and may not be redistributed under the terms of this license without the permission of their legal department."

Re:What you are asking for would not be libre.

[zotz]

Duncan,

"What I'm looking for is a licence that allows all freedoms except 2 (the freedom to redistribute)."

Why would anyone in the marketplace with this valuable knowledge give you this knowledge for no cost? Why would anyone make such a license available to the public at no cost?

"That's because freedom 2 is utterly incompatible with the production of commercial software, except where that software is consultingware, or tied to expensive hardware in some way."

Well, I guess we disagree on this point.

"As an aside: in his article Why Software Should Not Have Owners, Stallman completely misunderstands the point of the voluntary interaction between individuals that underpins a free society:"

When copyrights as we have them now enter the picture, we are not talking a Free Market of a free society any longer. Government monopoly grants are now in the picture. In the absence of copyright law, you could develop your program and enter into license agreements with each customer to restrict them by contract as you wish and they could enter into such agreements or not as they wish. That would be a free market in action, with the government granted monopoly in the mix, the free market is out the window.

"Everyone should have the power to set the terms of an agreement - and the power to accept or decline that agreement."

And the GPL goes against this how exactly?

all the best,

drew

Re:What you are asking for would not be libre.

[duncan bayne]

Why would anyone in the marketplace with this valuable knowledge give you this knowledge for no cost? Why would anyone make such a license available to the public at no cost?

Well, I can only speak for myself, but I'd release such a licence in order to encourage other people to use it. I don't like the kind of restrictions on end-users that many publishers impose (e.g. the jailed iPhone) and would like to make it easier for publishers of proprietary software to do the right thing by their customers.

Well, I guess we disagree on this point.

Can you give me an example of software that is freely redistributable that is profitable solely by sales of licences? I'd be more than happy to be convinced otherwise, but I just don't see any real-world examples.

That would be a free market in action, with the government granted monopoly in the mix, the free market is out the window.

That's the anarcho-capitalist view of copyright I believe; I've read a bit about it here. Can't say I agree with it though, despite being a hard-core capitalist & libertarian.

And the GPL goes against this how exactly?

The GPL doesn't go against this at all, provided people are free to choose or reject it for their projects. My objection was to Stallman claiming that no-one should have the right to ask people to accept a EULA that restricts redistribution:

I shouldn't have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should.

Re:What you are asking for would not be libre.

[duncan bayne]

What an interesting idea - I can see how that would work in the case of custom software development, but the issue with shrinkwrapped software is that it's tailored towards redistribution; all it would take would be one enterprising person to buy a licence, and then resell it themselves (possibly in modified form) without any financial benefit to my company.

Maybe a better approach for shrinkwrap would be something like the Qt licence (if memory serves correctly) - free for use in free software, but must be licensed for use in commercial software?

Re:What you are asking for would not be libre.

[zotz]

"Can you give me an example of software that is freely redistributable that is profitable solely by sales of licences?"

If you restrict your thinking this much, you will not give yourself all the chances you might have. I am conducting my own experiments in related areas.

"My objection was to Stallman claiming that no-one should have the right to ask people to accept a EULA that restricts redistribution:"

I have never seen this claim made by him. That it is unethical (or something similar) for someone to do this, perhaps, but not that you should not have the legal right to do this unethical thing.

all the best,

drew

Re:What you are asking for would not be libre.

[duncan bayne]

If you restrict your thinking this much, you will not give yourself all the chances you might have. I am conducting my own experiments in related areas.

packet-in.org I presume? I'll check it out.

I have never seen this claim made by him. That it is unethical (or something similar) for someone to do this, perhaps, but not that you should not have the legal right to do this unethical thing.

Well, he makes that claim in an essay published on gnu.org. His statement seems pretty clear:

I shouldn't have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should.

Re:What you are asking for would not be libre.

[zotz]

"Well, he makes that claim in an essay published on gnu.org [gnu.org]. His statement seems pretty clear:

        I shouldn't have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should."

I would be very careful with RMS and the words he chooses to use.

You will notice it does not say that your should not have the right to negotiate with someone that they not do these things but that you should not have the power to tell them not to do them. It is something to consider.

all the best,

drew

Terms & Contracts

[logicnazi]

I don't remember the exact definitions but I seem to remember that any modified copy of the product that your customers create, even if it is never distributed, counts as a derived work.

Now if you are really going to be selling this software as a commercial product I think it's a mistake to do so without getting some legal advice. The fact that you are selling your product (instead of giving it away) may very well create implied rights of action, e.g., state or federal law may allow customers to sue you for damages if your product causes data loss or otherwise fails to live up to expectations. Therefore failing to get legal advice might open you up to liability.

Of course there are probably generic software licensces that are prewritten but the genericity usually comes from the fact that they cover your ass by restricting the customer's rights as much as possible. Still, if you look you might find something.

What you really seem to want is a licenses that give the customer the rights to use the work and create derivative works as they see fit but not to redistribute the work or any derived works. Since you should be getting legal advice anyway this would be trivial for a lawyer to arrange.

Re:Terms & Contracts

[mark-t]

I don't remember the exact definitions but I seem to remember that any modified copy of the product that your customers create, even if it is never distributed, counts as a derived work.

While technically correct, if it is never distributed or offered for distribution in any way whatsoever, there is no capability whatsoever to enforce what people do in private. Such private copies are, even though unauthorized, generally implicitly exempt from copyright infringement.

Wait, what?

[Timothy Brownawell]

gives the customer the freedom to modify the product as they want, but prohibits them from creating derivative works

Modifying the product is creating a derivative work.

My company is developing some software using Ruby. It's proprietary software â" decidedly not free-as-in-beer â" but I don't want to tie my customers down with the usual prohibitions on reverse engineering, modification, etc. After all, they're licensing the product from us, so I think they should be able to use it as they see fit.

Look into selling them a copy of your software, instead of a license to use a copy of your software. US copyright law does permit people who actually own a copy of software to make certain kinds of modifications (don't recall what exactly), make the needed copies to actually use it (disk -> ram, etc), and such.

Title: No, Summary: Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, if you are restricting the redistribution then what you are asking for is not "Libre". Redistribution is one of the four freedoms of a Free Software License. If you don't fulfill that you are not asking for a Free License, you are asking for an OPEN SOURCE license (which contrary to popular belief means ONLY that the source code is available, not that you automatically have the right to do with it as you please).

Anyay, what you are asking in the summary can be done. It is (fairly) common to grant clients the right to use the source code for approved purposes. The Torque game engine has one such license. Several web-based "Enterprise" application I use at work have such licenses. I don't believe any of those use any particular standard license. I would suggest beginning your search here. Perhaps I should have just used Let me google that for you.

Re:Title: No, Summary: Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, if you are restricting the redistribution then what you are asking for is not "Libre". Redistribution is one of the four freedoms of a Free Software License.

That is, of course, assuming you follow the cult of Stallman...

Re:Title: No, Summary: Yes

[Simetrical]

If you don't fulfill that you are not asking for a Free License, you are asking for an OPEN SOURCE license (which contrary to popular belief means ONLY that the source code is available, not that you automatically have the right to do with it as you please).

Your own link contradicts you:

The official definition of "open source software" (which is published by the Open Source Initiative and too long to cite here) was derived indirectly from our criteria for free software. It is not the same; it is a little looser in some respects, so open source supporters have accepted a few licenses that we consider unacceptably restrictive of the users. Nonetheless, it is fairly close to our definition in practice.

However, the obvious meaning for the expression "open source software" is "You can look at the source code," and most people seem to think that's what it means. That is a much weaker criterion than free software, and much weaker than the official definition of open source. It includes many programs that are neither free nor open source.

Since that obvious meaning for "open source" is not the meaning that its advocates intend, the result is that most people misunderstand the term.

The term open source was coined by the OSI and has always, since its inception, referred to the OSI's Open Source Definition. It has never meant merely that the source code is available. This is a simple misunderstanding, just like misunderstanding "free software" as meaning "software available for no cost".

Re:Title: No, Summary: Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the all caps use it's hard to tell whether the person you replied to meant open source or OSF Open Source. Certainly I don't use open source restricted to only the OSF definition, but to any license that makes the source available to learn from. Those licenses can predate both the FSF and OSF and did when I first encountered them. You might also note that the OSF lost its attempt to get a trademark on the phrase, though it did get one for OSF/1, a Unix product.

It is unfortunate that both the FSF and OSF chose phrases with obvious and normal meanings that differ from those that they desire.

matlab

[drolli]

mathworks has been doing that for decades now. They are extremely friendly when a customer gives them a bug report and tells them the place in their code where the bug is buried.

immunity

[Deanalator]

You might want to check out Immunity.

http://www.immunitysec.com/

They sell CANVAS, an exploitation framework. A subscription is pretty expensive (that is, dirt cheap compared to core impact), but it comes complete with python source code, and the licence they use gives full rights to modify any of the code as you need to (sort of a requirement for exploit frameworks).

Re:immunity

[mrcaseyj]

A company that sells an exploitation framework doesn't have to have a very good contract. They don't have to go to court to get their money. They just tell their customers to pay and they pay. Because something bad might happen to their computers if they don't pay.

Re:immunity

[Courageous]

A company that sells an exploitation framework doesn't have to have a very good contract. They don't have to go to court to get their money. They just tell their customers to pay and they pay. Because something bad might happen to their computers if they don't pay.

Right. A company, conducting a legitimate business, would commit a felony and risk dechartering. Mmmm, hmmm. Immunity has been around for a good 8 years now, you know.

C//

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[Anonymous Coward]

A basic search will turn up a lot of licenses, how can you be so lazy that you can't type something into Google but are able to submit a Slashdot story?

It's not laziness. We just love seeing you get your knickers in a twist.

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[aliquis]

If it was so easy why didn't you helped the guy just posting a list of licenses? Or the one which you found better of them?

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[Brian Gordon]

allaunjsilverfox2's subject line is an interesting question, and more than just the story poster should listen to his answer.

You are looking for a non-libre license.

[pthisis]

Something that gives the customer the freedom to modify the product as they want, but prohibits them from creating derivative works, or redistributing it in any fashion?"

This question shows a total lack of understanding for what "libre" software is.

A license along those lines would not be "libre but not gratis". Being freely redistributable and allowing derived works are core parts of "libre" software.

All the common definitions of "libre" software (OSF, DFSG, etc) include statements like:

"Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."

and:

"The license must allow modifications and derived works"

Re:You are looking for a non-libre license.

[duncan bayne]

Last I checked, the FSF didn't actually define the word libre, although they did nicely market it to mean exactly what they want it to mean :-)

To clarify though: when I spoke of creating derivative works, I meant 'creating derivative works and distributing them ...'. Imagine taking My Product X, modifying it slightly, then onselling it in modified form. That's what I don't want.

Re:You are looking for a non-libre license.

[pthisis]

See the note on redistributing which I posted above.

All the people who _do_ define libre explicitly (the Open Source Definition, the Debian Free Software Guide, etc) are pretty clear about it: if redistributing the work or distributing derivate works is not allowed, then it's not a "libre" license.

It's possible that you've created some strained reading of the FSF's marketing that supports you, but I guarantee you that if you asked someone like Eban Moglen (let alone Richard Stallman) they'd let you know that without allowing redistribution of derived works it ain't libre by the intention of the Free Software movement. Anyone reading their info without an agenda can see that. It's not even open-source, which is the much less radically ideological ideal of the two.

That said, you have every right to distribute your work as you see fit--as far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly reasonable to slap a commercial license on it or to do what you're seeking. I'm just trying to point out that it's not at all "libre but not gratis".

Re:You are looking for a non-libre license.

[duncan bayne]

It's possible that you've created some strained reading of the FSF's marketing that supports you ...

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

What I meant was that the FSF has defined 'libre' in its marketing to include the freedom to redistribute; I am arguing that one can have meaningfully free software (that is, where the user is free to use the software as he wishes) without the freedom to redistribute.

In short, I don't agree with the FSF's definition of 'libre'. I'm 100% certain that you're right, in that they won't agree with mine.

Hence my comment re. marketing - the FSF has effectively staked a claim to 'libre' that unsurprisingly dovetails exactly with the way they want all software to be.

Re:You are looking for a non-libre license.

[Azh Nazg]

Given that libre is only used in the English language to refer to what the FSF calls "free software", I'd say that using libre as you are is, at best, an outright lie.

Re:You are looking for a non-libre license.

[Hal_Porter]

Bullshit.

What about Cuba Libre or Lucha libre? Both of those were used in English before Stallman wrote his rant, and neither of them have anything to do with the FSF.

If the FSF want to own the word libre like Disney owns words "Mickey Mouse", they should trademark it and sue people when they use it in the 'wrong' way just like Disney do.

Re:You are looking for a non-libre license.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much because the very definition of "Free Software" was designed to be almost equivalent to "non-commercial".

Which is why FSF and such regarded companies like Trolltech as less than free even if their products were GPL.

"Hey, they are making money with their software: it's evil!"

The main business model conceived by FSF is "give away the software and sell support". Which is stupid since that seems to encourage obfuscated/overcomplicated/underdocumented code...

Without redistributing I can still look at the sources for malicious code, fix problems, adapt it to my needs and clone its functionality should it become necessary for my work. It's a lot of freedom IMHO.

Probably there should be an explicit clause that allows a third party consultant to access the sources and modify it on behalf of the licensee. Still without redistributing.

Re:You are looking for a non-libre license.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible to do all this in user-creatable patches? Open source, closed copyright.

Game modders have to walk this line carefully pretty often. As long as the original source(game engine or game content) is not redistributed in whole or in part (outside of the licenses you sold), users are free to distribute patches to the original source. You could premise your license on the ability of those patches to be integrated freely back into your trunk, to forestall patent problems. You may want to work on a patch bundling architecture which makes this easier for the non-technical people, or a website for distribution of patches.

I've seen a few companies do this

[sentientbrendan]

Obviously Sun used to do something similar with Java.

The Python IDE I use, Wing, also allows you to access their source so you can recompile on various platforms.

Historically, AT&T unixes were distributed with source.

Really, I've always found it weird that proprietary software companies seem to think it's important to keep the source code super secret, as if it were some kind of trade secret. Having the source available for recompile and modification is handy for the user, whereas the risk that someone will copy past your source code is somewhat minimal. After all, integrating different source bases is an enourmous amount of work, and fairly easy to detect after the fact.

Re:I've seen a few companies do this

[ADRA]

> important to keep the source code super secret

The reason will most likely be listed below:

1. End users making their own changes but still complaining about error that may or may not be a result of their unauthorized modifications

2. Afraid that other competitors will 'leverage' your investment in development using legal or illegal means.

3. They don't want anyone to know that they 'leveraged' your investment in development to further their own product using legal or illegal means.

4. They didn't bother to patent anything and they're relying on being hidden to keep their trade secrets safe.

5. They license another developer's code which has the exact same limitation, and instead of negotiating with the upstream dev for source distribution rights or reimplementing the needed functionality themselves, they just choose to do nothing.

Anyways, many development environments/frameworks allow for source distribution because customers want to know why an obscure function 3 stack steps into your API routine is throwing ugly errors at you. With clear-and-open source, a developer could use a debugger and realize that they screwed something up before having to contact support with an obvious (to the original dev) problem.

Outside development libraries/frameworks and free products, a full source dump of any given product is pretty rare, at least from my experience.

Re:I've seen a few companies do this

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use the time-limited trial or reduced functionality until purchase software models, the source needs to be closed so that an end-user doesn't simply comment out the licensing check. If the bar to a free lunch is set so low that any moderately competent consumer can crack it themselves, you're not going to make any money.

Re:I've seen a few companies do this

[swillden]

Outside development libraries/frameworks and free products, a full source dump of any given product is pretty rare, at least from my experience.

Mine, too, and it's a shame.

The purpose of copyright law is to increase the flow of material into the public domain ("to promote progress in the sciences and useful arts", as Article I puts it), and the application of copyright to opaque binaries undermines rather than supports that purpose. The founders, of course, had no conception that it might be possible to do something analogous to publishing a book but keeping secret the words used to construct it, but that's precisely what publishing binary-only software does.

IMO, the way to resolve this is to provide copyright protection only to software for which source code is provided. That doesn't mean it has to be Free Software, or to permit modification, duplication or distribution. Copyright restricts all of that.

Companies that have source code that really does need to be kept secret (which is not all that common, really), can use contract law to maintain control of the binaries, and can then treat the source as a trade secret. For everyone else, they could sell software as they do, but with source included, available for customers to review and learn from -- in accordance with the purpose and intent of copyright.

Well, that and we also need to get copyright terms brought back down to appropriate levels. But that's a separate issue.

Re:I've seen a few companies do this

[waveclaw]

Ah, the myths of closed source development.

1. End users making their own changes but still complaining about error that may or may not be a result of their unauthorized modifications

Happens anyway. Users will request support about: '2nd-party add-ons, edits to scripts with headers that warn not to edit them and even binary patches (including No CD and Anti-DRM that they - the paying customer doesn't want you to know about. Do you ever wonder why the help desk insists on trying that you 're-installing in a clean environment' as part of the troubleshooting process?

They are users. If you sold needle-drugs, they'd file bug reports that injecting heroin into their eyes makes them go blind.

2. Afraid that other competitors will 'leverage' your investment

Get real. If it's that good, they'll steal it anyway. Ever seen a license audit at a large company? There's a reason they make middle managers sweat like their stock dropped before the options vest.

3. They don't want anyone to know that they 'leveraged' your investment

4. They didn't bother to patent anything and they're relying on being hidden

See number 2 above. Running strings on random binaries in corporate-ware packages is left as an exercise to the reader. Bonus points if you buy a piece of software with code access and find your own product(s) inside.

I also love the continual arguments for 'shrouded' or 'obfuscated' source. Was that function tag345() or object2345.method76()? Those arguments come up on code forums pretty much annually. It's like Usenet in September until someone points out the obvious.

To the assembler programmer and the hacker, all programs are shipped with source code. It just may not be in the (high-level) language you prefer to code.

So pick your license - or better yet contract - carefully but prepare to back it up with audits, lawyers and calls to that boogeyman, the BSA.

It depends who you are

[dbIII]

If you are a big project like X11 or OpenBSD you can use whatever licence you like.

If you are a small project like Qt with your own open licence you could get hounded for years no matter how much you change it and even after you change it to GPL there will be a bit of bad press. Even if you use the GPL but don't want to go to a newer version until you read it's final form you could have people ranting at you.

So in reality the answer comes down to human nature and whether you'll get noticed or ignored by people that are looking for an example to use to push their own personal politics.

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Microsoft's Shared Source license.

Topic Change

[Anonymous Coward]

What you want is neither libre nor gratis, and not that unusual for proprietary software. Any chance we could get the topic changed to something more accurate?

Your question makes no sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

You say you don't want to tie your client to the usual prohibitions (such as forbidding modification and reverse engineering), but on the other hand you do want to prohibit your client from creating derivative works (i.e., modification) and redistributing your work.

In other words, you want a non-free license for your non-free product. Yet your post mentions the word "libre", which is a reference to freedom, which you don't want to give.

My advice: hire one of Microsoft's lawyers.

To clarify ...

[duncan bayne]

When I wrote:

but prohibits them from creating derivative works, or redistributing it in any fashion?"

I meant to imply the redistribution of derivative works there.

Obviously, modifying the software in-house counts as a derivative work, and I'm okay with that - just not with the idea that customers would then onsell or give away the modified product to other potential customers.

Re:To clarify ...

[anthony_dipierro]

Obviously, modifying the software in-house counts as a derivative work, and I'm okay with that - just not with the idea that customers would then onsell or give away the modified product to other potential customers.

Just selling source code and not granting any license at all would probably accomplish that in practice if not strictly by law. In-house modifications are arguably fair use, and even if not it's basically unenforceable law anyway.

Personally I'd want to go one step further. I'd like to allow (and encourage) distribution of modifications (for free or for a charge), to people who already purchased the original.

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[hdon]

A basic search will turn up a lot of licenses, how can you be so lazy that you can't type something into Google but are able to submit a Slashdot story?

Why read Slashdot at all? Just Google the news, like I do. Just type "What is <current-date> like?" into Google and let'er rip.

Google provides search results, not dialog.

Slashdot used to provide editing, too, but for a while now that's been more of a nuisance than a feature.

*ducks*

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[duncan bayne]

Because it's not about helping, it's about feeling better about himself by proving his intellectual superiority in a public forum.

Just like I did right there ;-)

Sounds like BBS software

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember the license for WWIV? You got the source, you could do what you want with it, but you couldn't give it to anyone else.

SAP licences allow source changes

[The Good Jim]

The SAP license includes most (but not all) source code, and you can change it - but the change is logged,and if it is a change to a SAP supplied program, this can affect support arrangements. Basically, it lets you change what you wish, but you are responsible for your own changes (don't screw things up and then expect the supplier to fix a problem you caused!). I thing Oracle do the same with their ERP products. You might have a look at some of these licences, as they might give you some ideas of what to, and what not to consider, Jim

the middle ground

[randallman]

I'll be scouring this thread because I think libre/non-gratis software has a future. I put some thoughts down here:

http://tnr.cc/the_software_license.html

There are two big advantages to libre software in business:

1. You can customize the software.
2. You're not dependent on the vendor. You can hire a third party to maintain the software.

Number two is posed to create a flourishing technology economy. Say you've got some great accounting software from small vendor X and vendor X goes out of business. You can hire any third party to add new features or fix problems. Or if vendor X ignores your bug reports, you can hire vendor Y to fix the bug. The libre checkbox could be very attractive to businesses.

The first poster is correct.

[Jane Q. Public]

You do not need any "licenses" at all. Just retain all copyrights, and SELL (rather than license) the product to your customers.

You own the copyright so they can not make derivative works, or copy and distribute the product, etc. But they can do whatever they want, internally, with the product they purchased, just like a book.

Mod up

[Jane Q. Public]

I, too, deplore the changes in copyright law, like the ridiculous extensions. (What it is now? Life + 70 years?) And... Gawd... not to mention the abomination that is the DMCA.

Copyright laws were distorted from their original purpose, which was to promote the creation of original works for the public good, to what it is now, which is more like a guaranteed profit factory at the expense of the public. Not good at all. Things were better before the changes.

Bad Title

[FrankDrebin]

Topic title and summary do not agree, since libre != proprietary, at least going by the FSF definition.

Kudos for the interest in having license terms less draconian that we see with most commercial software, but this does not make software "free/libre".

Not a lawyer here, but it seems to me as copyright holder, one can write any license terms at all so long as the licensee is willing accept them (and they are lawful; no clauses calling for sacrificing virgins, etc).

The customers already HAS the freedom to modify

[SmallFurryCreature]

EVERY CUSTOMER ALREADY HAS THE RIGHT TO MODIFY ANY PRODUCT HE BUYS AND DISTRUBTE THIS MODIFICATION.

Lets examine this because with software and media we have allowed ourselves to forget this.

Cars, the eternal slashdot metaphor for everything, are a prime example. I am allowed to buy ANY car in the world, modify it in any way I want and sell it. THE ONLY restriction in this case is that it must be road safe but this has NOTHING to do with what the original manufacturer wants. There is a HUGE industry that modifies cars. In fact if you want a special type of vehicle you are pretty much required to modify an existing one.

Imagine what "no modification" and "no redistribution" would mean for the food industry. You couldn't cook anything not even share a biscuit with someone.

But we are talking about media you say. Okay, newspaper cuts. This has died down a bit but most big companies used to have someone reading all newspapers for articles of intrest and cut them out for information and the archive.

So in most countries where idiotic bought laws have not raped the customers basic rights the end-user already HAS the right to modify software AND to distribute these modifications. The legal problem with most mods is that you do NOT pass the original product with it. If I modded a bought copy of a game and modified it and then sold that copy on there is NOTHING that can be done against it under dutch law for instance.

So you are basically asking for a piece of text that already allows customers to do what you want to allow them to do. So include common law with your product and you are done.

Re:The customers already HAS the freedom to modify

[BeaverCleaver]

I hate replying to car analogies, but here goes:

You can buy a car and do whatever you want with it, but this will void the warranty and the manufacturer will not support you if it breaks down.

You can sell the car, but NO WAY are you allowed to copy the car and sell those copies. Say if you own a car factory, you're not allowed to buy one Ford F100, then reverse-engineer it and sell identical copies as Ford F100s. Nor are you allowed to change, say, the colour of the upholstery, then sell the whole thing as your own work. No way. It's not just the electronic media that has these restrictions.

Re:The customers already HAS the freedom to modify

[ADRA]

I seriously doubt you can buy a ford, rip out its innards and re-sell the product with different parts and still legally call it a ford. You don't have the right to sell something that you've changed and keep the same naming unless the manufacturer has through contract or permission given you the right to use their trademarks. Generally Ford or the like don't care when you make some tweaker variation of their cars, but if you happen to make mods that end up in fatalities and you can be damn sure that they'll stretch the long arm of the law to strike you down.

To take this further, look at movie studios who put stops on resellers that were buying up their movies and then cutting obscenity out of mature movies then selling them as family safe movies.

Every person who's name is in those credits game permission for their names to be in that movie. By having the intermediary company stepping in, the people who's names are proudly shown on the film credits have lost the right to not want their name used. Think of the worst case: I make a prono and slap Stephen Spielberg's name as the director. Is this beyond your reasoning of fair use ? (PS: I love fair use within the terms of my country's current laws)

If this was to be hunky dory, I'd want every one of those actors, producers, directors, etc.. to sign off on their names being used by the work not approved by them or their paying employers. Just look at the David Lynch / Dune saga to see that one's name means on a film.

When you share a biscuit, you're sharing the object, not it's trademark. Once cooked, it holds no copyright or trademark application (most likely). If I made a knock off girl guide cookie which does have a trademark on-object, I could be sued for trademark infringement and rightly so.

I recently attended a Stallman talk on software and any type of IP in terms of use and I must say he's about as nutty as yours are in terms of the practical applications of your philosophies upon society.

> If I modded a bought copy of a game and modified it and then sold that copy on there is NOTHING that can be done against it under dutch law for instance.

For dutch law, what recourse do the production staff of said game have when their names are being applied to products they didn't wholly create or approve of? If I ran a dutch library and photocopied every book we acquired and handed out the copies, would that also be legal in dutch law?

Re:The customers already HAS the freedom to modify

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you insisting so much on the fact that the modified product would be sold under the original name? The parent poster said nothing of the sort.

Re:The customers already HAS the freedom to modify

[TheoMurpse]

Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for these three previous posters! They've managed to, in three posts, conflate copyright, patent, and trademark law! Quite an accomplishment!

Re:The customers already HAS the freedom to modify

[drinkypoo]

EVERY CUSTOMER ALREADY HAS THE RIGHT TO MODIFY ANY PRODUCT HE BUYS AND DISTRUBTE THIS MODIFICATION.

yes, but only if they transfer everything they got.

If you make the source code available only under a license which says you don't have that right, then you can't redistribute it.

Cars, the eternal slashdot metaphor for everything, are a prime example. I am allowed to buy ANY car in the world, modify it in any way I want and sell it.

Your post is stupid because you can't make a copy of a car for free. You are NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE AUTOMOTIVE METAPHORS. It is not impossible to make them. But you have failed.

Regardless, you're allowed to make as many copies of a piece of software for your own use as you like. Well, functionally, anyway. Nobody can stop you in the places where you aren't allowed to do this... But even when making copies is explicitly allowed by law you're required to transfer or destroy all copies when you transfer the original work. Well, that's how it works in the USA, anyway.

Stop trying to act like material goods are equivalent to intellectual "property". They are not, everyone important knows they are not which is why we have a whole different body of law to deal with them, that law started out pretty reasonable but has since been corrupted and/or outdated.

Why was this modded troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is just another in a long line of slashverts!

Ya know, /. has a history of it, and it's not like it's a big secret.

Kneejerk and unfair modding of truthful posts just because they make some people uncomfortable is really stupid.

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[Myuu]

I think the poster should perhaps look at other commercial Ruby/PHP applications like VBulletin.

Maybe they are ashamed ?

[abies]

I think that often it might be a fear of showing what kind of code they want customers to pay money for. Security by obscurity also comes into picture.

The Rails Wheels licence system

[Mandrel]

Have a look at the Rails Wheels licence system, used by some Ruby on Rails plugins.

It allows customization and redistribution, but ensures that the original author gets paid when any derivative work is in live use on a website.

Plugin authors can allocate income shares to others, giving authors of significant patches an incentive to contribute back to the original (commercial) package.

Derivative works

[Peaker]

Modifying it is creating derivative works.

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[Anonymous Coward]

*ducks*

*rabbits*

Open but not Free

[Anonymous Coward]

You want your software to be open but not free (as Free Software), thats the difference. There are lots of open licenses out there. Even Microsoft have done a few.

Microsoft

[sqldr]

Microsoft already provide this, with their "shared source" license. Have a read of it.

Creative Commons?

[Anonymous Coward]

CC BY-ND-SA

Special licence not needed

[ivoras]

The described situation is very common, especially for web applications and for enterprise applications that are supposed to be used in the long term. There is absolutely no magic here and it's actually legally a "well known" situation (no need to invent anything new).

Simply sell your software as any other proprietary software (pick up any legal contract that suits you) and add a clause that says something like: "the buyer shall receive complete copy of the source code of the applications together with tools and instructions how to build the application, and the right to use and modify this source code for any purpose. This right shall not be transferable to third parties."

.

As always, IANAL, get it read by someone who is. Also, this means you need to stay away from libraries licensed under the GPL and similar licenses which prohibit the "this right is not transferable" part.

Re:Special licence not needed

[JFilz]

"the buyer shall receive complete copy of the source code of the applications together with tools and instructions how to build the application, and the right to use and modify this source code for any purpose. This right shall not be transferable to third parties."

That does not always work. People often used non-GPL (ie:commercial) licensed tools and library for programing.
I am not about to give away copy of MS-Visual Studio with every program I sell/give away. MS Lawyers are not fun to deal with....

All Rights Reserved

[jonadab]

First, you make the copyright notices in the source code all say "All Rights Reserved". This is what copyright law gives you by default anyway, but having the all-right-reserved notices makes it more clear to people who might not know all the nuances of copyright law, and I think it makes enforcement easier also.

Second, you include the source code with the binaries in the install, so that all the customers *have* the source code. They don't have any legal right or license to it, but they *have* it. This completely obviates any need for reverse-engineering.

As far as modification, you can just sort of informally tell the customers what kinds of modification they're allowed to do and still get tech support. (Since they're not allowed to do any distribution whatsoever, it wouldn't even make sense to do any legal enforcement against modification. The MOST you'd ever do is say "your modified configuration is unsupported" when the call tech support. So when you tell them what modifications they're allowed to do, you're really telling them what modifications you're willing to support.)

If you think a lot of the customers will want to share modifications, you should develop a policy on, and perhaps a forum for, sharing patches. ISTR that Minix allowed patch sharing, before it was relicensed as open-source software.

it was more an issue with the name

[Trepidity]

I don't think anyone objected to Microsoft giving customers source code; it's certainly an improvement on their previous practice of not doing so. What irked people was the term "shared source", which was seen as an attempt to confused the term "open source" by introducing a similar-sounding phrase without the same rights attached to it.

Re:it was more an issue with the name

[Anonymous Coward]

So people were irked by the term "shared source" bacause it could be confused with "open source". And at the same time those people think Free is the best term to describe the GPL, and the term "use" does not apply to a developer linking to a library.

Re:I've got just the thing.

[ZWoz_new]

Five figures? Okey, 00000. Currency is your choice. Where i get my copy of licence?

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[RichardJenkins]

What do you think Google searches turn up?

If you get a page like this discussing all the options. If you don't then creating a page like this would be a pretty good way for you to go. In case imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery:

"A basic thought will turn up lots of reasons for Asking Slashdot, how can you be so lazy that you can't think it through but are able to submit a whiny comment to a Slashdot forum?"

Much simpler.

[FellowConspirator]

Just put some wording like this in the files:

Copyright 2009, Duncan Bayne. ... what you are asking for is basic copyright protection. In the absence of a license, but with the presence of a copyright notice you are permitting the person/entity that you provided the copy with to take a work and use it anyway they see fit with the restriction that they are not permitted to distribute a copy to any other party.

Be nice

[WindBourne]

First, there is no reason NOT to be. He asked a VERY legitimate question. In fact, it is one that I am surprised that has not be done so far. When you think about it, many of us want open source to succeed, but many of the small companies do not want to supply their competitors either. Until ppl get over their fears about OSS, something like this would be useful.
Second, The guy was wondering if there was a license that would handle this. Turns out that there really is not. So, yes, it is possible that a lawyer in the OSS wold will step forward and take this on, or he or the company may have to do it.

Re:Be nice

[tverbeek]

I am surprised that has not be done so far.

Don't be, because it has been done. Giving clients the source code to modify was fairly common in ye olden dayes, back before hardware became a standardized commodity and software became a mass-market shrinkwrapped product. When a client licensed software, they might buy a support contract which would get them X amount of customization, or they'd get the source code and support it themselves, or both.

Re:Be nice

[ray-auch]

> He asked a VERY legitimate question. In fact, it is one that I am surprised that has not be done so far.

This has been done plenty of times before - just probably not on /. because it isn't really a free/open-source thing to do.

I have licensed several commercial products from other parties with full source and modifcation rights before - but I would regard all the cases as being "commercial / proprietary" software vendors, rather than anywhere near the FOSS world.

If the number of customers is small I would suggest you will probably want a proper contract rather than relying on copyright / EULA. As has been said, ask a lawyer to draw one up. That sort of arrangement is really very common in the commercial software world, plenty of corporate lawyers should be capable of handling it.

If you are looking at wide distribution and really want to rely solely on EULA / copyright, then there are cases where this has been done before that would be worth looking at. One example I can think of is that Microsoft used to ship (way before the "shared source" rubbish) the MFC libraries as modifiable, and in fact re-distributable, (with conditions on your version being renamed to avoid clashes etc.). Might be worth a look at their old licences (or the current ones even - I'm not sure if they still ship MFC as modifiable though). Also in the MS world, Dundas (dundas.com) have shipped commercial grid and chart controls for years with full source code - might be worth loking at their licenses.

Re:Be nice

[WindBourne]

Yes. I did it back in the 80's. BUT, where are the license? Nearly all were simply saying what you could NOT do with it. He is looking for a well thought out license.

NDA over the source is what you want.

[KarlH420]

Seems like you want to sell it with commercial license + NDA over the source code. .

Radiator has that kind of licence

[Lorens]

Radiator (a commercial Radius server) is provided with source code. Their license is at http://www.open.com.au/license.html. I just read it (again), and the legalese seems rather complete, you just have to remove the sentence saying that derivative works are not permitted, and replace it with something saying that the Licensee is permitted to modify the work for his own use as he sees fit but that any such modifications are to be considered part of the licensed work and may not be distributed to anyone except back to the Licensor . . . but since your company's money is involved you should go ask your local copyright lawyer what he thinks :-0

Bah licenses

[nurb432]

Its all free as far as i'm concerned.

You contradict yourself

[John Hasler]

Something that gives the customer the freedom to modify the product as they want, but prohibits them from creating derivative works...

"Modifying the product" is "creating derivative works". You want to grant them permission to create derivatives but not grant them permission to distribute copies of either the original or the derivatives. You may also want to require them to keep the source code confidential. I strongly suggest that you consult a copyright attorney with experience with software licensing.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what the licence is, but a company that MY company uses seems to fit your bill. They provide a completely modifiable program (granted, it's a bloody Access program), the code is (as far as I can see) completely visible, and it's NOT redistributable. It's called Mail-Shop. You might just give 'em a ring and see what license they use. www.mail-shop.com, put out by Virtual Systems.

I'd like something similar

[anthony_dipierro]

I was thinking recently that I'd like something similar to this, though I wouldn't call it a "libre" license. The idea is that anyone who purchased the software would get full source code and a license to make any changes without restriction, and they could distribute the software, with or without changes, to anyone who purchased a license. Furthermore, they could resell licenses. So if the base license cost $10, they could make changes and sell the modified software for $15, as long as they turned over $10 to me for each license they sold. Incidentally, it seems to me that such a license is sufficiently "free", and could actually be more useful than traditional free software, because it allows people who make modifications the ability to make money.

Basically, you want a commercial source license

[davidwr]

Give them the source under a NDA, and tell them they can use the source and anything they develop with it for internal use only, with payment based on whatever factors you want e.g. number of users, number of computers, flat-rate-per-year, or whatever.

It might be a good idea for them to have your customer agree that all parties who see the code have signed enforceable papers saying they won't take proprietary information from 3rd parties home with them. I assume you don't want an employee of that company either copying your source and taking it home or studying it, quitting, and creating a product that competes with yours.

What you are asking for is not Libre.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

The kind of restrictions you are asking for, will by definition make the software non-free (in the GNU sense of the word; in other words, non-Libre, non open source).

The goals you have in mind can be accomplished quite simply; it was being done *long* before open source became popular. Simply provide them the source code under NDA.

Or if you want to throw a few irony logs on the fire, you could provide them the software under one of Microsoft's "shared source" licenses that we all love to mock so much, because that's essentially what you're asking to accomplish.

And tolerated by copyright law

[DrYak]

I would hesitate to rely on copyright law. Since you're a developer you (should) know that everything gets copied everywhere a zillion times in the natural execution of the application code. This may be trivial

And copyright law in most (sane) jurisdiction do consider this trivial too.
A fine distinction is made between :
- the several copies made between bought media, computer storage, computer RAM, etc... and all other copies which take part as the normal function of the software.
- a user making a copy of the physical installation media and starting to sell that one on ebay, without having proper license to do so.

The first case is just normal function of the way computers work. It's tolerated in a lot of jurisdiction and even explicitly allowed in lots of other (it is explicitly stated in the Swiss law, for example).

The second is blatant copyright violation and is what the copyright laws were written against.

(although I'm not sure about the USA. You guys managed to accept a DMCA law which prohibits stuff normally allowed under fair use in the copyright laws).

Use any open source license

[unmukt]

Use any Open source license that you like. You only give liberty to modify your software and any other software.

It's not logically possible

[hey!]

The whole basis of copyright is to reward authors by giving them legal control over certain uses of their works. In the old days the scope of this was limited to copying.

However software isn't usable without copying, and so we have the end user license. The end user license has two functions (other than to protect the vendor from liability concerns): to allow the user to make the copies of the software necessary to use it, and to allow the vendor to monetize various kinds of uses of the software.

The whole idea of free (as in freedom) software is to minimize the restrictions placed on recipients of the software, both direct and downstream. But making money with software licensed is based on restricting uses of the software and charging for lifting certain of those restrictions.

So you have to consider your business model, and where the money (more precisely, where the sales) come from. There are many variations, such as work-for-hire on free software, support based models, hybrid models with free (from liberal but proprietary to open source) versions and proprietary editions with or without added features, on to the traditional model where you charge every time your customer tries to take a breath.

I'm not one of those people who think selling proprietary, closed software is the moral equivalent of child molestation. But you have to accept that inherent in your question is the idea you are making money from restricting your users' use of the software. You really ought to reframe your question then. It should be "How do I provide my customers with a great value?" You can make sure you interoperate well, conforming to standards as far as possible. You can have liberal copying and backup policies, and avoid onerous copy protection.

Perhaps most of all, providing good value for the money you are charging to remove restrictions on users means keeping things simple. 90% of the reason I favor free software most of the time is most proprietary software doesn't justify the time it takes to figure out what you are allowed to do or what you need to buy. Functionality is divided up into a dozen packages and given obscure names to make it hard to know what you paying for.

This situation is commonplace

[Anonymous Coward]

Every major ERP system vendor licenses their products in this way.

Companies usually modify their ERP systems, create internal addons, or components to integrate it with another application. They cannot redistribute these mods outside if their organization.

Sometimes binary and source are licensed seperately.

In some cases a company may pay a licensed "Partner" to build their mods for them, and that Partner will have a different license allowing them to do so. They may even license the rights to redistribute their mod to other customers of the ERP vendor, for a fee+percentage of sales.

Check Out PHPBB

[Bob9113]

PHPBB has terms very similar to what you are talking about. You have to pay for it, but you are explicitly allowed to modify it for your purposes.

I agree with the earlier posts which say you don't need a license - regular copyright works exactly like you want, but it might be worth checking out the way PHPBB handles it.

Re:Check Out PHPBB

[PCM2]

Eh? Are we talking about the same PHPBB? 'Cause this one is open source, GPL-licensed, and totally free.

That sounds similar to vBulletin

[Coreigh]

http://www.vbulletin.com/

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[Anonymous Coward]

*ducks*

*rabbits*

*rabbit ears*

Simple

[OrangeTide]

They are prevented from distributing copies, unless you grant them that right. Which you won't. If you want to get a lawyer for a couple of days he/she could write up a fairly straight forward license that allows copies to be distributed ONLY to other licensed customers. That would be proprietary but enable the typical sharing.

You can certainly modifying any you buy in-house. If you give customers the source code they can (and will) manipulate it to suit their own needs. without a license they cannot distribute their changes. (except possibly as patch files, but even that is iffy since patches include some of the copyrighted material, might be considered "fair use" in some jurisdictions though).

Of course at my work we recently got a lecture, that we shouldn't bother helping vendors improve their software if they are just going to share our work with our competitors. Why are we paying someone then spending man-hours to aid our competitors. We're willing to do that with the open source stuff because we got it for free and figure part of the "price" of the OSS is that we have to share our changes with our competitors. At least we don't have to release the OSS changes until we release our product leaving possible competition at least behind in terms of integrating and recognizing our contributions.

Reciprocal Public License

[Anonymous Coward]

RPL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_Public_License

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[grassy_knoll]

Just in case you've never seen it...

Rabbit Season / Duck Season

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veIXcySqItY

These are "gated software" licenses

[dwheeler]

If I understand you correctly, these are typically called "gated software" licenses. It's been discussed many times before.

Often the original developers try to get the customers to make improvements and contribute them back to the vendor. This sounds promising to vendors, but in practice it hasn't really worked out. Customers don't get excited about becoming unpaid workers without getting to share the fruits in some way. For open source software, it's easy to figure out how to share the results. But in a proprietary model, trying to figure out how to "share" the result is frustrating... it often costs more to figure out the value of a small change, than of the small change itself.

If you just use this as a proprietary business model, and treat the "ability to modify" as a competitive advantage over competing proprietary products, I can see this working. Assuming the product itself is good, of course. Though when a reasonable open source software product begins competing with the proprietary product (with sufficient functionality), there's a high risk that it'll each your lunch. An OSS product will give more rights to the end-users, and probably have a far lower total price, than yours.

Hear Hear - get the contract right

[thoglette]

I have also spent two decades in various forms of IP development. Depending on the customer (defined as the person with the cheque book) we have had a variety of contracts in place.

We usually have boiler plate for the following situations
a) we keep tools, code and IP developed and license, in perpetuity, the right to use and create derivitive works
b) we keep tools and techniques; client gets newly developed code + license as above for boilerplate. Plus IP rights in their area of expertese

There's a few more variations, but as we're not a bodyshop we're usually hanging onto all rights for tools and techniques

We do this

[dskoll]

We sell commercial, proprietary software. However, we do ship source code and we specifically allow end-users to modify the source if they want.

There are two provisos, though: End-users can't redistribute our software (or modified versions of the software.) And if they modify the software, we are released from support obligations. (In practice, we do support our customers unless it's obvious their modifications have screwed up the system.)

It seems to work well for us and our clients. Probably 95% don't care about having source and never modify it, but the 5% who do care really love our license.

Open code - but not free to distribute it...

[JFilz]

You need to review other non-GPL commercial products that offer open code. Like VBulletin board.
Which states:

By installing and using vBulletin on your server, you agree to the following terms and conditions.....

* vBulletin license grants you the right to run one instance (a single installation) of the Software on one web server and one web site for each license purchased. Each license may power one instance of the Software on one domain. For each installed instance of the Software, a separate license is required. Modifications to the Software or database to circumvent the one-license-one-board rule are prohibited.
* The Software is licensed only to you. You may not rent, lease, sublicense, sell, assign, pledge, transfer or otherwise dispose of the Software in any form, on a temporary or permanent basis, without the prior written consent of Jelsoft.
.....
* The Software source code may be altered (at your risk)
.....

DONE! OPEN CODE (not open source) with all the rights of commercial copyrights and licensing requirements.

Seriously? On Slashdot?

[hackel]

I can't believe you're actually asking that here. Yet perhaps I should considering some of the comments above! You should be paid for your *time* developing the software, but it should be fully modifiable and re-distributable by anyone. We need to get away from this notion of protectionism in our development, and see ourselves as the mere labourers that we are. As long as one gets paid for the work they have done, there is no reason the code should not go on to be shared, improved, and redistributed. You just need to convince your idiot bosses of this.

If you need legal representation from the start...

[jotaeleemeese]

1.- Your country is fucked up.

2.- Your business model is a joke.

3,- All of the above.

Radiator

[RichiP]

We used to license a RADIUS server written in Perl by the name of Radiator. They would give us the source code of the entire software, but we had to pay for it and could not redistribute it. We were free to contribute fixes (and often did) without expecting anything in return, regardless of the fact that we paid for it.

You might want to check out their license.

An Example

[lwsimon]

Technology Services Group (TSG) has something like this with its Active Wizard stuff. They call it "open source", but its not F/OSS as we know it. I'd term is "shared source." You can view it, download it, modify it, and use it - but you can't share it.

Here is their license:

http://www.tsgrp.com/misc/SourceCode.jsp

In the same position

[Anonymous Coward]

The company I work for sells Environmental Data Management software. We advertise it as open source and closed license. Basically, paying customers may have access to 99% of the source code to modify as they wish. Our license agreement is fairly off the shelf with two exceptions. One is a source code license agreement which states that they will not distribute the source, re-sell the product, nor make derivatives of it. The second is a change to the service contract which basically states that we reserve the right to charge for support on modified versions of our software. One important detail we learned the hard way is to include best practices recommendations in our documentation on how to safely modify the source. While the suggestions seemed obvious to us we found that engineers, not programmers were often the ones changing the code, sometimes with disastrous results. The other thing that we found useful is offering two levels of customization service; Making the customizations for them or making recommendations on their proposed customizations. We found offering the later as part of our standard service contract saved us much pain later on when they ask for support on something they broke.

The 1% of the source we don't distribute is the licensing component. We use to use a commercial licensing tool but found them too restrictive especially when a customer wanted to modify our product. They were required to get a developers license from the licensing vendor. By handling the license code ourself makes the process more flexible to us and easier on our customers. We retain reasonable security on our product and still allow clients the freedom and flexibility to fit our product in to their business practices.

See an attorney

[Anonymous Coward]

Just draft a license that does this. Middleware vendors in games do it all the time (like the RAD Game Tools people, or Unreal). See a lawyer. Don't ask Slashdot.

Re:Seriously? On Slashdot?

[godrik]

I agree with you on the principle. Once you are paid and you got benefits, you should not care. The problem is how to get benefits from it. You will probably not be able to charge the overall development price to a single company. You have to sell the software to several of them.

Re:If you need legal representation from the start

[mcrbids]

It may well be that you need a lawyer because our country is fscked up. But changing the fabric of our society is outside the scope of this young startup.

And I don't agree that needing competent legal representation is a sign of a fscked up country. Somebody has make sure that everybody's clear on what's being promised in a contract, which is exactly what attorneys do. And just like doctors use terminology like "mitochondria" and "homo sapiens" to precisely describe what they are talking about, lawyers use similarly precise terminology like "hold harmless" and "collateral estoppel".

Fscked up, or just professional at what they do?

Re:And your asking slashdot why?

[starrsoft]

*ducks*

No, you mean du -cks * |sort -rn |head -11:
Mobile: EU Commissioner Wants Standard For Mobile Phone Connectors
Ask Slashdot: Does Your Vendor Issue Gag Orders?
Your Rights Online: Pirate Bay P2P Trial Begins In Sweden
News: Spiraling Skyscraper Farms For a Future Manhattan
Linux: Microsoft and Red Hat Team Up On Virtualization
News: How Many Open Source Licenses Do You Need?
News: New York Wants To Tax Internet Downloads
Science: Earth Under Threat From Dark Comets
Technology: Nuclear Subs 'Collide In Ocean'
Your Rights Online: Facebook's New Terms of Service