"He did precisely that mind you. Upon realizing that some group was distributing modified code, he added a clarification that this was against the license."
What was in Darren's mind was not what was in the original licence. And retrospective "clarification" of a licence (for which read "changes to a licence") cannot be applied to someone who has acquired the software prior to the change. It can only be applied to acquisitions subsequent to the change in licence terms, which is why normally authors only make licence changes to later releases as there is no easy way of determining when a piece of software was downloaded - or acquired from someone else with the original licence.
If Darren had wanted to prevent modification of his code he should have used a blanket statement (basically a kind of "Deny all" at the end of a filter list) saying something like "any other rights, whether deduced or implied are specifically prohibited," but then you'd need to be very specific about what the user of the software could do!
1) Having glanced through some of Darren's replies, he seems to want to retain control of what's actually happening to his software, especially non-final releases. This could be for entirely benevolent reasons ie that this is software to do with security and you don't know whether mods made by other people may not "damage" that security. I suspect that this means simply that he'd like to know about and approve any proposed changes - and perhaps incorporate them into his code, if he so chooses. Most responses to his change in licence terms seem to deduce some kind of malice on his part. As to OpenBSD, it sounds like changes have been made without reference to him and that this has finally "got his goat" as we say over here in the UK.
2) Some people here are saying the new licence terms can be applied retroactively. They can't. If you acquire/purchase and then use a bit of software which comes with a licence then that licence is an integral part of the product at the time it is acquired/purchased. The licence cannot be modified at some subsequent time to be more restrictive on already acquired/purchased products, even if the author claims it is "clarification." However, the author may subsequently say that he's going to make the rules less restrictive and you can then operate within those new terms - but only for as long as the author applies them since they are not part of the original licence! (Hope you're still with me here!)
3) Compliance with a licence means just that. You have to stay within any restrictions stipulated within the licence. If the licence doesn't make clear that the code cannot be modified then you can modify it unless there is some other de-facto law that prevents you from doing it eg copyright or whatever. Darren cannot prevent a fork of ipf so long as that fork does not violate the precise terms of the licence or any applicable laws.
4) Interpretation of the licence in a court of law is based, yes, on what is a reasonable interpretation of its conditions. It's the bit of paper in front of the judge that is used to assess whether or not the licence has been broken, not any "clarification" from Darren nor any licences that might be applied at a subsequent date to the same software. Reiterating: the software and the licence to use it are an integral whole acquired together at a specific point in time. The relevant licence is that which operated at that particular time.
If Darren has changed the licence to apply to all releases new and old, it will only apply to copies of older releases that have been downloaded after the change, not to those that were downloaded before the change. If I buy some petrol (gas!) for my car I pay the taxes incorporated in the price of the petrol at the time I fill my tank. If taxes go up, I don't have to pay the difference later. Same for licences. This makes a mockery of Darren changing the licences retrospectively unless the new licence is bound into the old code in some way that someone downloading now can be identified as being bound to the new licence rather than the old one.
FACT *do* care and did a swoop on several UK suppliers of US laserdiscs and R1 DVDs about a couple of years ago, removing all their stock.
Don't know exact legal position, but it's something along the lines of "The US video software is only licensed for sale within certain geographic boundaries eg US & Canada. Anywhere else is breaking the law."
However, it is not illegal to do a personal import from the US. So most companies selling R1 DVDs to the UK public use dodges such as acting as "agents" for you in the import of DVDs, or simply operate off-shore as does www.play247.com which is in the Channel Islands. They can also exploit the dodge that packets under a certain value are not charged VAT, so you can get DVDs from the US for 15.99 or less.
There is *no* control on the sale of multiregion players eg at Tesco. That was supposed to have been taken care-of by the agreements that manufacturers signed with the movie industry in order to gain access to DVD decryption technology. Didn't work very well, did it?
In any case, *had* it worked, I would simply have bought two DVD players, one for R1 and one for R2. It's an unenforceable policy in a global market.
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"He did precisely that mind you. Upon realizing that some group was distributing modified code, he added a clarification that this was against the license."
What was in Darren's mind was not what was in the original licence. And retrospective "clarification" of a licence (for which read "changes to a licence") cannot be applied to someone who has acquired the software prior to the change. It can only be applied to acquisitions subsequent to the change in licence terms, which is why normally authors only make licence changes to later releases as there is no easy way of determining when a piece of software was downloaded - or acquired from someone else with the original licence.
If Darren had wanted to prevent modification of his code he should have used a blanket statement (basically a kind of "Deny all" at the end of a filter list) saying something like "any other rights, whether deduced or implied are specifically prohibited," but then you'd need to be very specific about what the user of the software could do!
There are a few issues here, it seems to me:
1) Having glanced through some of Darren's replies, he seems to want to retain control of what's actually happening to his software, especially non-final releases. This could be for entirely benevolent reasons ie that this is software to do with security and you don't know whether mods made by other people may not "damage" that security. I suspect that this means simply that he'd like to know about and approve any proposed changes - and perhaps incorporate them into his code, if he so chooses. Most responses to his change in licence terms seem to deduce some kind of malice on his part. As to OpenBSD, it sounds like changes have been made without reference to him and that this has finally "got his goat" as we say over here in the UK.
2) Some people here are saying the new licence terms can be applied retroactively. They can't. If you acquire/purchase and then use a bit of software which comes with a licence then that licence is an integral part of the product at the time it is acquired/purchased. The licence cannot be modified at some subsequent time to be more restrictive on already acquired/purchased products, even if the author claims it is "clarification." However, the author may subsequently say that he's going to make the rules less restrictive and you can then operate within those new terms - but only for as long as the author applies them since they are not part of the original licence! (Hope you're still with me here!)
3) Compliance with a licence means just that. You have to stay within any restrictions stipulated within the licence. If the licence doesn't make clear that the code cannot be modified then you can modify it unless there is some other de-facto law that prevents you from doing it eg copyright or whatever. Darren cannot prevent a fork of ipf so long as that fork does not violate the precise terms of the licence or any applicable laws.
4) Interpretation of the licence in a court of law is based, yes, on what is a reasonable interpretation of its conditions. It's the bit of paper in front of the judge that is used to assess whether or not the licence has been broken, not any "clarification" from Darren nor any licences that might be applied at a subsequent date to the same software. Reiterating: the software and the licence to use it are an integral whole acquired together at a specific point in time. The relevant licence is that which operated at that particular time.
If Darren has changed the licence to apply to all releases new and old, it will only apply to copies of older releases that have been downloaded after the change, not to those that were downloaded before the change. If I buy some petrol (gas!) for my car I pay the taxes incorporated in the price of the petrol at the time I fill my tank. If taxes go up, I don't have to pay the difference later. Same for licences. This makes a mockery of Darren changing the licences retrospectively unless the new licence is bound into the old code in some way that someone downloading now can be identified as being bound to the new licence rather than the old one.
Don't know exact legal position, but it's something along the lines of "The US video software is only licensed for sale within certain geographic boundaries eg US & Canada. Anywhere else is breaking the law."
However, it is not illegal to do a personal import from the US. So most companies selling R1 DVDs to the UK public use dodges such as acting as "agents" for you in the import of DVDs, or simply operate off-shore as does www.play247.com which is in the Channel Islands. They can also exploit the dodge that packets under a certain value are not charged VAT, so you can get DVDs from the US for 15.99 or less.
There is *no* control on the sale of multiregion players eg at Tesco. That was supposed to have been taken care-of by the agreements that manufacturers signed with the movie industry in order to gain access to DVD decryption technology. Didn't work very well, did it?
In any case, *had* it worked, I would simply have bought two DVD players, one for R1 and one for R2. It's an unenforceable policy in a global market.