Many companies will claim they own everything you produce related to software or other intellectual work, even when that work is done in your spare time, so checking first what's in your contract is a good idea.
Anyway, in this case, if your company agrees to let you work on this program in their time, then the company will hold the copyright on the modifications. If the company wants to distribute the resulting binary, they will have to do that under the GPL. In that case you're free to include the modifications into the official/public source. If the program is only used internally (so does not have to be distributed), you'll have to ask for permission to include the changes in the public source. I would suppose this won't be a big deal, but of course it all depends on the company's attitude.
Interesting you mention java: it would be rather trivial for an e-mail program to restrict embedded java programs such that it can't possible do harm to the system or the outside world. Microsoft could and should have done this for VBS.
Think about it. How can it be useful (from the point of the user) that unknown scripts have access to all your files and your network connection. If the script is meant to pop up some funny message, then let it do that but nothing more. Nobody would start a serious application from an e-mail message.
It would have been common sense for MS to disallow VBS full control over your machine.
The problem with posts that have been moderated up way too much like this one, is that moderating it down will be 'punished' by the metamoderating system. If you metamoderate a moderation you are only told that it was moderated down or up, but not that it went from +4 to +3 instead of from 0 to -1. There's a big difference between the two.
That after releasing under GPL you can't prohibit that the released copy is used for defense research does not legally mean that you lose any rights on your software.
Otherwise the same would hold for other commercial licences where you can't prohibit the use of the program, unless the license is revocable maybe, but most aren't.
If you release under GPL, you no longer have the right to prevent distribution.
If you release under this *proprietary* license you no longer have the right to prevent installation/usage (assuming it's not revocable).
So according to your reasoning, you give up rights in both cases.
In my opinion, someone else having the right to distribute a certain release of your program does not mean at all that you have any less rights on your program. The released copy is not the same as the program.
Giving a free license is not the same as transferring copyright. Works are automatically protected by copyright, so even if you tell people 'to do what they want with it' you still own the copyright.
This Wired article seems to be full of misquotations. It is extremely unlikely that lawyers really did spread such nonsense. I'd like to see the full text of the interviews including questions.
The point is that you are using your own definition of "assignment" which is different from the legal definition. In legal sense, releasing something under the GPL is not an assignment of rights. You still call it assignment which is ok with me, but that doesn't have significance in court.
MICO stands for MICO Is COrba, not for mini-Corba. It is pretty huge, actually. At some point a KDE guy stripped most of it to obtain tiny-MICO. I don't know what they are currently using.
I forgot to explicitly refer back to the circularity. What I mean is that YY can be substituted by either X or Z, where X immediately preceeds Y, and Z immediately follows Y. But that's probably already clear.
I'm just a mathematician so I don't know a lot about context-free grammars. For a given CFG, does there exist a cubical algorithm (in the size of the input) that accepts the CFG?
We give the characters A,B,C,D,E a 'circular' ordering. I.e., B follows A, C follows B,..., A follows E.
As input we get a string of at most 20 characters picked from A,B,C,D,E. Allowed substring substitutions are of the form AA->B, AA->E, BB->C, BB->A, etc.
Required output: a list of the single letters that the input string can be reduced to.
For example, BBBB can be reduced to B,D and E: BBBB->ABB->AA->E BBBB->ABB->AA->B BBBB->CBB->CC->D
Exponential algorithms are easy. Anyone know a polynomial algorithm?
One (obvious) consequence is that it is important to solve the easiest problems first. For example, if you end up with 6 solved problems, the number of minutes between the start of the contest and the moment your first correct solution was submitted, is effectively multiplied by 6.
Now look at the final standings of the '95 contest. The top two teams are divided by 3 minutes, each having solved 6 problems. That's equivalent to say taking 30 seconds to open the envelope with problems at the start of the contest.
But it happens all the time in these contests. I think it should be considered part of the game. (And the Waterloo guys were so bright to realize what was happening here...)
In one regional I participated in, the judges found out afterwards that the home team had been denied a correct solution. In the end they were awarded a wild card and were admitted to the finals. I think this was unfair, because other teams would never have gotten access to the right information.
If I'm not mistaken, all jury data is destroyed at ACM Finals immediately after the Final Standings have been made up. There's something to say for this. But I know how you feel (I probably missed the '94 finals because of similar mistake).
Here in the Netherlands the students organize themselves in teams, and then participate in local contests. The team that scores best goes to the regional. I don't recall any ACM final without dutch participation, so this seems to work pretty well (I must say I haven't really checked the last few years).
I've participated in the '92 and '95 ACM Finals, scoring 9th and 3rd place. Not so bad I think:)
It is also happening in telecommunications. I would be surprised if it didn't happen anywhere where software is involved. I would love to know how enforceable this really is.
I think it is possible to put a patch like that under GPL. However, it will then be forbidden to actually patch the ISO code with it, because that would make it a derived work that can't be under the GPL. The GPL explicitly specifies that all derived works should be under the GPL, but that is in contradiction to the ISO license, so you just can't mix them. In short, this makes the patch legally useless.
Wine is moving away from their old wine license to the X/MIT license. The reason for doing this is that there were questions about the legality of the old license. They have chosen for the X/MIT license because that seems to be closest to their old license.
Slashdot Mirror
Many companies will claim they own everything you produce related to software or other intellectual work, even when that work is done in your spare time, so checking first what's in your contract is a good idea.
Anyway, in this case, if your company agrees to let you work on this program in their time, then the company will hold the copyright on the modifications. If the company wants to distribute the resulting binary, they will have to do that under the GPL. In that case you're free to include the modifications into the official/public source. If the program is only used internally (so does not have to be distributed), you'll have to ask for permission to include the changes in the public source. I would suppose this won't be a big deal, but of course it all depends on the company's attitude.
Because in the MS case, the tool should be improved...
Interesting you mention java: it would be rather trivial for an e-mail program to restrict embedded java programs such that it can't possible do harm to the system or the outside world. Microsoft could and should have done this for VBS.
Think about it. How can it be useful (from the point of the user) that unknown scripts have access to all your files and your network connection. If the script is meant to pop up some funny message, then let it do that but nothing more. Nobody would start a serious application from an e-mail message.
It would have been common sense for MS to disallow VBS full control over your machine.
No need to refer to Sony... Video 2000 died too :)
The text of the GPL is directed at the person who received a copy of the software under that license. It is NOT directed at the copyright holder!!
The copyright holder is responsible for enforcing compliance.
In this case, that is Ralph, but also David Miller and possibly a few more people.
The Iraq bombing of a while ago got a story. It broke all /. records and posting was disabled and re-enabled several times.
The problem with posts that have been moderated up way too much like this one, is that moderating it down will be 'punished' by the metamoderating system. If you metamoderate a moderation you are only told that it was moderated down or up, but not that it went from +4 to +3 instead of from 0 to -1. There's a big difference between the two.
That after releasing under GPL you can't prohibit that the released copy is used for defense research does not legally mean that you lose any rights on your software.
Otherwise the same would hold for other commercial licences where you can't prohibit the use of the program, unless the license is revocable maybe, but most aren't.
What is the difference:
If you release under GPL, you no longer have the right to prevent distribution.
If you release under this *proprietary* license you no longer have the right to prevent installation/usage (assuming it's not revocable).
So according to your reasoning, you give up rights in both cases.
In my opinion, someone else having the right to distribute a certain release of your program does not mean at all that you have any less rights on your program. The released copy is not the same as the program.
Oh wow... I missed that paragraph on my first read. This Wired reporter must have been on dope.
Giving a free license is not the same as transferring copyright. Works are automatically protected by copyright, so even if you tell people 'to do what they want with it' you still own the copyright.
This Wired article seems to be full of misquotations. It is extremely unlikely that lawyers really did spread such nonsense. I'd like to see the full text of the interviews including questions.
But no rights are transferred at all when you release something under a license. You still own the copyright, and you still have all rights.
The point is that you are using your own definition of "assignment" which is different from the legal definition. In legal sense, releasing something under the GPL is not an assignment of rights. You still call it assignment which is ok with me, but that doesn't have significance in court.
I think this is a better link to sawmill.
MICO stands for MICO Is COrba, not for mini-Corba. It is pretty huge, actually. At some point a KDE guy stripped most of it to obtain tiny-MICO. I don't know what they are currently using.
I forgot to explicitly refer back to the circularity. What I mean is that YY can be substituted by either X or Z, where X immediately preceeds Y, and Z immediately follows Y. But that's probably already clear.
I'm just a mathematician so I don't know a lot about context-free grammars. For a given CFG, does there exist a cubical algorithm (in the size of the input) that accepts the CFG?
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen participated in 1999, so that year is covered. However, it seems that 1998 went without Dutch teams.
We give the characters A,B,C,D,E a 'circular' ordering. I.e., B follows A, C follows B, ..., A follows E.
As input we get a string of at most 20 characters picked from A,B,C,D,E. Allowed substring substitutions are of the form AA->B, AA->E, BB->C, BB->A, etc.
Required output: a list of the single letters that the input string can be reduced to.
For example, BBBB can be reduced to B,D and E:
BBBB->ABB->AA->E
BBBB->ABB->AA->B
BBBB->CBB->CC->D
Exponential algorithms are easy.
Anyone know a polynomial algorithm?
Correct.
One (obvious) consequence is that it is important to solve the easiest problems first. For example, if you end up with 6 solved problems, the number of minutes between the start of the contest and the moment your first correct solution was submitted, is effectively multiplied by 6.
Now look at the final standings of the '95 contest. The top two teams are divided by 3 minutes, each having solved 6 problems. That's equivalent to say taking 30 seconds to open the envelope with problems at the start of the contest.
It sucks, it sucks, it sucks.
But it happens all the time in these contests. I think it should be considered part of the game. (And the Waterloo guys were so bright to realize what was happening here...)
In one regional I participated in, the judges found out afterwards that the home team had been denied a correct solution. In the end they were awarded a wild card and were admitted to the finals. I think this was unfair, because other teams would never have gotten access to the right information.
If I'm not mistaken, all jury data is destroyed at ACM Finals immediately after the Final Standings have been made up. There's something to say for this. But I know how you feel (I probably missed the '94 finals because of similar mistake).
Here in the Netherlands the students organize themselves in teams, and then participate in local contests. The team that scores best goes to the regional. I don't recall any ACM final without dutch participation, so this seems to work pretty well (I must say I haven't really checked the last few years).
:)
I've participated in the '92 and '95 ACM Finals, scoring 9th and 3rd place. Not so bad I think
It is also happening in telecommunications. I would be surprised if it didn't happen anywhere where software is involved. I would love to know how enforceable this really is.
IANAL, but:
I think it is possible to put a patch like that under GPL. However, it will then be forbidden to actually patch the ISO code with it, because that would make it a derived work that can't be under the GPL. The GPL explicitly specifies that all derived works should be under the GPL, but that is in contradiction to the ISO license, so you just can't mix them. In short, this makes the patch legally useless.
Wine is moving away from their old wine license to the X/MIT license. The reason for doing this is that there were questions about the legality of the old license. They have chosen for the X/MIT license because that seems to be closest to their old license.
You're right about the rest, of course.