The GPL is effective as soon as someone distributes a copy of a program to someone else. In recent discussion with attorneys, it sounds as if this even applies if you give a GPL work to your employee.
An NDA that restricts rights that you would otherwise have under the GPL is in violation of the GPL's terms. You're required to convey to all other parties the same rights that the GPL gives you. If you are legally bound from obeying the terms of the GPL, the entire license terminates and you have no rights regarding the program, no right to use or modify it, etc. Other people to whom you have redistributed the program retain their rights.
When does the GPL start? When you distribute source or binaries to anyone.
And to who does the GPL apply? This is a bit complicated. You are responsible to the copyright owner to comply with the license. You are responsible to those to whom you distributed binaries to distribute source on request. You are also responsible to any third party to distribute source on request if you don't distribute it along with the binary. Anyone to whom the program is distributed is also responsible to comply with the terms of the license.
Remember, I'm not an attorney and thus this isn't legal advice. But I'm the best you're going to get around here, unfortunately.
I missed the lynching threat but no doubt it's there. I would not suggest you take it as a racist sentiment, but more as an expression of how offended we are. I myself have proposed that LinuxOne Inc. be "run out of town on a rail", I don't know if that has any racist connotations.
Yes, you screwed up and you now have a whole lot to learn. To start with, I can direct you to an attorney in Palo Alto who can design your GPL compliance program, if you wish. Just write to me at bruce@perens.com.
The sentiments expressed here are not those of VA or Andover.net, that's something else you need to learn. But if you can turn the company around, I'm sure that will get coverage.
The GPL requirement in this case would be for them to accompany the binary with a written offer to give any third party the source. Note that it's not just their customers that they are obligated to - anyone who asks.
Why can't they just point to the sources on somebody else's web site if they haven't made any modifications? Two reasons:
Version information gets lost this way as FTP sites get newer versions, which generally happens several times during the lifetime of a binary product.
It's sloppy to depend on someone else to fulfill your legal obligation. They often stop fulfilling it without telling you.
Not in this context, but I ran it by a lawyer about 10 years ago in the context of software licenses. It's possible for one party to grant an independent copyright to another and then two parties have copyrights to the same thing. It works out a lot like dual-licensing by a single copyright owner.
All right, it's not really Robin, it's a Robin poser with "_" at the end of the login. I objected to CT about these things and he felt it was immoral for him to act to prevent identity theft. That's not my idea of journalistic ethics, but it's CT's sandbox.
Oh come on, Robin. The license clearly states you have to mark up your changes as coming from you. You aren't allowed to put words in other people's mouths.
Technocrat.net content from 1999 is available for your use under the Open Publication License, with none of the options selected and with the publisher's name as "TECHNOCRAT.NET".
To do this I used a rather unusual publication policy, as far as I know I've invented it:
By submitting this article you grant Technocrat.net a separate and independent copyright to your posting, and you keep your own copyright. That means that you can do anything you wish with your posting, and so can we.
That allows us to apply a license to the postings after the fact.
However, this doesn't address the complaint, which is that Usenet sites seem to have a more liberal copyright policy that allows them to be filtered and presented differently by various web sites, and weblogs like Slashdot and Technocrat do not. I'm not sure that stands, legally. The Usenet doesn't demand a particular copyright and the default if you don't copyright your posting would be All Rights Reserved.
I'd accept that sales have dropped 30% in the last year. But is that because of bootlegging? Or it is because of the recording industry's greatest fear, that with the Internet and MP3, people are listening to independent musicians that the recording companies haven't signed.
Don't you think that's what the fight is really about?
Currently, we have CDs with no copy protection whatsoever, and the recording industry has remained very rich despite that.
We have videotape with the very poorest of copy protection, and the film industry has remained rich despite that.
We have legitimate reasons to copy music and video. For example, I don't want to take a DVD drive along on the plane. I want to copy my movie to the hard disk of my small laptop, and play from there. I've paid for the movie, why can't I do that?
If we don't stop them here, a day will come when many web pages gray out your print button. Your web browser will read encrypted content, will refuse to save it to a file, and the format of encryption won't be available for use in Open Source web browsers.
We've really got to put our foot down regarding Intellectual Property Protection Systems, now. This will take a well-financed PR effort with some of the companies that have made big bucks from free software behind it. If you work for Red Hat, VA, or any of the others, ask your boss what they are doing about this. I hope you get a good answer.
I think EFF and John Gilmore are the right people to rally around for this issue.
Remember that that Linux API is entirely a copy of someone else's API. Either Unix or Plan 9, and yes, the system calls, details of files, networking, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce
Bruce
The user named "Bruce Perens." with the "." at the end of his name is not me.
Bruce
The user "Bruce Perens." with the "." at the end of his name is not me.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
An NDA that restricts rights that you would otherwise have under the GPL is in violation of the GPL's terms. You're required to convey to all other parties the same rights that the GPL gives you. If you are legally bound from obeying the terms of the GPL, the entire license terminates and you have no rights regarding the program, no right to use or modify it, etc. Other people to whom you have redistributed the program retain their rights.
When does the GPL start? When you distribute source or binaries to anyone.
And to who does the GPL apply? This is a bit complicated. You are responsible to the copyright owner to comply with the license. You are responsible to those to whom you distributed binaries to distribute source on request. You are also responsible to any third party to distribute source on request if you don't distribute it along with the binary. Anyone to whom the program is distributed is also responsible to comply with the terms of the license.
Remember, I'm not an attorney and thus this isn't legal advice. But I'm the best you're going to get around here, unfortunately.
Thanks
Bruce
I missed the lynching threat but no doubt it's there. I would not suggest you take it as a racist sentiment, but more as an expression of how offended we are. I myself have proposed that LinuxOne Inc. be "run out of town on a rail", I don't know if that has any racist connotations.
Yes, you screwed up and you now have a whole lot to learn. To start with, I can direct you to an attorney in Palo Alto who can design your GPL compliance program, if you wish. Just write to me at bruce@perens.com .
The sentiments expressed here are not those of VA or Andover.net, that's something else you need to learn. But if you can turn the company around, I'm sure that will get coverage.
Thanks
Bruce
Why can't they just point to the sources on somebody else's web site if they haven't made any modifications? Two reasons:
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
To do this I used a rather unusual publication policy, as far as I know I've invented it:
By submitting this article you grant Technocrat.net a separate and independent copyright to your posting, and you keep your own copyright. That means that you can do anything you wish with your posting, and so can we.
That allows us to apply a license to the postings after the fact.
However, this doesn't address the complaint, which is that Usenet sites seem to have a more liberal copyright policy that allows them to be filtered and presented differently by various web sites, and weblogs like Slashdot and Technocrat do not. I'm not sure that stands, legally. The Usenet doesn't demand a particular copyright and the default if you don't copyright your posting would be All Rights Reserved.
Thanks
Bruce
Darn. We need more pundits, you know. I'm getting spread a bit thin.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Don't you think that's what the fight is really about?
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Will there be T-shirts at LinuxWorld Expo too?
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
We have videotape with the very poorest of copy protection, and the film industry has remained rich despite that.
We have legitimate reasons to copy music and video. For example, I don't want to take a DVD drive along on the plane. I want to copy my movie to the hard disk of my small laptop, and play from there. I've paid for the movie, why can't I do that?
If we don't stop them here, a day will come when many web pages gray out your print button. Your web browser will read encrypted content, will refuse to save it to a file, and the format of encryption won't be available for use in Open Source web browsers.
We've really got to put our foot down regarding Intellectual Property Protection Systems, now. This will take a well-financed PR effort with some of the companies that have made big bucks from free software behind it. If you work for Red Hat, VA, or any of the others, ask your boss what they are doing about this. I hope you get a good answer.
I think EFF and John Gilmore are the right people to rally around for this issue.
Thanks
Bruce
Remember that that Linux API is entirely a copy of someone else's API. Either Unix or Plan 9, and yes, the system calls, details of files, networking, etc.
Thanks
Bruce