Re: [Denovoassembler-devel] Ray Browser

[<sa...@ho...>]

Hi Sébastien,

Thank you for the detailed response. Yes, I meant 'copyright' in my
original question. In US, graduate students and post-docs are usually
employees of the institutions, and sign various legal contracts giving
away their patent/copy rights. As a result, someone interested in
licensing their work needs to deal with both the inventor and the
university. The second part can get very bureaucratic, and that is why I
asked.

> Anyway, copyright does not mean anything for a GPLv3-licensed program
> because the point is to not limit copies of the programs so that people
> hopefully build on top of that.

That is not true. Being the copyright owner allows you to change mind on a
later date, or issue different license for 'preferred clients'. If your
brother asks for a proprietary copy of your GPLv3-licensed Ray code from
you, you can release it to him, because you are the copyright owner. I
cannot create a proprietary copy of Ray for my brother :)

I agree about what you said on patents. Whole patent thing is legacy of
feudal society of Europe, where the large guilds could buy monopoly rights
from the kings.

You probably know that US patent law is changing next month from 'first to
invent' to 'first to file'.

http://www.preti.com/major-patent-law-changes-2013
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertjordan/2012/11/13/the-new-patent-law-end-of-entrepreneurship/


Best,
Manoj



> Hi !
>
> [I CC'ed denovoassembler-devel as this is a really interesting question]
>
> I am not a legal expert, but read on !
>
> On 02/26/2013 11:36 AM, sa...@ho... wrote:
>> Hey Sébastien,
>>
>>>
>>> I only work on open source software projects.
>>>
>>
>> Open-source or closed, someone owns the license to the code.
>
> I think you mean the copyright over the code, not its license.
>
>
> I am not an employee of my university -- I am a doctoral student. I have
> no employer-employee
> relationship with my university for what I do in my doctoral projects.
> I work on whatever I want, which happens to be open stuff in genomics.
>
> Back in 2010, my director wanted Ray to be a proprietary software,
> but I convinced him otherwise by describing the pros of doing things this
> way.
> And he's quite happy with that decision now.
>
> Ray and Ray Cloud Browser are licensed under the GPLv3. Ray Platform is
> licensed under the
> LGPLv3. I own the copyright on most source code files since I wrote them,
> and because I am not an employee
> and I have never signed any contracts (or other legal documents) for these
> projects.
>
> Anyway, copyright does not mean anything
> for a GPLv3-licensed program because the point is to not limit copies of
> the programs so that people
> hopefully build on top of that.
>
> To decide what license to release the source code (or to change the
> license), all copyright holders must
> agree. For closed-source programs, the license is not on the source code
> (since it's confidential), it's usually a end user license agreement
> (EULA) that is renewed
> with contracts (there can be a EULA over a product based on open source
> software too, see Red Hat).
>
> For instance, Applied Maths NV. ships Ray in their BioNumerics product
>
>    =>
> http://www.applied-maths.com/news/new-de-novo-assembler-next-generation-sequencing-data-bionumerics
>
>
> More and more, proprietary software are no longer licensed as a goods
> (which is bad for the consumers).
> Instead, you get a license to use the software (as a service) over a
> period. If you played Diablo III and got a sword in the game,
> you can actually (probably) send a mail to Blizzard and ask them for your
> license to use the sword.
> For each Diablo III item, the player gets a exclusive-from-Blizzard
> license to use it over the lifetime of his/her character.
>
>
> I think there is a clear distinction between:
>
> * license for using a software vs. license for distributing source code;
>
>      => GPLv3 covers both of these. GPLv3 tells you that you have the 4
> liberties and that you can use the software for whatever use.
>
> * ownership (intellectual property) vs. copyright
>
>      => ownership is usually on ideas (patents), which is ridiculous by
> definition (see Apple v. Samsung) or brands
>       (which make sense because a brand is for a product, not for an
> idea).
>
>      => I think that in the GPLv3 (warning, I am not a legal expert),
> there is a clause that says that patents can not be
>         added after releases as open source releases are prior art.
> Regardless, Everything novel in Ray is not patentable because
> there's is public
>         prior art: Ray source code files and scientific papers describing
> methods.
>         Furthermore, this prior art is easily demonstrated with git source
> code logs and publications.
>
>
> -Séb
>
>> That is the
>> part I was asking about.
>>
>> Best,
>> Manoj
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
Manoj Pratim Samanta, Ph. D.
http://www.homolog.us