Re: [Flightgear-devel] External FDM to protect propriety data in a GPL eviirenment

[Edward d'A. <tru...@gm...>]

On 22 October 2015 at 12:32, Alan Teeder <ajt...@v-...> wrote:
> Anders .
>
> Did you read this line in my post , and does it make my proposal more
> acceptable?
>
> "An alternative is to provide a simple datcom/aeromatic aero model as a
> default derivative set and make the full aero data program
> available separately.
> Concorde has an add-on sound package which does a similar thing."

Hi Alan,

I would say that this is a clear grey area.  The key for an open
source project is not if you can win a legal argument or not.  Rather,
it is to avoid any legal argument in the first place, and at all
costs.  Meaning - to stay out of court.  To use something like this
safely in an open source project, I would suggest something along the
following lines:

    - Making your derivative product public, in full (but unlicensed,
saying it is copyrighted material),
    - Going to the owners of the original data product, giving them a
link to your derivative product,
    - Asking them to make a public statement that the derivative
product can be licensed using the "GPLv2 or later version" licence,
    - Make sure to ask them to identify the public derivative product
as a link, and identify all its parts (to avoid them saying at a later
date that you included bits of the protected material),

Any statement they make on the web can be backed up on the web archive
( http://web.archive.org/ ).  To simplify the process, you could draft
part of the statement detailing the derivative product in full, with
all details.

With this, there will no longer be any shades of grey!  If they are
happy to do this, then it is legally no problem to use (i.e. the grey
situation has shifted to white).  If they are not happy with your
proposal, then they could turn around one day and sue (i.e. the grey
situation has shifted to a clear black).

Regards,

Edward