Re: [Hamlib-developer] CI-V

[Nate B. <n0...@ne...>]

On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 01:35:42PM +0100, Kai Altenfelder wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> finally I've got a response from Icom Europe (Germany) but only
> "unofficially"...
> 
> They don't have any problems with giving away copies of their CI-V
> spec to developers but won't give us a written permission to use it
> under GPL. The reason for that is the somehow strange attitude of
> Icom Japan (they fear some legally exotic issues).

That's somewhat of a puzzling position to me.  I guess what you're
refering to is documentation already developed by Icom in electronic
form.  In that light their position is understandable.  If what they
mean is that we can't create our own documentation based on their spec
and release that under the GPL, then we have a problem.

> However, I was pointed to their website where is a link to 
> 
> 	http://www.plicht.de/
> 
> where you'll find documentation of CI-V in english language.
> 
> Additionally my Icom contact told me about an article in the german
> ham magazine "cq DL" 10/1990, pp. 634-638 which was about a reference
> implementation of a rig control for an Icom receiver.

Clearly, then, they don't have a problem with independently produced
documentation being made publicly available.

> What does that mean for us?
> On the one hand for legal reasons Icom Japan won't give anybody written
> permission for the use of their copyrighted documentation. On the other
> hand there are at least two independent sources of this spec to which we
> can refer to. So from my point of view I have no problem of using the
> original spec but "officiallly" refer to the past publications.
> 
> Comments?

That's my interpretation.  Or we can produce our own documentation if
the previously referenced authors won't allow us to distribute their
work under the GPL with our project.

So here is how I understand the situation.

Radio manufacturers publish the control command specifications and make
them public.

The radio manuals and/or the computer control specification documents
are likely copyrighted by the manufacturer.

We are allowed to create our own software under the GPL which uses these
commands (typically hex values with arguments sent over a serial line).

We should be able to document these commands and how our software
references them under the same license as our software, GPL.

We cannot use directly the copyrighted work of the manufacturer's
documentation in a GPL document unless they specifically allow that work
to be distributed under the GPL.

The commands and their format are not themselves copyrighted (please
correct me if I'm wrong), so our independent use of those commands and
our independent documentation of those commands should be legal under
"fair use."

Other radio control software has been released under the GPL and as far
as I know, no one has been sued or threatened by the manufacturers as a
result.

We are not delving into the firmware of the radio, thus we don't violate
any copyright the manufacturer holds to the code in the ROM.

hamlib adds value to the existing base of radios out there as well as to
those yet to be produced, so I don't foresee the manufacturers getting
bent out of shape with this project or its documentation.

I think so long as we abide by the rules of "fair use" and give
attribution when we quote some published reference manual, we should be
fine with using the GPL.

Comments?

73, de Nate >>

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