Re: [atlas-devel] ATLAS license discussion, please
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From: M. E. (E. B. <zn...@bo...> - 2011-09-03 23:36:31
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Yes, the fewer restrictions you place on your software the more people will use it. But you absolutely *must* protect yourself and the ATLAS team, and I'm not sure there's any open source license that truly accomplishes that. GPL 3, perhaps ... I haven't looked recently. On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 3:33 PM, john skaller <sk...@us...> wrote: > You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow > both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content, > and commercialisation. > > My thoughts in general are: > > You must decide what you as the author you desire. If you want to support > the notion that your software is *freely* available you need an open > licence. > > If you want to *enforce* open-ness at the expense of freedom, GNU is the > traditional supplier of licences. If you take the GNU path you're > *endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software > patents and authoritarianism. GNU chose to leverage the legal system > to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by > any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in > "freedom of use for any purpose". > > You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix > and making a proprietary product with it? Do you approve Apple > being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just > because of GNU's licence policy? > > Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could arise? > ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor > be sued. > > It is not so easy, despite what some courts think. In Australia in some > states if you leave your keys in your parked car it is a criminal offense! you are > considered to be "inciting theft". > > By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property rights > on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your > rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to claim > any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software, without > signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms, > who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done > by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup? > > My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright with > possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to > lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce? > > It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal > systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking > your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented, > and then suing YOU for breaching their rights. > > Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if you're > not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making > one there are no grounds for a suit. > > Ed Borasky wrote: > > "My recommendation is > to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to > house the intellectual property before devising a license." > > and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the > property my provide your private assets some protection. > > If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic! > > IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software, > but people releasing a product (such as a programming language) > which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to > use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible. > > For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate > Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be > compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU: > free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude > such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product > in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length" > from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use > your software. > > I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate > any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some > of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision > arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header > file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically > from the C header would render the product "a derived work". > A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is > not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property > but not the embodiment of it. > > > The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product: > it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when > constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used. > > > > > -- > john skaller > sk...@us... > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE! > Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better > price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you > download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev > _______________________________________________ > Math-atlas-devel mailing list > Mat...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel > -- http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul Erdős |