--On Mon, Nov 30, 1998 8:47 pm -0600 "Andreas Pour" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Joseph Carter wrote: > > [ ... ] > >> 1. License cannot control distribution of independant patches. In order >> to have any binding control over the license of a patch, it has to be >> applied to the source. If someone didn't want Troll Tech to use their >> patch, they will be able to make sure they can't, regardless of what >> any of us do. > > I don't understand this. It is of course true that Qt cannot control the > license which anyone uses on their own work. But why can't they say, you may > not create a derivative work of Qt (or distribute it, of course) unless all of > the source code is licensed as follows . . . , which is essentially what the > GPL does. Thus, you can't control the license of the patch, but you can make > the patch utterly useless (i.e., nobody will be able to apply it to the Qt > source) unless it complies with the license you want it to have. And this > "required license" can have a provision giving the original copyright holder a > royalty-free license to use and distribute the patch. What am I missing? They can't tell you that you can't create a derivate work. They can tell you that you can't distribute it. *if* you can separate out your modifications in such a way that they stand-alone, and contain nothing of Troll's intellectual property - for example, an 'ed' script, perhaps - then you can distribute them however you want to. The resultant object is not quite useless, as you suggest. It is very annoying though. You have a situation where each individual user has to apply the ed script in the privacy of his own machine (since such application can never be a violation of copyright), but cannot copy the result to anyone else (since such copying *would* be a violation of copyright). In fact, he couldn't even back-up the result, were it not that backing up is considered 'fair use'. > While the free software community can give Qt advice on the substantive points > to include in the license, I think it is a huge mistake to have computer > programmers draft legal agreements/licenses. Huge mistake. Huge. There are very few legal counsels who have any experiences in the relatively young field of 'free licenses'. If only there were more, and more were prepared to help. Certainly, Troll should take legal advice, but I'm sure they have, and I'm sure they will continue to do so. Jules /----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------\ | Jelibean aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 6 Evelyn Rd | | Jules aka | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Richmond, Surrey | | Julian Bean | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TW9 2TF *UK* | +----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+ | Debian GNU/Linux - "Microsoft *does* have a year 2000 problem - | | and we're it!" (paraphrased from IRC) | \----------------------------------------------------------------------/
